The Iraqi government appears to be using the Palestinians as its role model as it lurches from crisis to crisis. As I've often observed, the Palestinians, given a choice of courses of action, will always select the one which is most likely to be in their worst interests (ready, aim, shoot foot). The government of Nuri al-Maliki seems to be working the same way, carefully selecting policies and taking actions guaranteed to further infuriate the Sunni minority and ensure that the bitter insurgency continues.

Yesterday's botched hanging of Saddam Hussein's half-brother, in which his head was torn from his body by the noose, could have been the result of incorrect calculations of weight and drop distance by the hangman. But given the circus which surrounded the execution of Saddam Hussein, the obvious inference for the Sunnis was that the hanging was deliberately calculated to be an unnecessarily barbaric and disrespectful slap in their collective faces.

Consider the case of South Africa, where the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the wake of minority white rule led to a largely peaceful transition to majority black government. The ability of all South Africans, black and white, to air their grievances and look at their history in a formal and structured way under the moral leadership of Nelson Mandela, allowed the country to move forward with pride and dignity into an uncertain future.

In Iraq, by contrast, there is no Nelson Mandela to provide a calm and dignified voice of reason, and no apparent interest on the part of the long-oppressed Shia in peacefully working with the Sunni minority to build a new Iraq on the ashes of the Hussein era. A deliberate attempt to set Shia and Sunnis against each other, the destruction of the Golden Mosque in Samarra last February, might have served as a warning about the dangers of sectarian hatred and led Iraqis of goodwill to resolve to work together to take their country back from the extremists.

But, obviously, it didn't work out that way.

The order of the day is vengeance for the Shia, violent resistance for the Sunnis, and a death spiral with no visible end for a once-great nation. Just as radical Palestinians would rather lash out at Israel than work to improve the lot of the Palestinian people, so Iraqi extremists on both sides would rather murder each other - and any Americans conveniently within reach - than rebuild Iraq into the modern and progressive nation it might be.

It's just a shame we seem to be so short on Nelson Mandelas to provide the leadership that could make it happen.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo