I think the race to be “objective” in journalism is directly responsible for the lack of context in mainstream journalism. If you’re being “objective” (or at least trying, because in reality it isn’t possible to be objective), you can’t use your own brain to supply context to the facts you report.

Far better to have a range of highly partisan media reporting the facts, each openly admitting of their bias and perspective in providing context to the facts they report.

Right now the Sunni “dead enders” are behaving themselves because their tribal leaders have been paid off in Al Anbar, and their militias in Baghdad have been put in Iraqi military uniform. And the Shia militias are playing nice because they’re more than willing to wait as long as it takes for America to pull out, and let the Americans kill Sunnis for them in the meantime.

But the whole Sunni-Shia sectarian rivalry is largely a sideline. The elephant in the living room is the Shia political parties and militias. They are the political center of gravity in Iraq. And regardless of what the U.S. does, and how long it stays in there, the day after it pulls out the Shia militas will *be* the government of Iraq–either by supplanting the formal government or amalgamating with it.

Bush Sr. was smart enough to understand the only way to keep Iraq from turning into a Shia theocracy with close ties to Iran was to keep a murderous Sunni dictator in power. When his worthless son decided to invade Saddam, he decided at the very same time to have a Shia theocracy strategically dominated by Iran. It’s pretty much that simple.