Melting pot of bloodWith the insurgency boiling over and sectarian strife spreading, ethnic divisions threaten to derail the new Iraqi government.
By Juan Cole

May 6, 2005 Iraq's elected Parliament finally swore in a new Cabinet on Tuesday -- yet another milestone that the Bush administration hoped would represent a decisive turning point in its campaign to remake Iraq. But like the toppling of Saddam's statue, the dictator's capture, the formation of an interim government, the siege of Fallujah, the national elections, and the formation of a new government, this latest development offered little reason for hope that the bloody insurrection would subside.

Years ago, George Bush the elder explained why he did not push on to Baghdad at the end of the first Gulf War: He feared the breakup of the Iraqi state. The most dangerous fissure was and is between Iraq's majority group, the Shiites, and the formerly ascendant Sunnis. Those divisions have now exploded into a horrific guerrilla war in which disaffected Sunnis increasingly target Shiites and Kurds. In the week after the Cabinet was presented to Parliament, Sunni Arab guerrillas went on a bombing spree that left some 200 dead and hundreds more wounded. The Bush administration had hoped that the new, elected government would attract the loyalty of alienated Iraqis, and that as a result the guerrilla war would wind down. Instead, Sunnis are furious that their representation on the Cabinet is still unclear and that their suggestions for Cabinet members have been rejected by Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari. >>>Read full article

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