On Easter Sunday, President Bush attended services with his family at an Army chapel and afterward shared, “I pray for peace.” That must be of small comfort to the families and loved ones of the American soldiers and Iraqi civilians who are daily sacrificed in the President’s war of aggression and the civil strife that is its spawn. Bush prays for peace but remains committed to war. And not only is there no end in sight—either for the U.S. occupation or the sectarian violence—but, four years after the fall of Baghdad, there is no clear sense of how to achieve a reasonable end.

However much one might “pray for peace,” can anyone in their right mind (as opposed to their right-wing mind) really envision a peaceful and stable Iraq in the near future, no matter how many troops or how many billions of dollars the U.S. pours into the effort? As a former four-star general put it in a recent Rolling Stone article, “Humpty Dumpty can’t be put back together again.” The Bush administration must accept this terrible truth. Staying or intensifying the course in Iraq simply out of pride or stubbornness or guilt (for having knocked Humpty off the wall in the first place) is pure foolishness. And prolonging U.S. involvement so as to score political points or leave the whole bloody mess for the next administration to clean up is positively criminal. The time has come to withdraw.

From the New York Times, more evidence that progress remains elusive and victory illusory:

Patterns of War Shift in Iraq Amid U.S. Buildup

Nearly two months into the new security push in Baghdad, there has been some success in reducing the number of death squad victims found crumpled in the streets each day.

And while the overall death rates for all of Iraq have not dropped significantly, largely because of devastating suicide bombings, a few parts of the capital have become calmer as some death squads have decided to lie low.

But there is little sign that the Baghdad push is accomplishing its main purpose: to create an island of stability in which Sunni Arabs, Shiite Arabs and Kurds can try to figure out how to run the country together. There has been no visible move toward compromise on the main dividing issues, like regional autonomy and more power sharing between Shiites and Sunnis.

For American troops, Baghdad has become a deadlier battleground as they have poured into the capital to confront Sunni and Shiite militias on their home streets. The rate of American deaths in the city over the first seven weeks of the security plan has nearly doubled from the previous period, though it has stayed roughly the same over all, decreasing in other parts of the country as troops have focused on the capital….

In the northern and western provinces where they hold sway, and even in parts of Baghdad, Sunni Arab insurgents have sharpened their tactics, using more suicide car and vest bombs and carrying out successive chlorine gas attacks.

Even as officials have sought to dampen the insurgency by trying to deal with Sunni Arab factions, those groups have become increasingly fractured. There are now at least a dozen major Sunni insurgent groups — many fighting other Sunnis as well as the Americans and the Shiite-led government. A deal made with any one or two would be unlikely to be acceptable to the others.

While Shiite militias appear to have quieted in Baghdad so far, elements of them have been fighting pitched battles outside the city, sometimes against one another, sometimes against Sunni Arabs. They are pushing Sunnis out of their homes and attacking their mosques.

And in a new tactic, both Shiite and Sunni militants have been burning down homes and shops in the provinces in recent months. [full text]