Iraq, lest we forget. posted by Richard Seymour

I'm afraid I neglected a few things that appeared in the news about Iraq, what with all the carpet-factories burning in France. The US began pounding Husaybah, a market town in the north of Iraq, some days ago. They've also been assaulting al-Qaim and Karabla. Iraqis have been forced to flee, dragging their belongings behind them while waving white flags in the hope of avoiding bullets - the ignominious death "in the crossfire" is a fate devoutly to be avoided.

Iraqi politicians are condemning the offensive, possibly on their toes a bit after the outrage about the 'Defense Minister' calling for the use of collective punishment against Iraqis. Meanwhile, US troops can't stop shooting up passing vehicles.

Couple of other things: Sunnis form a 'grass-roots' political party, while al-Sadr as suddenly flavour of the month among Iraq politicians because they see him as a 'kingmaker'. Sadr is denying that he supports the "Coalition Slate". If you ask me, the reasoning behind all this is a perfectly simple calculation: during the January elections, despite all the fixing and unfairness, the US candidate Iyad Allawi got creamed. Since then, the United Iraqi Alliance has been diminishing in its appeal (it looks like Sistani won't even back it this time), while al-Sadr's star as an anti-occupation figure, has risen. While Sadrists have agreed to unite with Sunnis on lists in the north, the UIA have been desperate to get Sadr's credibility hitched to their wagon.