War Returns to Iraq on the Eve of Elections by David Ignatius, Washington Post
… With Iraqi parliamentary elections scheduled for Wednesday, war has come back with a vengeance to that shattered nation. But this time, there’s no U.S. military around to broker a truce. The last U.S. troops left three years ago, and war-weary Americans would gag at the thought of returning to such a pitiless battlefield.
But make no mistake: Brutal sectarian war has come again to Iraq, and many say it’s as bad as in the dark days of 2007. “In some ways, it’s almost scarier today,” says a Pentagon official who follows Iraq closely. The Iraqi military isn’t strong enough to fend off the Sunni insurgents, so Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is relying increasingly on Iranian-trained Shiite militias…