I cannot avoid but to be vulgar: the only word that adequately describes the situation in Iraq is "clusterfuck".

That word goes through my head alot these days.

Incidentally, if you look up "clusterfuck" in the dictionary.com thesaurus, you get the suggestion "Did you mean gelastic?"

there is another party in the midle east which would also hate a unified and dominant shiite in iraq . and they have more experience in car bomb killing than all local actors combined . pure speculation , may be far fetched may be not.

Anyone noticed that no one seems to be talking about Saddam Hussein these days?

I guess he isn't the root of the problem anymore.

All possibilities have to be looked at, no matter how far fetched they may seem.

It has always been a favorite strategy of occupying forces to play the divide and conquer game. Get them fighting amongst themselves, and they won't fight you.

Then again, like their political counterparts, many exiles returning to Iraq within the religious sphere are also considered "Johnny-come-latelies" and detested by those who had stayed.

As for car/truck bombs, they are a method of choice used by terrorists/freedom-fighters thoughout the world, from N. Ireland to Oklahoma City to Bali. No one group holds the patent on them. In fact, a car bomb just went off at the UK headquarters in Basra, but fortunately no seems to be injured.

The word "clusterfuck" has taken a very prominent place in my day to day vocabulary for the last year or more since there doesn't seem to be a better descriptive noun for the whole mess. Will it ever end?!!!

Interesting, if somewhat Byzantine (sorry) analysis. And while the more, um, elaborate implications may prove true eventually, I think primary emphasis has to be on the first-order consequences.

An attack against a truly major figure in the majority community at the front door of one of the most sacred sites in the country, on a Friday, is about as salient a terrorist strike as could be imagined. "If he's not safe, in that place at that time, then nobody's safe."

Hakim was as much a supporter of the US-installed Governing Council as any home-grown Iraqi leader, and more of one than most. With him gone, support for that institution -- and its underlying process -- is that much weaker.

An action intended to destabilize, certainly. As to what the ultimate failure mechanism may turn out to be, well, there's so many moving parts, only Allah knows.

It'll be interesting, BTW, to see the reactions of the SCIRI and the other Shi'ite leaders. If they all pull together, out of personal fear or political resolve, the ultimate effect could -- unexpectedly -- be a strengthening and assertion of unified Shi'ite political power. (Not that this is what the US wants, but it certainly would be "democratic.") But as you suggest, if they run for the family compounds and bolt the doors, well, it ain't gonna be pretty.

But with all those Shi'a factions, who's to say that they aren't fighting and killing to be the #1 faction...i think it's to early to pin the blame on anyone yet except the clusterfucks who are running the operation Iraqi freedom...

also...Chalabi is going to become our worst nightmare. What a piece of shit. I can't believe the media (and our Government) believes a word he says.

If Iraq gets too bad, you an always count on the local news highlighting the soldiers that built a school there in May. Every time a bit of bad news comes out of Iraq, our local news brings up a soldier that is obviously a simple- minded Republican dittohead - that says, "Bush is doing a good job - we need to finish the job in Eye Rack".

This is certainly a clusterfuck. What bugs me though is that this was entirely predictable. Why the hell do the Republicans think that they still know what the fuck they are talking about - when they were so obviously wrong? Why isn't Bush being castigated daily by the meat heads on TV for his poor decisions about our national welfare? Any idiot could have predicted this.

We have more troops in Afghanistan than we have ever had. It is still not in control. Iraq is boiling beneath the surface - it is out of control. North Korea is playing brinksmanship games - our leadership's response is idiotic bluster. WTF?! What happened to this country?

I knew Bush would be bad. but I had no idea he would be THIS bad. He lied all the way through his campaign. He lied all the way through the Florida debacle. The media wiped his ass and covered his tracks - and they are still doing the exact same thing!!!!!!!!!

I think Bush made a deal with the devil. There is no other way I can explain how someone as incompetant as he is is given the benefit of the doubt in every situation.

It has always been a favorite strategy of occupying forces to play the divide and conquer game. Get them fighting amongst themselves, and they won't fight you.

Ordinarily I stay away from conspiracy theories because they usually just muddy the water and obscure the REAL conspiracy - which is often right out there in the open (cough, Haliburton, cough)

But in this case I have to concede the point: It is a reasonably well documented fact that the CIA conspired with the Saudis to car bomb a prominent Lebanese Shia cleric in 1985. So the idea is not far fetched at all.

But it would be showing a level of stupidity that may even be beyond Shrub and the neocons. It's almost impossible to construct a scenario in which a fratricidal struggle among the Shias serves the coalition's interests in Iraq. I think the administration wants the Shia as weak and divided as possible -- but not actually shooting or bombing each other.

In fact I can only think of one conceivable scenario in which a Shi'a civil war benefits the coaltion. That would be if the US were about to do another backflip and try to recreate a Sunni nationalist regime -- Saddamism without Saddam. Then we would not only want the Shia weak and divided, we would want them decimated and disarmed. Getting them to fight and kill each other might be a step in that direction.

