Last Gasp or Opening Salvo?

Hey, we're only thirty-six hours after the fact on this one! For us, that's progress!

Good thing we're not a news site....

Insurgents [by which should be understood "al Qaeda"] detonated bombs inside one of Iraq's holiest Shiite shrines Wednesday, destroying its golden dome and triggering more than 90 reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques. [President Jalal Talabani] warned that extremists were pushing the country toward civil war.

That should be edited to read "are trying to." al-Qaeda has been trying to push Iraq toward civil war for the past three years, and has failed miserably. This latest atrocity is, in poker terms, like pushing all your remaining chips into the pot - a huge, and final, bluff.

That's James Robbins' take:

So is Iraq on the verge of the long-expected sectarian conflict that will tear the country apart? Don’t count on it.

The attack was most probably perpetrated by al Qaeda, which has been trying to foment civil strife in Iraq for some time, and declared open war on the Shiites last year. They have mounted numerous provocative attacks on Shia and Kurdish targets, to no noticeable effect. This strike was much more audacious; the (previously) golden-domed shrine is an ancient and revered structure, and the tombs within are holy both to Shiites and Sunnis, though more so to the former. The initial retaliatory attacks on Sunni mosques must have pleased Zarqawi; if taking down this site did not start the civil war, nothing would.

So the foreign fighters must have been stunned when Shiite and Sunni leaders rushed out statements saying they knew that the takfiri (i.e., those who accuse other Muslims of being infidels, a code word in this context for the foreign extremists) were behind the attack, and they would not let this act of brutality divide Iraq.

The leaders of the new Iraq, IOW, are calling the "takfiri's" bluff, and the latter have nothing back upon which to fall:

Things have not been going well for the foreign fighters lately. Their Sunni tribal supporters — without whom they cannot prosecute their insurgency — have begun turning against them. Earlier this month the Karabla tribe in al-Anbar province, an al Qaeda hotbed, announced they would take up arms against insurgents from abroad. In the al-Anbar capital of Ramadi, once a Zarqawi stronghold, open warfare has erupted between the local insurgent groups and the foreign fighters, particularly after the assassination of respected local tribal leader Sheikh Naser Abdul Karim al-Miklif. And recently eight major western Iraqi tribal chiefs met with General George Casey and Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to discuss ways to work together to stabilize the province. This is a welcome and long overdue recognition of the decisive role Sunni tribal leaders must play in resolving the insurgency.

And so, if this attack doesn't spark a sectarian civil war, nothing will. As Robbins also points out, the Shiites have power without it and the Sunnis couldn't hope to win it. The only beneficiaries would be, ironically enough, the axis of Sunni Wahhabist al Qaeda and Shiite crazoid Iran. And wouldn't you know it, our old friend Adolph Ahmadinejad himself wasted no time dashing to a TV camera and blaming the Askariya bombing on Israel and the United States. Boy, that goes to show how well Shiites and Sunnis can work together, doesn't it? Only thing missing is proper motivation.

Bill Roggio lays out the signs by which we can tell that true Iraqi civil war is breaking out:

• The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance no longer seeks to form a unity government and marginalize the Shiite political blocks.

• Sunni political parties withdraw from the political process.

• Kurds make hard push for independence/full autonomy.

• Grand Ayatollah Sistani ceases calls for calm, no longer takes a lead role in brokering peace.

• Muqtada al-Sadr becomes a leading voice in Shiite politics.

• Major political figures - Shiite and Sunni - openly call for retaliation.

• The Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party and Muslim Scholars Association openly call for the formation of Sunni militias.

• Interior Ministry ceases any investigations into torture and death squads, including the case against recently uncovered problems with the Highway Patrol.

• Defense Minister Dulaimi (a Sunni) is asked to step down from his post.

• Iraqi Security Forces begins severing ties with the Coalition....

• Iraqi Security Forces make no effort to quell violence or provide security in Sunni neighborhoods.

• Iraqi Security Forces actively participate in attacks on Sunnis, with the direction of senior leaders in the ministries of Defense or Interior.

• Shiite militias are fully mobilized, with the assistance of the government, and deployed to strike at Sunni targets. Or, the Shiite militias are fully incorporated into the Iraqi Security Forces without certification from Coalition trainers.

• Sunni military officers are dismissed en masse from the Iraqi Army.

• Kurdish officers and soldiers leave their posts and return to Kurdistan, and reform into Peshmerga units.

• Attacks against other religious shrines escalate, and none of the parties make any pretense about caring.

• Coalition military forces pull back from forward positions to main regional bases.

None of these signs is anywhere near happening, at least not yet. And if they don't, the "insurgency" is finished. They've tried their "hail Mary" on fourth down and it's falling incomplete. Doubtless their attacks will linger at some level, but they just won't be relevant anymore as the new Iraq moves on and leaves them behind.

It'll be as disappointing for the American media as it will be for another of our old friends, "Emir" Zarqawi. But they have no shortage of other anti-American enemies with whom to seditiously side. For the Mesopotamian branch of AQ, it'll be the showers - and hopefully not the ones that dispense hot water.

UPDATE: John Batchelor at AmSpecBlog reports that the Askariya bombing was the opening salvo in Iran's pre-emptive offensive against U.S. military action to take out its nuclear weapons program (and perhaps arsenal as well) and the mullahgarchy along with it:

Reports indicate that the Samarra bombing was done by a demolitions team that was inside the mosque up to 48 hours before the detonation. The explosives were arranged to collapse the dome while leaving the critical tombs of the 10th and 11th imams unharmed - since damage to the grandfather and father of the invisible 12th imam (who will return on judgment day) does not advance the Shia paocalypticism preached in Tehran. Instead the damage is arranged to show a frightening image of sacrilege on the videos and stills, aiding the provocateurs throughout the Shia regions of the Ummah.

The coordinated Shia-based assaults on hundreds of Sunni mosques that followed was directed by Iranian agents or fellow travelers. Signals source suspects the Iranians are using captured Salafists from Pakistan, men who are devoted to murdering Shia. These surrogates are given a stark choice by Iranian forces: conduct this murder campaign or we will just kill you where you hang.

The Shia attack on the Sunnis is the continuation of a thousand-year-old sectarian war. Saddam Hussein's regime interrupted the fight in Iraq. Now the Shia dogs of war are loose....

Tehran commands the civil war. Tehran commands the Shia agents who will now seek to murder all Sunni elements who resist a Shia-dominated Islamic Republic in Baghdad.

My first summary of this offensive is that Iran is committed to the domination of the Ummah, and that means destruction of the US in Iraq first, followed by the destruction of Israel in total.

Personally I'd rather al Qaeda be the perps; at least there's a general perception in our highest governing councils that we're at war with them. Iran's been at war with us for 27 years and American poobahs, including our erstwhile "cowboy-in-chief," still haven't figured that out.

Iran is committed to our destruction, and may have started their plan to make it happen. To what are we committed? How long will we continue to deny reality in favor of rapidly-evaporating fantasy? The answer to that question will be George W. Bush's ultimate legacy, one way or the other.