Insurgency: War

There's been much debate [including some thoughts earlier in this blog's history] about what the Insurgency in Iraq means, and how the West should percieve it. Is it funded participation in terrorism? Is it external mercenaries flooding over Iraq's borders for fun and profit as well as religious idealism? Is it an organized internal event, something calibrated and somewhat controlled, resembling a "resistence" force? Is it the beginings of a revolution, favorably or unfavorably for US interests; or the beginings of a civil war? What is the purpose, exactly of these fighters?

We can only speculate, and we don't yet know. However, one infamous insider of the Iraqi resistence to Occupation, Muqtada al-Sadr, believes it is a justified, internal reaction; that Arabs have a right to self-determination and self-defense when an extremely powerful external force comes in an occupies their country. And more interestingly, al-Sadr even states that this seems to be a particularly American point:

Speaking to [BBC's] Newsnight, Mr Sadr said that even US President George W Bush would agree that fighting an occupation force was a correct course of action.

However, he did call upon Iraqis to exercise restraint with US troops.

And he said he would not interfere with the democratic process, saying "Whoever wants to take part, let him do so". "Resistance is legitimate at all levels be it religious, intellectual and so on," Mr Sadr said.

"The first person who would acknowledge this is the so-called American President Bush who said 'if my country is occupied, I will fight'."

...
"So I call upon other parties like the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police to exercise self-restraint with Iraqi people and not be provoked into them or the occupying forces as this isn't in the interest of Iraq," he said.

"I also call on the Iraqi people to exercise restraint and not get enmeshed in the plans of the West or plans of the occupation that wants to provoke them."

Mr Sadr argued that it is the presence of foreign troops which is the cause of Iraq's current problems. "The occupation in itself is a problem. Iraq not being independent is the problem. And the other problems stem from that - from sectarianism to civil war," he said. "The entire American presence causes this."

The Insurgency has in the last few days claimed over 150 lives with suicide bombers and more in a very bloody and sad week. Muqtada has a point and a perspective; but he also fails to explain why Iraqis are intent on slaying other Iraqis in the name of this resistence. If it were a cleanly understood civil war, as Sadr mentions, there would be stated goals in the power struggle. At this point, looking from my perspective, it looks like a cesspool, a vacuum of unchecked power conflicts, with too many external forces [outsider terrorists, foreign fighters and governments, Coalition forces, etc] to sort through any clear future prospects or peace.