In recent days, overtures by the largest Sunni Arab party to join political negotiations with Shiite and Kurdish leaders have brought hope for forming a new coalition government that could help deflate the insurgency. The interlude of relative calm surrounding the elections on Dec. 15 has been at least partly attributed to efforts by some Iraqi insurgents, as opposed to Qaeda fighters, to not attack Sunni voters in hopes of Sunni parties’ gaining more power in the soon-to-be-formed government.

But hours after Thursday’s bombings, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, accused both Sunni Arab political parties and the United States of responsibility for the last two days of massacres.

Sunni Arab groups that have warned of potential civil war “bear the responsibility for every drop of blood that was shed,” said Mr. Hakim, whose party is allied with Iran and is the most influential group in the governing Shiite coalition. He said “pressure” from American forces had impeded the Interior and Defense Ministries from “doing their job chasing terrorists and maintaining the souls of innocent Iraqi people.”

“We’re laying the responsibility for the blood of innocents shed in the past few days on the multinational forces and the political powers that declared publicly their support for terrorism,” he said. “Our people will not be patient for much longer with these dirty sectarian crimes.” ~The New York Times

In other words, if we continue to try to prevent the Shi’ite militias from torturing and murdering Sunnis we are as guilty as the bombers (and perhaps our soldiers will be targeted in the same way?). Observe that this is what our soldiers are fighting to establish–a government in which, if they get their way, SCIRI and its goons will have free rein to terrorise and kill their sectarian enemies. Sounds like an Arab Switzerland is only a few years away at this rate…

Via Antiwar.