The Place of Dead Roads

LithiumCola has a diary discussing this AP article:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Feb. 28) - Sunnis and Shiites traded bombings and mortar fire against mainly religious targets in Baghdad, killing at least 68 people a day after authorities lifted a curfew that had briefly calmed a series of sectarian reprisal attacks.

The surge of violence deepened the trauma of residents already shaken by fears the country was teetering on the brink of sectarian civil war [and] threatened talks among Iraqi politicians struggling to form a government..

To which I pointed out this was indeed wrong. According to our President:

President George W. Bush...denied on Tuesday Iraq was sliding into civil war, despite the worst sectarian strife since a U.S.-led invasion. Asked what Washington would do if civil war broke out in Iraq, Bush told ABC News: "I don't buy your premise that there's going to be a civil war."
- Reuters

Yea, keep saying that and it will come true. Really. Maybe George isn't saying it hard enough. Ok, now everyone join in and we can make it happen.

Oh fuck it. We and the middle east and the whole mess are screwed.

"If chaos were to descend upon Iraq or the forces of democracy were to be defeated in that country ... this would have implications for the rest of the Middle East region and, indeed, the world," National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said in an unusually frank assessment Tuesday. A civil war in Iraq could lead to a broader conflict in the Middle East, pitting the region's rival Islamic sects against each other...
AP