By Steve Hynd
A series of bomb attacks in Baghdad and Mosul have killed at least 42 today and raised talk of a new phase of violence in Iraq's currently "cold" sectarian civil war. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks but the U.S. military and Iraqi central government are predictably blaming an Al Qaida attempt to reignite Sunni/Shiiite feuding.
Speaking at a televised conference, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said violence may increase ahead of January polls.
"The coming election will witness increasing attempts to damage and violate security. They will try, in any way they can, to show that the political process is not stable," he said.
It's a familiar narrative, and the US military says that so far Shiites haven't retaliated against what it describes as an attempt to kick off a new sectarian tit-for-tat cycle, but I feel it may be largely self-serving here.
Mosul has been the last great stronghold of the insurgency for some time now, with militants there outlasting several offensives by US and Iraqi forces. Bombs and shootings are still a daily occurence there, and the militants have made themselves the focus of Arab antipathy towards Kurds rather than continuing Sunni-Shiite emnity. The attack today on a village near Mosul was on a minority Shiite cult, not mainstream Shiism. In Baghdad, the majority of attacks were on Sunni areas and apparently targeting Awakening groups. The Kerbala profile isn't being met here.
No, what seems more likely is that the multi-factional civil war in Iraq has simply become more violent again, as it was always going to whenever it was that US troops began to withdraw, whether now or in a million years. The fractures - Kurd/Arab, Sunni/Shiite and even between armed factions within the Sunni, Shiite and Kurd communities - are simply too deep to be papered over. Rather than violence aimed at causing new splits, the splits are still there and are causing the violence.
Which means that the Surge definitely failed.
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