Middle Class Sees Daily Life Wither in Iraq

[cal04]

From her bedroom window, Nesma Abdul-Razzaq, a 43-year-old housewife, has watched insurgents fire grenades from a patch of grass near her garden. Frequent patrols of American tanks rattle the glass. A bullet has pierced a pane.
"You can't live in safety if you cooperate with either side," she said, standing in the bedroom of her house, located deep in insurgent-controlled western Baghdad. So when American troops offered to pay for the use of the roof last month, she politely declined.

"What would I say to the neighbors?" she said. Two and a half years after the American invasion, the violence shows no sign of relenting, and life for middle-class Iraqis seems only to be getting worse. Educated, invested in businesses and properties and eager for change, the middle-class here had everything to gain from the American effort. But frustration is hardening into hopelessness, as families feel increasingly trapped by the many forces that are threatening to split the country apart.

Insurgents fight gun battles on their streets. Sectarian divisions are seeping into their children's classrooms and even their own dinner table discussions. Their secular voices are barely audible above the din of religious politicians and the poorer Iraqis they appeal to. The daily life they describe is an obstacle course of gasoline lines, blocked roads and late-night generator repairs. In these families' homes, the talk is more often of leaving. "For Sale" signs dot the gates of the houses on their block. But gathering children and extended families is proving difficult, and many families, potentially the most skilled builders of democracy here, are bracing themselves for a future that appears to them increasingly under siege.

The religious Shiite government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafaari, Mr. Abdul-Razzaq said, is pursuing an agenda that heavily favors religious Shiites, driving a wedge deeper into the already dangerous divisions in Iraqi society. The Americans put us in a ridiculous situation," he said. "They came to Iraq and all the religious parties came with them. The religious man in Iraq is like a fox."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/02/international/middleeast/02families.html?hp

[fooj]

1. This about sums it up...

The Americans put us in a ridiculous situation," he said. "They came to Iraq and all the religious parties came with them. The religious man in Iraq is like a fox."

Peace.