Word: itely
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...Sunni insurgency has successfully prevented the U.S. and its allies from stabilizing even Baghdad beyond the Green Zone, but it can never hope to restore the control that Saddam Hussein once had over the whole country. The Shi'ites are the dominant force in the elected government and have more men under arms (in their militias and in the government security forces) than do the Sunnis, but the Shi'ites are not really aligned with the U.S. (If anything, they're closer to Iran.) And as the U.S. has pushed back against the Shi'ites in the hope of dimming...
...since the invasion of Iraq. The U.S. has long recognized that the insurgency can't be eliminated by military means; instead it hoped that it could be defanged by a national reconciliation process pursued by the elected government, which would coax Sunnis away from the insurgency by dismantling Shi'ite militias and by giving them a greater political stake. At the same time, security duties would be transferred increasingly into the hands of Iraqi forces. But six months after the new government took office, the national reconciliation process is effectively stalled. And the reason American casualty figures have spiked...
...drive north of here - had seemed a safe haven compared to their neighborhood in Baghdad. He figured that in Balad, his kids would be able to go to school without fear of bombs going off in the street, or kidnapping gangs lurking at every corner. They are a Shi'ite family, and would be among the majority in Balad. It didn't seem to matter that the town is ringed by Sunni districts. Just seven days ago, Balad had seemed so much safer than Baghdad...
...Then the killings began. A couple of Sunnis were killed in a neighboring town. In retaliation, Sunnis killed about a dozen Shi'ite laborers. The Shi'ites then called in their militias from Baghdad, and set off an orgy of violence. At least 100 have been killed, and you can be sure there will be more attacks and counterattacks in the days and weeks ahead. The peace of Balad has forever been shattered...
What we have now is not a tight club of nuclear powers with interlocking interests and an appreciation for the brutal doctrine of "mutually assured destruction" but an unpredictable host of potential Bomb throwers: a Stalinist Bomb out of unstable North Korea; a Shi'ite Bomb out of Iran; a Sunni Bomb out of Pakistan; and, down the road, possibly out of Egypt and Saudi Arabia as well; and, of course, an al-Qaeda Bomb out of nowhere. Israel is a nuclear power already. And Turkey may just decide it had better be too. Even Japan and South Korea could...