Iraq’s civil war had been reaching a boiling point for quite a while, but last year’s attack on the Askariya Shrine was, as Ezra noted, widely perceived as “the moment the country took its decisive turn towards civil war.”
Today, what’s left of the shrine was hit again.
Saboteurs blew up the two minarets of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra early Wednesday, in a repeat of the 2006 attack that shattered its famous golden dome and unleashed a wave of retaliatory sectarian violence that still bloodies Iraq. Sunni extremists of al-Qaida were quickly blamed.
The assault on the Askariya Shrine, one of the holiest in Shiite Islam, immediately stirred fears of a new round of intra-Muslim bloodshed, and prompted the 30-member bloc of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to suspend its membership in Iraq’s parliament, threatening a deeper political crisis.
To ward off a surge of violence, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki quickly imposed an indefinite curfew on vehicle traffic and large gatherings in Baghdad. Before the curfew took hold, arsonists set fire to a Sunni mosque in western Baghdad, police said.
A Shiite shrine was also blown up north of Baghdad, while two Sunni mosques were bombed south of the capital, police said. One was destroyed and the other lost its minaret.
CNN added, “Authorities have evidence that Wednesday’s bombing of Al-Askariya Mosque in Samarra was an inside job, and 15 members of the Iraqi security forces have been arrested, a U.S. military official said.”
As bad as conditions are, one has to assume that it’s about to get even worse.
Consider today’s headlines:
* Blasts Destroy Remnants of Samarra Shiite Shrine
* Four Sunni mosques were attacked today in apparent retribution
* Iraqis Are Failing to Meet U.S. Benchmarks
* Big Boost In Iraqi Forces Is Urged
* Iraq won’t be capable of taking full responsibility for its own security for many years
As Kevin Drum concluded today, “There is, at this point, simply nothing more we can do in Iraq. The only sensible course of action is to leave. Completely.”