The bomb attack on a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra on 22 February 2006 and subsequent reprisals against Sunni mosques and killings of Sunni Arabs is only the latest and bloodiest indication that Iraq is teetering on the threshold of wholesale disaster.
In Iraq, the U.S. fights an enemy it hardly knows. Its descriptions have relied on gross approximations and crude categories (Saddamists, Islamo-fascists and the like) that bear only passing resemblance to reality.
Instead of healing the growing divisions between Iraq's three principal communities – Shiites, Kurds and Sunni Arabs – a rushed constitutional process has deepened rifts and hardened feelings.
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