Reply #117: That Person, Ma'am, Is No Longer Among Us [View All]

And could not respond to your challenge here even if he wished to.

The reason for the present pitch of hostilities in Iraq between sectarian, ethnic, and political factions owes to the increased stakes represented by the solidification of native governing authority occuring simultaneously with the open stages of civil war. All factions in Iraq understand the U.S. presence is on a waning course. The stakes are therefore becoming more serious for those who will certainly remain, and all are seeking to occupy the most advantageous possible position from which to press for their own goals against their rivals once the thing can begin in earnest.

The machinations of secret services, particularly foreign secret services, are highly over-rated, not least, perhaps, by those agencies themselves. Hostilities on the scale present in Iraq cannot be constructed out of whole cloth by a few provocatuers: they can only arise where a sufficient number of people amongst a populace are disposed, for their own reasons, to engage in them, and where this is the case, a sufficient number of militant persons will arise to press them, and enjoy mass support when they do. Efforts by an outside force will have all the effect of a flea on an elephant. They will be unable to change the direction of the thing, or even to effect its pace. A coup can be contrived, on occassion, by an outside agency, but that is about the limit of the thing.