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"Pick a winner." WP: "... In a sign of the discord in Washington, the senior U.S. intelligence official said the situation requires that the administration abandon its long-held goal of national reconciliation and instead 'pick a winner' in Iraq. He said he understands that means the Sunnis are likely to bolt from the fragile government. 'That's the price you're going to have to pay,' he said."
You read it here first. And within the Shiite camp that the US appears to be considering tilting further towards, Washington may be pressing Maliki to dump Sadr in favor of Hakim. McClatchy piece asks whether what the US does this week really matters. "We're not in control any longer," military analyst Andrew Bacevich tells the paper.
[Former DIA analyst] Jeffrey White described the multi-layered violence in Iraq this way: "(The) Sunni insurgency remains one of the engines of this civil conflict, this civil war. And there is militia violence now. And you have coalition violence. You have major Sunni-on-Sunni violence in Anbar province. ... And you have criminal violence, widespread Shia-on-Shia violence in the South."
"The elements of violence and resistance and just the bloodymindedness are so embattled it requires something major and enduring (by the United States) or just get out," he said.