Maybe the re-recruiting of Saddam's Mukhabarat is a sign that this is the new plan, but I doubt it. The Sunnis have been hopelessly alienated, radicalized and are in the process of being Islamized. If the coalition turned the government over to some sort of Sunni junta now, it might just as well hand give it to Osama.

So I don't think the Americans had anything to do with this one.

I think Billmon's right--admittedly, one can find several possible culprits, but Al Qaeda or one of its satellite organizations seems the most likely. Shiites place farther down the AQ list of apostates than Zionists or Crusaders, but they're definitely on there.

Plus, this move seems to drastically increase the possibility of full-blown civil war. Nobody can really benefit from that development in the sense of increasing their odds of seizing power: Not the Ba'athists, not SCIRI, not al-Sadr, nobody.

But a civil war would certainly increase the chances of a mujahedin-style war in the desert, where the only sane option for the Americans is departure in shame. That would certainly seem like the calling card of AQ to me.

My personal bet would be either be Ansar al-Islam or al-Qaeda, for one reason and one reason only: to trigger an all-out Shia vs. Sunni war. The worst that could happen to Iraq--worse than a power vacuum or anything else--is just that. I don't think any Shiite, no matter how opposed to al-Hakim, would attack the holiest mosque for Shia Islam.

Sunnis are mostly compelled to attack Shias, and Shia shrines because they believe all Shias practice taqiyyah, which is not true. And in the past--mostly in Pakistan--they've done so without disregard for holyness or human life.

I have to agree with Arash. I think this will contribute to the Shia becoming more united, not less, because this almost certainly was not carried out by any Shia faction. Would any serious catholic faction do the same to the Vatican?

Whoever did this had at least one very clear goal, and that is perpetrate distrust and discord between Sunni and Shia. I think this will contribute to the Shia becoming more united not less.

Arash and SWIO: from your mouths to God's ears. If the Shia stay together after this, it will be good news for us all.

(Special note to Arash - WOW! Where have you been hiding! Thank you for contributing to my education.)

There is no level of stupidity that is beyond Shrub and the neocons. That is a given in light of the fact that they started this whole mess to begin with.

On the surface, it is easy to first blame the Baathists and/or the Sunni. But there are some other bits of data here, and more to come. First, the Ayatollah's brother is on the US-appointed council, and accused by some of being a collaborator. The Ayatollah himself has been an outspoken critic of the US occupation and a very serious potential troublemaker; called the "Khomeini of Iraq." He returned in May from Iran after a 20 year exile. The house of his nephew was bombed last week, and it was blamed at that time on another Shi'a faction. Unlike most other bombings recently, this one and the one last week were not done by suicide bombers. And it was at this very same holy mosque that another returning exiled cleric backed by the Americans, al-Khoei, was stabbed to death in April by a rival Shiite faction -- close to the spot in front of the mosque that these bombs went off.

This is an interesting write-up on the different Shi'a rivalries in Najaf and elsewhere in Iraq:
http://hnn.us/articles/printfriendly/1413.html

The very nature of false-flag operations and conspiracies is we never find out about the successful ones, only the failures, so we can never cite many examples. Killing a religious leader with a bomb is peanuts compared to some other plans involved with regime change, such as Operation Northwoods, which fortunately was shelved.

I don't see conspiracies behind every Bush, pardon the pun, but call it prudence, call it skepticism. We have a real sneaky bunch in Washington who will stop at literally nothing and who require careful watching -- if your stomach can take it.

And where was Generalissimo L. Paul Bremer during this whole clusterfuck? I'll tell you. HE WAS ON A FUCKING VACATION!!!!!!"

Go ahead, click on the link. You'll be AMAZED at the zen-like ineptitude of the republitards running this occupation.

Sadr would have to be extra stupid to attack anyone at the Imam Ali mosque. Besides, who would team to make sophisticated car bombs. Which this was.

Shia factionalism is overrated.

What is not is the message which is being sent. Cooperate with the US and die. The Jordanians, the UN, now Hakim. Simple message. Cooperate and die.

No Shia, not even Sadr, wants a civil war now. Not with the Americans around. Hakim was waiting to be handed power. The resistance, and it's not just Sunni anymore, made an executive decision to forgo that route.

This was no act of internecine warfare. This was a professional job by a non-Shia.

I don't think any of us sitting here in the US can really know how serious factional conflict is within Iraq's Shi'a community. But we know it exists, and that it can turn bloody -- as when Abdul Majid al-Khoei was hacked to death at the Imam Ali mosque by a crowd of Sadr partisans back in April.

We also know that Shi'a infighting has been extremely severe in the past -- as in Lebanon in the early '80s, when Amal and Hezbollah at times went at each other with almost as much gusto as they went at the Christian Phalangists.

In Iraq, as in Lebanon, you also have the Iranians as one of the factional parties. In Iraq their role is obviously even more important, given the proximity of the border, the long religious rivalry between Najaf and the Iranian holy city of Qum, and the often ambigious political relationship between the Arabian and Persian Shi'a communities.

Whether this will lead to outright violence between the factions is impossible to say. That the bombing will heighten tensions and mistrust between them seems inevitable. That may not have been the primary motive for the bombing, but it don't think it was a byproduct, either.

