A FEW SMALL POCKETS OF DISCONTENT

The new Bush strategy in the war seems to be wildly popular in Iraq! Oh, er, except among a few groups. Which groups? Let's see: the Sunnis...

President Bush's plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq has inflamed passions among the restive Sunni Arab minority, bringing new recruits to insurgent cells and outpourings of popular anger toward the U.S., the spokesman for the country's most hard-line Sunni clerical group declared Sunday.

"Iraq is like a fire," said Mohammed Bashar Faidi, spokesman for the Muslim Scholars Assn. "Instead of putting water on the fire, Bush is pouring gasoline."

... Faidi said Bush's calls for increased troops had only roused suspicions of imminent offensives on Sunni districts of Baghdad and Al Anbar province and spurred a sudden "mobilization" among Sunnis, according to clerics and prayer leaders who contacted him by telephone from Iraq....

...the Shiites...

...First among the American concerns is a Shiite-led government that has been so dogmatic in its attitude that the Americans worry that they will be frustrated in their aim of cracking down equally on Shiite and Sunni extremists, a strategy President Bush has declared central to the plan.

"We are implementing a strategy to embolden a government that is actually part of the problem," said an American military official in Baghdad involved in talks over the plan....

The plan gives a central role to the National Police, viewed as widely infiltrated by Shiite militias and, despite an intensive American retraining program, still suspected of a strongly Shiite sectarian bias. One American officer said that the National Police commanders have been "dragging their feet" over their role in the new plan and that they could seriously compromise the operation....

Shiite neighborhoods present special challenges. Tightly woven networks of militias backed by the government, the areas have been largely off-limits to American forces. An early test will be Sadr City, the largest Shiite enclave in the capital, and the main stronghold for the Mahdi Army militia, led by the renegade cleric, Moktada al-Sadr. American officers say it is far from clear that the Maliki government will permit American troops to operate freely in the enclave....

...and the Kurds:

The arrest of the Iranians by U.S. forces at a liaison office in the northern city of Irbil last week exposed a growing rift....

Kurdish legislators condemned the raid as illegal....

Although the Iranians were not accredited diplomats, they worked in a well-known office, approved by the Kurdish regional government, that offers consular services and is on its way to gaining accreditation as a formal consulate....

Kurdish officials said the United States should have contacted the regional government before launching the raid.

"I think this is the new policy of the U.S. in Iraq -- in order to be defensive, they are offensive," said Saad Barazanchi, a Kurdish legislator....

Oh, but I'm sure there are plenty of groups that are on our side -- the Zoroastrians? Er, the Scientologists...?