A Hundred Here, a Hundred There...and Pretty Soon You're Talking Serious Casualties

As the haggling continues--complete with pleadings for calm by the middle-finger-in-chief--a different sort of "negotiation" is going on in Iraq's streets:

As the two-day death toll around Iraq reached 100, fighting between two powerful Shiite militias in the southern city of Najaf subsided, with 19 reported dead overall. The clashes Wednesday night and Thursday between the Mahdi Army, loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, and fighters allegedly linked to the government-allied Badr Organization were the deadliest between Iraqi militia forces since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

In Baghdad, 13 Iraqi police officers, 27 Iraqi civilians and an unidentified American security force member were killed when dozens of fighters believed to be former members of Saddam Hussein's security apparatus laid siege to a neighborhood late Wednesday, openly walking the district's streets in black masks and carrying AK-47s and grenade launchers, according to the U.S. military, Iraqi officials and witnesses. East of the capital, the bodies of 36 other men, their identities unknown, were found heaped Thursday near a road leading toward Iran, security officials told news agencies.

The bloodshed was spurred partly by differences among Sunni and Shiite Arabs and ethnic Kurds over the constitution, along with attempts by insurgents and Hussein loyalists to derail the political process. Laith Kubba, spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari, said the Baghdad siege in particular was a "stage-managed operation," orchestrated by supporters of Hussein intent on overshadowing work on the constitution. "They wanted the writing on the wall that they are still there," Kubba said.

While the Bush administration has pushed hard for Iraqis to stick to a timeline for approving the constitution that would show progress toward political change -- and would make U.S. troop withdrawals possible -- one negotiator said American officials Thursday appeared more intent on bringing Sunni Arabs on board than on rushing the process to its conclusion. American and Iraqi leaders have called inclusion of mainstream Sunnis in the political process an essential step toward ending the Sunni-led insurgency.

And, on a related note, Billmon makes the case that we've long since passed the point of no return--and, in what might be the only way Iraq ISN'T like Vietnam, the consequences could be very costly indeed:

If success really is defined as "putting Iraq back on course to be a secular, democratic nation," then we passed that particular fail-safe point a long time ago -- maybe in the early 7th century, when the armies of the Caliphate conquered Mesopotamia. Or at the battle of Karbala in 680, when the prophet's grandson was betrayed and slaughtered, laying the emotional foundation for the Shi'aism. Or when the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads and moved the caliphate to Baghdad. Or in 1258, when Baghdad fell to the Mongols and the most magnificant flower of Arabic civilization was destroyed. Or in 1533, when the Ottomans moved in. Or 1917, when the British conquered the place and tried to turn it into a branch office of the government of India -- a colony of a colony. Or maybe in 1958, when the Hashemite monarchy was overthrown. Or '68, when the Baathists finally came to power and stayed there. Or '91, when we betrayed the Shi'a to Saddam's tender mercies.

The point is, the land of the two rivers is filled to the brim with historical turning points -- ones which most Americans, including the idiots who created this mess, know little or nothing about. And that ignorance, maybe more than anything else, is why the "point of no return" for failure in Iraq was reached before the invasion even started. This has been, and always was, a fool's errand...

The real question now is whether even a minimal level of stability can be achieved in Iraq, at least enough to prevent the chaos from spilling over into the parts of the Middle East where it could do some real damage to U.S. interests -- places like the Saudi oil fields.

"Staying the course" when you're in the midst of striking an iceberg isn't exactly a winning strategy--hell, it's not even a particularly intelligent cheer.