Reuters: Iraq getting a lot worse.

Mariam Karouny at Reuters writes that there is no hope left among Iraqi leaders in Baghdad. All that's left is to divide up the country, split Baghdad into East and West zones for Shiite and Sunni, and to prepare for the inevitable, nasty civil war that is coming. From the article:

"Some Western diplomats in Baghdad say there is little sign the new government is capable of halting a slide to civil war.

"Maliki and some others seem to be genuinely trying to make this work," one said. "But it doesn't look like they have real support. The factions are looking out for their own interests."

The presence of 140,000 heavily armed foreign troops, most of them Americans, is keeping a lid on open grabs for territory by armed groups from various communities. But few see Washington willing to keep troops in Iraq indefinitely and many analysts question the new, U.S.-trained Iraqi army's cohesion.

Broadly speaking Iraq could split in three: a Shi'ite south, Kurdish north and Sunni Arab west. But there could be fierce fighting between Arabs and Kurds for Mosul and for Kirkuk's oil as well as urban war in Baghdad, resembling Beirut in the 1970s.

Officials say the Tigris river is already looking like the Beirut "Green Line", dividing Sunni west Baghdad, known by its ancient name of Karkh, from the mainly Shi'ite east, or Rusafa."

Since I recently read that the road to Syria has recently become a lot more crowded with people leaving Iraq and that more planes have been required to handle people flying out of Baghdad to safer nations, this doesn't surprise me much. I'm disappointed, but not too surprised.

I'd like to see the U.S. troops out of there as soon as possible, but the Bush administration is unwilling to make such a clear gesture of defeat. More than likely what we are going to see is the U.S. troops moving into the so-called "permanent bases" where they will remain until a new President replaces Cheney -- Oh, and his puppet, Bush. That should at least lower the American casualty rate, though.

I guess there is one other question - does the creation of Karkh and Rusafa mean that the ancient name "Baghdad" will disappear as did the name of the city of Babylon or Constantinople? There is a romance in the ancient name of "Baghdad" that just doesn't apply to "Karkh" and "Rusafa."