Many thanks to Andrew Sullivan for pointing out an enlightening article on Iraq. Not a single English soldier has been killed in Iraq since August, England’s Guardian newspaper has noted. Why? As Julius Caesar might have put it — and as the Guardian does put it — Iraq is divided into three chunks: the tranquil Basra region, where the English are; Kurdistan; and Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle, where U.S. forces are deployed. It is only in the third part that there is brutal resistance to the coalition. Relative, if not perfect, tranquility has been established in the other two parts. Says Sullivan, ‘In time, we may see the post-war violence in Iraq as a simple continuation of Sunni efforts to control the country. Entrenched elites take time to remove — and to become reconciled to their loss of privilege.”
