Word: sectarianism
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While Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pursues the logic of security plans and national reconciliation, a different and deadly logic prevails on the streets of Baghdad. A rapid back-and-forth of Sunni-Shi'ite violence this weekend was an unusually vivid illustration of the cycle of sectarian massacre and counter-massacre that has accelerated in Iraq since the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in February...
...Still, despite a dusk-to-dawn curfew and checkpoints that have snarled traffic across the city, daily bomb attacks and sectarian killings have continued. U.S. officials stress that the security campaign is a long-term one, and its effectiveness can't yet be gauged. The insurgency, of course, remains determined to make it fail...
...Zarqawi had been eliminated through terrific intelligence work and air power, neither of which required a substantial U.S. ground presence in Iraq. The President's line of attack was accurate but lethally incomplete. His poorly planned invasion of Iraq created the atmosphere that enabled al-Qaeda-and the local sectarian conflicts-to flourish. Iraq had become, in small part, a war against al-Qaeda; for the most part, it is a local sectarian conflict-because of American incompetence. If the President had not allowed General Tommy Franks to "cut and run"-that is, to close his headquarters and begin drawing...
...death of Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi last week allows both the government and the insurgent mainstream to adopt a new narrative in which sectarian bloodletting can be blamed on a foreign element that is being liquidated, leaving Iraqis to resolve their differences politically and forge a new consensus. In fact, Zarqawi's elimination - and claims that U.S. and Iraqi forces have followed up with a damaging crackdown on Qaeda cells around Baghdad - has coincided with Maliki's moves towards reconciliation with the Sunnis, including the release of some 2,500 prisoners suspected of aiding the insurgents...
...fight on the front lines, his prowess with propaganda tools like Internet videos, and his ability to mobilize massive numbers of suicide bombers had elevated Zarqawi to the level of celebrity. He was successful at directing insurgent attacks against Shi'ites and initiating a controversial plan to sow sectarian strife in Iraq...