Uprising spirals in Iraq

While Shia militiamen controlled large swathes of three Iraqi cities, US marines were fighting insurgents around a mosque in the Sunni Muslim stronghold of Fallujah. All the emotive fuel to the fire is there to exacerbate the anti-occupation sentiments. Forty people assembled for prayers were killed in a airstrike on the mosque compound. Shia cleric-led fighting begun in the south has spread into central Iraq for the first time. Fighting this week alone has claimed 35 and 459 American and Iraqi lives, respectively. The pro-Saddam loyalists have joined in. Even the north could be engulfed.

In the US perception, President Bush's stakes are growing heavier by the day. With more GIs dying and the psyche of being besieged all around rankling -- all that in an election year -- the current US impulses are to get more involved in Iraq.

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There is talk of committing fresh US troops beyond the already high existent figure of 135,000 GIs in embattled Iraq. The so-called US plan of relaxing grip over Iraq has been turned upside down. The planned passing on of more security duties to Iraqi forces is on hold. More importantly, transfer of sovereignty scheduled for July, which has been in doubt as it is, looks consigned on to the backburner.

The Bush administration's make-believe world in Iraq is crumbling before its eyes. It has tried to capitalise on Shia-Sunni divide playing up the majority sentiments which is not washing anymore. Now, it will try to drive a wedge between the Shiite clerics forgetting that with Saddam gone it's loss of Iraqi sovereignty which is the sticking sore-point for the Iraqis in general.

The Bush administration has to realise that the best way to wriggle out of the Iraqi quagmire is to take the UN onboard in decision-making terms. World conscience and leadership must wake up to stop a fresh bloodbath in Iraq.