Making Sense of the Violence in Iraq

March 30, 2007 — -- More than 300 people have been killed in Iraq this week alone in a series of devastating car bombs and suicide attacks.

To television viewers this apparently endless violence seems senseless and abhorrent. Abhorrent it certainly is -- particularly to the many innocent Iraqi victims. However, it is important to understand it is not senseless or gratuitous -- these attacks are carefully calibrated in their size and location, all carried out with specific goals in mind. In the grim realpolitik of Iraq today, where violence has become the language of politics, an infernal logic guides each murderous car bomb to its destination.

The U.S. troop surge has changed the nature of violence in Iraq. The Shiite leaders, who control the government and are reasonably happy with the status quo, have told their militias not to confront the Americans but to melt away, at least temporarily, and wait out the surge. So death squad killings have dropped.

The Sunni insurgents, however, who have little political power and no access to oil revenues, are determined to challenge the Shiite-controlled status quo -- and to frustrate the U.S. peace plan, which they believe is just rubber stamped Shiite supremacy. Hence, the bombings in Tal Afar, Khalis and Shaab this week -- all in Shiite neighborhoods, carried out almost certainly by Sunni insurgents seeking to provoke a reaction from the Shiites.

Shaab market, in northern Baghdad, has been attacked at least eight times in the last 18 months, mostly by car bombs. It is a Shiite market, surrounded by Sunni neighborhoods, and so is easier to for Sunni insurgents to permeate than Sadr City, a more tightly controlled Shiite area in the east of Baghdad.

Shaab has seen a lot of sectarian violence. When the U.S. began its troop surge in February, Shaab was one of the first districts targeted. The market was ringed with checkpoints and barriers to keep car bombers out.

The insurgents are quick to adapt their tactics on the ground. Thursday's bombing was carried out by two men with explosive vests who slipped through the security net. They also chose the time of the bombing carefully -- late on Thursday evening, when markets are always crowded with shoppers stocking up for Friday, the beginning of the weekend for Muslims.

When our cameraman brought us video of the bodies from Shaab, rolled up in sheets and carpets and stacked like cords of wood outside the local hospital, it was horrible to watch. The men who planned the bombings, however, would not have been watching the casualties -- they would have been more interested in watching the reaction from Prime Minister Maliki (who called on Iraqis "not to allow the evil ones to triumph"), Shiite militia leaders and Shiite politicians.

This is the way Sunnis see it: Sunnis have the car bombs, Shiites have the power. The question is how many car bombs will it take for the Shiites to share some of the power? The way Shiites see it: Sunnis oppressed Shiites in Iraq for 80 years. Shiites won power in the elections, so why should they give anything to their former oppressors? Until those two positions are reconciled, violence will continue to be the obscene lingua franca of Iraq.