Baghdad's endless security dillemma

Baghdad was struck by eight bombings yesterday which left 70 people dead. Another bloody day in Iraq. The country has experienced a wave of terrorism since late April that has left hundreds of Iraqis dead and thousands more wounded. The bombings have been blamed on Sunni insurgents, but in Iraq, no one really knows what's going on. What is clear is that there are groups in the country that have the capacity to strike at will at any target. This points to a massive intelligence failure on behalf of the government. At present it appears that the security forces are incapable of preventing attacks or of identifying and arresting suspects. This could be a result of a number of issues including 1) poor training of the police and military 2) corruption within the governing structures, which allows groups to infiltrate secure areas, 3) actual infiltration by militant groups of police and military units and 4) excellent operational capability of the militants. It is likely that all of these elements are playing a role at the moment. The government of Nouri al-Maliki needs to act and act decisively. This humble blog suggests the following: 1) Resolve the Kurdistan border dispute. Allow the KRG autonomy and access to oil supplies if they agree to disarm their peshmerga and integrate them into the central security forces. 2) Give responsibility for security ministries to a minority leader, either a Christian, Druze or Turkmen. All major ministries should also be given to non-Shiite Arab or Sunni Arab groups for a period of two election terms. 3) Tribes need to be further co-opted into the governing structures. 4) Oil wealth and income needs to be guaranteed to Sunni groups 5) Sunni governorates that desire autonomy should be allowed to hold referendums immediately 6) Incentives need to be given to governorates that decide to allow the central government overall control of their territory. Just a few points that basically rest on shoring up national unity and providing incentives to regional agitators to end the contestation that has result in heightened political instability and created a toxic environment in which militant activity can thrive.