American forces have just experienced the most violent two-week period in Iraq since September 2007. Unfortunately, I'm afraid this fact will be lost in the media coverage over the number 4,000 during the next several days.  Of the two significant numbers this week--4,000 killed during war and 25 in the last two weeks--the latter figure is far more significant with regard to the current situation on the ground.

We hear talk of attacks against Americans "ebbing," ceasefires holding, and of the situation in Iraq being "not that fragile," but this is all a bunch of happy-talk nonsense.  Between March 10 and March 23, 25 American soldiers were killed in Iraq.  The last two-week period in which U.S. forces sustained similar losses was between September 14 and September 27, when 26 were killed--a period that capped off the bloodiest summer of the war.

To go along with the American casualties, this news came at the end of a day in which more than 60 Iraqis were killed in Baghdad and just north of the city.   
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We are now entering a period of Iraqi restlessness in which Sunni Sahwa militias are growing restive, Muqtada al-Sadr's ceasefire is on the verge of unraveling, and little political progress is being made.  In fact, I received an email today from a friend in the Green Zone who told me he slept in his body armor last night--something not typically done these days.  And it's not a good sign.

Perhaps this will give John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman pause to stop patting themselves on the back for five minutes in order to realize that they are not vindicated, they are still wrong, and any sort of resolution in Iraq will require a serious change from the current short-sighted Bush administration strategy of "pay them off until I'm out of office."

As I have said before, the violence in Iraq is cyclical and will remain so until we remove the bulk of our forces.  And with 25 dead in two weeks, we are not headed in the right direction. [MORE]