Was watching a little of a Dispatches documentary last night on UK Channel 4. It seemed to shed some light on what is going on there, and why the situation has been so hopelessly mismanaged.

The current Iraqi government are now majority Shia like the country. And the interior ministry are co-opting Shia milita groups into the police and secret police forces. These groups are effectively state-run and supplied death squads who target Sunnis, round them up, kill them and dump the bodies.

In response to this, the Sunnis use car bombs to blow up Shia areas/mosques/etc. The administration is forced by the chaos to co-opt militia groups but it can't control them.

The US is in a ridiculous position of trying to stabilise Iraq by supporting a government who's survival is based on co-opted milita, supported themselves ideologically by the US' enemy Iran.