The Telegraph article I referenced also has this little gem of a quote:
"There has been a local surge of revenge killings in the region, with the bodies of prominent Sunni Arabs found on a rubbish tip."
The reports that the Shiite Arabs in Iraq were not retaliating against the Sunni Arabs for their anti-Shiite violence may not be entirely accurate; there may be some significant exceptions to the widely-publicized Shiite passive resistance. This means that sectarian civil war is more likely than we have been led to believe; the idea that the Shiites would sit down and take it while waiting for the coalition to solve the insurgency was always a pipe dream. It also suggests that at least some of the Shiite Arabs see their enemy as Iraqi Sunni Arabs rather than foreign terrorists.
None of this bodes well for the coalition or for the story the administration wants to tell of Iraqis united against an unpopular terrorist threat. It also seems that claims that the civil war has failed to materialize may be overly optimistic; it has materialized; it is just starting small.
That is all.
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