In Iraq, a 'perfect storm' (CSMonitor)

[kentuck]

All we did was shut down one itty-bitty newspaper and they went crazy!
+===============================================================



http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0409/p01s03-woiq.htm

<snip>
BAGHDAD - The US closure of an irregularly published newspaper with just 5,000 readers seemed a tiny moment in the struggle for stability in Iraq. But the March 28 move to close Al Hawza, controlled by militant Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, now looks like the edge of a violent storm.

How its twin fronts - of Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents - built and combined to create what might be described as the perfect Iraqi sandstorm is only now coming into focus. At the time, no one would have forecast that the deaths of four US security contractors alone would result in a major military campaign in Fallujah. Similarly, the US coalition hardly anticipated that the closure of just one of 100-plus newspapers in Baghdad would form the genesis of a Shiite revolt in half a dozen cities around Iraq.

<snip>
Al Hawza was closed March 28 for what US administrators deemed its tendency to incite violence. Coalition officials hoped the move would send a warning to Sadr, whose armed followers had spread through Iraq's center and south.

It proved a miscalculation. The closure provided a pretext for Sadr to call out thousands of supporters for daily protests in Baghdad and helped him win sympathy from many previously skeptical Iraqis who felt he was being unfairly muzzled. After a close aide of Sadr's, Mustafa Yacoubi, was arrested April 2 for allegedly participating in the murder of a rival cleric, those protests started to turn ugly. Unrest grew in southern cities as well.

......

[aquart]

1. "Send a warning" to would-be martyrs? Yeah, that works.

We really haven't got the psychology of Iraqis down yet, have we?

[lapfog_1]

2. Send a message...

And a minor tax on tea won't matter, either...

Better send the imperial forces and put down the insurgents
before... oops, too late.