There is no way to peg blame for this attack with the information available. It could be any number of actors, operating under any number of motives. It could be Al Qaeda, Baathists, competing Shite factions, anyone. I wonder when we will see widespread use of car bombs and sucide jihadists against American troops.

Billmon--the Shia infighting has always been there, especially those accused of being Iran's puppets. Remember the protests outside the house of another Iraqi imam (al-Sistani, I vaguely remember) because they accused of not representing Iraq's Shias?

Now, Abdel Majid al-Khoei was hacked to death in Iraq? It was a targeted murder, but in no way did they harm the Imam Ali shrine. In yesterday's bombing, on the other hand, 700 kg of explosives was used and the rising death toll--120 I believe--would not be something any Shia group would do. Such an attack, with so many casualties, was intended to cause anger, from what I personally can make up.

The only Shia cleric that was rivaled to al-Hakim was Muqtada al-Sadr, who's popularity is caused by his father, Mohammad al-Sadr. Al-Sadr has been quietly gaining power throughout. He chose this way of becoming a key cleric, so when the time comes for power sharing, he will be part of it and won't be ignored.

Until further developments, I will hold Sunni jihadists as suspects, nor will I rule out Ba'athists too. The jihadists' belief is Wahabi, who are convinced that all Shias practice tabarra (ritual slander of the first three caliphs)--which is not true-- and which sparked the Shia vs. Sunni rivalry in Pakistan.

We can continue to play the guessing game, but I personally rule out Shia factions. Other twq suspects remain.

We can continue to play the guessing game, but I personally rule out Shia factions.

Read the post again, Arash:

"Whoever did this -- and my money is on Al Qaeda ...".

"It should be (and probably is) obvious to most Shi'a leaders that Sunni hands planted the bomb ...."

But each faction also knows that the absence of even basic security leaves it vulnerable not only to the Baathists and/or Al Qaeda, but to each other. THAT's my point:

In a place like Iraq, the questions don't end with establishing the identity and political loyalty of the bomber -- they begin there. Why did Al Qaeda (or whomever) single out the Hakim family and its organization (the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq) for such special attention? Who else might benefit from the crime? Who might be next?

And, always the most important questions: Do my enemies have allies that I don't know about? Where are the traitors in my own camp?

The heads of the different Shi'a families (family in the Corleone sense) no doubt will be pondering all this and more in the days to come. But I suspect Al Qaeda also wants them thinking about something else: If the Americans can't protect me -- or even worse, if they cut and run, as they did in Lebanon -- how will I protect myself?

The goal is to disintegrate whatever framework exists for the Americans to deal with the Shi'a -- and for the Shi'a to deal with each other. The USA has had minimal credibility in Iraq; the insurgents and terrorists want it to have ZERO credibility. They want every Shi'a leader thinking about what he has to do to protect himself and his people if a Lebanon-style free-for-all breaks out.

And right now it looks like they're doing a pretty good job ...

So key will be who the Shias blame, and if the leaders can hold a grip on thier people.

And I rely on you to tell us all of that ;-)

how about a wild one though not all that wild one . israely intelligence agencies . a civil war between two muslim groups or a civil war between different shiates . end result is a iraq where shiates do not become dominant . in their scenario iran and a iraq dominated by people in sympathy with iran is not very appealing. far fetched . yes and no . they have done enough starnge / dirty deeds in the past.

Badri, it is a bit far-fetched since it is to Israel's benefit that the US settle in for a long occupation and guarantee them their direct oil pipeline from Iraq rather than see the US having to make a fast exit. However, it is not without precedent that this type of operation was done before.

Going back half a century ago to the time that Nasser had just become president of Egypt, there was a bombing scheme in which the Israelis hoped to prevent the British from turning over the Suez Canal to Egypt and at the same time alienate the Americans who were becoming quite chummy with Nasser. Israeli agents went around Egypt blowing up govt buildings and facilities -- Egyptian, American and British -- allowing the blame to fall on militant Egyptian religious groups such as al-Ikhwan and thereby show that Egypt was not capable of providing security for the Canal. It was called the Lavon Affair (SUSANNAH); there are many links on the web to the history of this scheme which, had a couple of the bombers not been caught, would probably have been successful. I am not saying this is what is happening in Iraq, only that false-flag operations are often successful without anyone being the wiser.
Here is one link:
http://www.intellex.com/~rigs/page1/lavon.htm

Israel? I'd pin it on Iran, if we're talking about state-sponsored stuff like this, even though carbombs is the Mossad's expertise.

even though carbombs is the Mossad's expertise.

Which intellligence service in the Middle East doesn't have car bomb expertise?

I remember car bombs frequently going off in Miami, Florida back in the decade or two following Castro's takeover of Cuba and represented his attempts to purge exiled former officials and those who protested his govt. Car bombs are an integral part of the "human experience" worldwide. But in looking at this latest one in Najaf and the two that preceded it at the Jordanian Embassy and the UN headquarters, we seem to have a non-sectarian, non-partisan, equal-opportunity bunch. It appears it is being done for the sole purpose of creating chaos and discrediting the "coalition" forces and their cronies and driving them out. Well, who wants them out? Problem is: just about everybody.