An update to yesterday's post on Iraq's fractious tribes -- apparently violence is up:

Two Shia Arab tribes in southern Iraq, the al Halah and the Garamsha, have been skirmishing recently. The fighting has been going on for the past month, and is pretty low level stuff. A few shots here, a few shots there. The tribes were not able to have their traditional private wars when Saddam was in power. Well, at least not unless it suited Saddam’s purposes. But dozens of tribes have long standing feuds with each other, and the post-Saddam press freedom has allowed many Iraqis to say impolitic things about tribal grudges. These comments on radio, or in newspapers, have often escalated, and before you know it, carloads of young men, armed with AK-47s, pistols, RPGs and grenades, are driving off to settle matters.

But things aren't really all that bad, considering:

The tribes are a fact of life in Iraq, but the tribes have always been practical, at least the ones that still survive. Fewer tribes are interested in supporting a Sunni Arab effort to regain control of the country, and more want to make a deal with the new government. Those deals basically mean tribesmen are shooting at government forces less, and at each other, criminals and terrorists, more.

We took the lid off the pressure cooker, and it'll just take time for Iraqi tribes to settle down to a simmer.