BAGHDAD, 19 April 2004 — A plume of fire and oily black smoke rises from the back of an American Humvee hit by a rocket-propelled grenade on the highway to Baghdad airport. A resistance group warns Iraqis to keep off the road and promises further attacks.

Iraq is full of signs of the growing intensity of the war. The generals are keeping 21,000 soldiers, mostly from the 1st Armoured Division, in the country a further three months, breaking a promise that they would return home after a year in Iraq. Iraqis in Baghdad are apprehensive. Shopkeepers no longer leave valuable stock in their shops overnight but bring it home because they fear another outbreak of mass looting, like that which followed the fall of Saddam Hussein last year.

There has never been such a difference between the war-torn reality of Iraq and bland assertions by US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair that progress is bring made. Bush has repeatedly told Americans that sovereignty will be handed back to Iraqis on June 30, as if this were an epoch-making event. In fact, there is no legitimate Iraqi authority to which sovereignty can be returned.

The US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), considered something of an American puppet by Iraqis, has even less credibility than before the latest crises in Fallujah and Najaf. The US-trained Iraqi security forces —police, army and paramilitary units —showed over the past two weeks that they are not prepared to fight for the coalition against fellow Iraqis.

The US and Britain last week clutched at the straw of UN involvement by praising a plan presented by the UN envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi. He proposes dumping the IGC and appointing a new government that would be chosen by, among others, the UN.

“It is a plan for last year, not this year,” said one Iraqi politician. He pointed out that it was an ill-omen for any future UN involvement that Brahimi, though surrounded by bodyguards, had been largely confined to the “Green Zone”, the heavily guarded coalition-controlled compound in central Baghdad. If even central Baghdad is considered too dangerous for a well-protected UN official, would the organization really send thousands of its officials to the country? It is difficult to see the UN or NATO playing much of a role in the future of Iraq unless the US pulls out, and it shows no sign of doing this. It has shown little inclination to share power with anyone. The IGC says that despite pledges by Paul Bremer, the US viceroy in Baghdad, to consult it on important security matters, he did not bother to tell them about the intention of the US Marines to besiege Fallujah.

It is difficult to see how the US and Britain could tempt other countries to send troops to Iraq. The past week underlined what a dangerous country it is. At one time there were 40 foreign hostages. Three Japanese — two aid workers and a journalist —were released and two other journalists were promptly kidnapped, only to be released on Friday. An Italian security guard, one of four captured by insurgents, was murdered. A US soldier, captured when his convoy was attacked west of Baghdad, was shown on a video made by the resistance.

The two crises facing Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, show the strength and weakness of the US position. In Fallujah and Najaf, US troops are facing groups — possibly numbering under a thousand in each case — of lightly armed resistance fighters.

If the US storms Fallujah, increasing the already terrible number of civilian casualties, it will alienate the 3.5 million Sunnis in Iraq. Previously the Sunnis, the base for Saddam Hussein’s regime, were not happy — but only a minority gave full support to armed resistance to the occupation. The collective punishment of Fallujah means that middle-class, educated Sunnis from Baghdad — who cheered the fall of Saddam — have turned resolutely against the occupation. Fallujah has become a nationalist symbol.

The US is also hobbled in using its military strength against Muqtada Sadr and his Army of the Mehdi holed up in Najaf and Kufa. There are 2,500 US soldiers outside Najaf. The US is demanding that Sadr hand himself over for arrest to an Iraqi court and that he disband the Mehdi Army. He has let the other Shiite religious leaders do his negotiating for him and has allowed the police back into the police stations.

As in Fallujah — indeed more so — there is no doubt that the US Army could blast its way into Najaf. But Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, the revered religious leader of 15-16 million Iraqi Shiites, has let it be known (he does not personally make statements) that he would regard the entry of US troops into either Najaf or Karbala as crossing a red line.

Ayatollah Sistani has not said what he would do if the US ignored his prohibition. If Ayatollah Sistani and other Shiite religious leaders call for any measure of resistance —even marches and the resignation of all Shiite s from the IGC —they will be obeyed. Bremer is paying an extraordinarily high price for his ill-conceived plan to eliminate Sadr.

It is still a mystery to Iraqis why Bremer has shown such poor political judgment. There appears to be no coordination between him and the uniformed US military. Dr. Hussain Shahristani, an influential Shiite figure from Karbala, told The Independent on Sunday: “The Americans are completing misreading Shiite sentiment. They have completely lost Shiite trust.” In southern Iraq, British and Polish officers anonymously but vigorously criticize US actions.

The next week may be a decisive one for the US in Iraq. If they do attack Fallujah or Najaf, the political cost will be great. But if they do not, Iraqis will see that they do not dare to eliminate opponents whom they had sworn to destroy.