Making Lemonade

Gen. Petraeus had a comment on the shrine attack today:

In an exclusive interview with ABC's Charles Gibson, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, called today's attack on a holy Shiite shrine in Baghdad a "serious blow" to the military effort in the region and the work of al Qaeda.

No kidding it's a setback. But so far I've read that it's more likely a Sunni insurgents:

US officials blamed "al-Qaeda." But it is just the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement or rather one of its cells, which is trying to throw the country into turmoil as an insurgency strategy.

I'll believe Juan Cole over Gen. Petraeus thank-you-very-much. The Pentagon couldn't tell a Muslim from a Buddhist. But I really love this statement from Petraeus:

"But frankly, it is our hope that this can galvanize the Iraqi leaders to unite against this form of extremism," Petraeus said from Baghdad.

Hey Dave, you just keep lookin' for them magic Xmas ponies in Iraq. You're sure to eventually find one if you just look just a little bit harder.

This is also very telling:

The attack, which police said involved explosives, occurred around 9 a.m., despite a police presence at the site, officials said. There were no reports of casualties.

It could not immediately be determined how the attackers evaded the guard force...

Gee, I wonder how they managed to evade the Iraqi police in the bright sunshine of a summer morning????