This is Painful for me to Say But I agree with most of what uber conservative blogger Tacitus says in this post. There are a few things to keep in mind as you watch the Shi'a uprising, now spiralling into oneness with the Sunni uprising, in Iraq. First and foremost, whatever spin you might hear, remember that this is pretty bad news indeed. Very, very bad news. Consider that if you are American, there is no open road to Baghdad from any of Iraq's neighboring countries. For the moment, CPA resupply is a triumph of airlift. Something to chew on. It's not the result of any one tragically wrong decision or miscalculation; rather, it's the end result of a year of accumulating bad calls and wishful thinking: disbanding the army plus not confronting Sadr plus giving the Shi'a a veto plus the premature policy of withdrawal from urban centers plus the undermanning of the occupation force (and the concurrent kneecapping of Shinseki) plus the setting of a ludicrously early "sovereignty" date plus the early tolerance of lawlessness and looting plus illusory reconstruction accomplishments plus etc., etc., etc. In short, the failure of the occupation to be an occupation in any sense that history and Arab peoples would recognize. Bad calls of such consistency are the product of a fundamentally bad system. I'd say there is some ignoring of the possibility of a giant colossally bad strategic decision in the manner in which Bush decided to go into Iraq in the first place of course. But once we were there I agree with most all of this assessment. Again, the ADMINISTRATION is LYING to you, to all of us. The situation in Iraq is BAD. Not yet say "Stalingrad Bad" it will never be that bad, but politically and strategically awful.