Perhaps the most interesting impact of the Lebanon war is that almost two weeks into the fighting, Iraq's Sunni Arabs, Shi'ites, Kurds and even Christians seem unified in condemning Israel.

Shia demonstrators and militia marched through the center of Najaf on Sunday evening in support of Hezbollah.

"Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!" they chanted.

Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shi'ite firebrand has been comparing himself with Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. Speaking on Friday, al-Sadr vowed to throw the support of his militia's behind the Lebanese fighters.

"As the idol of America fell, so will the idol of Israel," al-Sadr says.

And it's not just al-Sadr. The Sunni Arab speaker of Iraq's parliament, Mahmoud Mashadani, met with reporters over the weekend, according to the Los Angeles Times, to continue his vocal campaign against "Israel, Jews, Zionism and the United States."

Saying that the U.S. really seeks to control Iraq's oil fields, Mashadani argues: "America didn't come to the country for our sake. America came with a pure Zionist agenda."

Iraqi media, meanwhile, is plastered with images of Lebanon's destruction and civilian casualties.

As are radical Islamic Web sites. One video shows an American Humvee getting blown up in Hillah with a new voice over in which the narrator shouts: "These operations are retaliation for the attacks by the Zionist forces on our brothers in Lebanon."

Sheik al-Sadr, the Shiite tribal leader, now openly voices support not only for Iran but also on Friday urged Iraqis to stand behind Lebanon to confront the "common enemy."

A senior member of Muqtada al-Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, says the group is forming a squadron of up to 1,500 elite fighters to go to Lebanon. Safe travels.

Given that the U.S. military is now quietly assessing al-Sadr's militia as one of the country's quickest growing and most serious security threats, maybe there's some benefit for Iraq and the United States in a focus elsewhere.

Of course the immediate impact could be a spree of increased attacks on U.S. targets. (my emphasis)

Iraq's U.S.-backed government on Saturday denounced Israel's "criminal" raids on Lebanon and Gaza and warned that violence could escalate across the Middle East.

Senate Democrats in a letter to Maliki said his failure to condemn Hizbollah's "aggression and recognize Israel's right to defend itself raise serious questions about whether Iraq under your leadership can play a constructive role in resolving the current crisis and bringing stability to the Middle East."

Soft ethnic cleansing is reshaping not only Baghdad, a city of at least five million, but many other cities and towns. Forcing families to move their homes, give up their businesses, and to do so without any payment at a time when most are bankrupt is just as divisive as violence. So are the constant series of attacks on professionals, businessmen, doctors, teachers, and other parts of the educated and secular core of Iraqi society. Many leave the country, others relocate to places where they cannot work or participate in civil society. ...

The failure of the Maliki government to be able to show it can act on its good intentions is equally dangerous. The security campaign in Baghdad never made clear sense. It came before there was a political compromise and real efforts to control and disarm the militias. The United States could not put anything like the number of experienced fighters on the ground necessary to control Baghdad, and could not attempt to control the city without alienating many more Iraqis and discrediting the government. Iraqi military forces are steadily improving their counterinsurgency skills, but are not trained to control civil populations and sweep cities, as distinguished from attack enemies, and control checkpoints. Their numbers are also simply too low. Insurgents and militias can simply hide, disperse, ambush, and bomb.

Worse, the Iraqi police and security forces are simply not ready for the mission as long as there is no political compromise. The most frightening indicator of just how bad the situation really is, is that the Iraqi government has now had to ask Iraqis to check the IDs of police and soldiers to make sure they are legitimate. Fine when they are legitimate. A great way to get killed when they are not. The "year of the police" may well be making real progress, but the manning totals for Iraqi police and security forces are meaningless. It is all too clear that many who were trained and equipped are not still serving and that many who do serve are passive and/or corrupt. They also are often outgunned and outmanned by the militias and local security forces, in Baghdad and in many other areas. (my emphasis)

President Bush said Tuesday that a plan to bolster Iraqi security forces in Baghdad will better address the violence there as he pledged to be a "strong partner" with Iraq's new democratic government. ...

Bush said improved military conditions outside Baghdad [sic !!!]will make it possible to move U.S. military police and other forces to the capital, where an estimated 100 people a day are being killed. The crimes, blamed largely on sectarian death squads, usually go unsolved. ...

The new strategy will involve "embedding more U.S. military police with Iraqi police units to make them move effective," the president said. ...

