With the assassination yesterday of Baghdad’s Governor Ali Al-Haidri, the security situation in Iraq seems to be going from bad to worse. The reaction of British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to the news of Haidri’s murder following a series of deadly suicide bombings and shootings was that these crimes demonstrate that the insurgents are becoming ever more desperate, as the day of the elections approaches. Most Iraqis would dearly wish to believe him. They are likely, however, to give more credence to the alarming assessment from intelligence chief, Gen. Muhammad Abdullah Shahwani, that with 200,000 fighters, the insurgents now outnumber the US-led coalition forces.

With these sorts of numbers, Iraq looks like a country at war with itself rather than a state which is being assaulted by a few diehard Baathists backed by Al-Qaeda terrorists. What is so noticeable about the great majority of recent attacks is how rarely insurgents have suffered casualties, unless of course they commit their murders as suicide bombers. The US-led attack on Fallujah was designed to break the command-and-control structures of the rebels and capture large quantities of their weapons and explosives. In the event, the violence elsewhere in the country hardly missed a beat. However many insurgents killed in Fallujah, it is clear their loss, far from damaging the insurrection, has caused its fury to redouble.

The Iraqi police and National Guard, many of them still half-trained, have had to bear the brunt of the murderous violence. US reports that the National Guard have demonstrated poor discipline and probably been infiltrated by rebels have led to suggestions that the force of some 40,000 be incorporated into the better-organized new Iraqi Army. The danger here, however, is that such a move would only weaken the army. Though the authorities may not admit it, morale across the Iraqi forces of law and order must be suffering. They find themselves unable to strike back effectively at their unseen enemy while daily providing targets for them. Intelligence which once seemed to have begun flowing from ordinary Iraqis fed up with the violence in their midst appears to be slowing. There have been fewer targeted raids on insurgent hideouts in recent months, even though violence has increased so markedly. If the men whose duty is to protect the Iraqi state feel disheartened by their apparent powerlessness, how must ordinary citizens feel as the day approaches when they must cast their votes to set out their country’s future?

However, there seems no alternative than to press on toward Jan. 30 and the election. Decent citizens probably now suspect that even if every foreign soldier left their country tomorrow, the violence would not end. Indeed, the chances are it would increase. In the midst of this horror they have to believe that a democratic election, however marred by violence, is their best chance of peace. Maybe after all, Jack Straw is right. If the election is any sort of success, the insurgents will indeed have lost a key battle, which they are now straining every sinew to win.