Via the coalition casualty count, 14 American soldiers have so far been reported killed in action during the week starting August 14, 2005.
According to figures pulled from Reuters’ Iraq report, at least 123 Iraqi deaths have been reported over the same week.
Ehsan Ahrari writes about the three way pull over the drafting of an Iraqi constitution:
The new Iraqi constitution risks beginning an era of the virtual carving up of Iraq. The Kurds and the Shi’ites are operating on the basis of a zero-sum game, whereby any one group’s gains would approximately equal another group’s losses. The Kurds are determined to get the autonomous oil-rich northern section. Not to be outmaneuvered by the Kurds, the Shi’ites want an autonomous southern portion. That would leave the Sunnis with the impoverished central section. They are watching, in horror, a process that might be the beginning of the end of a unified Iraq that was created between 1921 and 1932. With all its intentions of democratizing and stabilizing the “new Iraq”, the Bush administration may be presiding over the process of the disintegration of Iraq. …
Juan Cole points out that the Shi’a are divided among themselves over the question of federalism and greater provincial autonomy, noting that while federalism may provoke a civil war, forgoing federalism may start one just as well. Apparently, a lot will hang on whether an agreement can be reached whereby the Kurds would put up with an Islamic state in return for the Shi’a letting them have greater autonomy and more control of Kirkuk’s oil wealth. Cole also links to a research paper on the Shi’a separatist movement.
Billmon talks about where the rights of Iraq’s women are headed and the gangland style tactics of the Shi’a and Kurdish militia and paramilitary groups.
