Behind the enemy's blurred lines

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/review.cfm?id=859232006

<snip>By the time Stewart takes a new posting in Nasiriyah, it is difficult to avoid the evidence of full-blown insurgency, although the mind games continue. After a few preliminary skirmishes with the CPA, Stewart is visited by a Sadrist lawyer who assures him his group has nothing to do with the violence, saying: "It is just part of the national terrorist campaign, like the attacks in the Sunni areas. It is made to look as though Sadr did it, to force you to confront the Sadrists. But in fact it was done by Ba'athist Fedayyeen." He pauses. "Or by Syria. Or Iran."

The ambiguities dissolve as the Sadrists take up positions on the surrounding rooftops and begin firing mortars and rocket-propelled grenades into the CPA compound. Stewart and his colleagues are left to rely on an Italian "quick reaction force" which reacts anything but quickly and whose commanders seem reluctant to take the initiative when eventually they do arrive. It is no mean tribute to Stewart's literary powers that, amid the dead and the wounded, he manages to give his account of this attack a flavour of high comedy.

When the Italians eventually decide to do something, they drive an armoured personnel carrier outside the gates, career down to a nearby roundabout, circle it, then drive back in. "Thirty seconds," says one of the CPA guards in disbelief. "They were outside for thirty seconds." The mortar fire resumes almost immediately and continues until an American aircraft with night vision arrives to attack the Sadrist positions.

Stewart sees which way the wind is blowing. "Outside the compound we had lost authority. Politicians insisted that the current police leadership had co-operated with the Sadrist attack." snip

And, in a narrative refreshingly free of pontification and both fascinating and unexpected, Stewart is content to leave it there. Indeed, even the siege at Nasiriyah has a surprising twist when, during the handover to the new Iraqi government, Stewart finds himself walking with one of the Sadrists atop the ziggurat at Ur. Stewart is told: "We wish you could stay. You are our hero". A bemused Stewart replies: "What are you talking about, Asad - why were you firing mortars and trying to kill me five weeks ago?"

"Ah, Seyyed Rory," he replies with a grin, "that was nothing personal."