Two suicide bombings last week in the heart of Baghdad killed at least 155 people. The bombs targeted the Ministry of Justice and the Baghdad provincial council headquarters.

While the victims of the twin blast were innocent civilians going about their chores, the intended target is obviously the credibility of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki’s government. Indeed, the timing of this attack could not come at a worst moment for the prime minister who is facing a crucial election next January amid rising tensions between Iraq’s traditional political and religious sects, parties, clans and tribes.

While overall violence in Iraq has decreased by close to 90 per cent, according to US officials, Iraq remains a very precarious place. A resurgence of violence could affect the scheduled January elections and could delay the planned withdrawal of US forces.

Who stands to benefit from such mayhem? First and foremost one can easily assume this to be the work of Al Qaeda in Iraq. The modus operandi is there in the signature of the nearly simultaneous double bombing; in the choice of the location, right under the nose of the government’s security forces in a highly sensitive neighbourhood and with the intent of causing the maximum number of civilian casualties.

This is far from being the smooth transition Obama might have hoped for, allowing him to concentrate more on the burning issue of what to do about Afghanistan, and how to do it.

Al Qaeda’s philosophy seems to follow closely along the lines set out by Marxist revolutionaries in the 1960s: to create enough turmoil amid the social classes and to bring about such deterioration in the country where they operated that the people would eventually welcome them with open arms and open hearts. Targeting government buildings but killing civilians sends a double message to the people.

First, it tells the government that it is far from secure despite the formidable defenses they have erected around the buildings.  At the same time it ridicules the government by demonstrating that the government remains unable of not only ensuring the security of the people, but is even incapable of assuring its own security.

The answer may well be that the Obama administration will need to adapt according to events on the ground. The first thing that is needed where Iraq and Afghanistan are concerned is a long-term policy that would be more in-sync with events unfolding in the field. At the moment, any entity, country or otherwise, that finds itself in confrontation with the United States knows it simply needs to wait out the four years of the current White House resident and that the new president will need time to get his new administration organised and then turn its attention to the problems of the Middle East/Western Asia. 

They on the other hand know they have the luxury of time. So long as 
the US continues to play by the rules of the insurgents it will be playing a los-ing game. 

Claude Salhani is editor of the Middle East Times and author of the newly published While the Arab World Slept – the impact of the Bush years on the Middle East