America raise the stakes in attempt to head off civil war...

[bridgit]

'AMERICAN generals have laid bare the facts: Baghdad is descending into chaos, and the spectre of all-out civil war looms.

Instead of standing down, as had been hoped this year, the US military is preparing for a major operation to try to take back Baghdad's streets from Shi'ite and Sunni extremists. The goal is to stem sectarian violence that Iraqi security forces could not control.

The stakes could not be higher: the fate of the US mission in Iraq is on the line as fighting in Lebanon to the west and the rise of a militant Iran to the east threaten the Middle East. Without a firm grip on Baghdad, the US and its Iraqi allies cannot control the country.

But Baghdad's diverse population of Sunnis, Shi'ites, Kurds, Turkomen and Christians makes for a volatile mix as the country's religious and ethnic groups compete for power in the new Iraq. All the tensions that threaten to tear the country apart play themselves out in Baghdad.

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1138412006

[mike_c]

1. so the U.S., in defense of a failed mission, is going to insert itself...

...right in the middle of a civil war? This is dumb beyond all comprehension. Monumentally dumb.

[bridgit]

2. agreed, dumb beyond all comprehension; what's that definition of...

insane once again :crazy:

[existentialist]

3. Yes, but

being dumb beyond comprehension, monumentally dumb is one task of which the Bush Administration is full capable.