Iraq War, The Sequel

Sunday update:  Richard Engel of NBC tweets:  "Both US and #Iran offering to help baghdad fight off al qaeda in western #iraq . If attack on area comes, could be start of s/t big."   John Kerry claims: no boots on the ground, this time. 

Saturday update:   Well, Falluja has fallen to the Al-Qaeda rebels and much of rest of Anbar.  Also key town of Karma (yes, that's the name). One senior police official in Anbar said Saturday that “Falluja is completely under the control of Al Qaeda.”   Helluva job, Bushie.

Thursday: Ready to be depressed--and enraged?  NYT reports on Sunni militants aligned with al-Qaeda starting a serious uprising in Anbar province in Iraq and threatening to take over Ramadi and Fallujah.  You remember those cities--scenes of so much bloodshed in the year's after our trumped up invasion.  In fact, one of three American lives lost in the war expired in "pacifying" Anbar.  What a tragedy, what a waste. 

The violence in Ramadi and Falluja had implications beyond Anbar’s borders, as the Sunni militants fought beneath the same banner as the most hard-line jihadists they have inspired in Syria — the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.  That fighting, and a deadly bombing in Beirut on Thursday, provided the latest evidence that the Syrian civil war was helping breed bloodshed and sectarian violence around the region, further destabilizing Lebanon and Iraq while fueling a resurgence of radical Islamist fighters.

My book on how Bush, and the media, failed on Iraq, So Wrong for So Long.