Pacific Views

Get ready for a political slugfest in Iraq.

Zvi Bar'el at Haaretz suggests that what's gone down politically in Iraq so far is small potatoes compared to the political infighting between Iraqi political and ethnic groups that we should expect over the next few weeks.

The recent series of events in Iraq suggests a new trend; clashes with ethnic and religious undercurrents. It's not really new. Political killings have punctuated the American occupation almost from the first few days after the war itself was concluded, but now they've been augmented by open political battles. Last week, the senior Sunni leadership gathered to set up a political council to watch out for the interests of their sector, whose leaders fear being sidelined as the opening of the temporary governing council approaches. The Shi'ite religious leadership and the Shi'ite secular leadership represented on the temporary governing council are divided over the question of how the council's members are to be named in preparation for the handing over of the reigns to a transitional legislature in July. The Kurds, for their part, have already launched a political arrangement designed to secure their aspirations with respect to autonomy, if not their nationalist aspirations. All this political maneuvering guarantees that even after the capture of Saddam Hussein, the level of violence in Iraq is not going to decrease.