Pattern of Iraqi sectarian violence entering a "new phase"

According to an article on opendemocracy.net:

"The available evidence suggests that the war in Iraq has indeed recently entered a new phase, which will prove to be even bloodier than anything that the country has seen before. Over the past few months, guerrillas have been flowing into Baghdad from the north, west and south and have started engaging each other with a view to eliminating each other from the streets of the capital. The groups that are engaged in this struggle are working to eliminate their rivals altogether, one neighbourhood at a time."

Even scarier is the fact that Baghdad has "deliberately been transformed into a battlefield in which each party is attempting to ethnically cleanse the city of all its armed and civilian rivals."

The article goes on to discuss the evolution of the sectarian violence since the beginning of the US occupation in Iraq with the initial Sunni insurgency, to the rise of Shiite fundamentalist parties to power through parliamentary elections and the Shiite death squads that accompanied them, and the failures of the Iraqi political process to stem the sectarian violence.

Even worse is, as the article points out, is the "relative inability" of the American military to stem this current wave of violence in Iraq:
"There are simply too many fighters in the city, and their desire to control Baghdad is too great to subdue."


Just as Iraq is entering a "new phase" in sectarian violence, the US needs to enter in a new phase in its Iraq policy. We need to start thinking about an exit strategy rather then the "staying the course" mentality which obviously is leading down a path of chaos and destruction in Iraq. The presence of the American military clearly isn't a deterrent to the militias fighting in Iraq so setting a timetable for removing troops in Iraq wouldn't be, as many Republicans claim , playing into the hands of the terrorists. Rather there is growing resentment in Iraq over an "open-ended occupation." Most Iraq leaders have already asked the US to draw up a time table for military withdrawal. The sooner the US government comes to grips with this reality the better even though Bush says we will be in Iraq as long as he is president. I hope a change in Congress in November says otherwise along with the American people's ability to express their discontent through protests and demonstrations.

An article in "Time" further illustrates the difficulties in curbing violence in Iraq.