Unfortunately, it is difficult to stop the Shia militia death squads while Sunnis continue to slaughter Shias and Kurds. And it is difficult to get the Sunnis willing to give up to turn on the Sunni killers while Shia death squads run loose in Sunni neighborhoods.
Iraqis are fed up with the killings:
Nearly 200 bodies of Iraqis who had been tortured and shot have turned up around Baghdad in the past week, including three found Tuesday in an eastern section of the capital. Most are found bound and blindfolded, apparent victims of sectarian violence.
Both Sunni and Shiite lawmakers called Tuesday for the defense and interior ministers to explain how they plan to stop the killings.
"I demand the defense and interior ministers be summoned to let us know their plans to stop these criminal acts: kidnappings, killings and assassinations against our people," said Hassan Bejar, a lawmaker with the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni bloc in government.
Shiite lawmaker Haider al-Safar said: "We are just sitting here and seeing these dead bodies being thrown every day in the streets."
"We need to see real achievements from the defense and interior ministries to stop the daily kidnapping and bloodletting," he said.
I don't know who needs to step back first. I suspect the Sunnis must from the simple fact of being the killers for many decades and from the simple math of being 15% of the population. If the bloodletting does not stop, the Sunnis have the most to lose. Time is not on their side.
But until somebody decides to take action to rein in their side's killers, a gruesome dance will continue.
UPDATE: Back Talk has an interesting post on this Shi-Sunni violence. I think we do a good enough job of taking out the Sunni killers without in effect subcontracting dirty work to Shia death squads. I think we want Sadr out of the game but can't figure out how to do it without alienating too many Shias. We tried in April and August 2004 and were pulled back by the Iraqis.
With Iraq sovereign, we want them to do the job but they don't want to alienate Shias by defending Sunnis while Sunnis kill Shias. I think the terrorizing aspect of Sadr's killing campaign is a possibly good side effect (in the short run) of our inability to deal with Sadr rather than a plan. But you never can tell.
