Iraq faces possible civil war, and U.S. is in the middle

Iraqi authorities have essentially shut down Baghdad and three roiled provinces in an effort to avert civil war.
But even if this strategy works in the short run, the long term prospects for peace in Iraq must appear dim today.
It was simply too easy for the enemies of peace -- whoever they were in this case, and no one knows for certain -- to set off a bomb that reverberated through much of the nation.
A small band of armed men overpowered four guards at Askariya shrine in Samarra, north of Iraq's traditional Shiite strongholds, and within hours of the collapse of the mosque's golden dome, near anarchy ruled.
The mosque is a particularly holy site for Shiite Muslims and armed Shiite militias took revenge not only on Sunni Muslim holy sites, but on Sunnis by the dozens.
Violent, bloody response
In little over a day, there were reports of damage to nearly 200 Sunni mosques and 114 people were confirmed dead, including three Sunni clerics.
"They have attacked the heart of Shiite," one angry man told a television camera, expressing approval for the retribution. But who are they?
The crowds and militias attacked Sunnis. But American military authorities suggested that Al-Qaida was behind the explosion. On the other hand, Iran's crazed president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, blamed Israel and America. Even in Iraq, blame was placed on the United States, not for actually setting the bombs, but for creating the circumstances under which the bombing became possible.
At this point, proving who was responsible for the bombing is of little concern to the Sunnis. They know who attacked their mosques and killed their people: angry Shiites.
And even if calm is restored in days or in weeks, the destruction of Askariya has demonstrated how easy it is to set off a killing spree.
Whoever conducted the raid was clever enough to know that the shrine was a powerful religious symbol to Shiite Muslims -- just as those who attacked the United States in 2001 knew that the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were symbols of community, finance and military power in the United States and throughout the world.
Iraq is a nation divided by religion and ethnicity and today by violence, distrust, hate and fear. Shiite and Sunni religious leaders exert a power over their people in the wake of the bombing and retribution that Iraq's politicians dream of having.
No simple answers
Those who spoke in recent years of a simple yearning by Iraqis to be free can only look on in awe at how quickly democracy can be replaced with tribalism. One vote or two does not a democracy make when the underlying foundation is a religious rivalry that stretches back centuries.
President Bush did what he had to do. He condemned the barbarism.
But our military now sits, about 150,000 strong, in the middle of a country that could erupt into civil war with the next provocation.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman doesn't see it that way. He said Thursday that he was unaware of any changes in the U.S. military mission in light of this week's surge in violence and would not describe the nation as on the brink of civil war.
The latest sectarian violence, he added, "is something for the Iraqi government to address."Since the U.S. military mission, as we understand it, was to prepare Iraqi forces to be able to fend for themselves, what is the Pentagon saying?