Read Martin Woollacott on why the insurgency in Iraq ‘is essentially a nihilist and not a nationalist campaign’:
Many see the insurgency in Iraq as entirely a product of occupation, but the hard question is what the insurgents are trying to achieve. Get the Americans out, but then what? Indeed, if the aim is to get the Americans to leave it would, objectively, be better to offer them some cooperation. They are pretty desperate to go, and are, arguably, no longer so attached to remaining a permanent power behind the scenes, at least not at the price they might have to pay.
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It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the aim of most insurgents, or at least of those who finance them and hurl them into the fray, is entirely destructive. They wish to break down and disrupt by violence any constructive effort of whatever kind in any part of Iraq. The aim is the failure not only of the American project but of the Iraqi project. The targets are not only American soldiers but any Iraqi, from party leader to traffic policeman, engaged in the work of bringing Iraq back to something like normal life.In order to pursue such a course, you have to believe that the principal function of Iraq is to be the battlefield between the forces of true Islam and the forces of evil. Its people can, and should, be sacrificed to that end if necessary. That is why the insurgents so frequently break the rules that other rebels have usually observed, like trying to keep public opinion on their side or not provoking other communities. Twelve Islamist groups recently issued a joint statement saying that after the Americans had gone, there would be a three-day curfew during which all those who had helped the invader would be arrested or liquidated. The ruthlessness, the cruelty, and the life-denying viciousness of such ideas chill the bones.