Things got even worse yesterday. Followers of Muqtada al-Sadr fought US troops in southern Iraq. An arrest warrant has been issued for al-Sadr, but I'll bet you won't see him in handcuffs anytime soon.
President Bush vowed to stay the course, keeping to the June 30th deadline for turning over authority to the Iraqis. But what will we have to turn over?
Fallujah and other towns in the "Sunni triangle" around Baghdad are the main battleground for insurgents fighting the occupation, but the widespread clashes with Shiites that erupted this month are a dangerous new front for U.S. forces.Fighting between occupying troops and Sadr's militiamen in Baghdad and Najaf on Sunday killed at least 48 Iraqis, eight U.S. soldiers and one Salvadoran soldier.
Sadr's supporters have held a series of mass protests over the closure of his movement's newspaper, which the U.S.-led administration said was inciting violence, and the arrest of his aide Mustapha Yacoubi in connection with the killing a year ago of Shiite cleric Abdul Majid al-Khoei.
Going after this guy will obviously not help the situation. Things are getting grimmer by the day. Josh Marshal writes that the whole mess is being complicated by overly political priorities. As usual, he nails it.
A very difficult situation has been worsened by the political priorities of key decision-makers in the occupation authority. But that fact seems more like an afterthought when you consider how dire a situation we've backed ourselves into.
In another post Josh mentions the word "quagmire." Contextually that word draws up images of Vietnam. What will happen when the footage of helicopters evacuating Americans from Baghdad is broadcast all over the world? Will the neo-cons go back into their holes while the rest of us deal with cleaning up America's image? How far can this thing possibly go?