As if enough world events weren't at the extreme of intensity ...

Zalmay Khalilzad (right), our Ambassador to Iraq, is usually 100% positive about anything and everything re. our occupation in Iraq. I don't think he's had a chance to see, hear or read President Bush's press conference earlier this week or he might rethink what he's written in the Wall Street Journal today.

But at least he was reasonably honest in his op-ed piece in today's WSJ and I think it's very well-worth reading! We often forget that nearly a quarter of Iraq's population lives in Baghdad and that it better depicts the polyglot of Muslim groups in Iraq than any other Iraqi area (or city). The terrible carnage of the past month or two is something that must be addressed, but how? More American military involved in the carnage? A complete redeployment of the Iraq Army itself into the capital?

I don't know the answer, but I am very concerned that, just as the Qana bombing was the turning point in the Israeli-Lebanon War, the bombing of the Samarrah Mosque last winter -- when the increase in Baghdad violence really began -- was a turning point with which both we and the newly "elected" government in Iraq must deal.