By Dave Anderson:
The Sunni Arabs are back to collecting security rents the old-fashion way. They are looking the other way while the foreigners blow themselves up along with chunks of Baghdad.
In April, 2009 a large string of bombings were a friendly visit from the neighborhood protection racket murmuring loudly about what a pity it would be if someone broke into your business and blew it up:
Remember us --- that seems to be what insurgent groups in Iraq are saying this week. Car bomb blast kills 9 and wounds 18 in Baghdad, officials say
Six car bombs kill 34 across Baghdad
Anywhere else in the world, a string of seven car bombs in the capital city within a week is a notable event with international cable news shows breaking their coverage and showing the response. In Baghdad, it is merely a slightly bad week even after the �success� of the surge and the buying off of the Sunni Arab nationalist insurgencies.
The Guardian is reporting reasonably informed speculation that some Sunni Arab former insurgents are beginning to become current insurgents again due to their perception of getting screwed by the Maliki government on payment, amnesty and jobs/prospects:
The Sunni Arab goal has been constant --- collect social, political, economic goodies through the provision of security rents. Pay them off or things go boom.
The overarching Iraqi Sunni Arab political goal is a return to their previously privileged positions within Iraqi society, thus receiving the economic, political and cultural rents that they previously were collecting
As Steve noted, the rents are not being paid to the Sunni Arabs, so they are starting to turn blind eyes to the useful foreign idiots again. Spectacular attacks as well as the ongoing grind of urban guerrilla warfare in Mosul will continue until the rents are paid in full and in cash or the Sunni Arab population is crushed, killed or force to become refugees.
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