He [Juan Cole] further argues that when this all was followed so soon after by the seeming confirmation of the Bush/Sharon press conference it led to a quantum leap in the US=Israel equation being made in the Arab press and Arab popular opinion. If anyone else said this, I would slough it off saying What else is new? and How could it get any worse? But since Cole has devoted part of almost every day for the last year to monitoring the Arabic press, his judgement that there has been a sea-change as compared with just this last year deserves a serious hearing. Clearly, winning hearts and minds in the region this is not.
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Unfortunately for the future of millions, I think Prof. Cole is precisely right.
And, if he wasn't right earlier, Israel's recent assasination of Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi has almost surely completed the circle and made his assertion true. In a difficult to describe way, all of this feels like a new level of disarray and danger.
Not a good explanation for a materialist like myself to offer but true nonetheless.
See the following...
Death set to ignite tinderbox in Iraq
By Torcuil Crichton
Iraq was last night poised on the edge of a full-scale religious uprising as the assassination of Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi fed oxygen to the tinderbox siege of the holy cities of Najaf and Falujah.
Hundreds of foreign fighters, including Palestinians, have already poured into Iraq, the new front line in the battle against the “infidels”, making the peaceful resolution of the siege of the Shiite holy city of Najaf a near impossibility.
Just as crowds of Hamas supporters gathered outside Gaza City’s Shifa hospital vowing revenge after the killing, so too would the foreign fighters within the walls of Najaf stiffen their resolve against what will be seen as the latest attack on the Arab world.
Last night supporters of the wanted Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said talks with the US troops encircling the holy city of Najaf had collapsed and that an attack was imminent.
On the US side Colonel Dana Pittard, head of the 3rd Brigade Task Force that has assembled outside the besieged city, was told yesterday that al-Sadr’s militiamen were not in full control of what is an explosive situation.
Phil Kosnett, head of the beleagured Coalition Provisional Authority, based in the city, said a peaceful resolution looked unlikely.
“There are gunmen and thugs and many of them have come to town to take advantage of the situation. Al-Sadr does not have total control over all the gunmen who are running around the streets of Najaf,” said Kosnett. “If al-Sadr could be trusted to a peaceful resolution of the crisis that would be one thing. Now it is very difficult to say what is going to happen.”
As journalists within the city reported gunfire from the northwest, where coalition troops are encamped, it became clear that in the besieged city and at the bloody stand-off in Sunni-dominated Falujah the US faced the nightmare scenario of an uprising by the two main muslim denominations in Iraq.
[...]
full at --
<http://www.sundayherald.com/41410>
.d.