If George Bush manages to unite the warring factions in Baghdad then he'll have once again achieved the impossible. (He's already made Saddam's regime look like the golden years.)

it really amuses me that the American presidents seem to take on the role of the country....as though when elected they become the country... Bushians one and all....

wbb,
Bush's speech was pretty aggressive and it was more than the US attacking the Baghdad stronghold of the Shia cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr. Bush says:

These two regimes [Iran and Syria] are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

That extension of the conflict in Iraq into Iranian territory discloses what is really going on---the wider struggle for regional hegemony.

Shaymus,
that's an imperial presidency we have now in Washington now. America is empire. Bush defends empire. It is America's manifest destiny to reshape the world in its own image.

It's a heady brew.It means Washington is determined to keep US forces there for the long haul.

It will happen in our lifetime that oil becomes less of a commodity as technology advances towards economic alternatives.
Then it will be Catastrophe for a lot of countries in the region.

Taking on the Shiite militias now may be a good move if the real end point is an attack on Iran.

Everyone expects Iran to unleash the militias it controls in Iraq if it comes under US attack. So better to wipe them out now in relative calm than trying to do it during a hot war over the border.

It also explains why Bush, and now Cheney are talking up the nonsensical claims about Iran orchestrating the anti US, anti Iraqi government insurgency. It relies on most American's not understanding enough of the situation to ask why Iran would aid the mostly Sunni insurgents against its own Shiite proxies/sympathisers who make up the main group in the Iraqi government.

Of course this also means the Iraqi government will be the first casualty in the US/Iran war. So much for all the "democracy" BS.

Ian,
This paragraph is from an op-ed by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad in The Guardian. he says:

aghdad was now divided: frontlines partitioned neighbourhoods into Shia and Sunni, thousands of families had been forced out of their homes. After each large-scale bomb attack on Shia civilians, scores of mutilated bodies of Sunnis were found in the streets. Patrolling militias and checkpoints meant that men with Sunni names dared not venture far outside their neighbourhoods, while certain Sunni areas came under the complete control of insurgent groups the Shura Council of the Mujahideen and the Islamic Army. The Sunni vigilante self-defence groups took shape as reserve units under the control of these insurgent groups.

Militant Sunni Arabs of a fundamentalist cast still want to fight a two-pronged war against the Americans and the Shiites. Some dissent and think they should make up with the Americans so as to protect themselves from the Shiites.