Hey, How's That Surge Working Out for You?

Sheik Sattar, one of the driving forces behind the Anbar Awakening, killed in a roadside bombing.

The initial, evidence free, rush is to blame the dreaded AQI, that small-time collection of thugs and murderers making a claim towards legitimacy by calling themselves Al Qaeda in Iraq. But, if you ask me, the real lede here is the largely untold story of the US has shifted from aiding Shi'ite militias to arming the Sunni they formerly fought against. We've basically switched sides in the civil war. And helped to create regional warlords who are happy to take our money and our arms for their own ends, which largely involve carving out their own mini-kingdoms, like Abdul Sattar Abu Risha - and making any number of enemies who'd be happy to see him dead.

The Shi'ites, by the way, are busy doing things like ethnically cleansing Baghdad.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bush sezs the troops are coming home triumphantl and conveniently ignores that they have to because we're running out of forces to shovel into the conflict.