"We are determined to defeat terrorism and the security plan for Baghdad [Operation Lightning] has entered the second phase, and it's achieving its objectives in hunting the terrorists and networks, and eliminating it," al-Maliki said.

Before the two leaders' meeting, White House press secretary Tony Snow said Al-Maliki's 6-week-old plan, which Bush praised on his surprise visit to the city on June 13, clearly is not working.

A senior Defense Department official said that part of a backup force that had been stationed in Kuwait was heading into Iraq. Some U.S. military police companies were being shifted to Baghdad, involving between 500-1,000 troops, as well as a cavalry squadron and a battalion of field artillery troops ... [This has been reported elsewhere; it means an increase in US forces in Iraq. That "standing down" we keep hearing about isn't starting yet. - Bruce] ...

In addition, the official said, at least two Iraqi military brigades will be brought into Baghdad. ...

There are generally about 3,500 troops in a brigade, and more than 800 in a battalion. Currently about 30,000 of the 127,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are in Baghdad.

American troops are stepping up operations in the Baghdad area to combat death squads and tamp down the violence threatening the new unity government, a U.S. general said Monday. ...

"Clearly Baghdad is the center that everybody is fighting for," Caldwell said in Baghdad. "We will do whatever it takes to bring security to Baghdad."

The Baghdad area recorded an average of 34 major bombings and shootings for the week ending July 13, the U.S. military said. That was up 40 percent from the daily average of 24 registered between June 14 and July 13.

U.S. officials believe control of Baghdad — the political, cultural, transport and economic hub of the country — will determine the future of Iraq. But the city's religiously mixed communities have become the focus of sectarian violence.

Iraq's army and police, which are heavily Shiite, have had trouble winning the trust of residents of majority Sunni neighborhoods. Al-Maliki's plans for curfews and other measures have had no lasting effect.

The Bush administration is pinning its hopes for a relatively swift withdrawal of most U.S. forces on the political and military success of the multiethnic government al-Maliki heads. (my emphasis)

Iraqi leaders have all but given up on holding the country together and, just two months after forming a national unity government, talk in private of "black days" of civil war ahead.

Signalling a dramatic abandonment of the U.S.-backed project for Iraq, there is even talk among them of pre-empting the worst bloodshed by agreeing to an east-west division of Baghdad into Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim zones, senior officials told Reuters.

Tens of thousands have already fled homes on either side.

"Iraq as a political project is finished," one senior government official said - anonymously because the coalition under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki remains committed in public to the U.S.-sponsored constitution that preserves Iraq's unity.

It's over, our love affair
Too late now, I find I care

Though embroiled in a bloody war over the future shape and identity of their country, Iraq's Sunni Arabs, Shiites, Kurds and even Christians have unified in condemning Israel over its fighting in Lebanon against the Hezbollah militia.

Condemnation of Israel's actions in Lebanon and of the United States as the Jewish state's backer has emerged as a rare bridge issue, cutting across political, ethnic and religious lines. ...

"The enemy is the same," said a statement issued by the Hawza, the network of seminaries in Najaf. "Their aim is to enslave and humiliate us. What's happening today in Lebanon is part of a bigger scheme to crush the blessed [Islamic] nation."

Vice President Tariq Hashimi, a Sunni Muslim Arab, expressed his "extreme concern over the Zionist aggression against" the Lebanese as well as Palestinians.

"Iraq's stance has been known through history, and the issue of supporting Arabs and Muslims has never changed," he said in a statement.

There were signs that the unconditional U.S. support for Israel's offensive following Hezbollah's cross-border raid resulting in the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the death of eight others was ratcheting up anti-American sentiment.

The Shiite-run Al Furat satellite television channel launched a nationwide initiative to raise funds for Lebanese humanitarian and reconstruction efforts. The channel has been flooded with pledges, with Iraqis living abroad also calling in to donate.

"The donors are coming from all sects," said Ahmad Kadhim, a station spokesman. "Shiites, Sunnis and even Christians."

Many of Iraq's Shiite leaders share Hezbollah's Shiite Islamist ideology as well as a history of political and clerical activism against the Middle East's secular governments.

Meanwhile President Jalal Talabani, a secular pro-U.S. Kurd, pledged to donate 100 million Iraqi dinars (or about $68,000) of his personal wealth to help rebuild Lebanon and called upon Prime Minister Nouri Maliki to "demand the international community to work on an immediate cease-fire" during a trip to London and Washington.