Via the AP: Car Bombs Kill Nearly 40 People in Baghdad
In all, at least 32 people were killed Wednesday across Iraq, including a prominent Sunni law professor assassinated by gunmen. Jassim al-Issawi was a former judge who put his name forward at one point to join the committee drafting Iraq’s constitution. The assassination appeared aimed at intimidating Sunni Arabs willing to join Iraq’s efforts to create a stable political system.Al-Issawi’s killing, potentially the most politically significant act of violence since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari came to office nearly two months ago, marked the first direct attempt to scare moderates away from political participation.
It sent a powerful message to the Sunni Arab community to either boycott involvement in the fledgling government or risk death.
With these kinds of events one always wonders if the result will be resolve or despair from the targeted group. Certainly it is clear that those willing to perpetrate violence are far from finished. If anything, these kinds of killings are always epsecially sad (not that they all aren’t) because one presumes that the goal of participation in the process was to better Iraq. While no doubt the insurgents think that they are also seeking the right path, it is hard to look at a group that sets off car bombs in hopes of killing as many innocents as possible as fighting for a better Iraq. I believe that there are circumstances in which counter-state guerrilla warfare is justified, but a) I don’t see the justification in this case, as the Sunnis are being offered a chair at the table (often a bigger chair than their size warrants) and b) to resort to indiscriminate violence against civilians hardly indicates a moral superiority to the current regime, to put it mildly.
It continues to make me wonder what the exact goal here is. What do the Sunni insurgents think is going to happen if the US leaves? It isn’t like they are going to get to be in charge again.
