Laura Rozen reports on a secret mission [EDIT: meeting, not mission] where Stephen Hadley advocated the US drop its posture as a "neutral referee" in the Iraqi civil war and align with the Shiites to crush Sunni insurgents.

This strikes me as a very, very bad idea.

Via Kevin Drum

What a mess Josh.

I agree, but I can't think of any option that isn't a really bad idea.

It really seems like a rather odd choice seeing that most Iranians are also Shiites, and if I recall correctly, is not the Bush administration having a bit of a problem (understatement) with the Iranians!!!

As I said elsewhere perhaps its time to dismantle this artificial entity known as Iraq

There's always too many variables with this mess we {rather Bush} got us into. Now we're stuck with a three way split, and lets' not forget Turkey and the Kurds. No doubt the Iranians are gonna be wringing their hands on this one {God forbid}.

The Washington Post has an article saying that the State Department is now backing a policy where the US end its "outreach" efforts tto Sunnis and just work with the Kurds and the Shiites.

Via Mark Kleiman who thinks this tantamount to letting genocide occur in Iraq.