Anatomy of a Civil War

Iraq’s descent into chaos by Nir Rosen
“We did not have a country under Saddam, and now that Saddam is gone, why can we not have a country? . . . Even though we and our neighbors have one religion and one fate, the United States has succeeded in making us enemies. Instead of reconstructing the shrine of the two imams in Samarra”‚ an important Shia shrine whose bombing in February 2006 fed the civil war—‚ the occupation is building prisons.” Muqtada switched to Iraqi dialect again to quip, “preparing them for the Iraqi people.”

We're still more worried about building prisons in Iraq than enabling the peace. Sounds like conditions here in the us

Last big push before the big exit

The longer we stay in Iraq, the worse things will get.
Popular support is waning both at home and in Iraq.
Susan Nossel at democracy arsenal points out that

If we don't begin a planned exit, there's a good chance we'll find ourselves in an unplanned one — It's surprising that by now we haven't experienced the Iraqi equivalent of the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut or the dragging of a corpse of an American soldier through the streets of Mogadishu a decade later. But it seems likely that that day will come.

Whether it comes in the form of a Beruit bombing moment or a Mogadishu episode, repulsive enough to galvanize opposition, it may come sooner than expected.

In a recent PIPA poll, Iraqi attitudes toward the U.S. occupation, 74% of Shiites and 91% of Sunnis want us to leave within a year. Sunnis & Shiites agree that U.S. forces are provoking more violence than they're preventing, and that day-to-day security would improve if we left.

Support for attacks on U.S. forces is majority supported by both Shiites and Sunnis. And none of this is because of successful al-Qaeda propaganda: 94% of Iraqis continue to disapprove of al-Qaeda.
The report summary is here. The full report is here.

The last big push has commenced. Watch for the contractors leaving in droves prior to troop withdraws.