What we have wrought
We have created a new Gaza/West Bank that will persist for decades:
One Day in Iraq: Story of Hawija
By Martin Asser
BBC News
As we set out on 7 June to chart in detail that day's events in Iraq, it all began very quietly - though we would have done well to note the observation of contributor Maysoon al-Damluji that insurgency attacks tend to start mid-morning.
There were no reports of violence from any Iraqi city for the first few hours, and our first-person contributors made a point of saying how peaceful things were.
The first hint of bloodshed came just before 1000 local time (0600 GMT) - a police officer reported seriously wounded in a gun attack in Baghdad.
At 1030, all attention moved to Hawija, a rural area of northern Iraq, which in the last half hour had been hit by a deadly co-ordinated quadruple bombing.
Such attacks may have decreased in the past two weeks - in Baghdad there is a major drive to prevent the movement of explosives, fighters and weapons - but the Hawija attacks show that the bombers can still strike wherever they wish.
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This is a nation of 26 million people. If just one percent are prone to violent uprising, that's 260,000 people...a force that clearly exceeds the capacity of the current Iraqi government forces. Unfortunately the percentages are much greater than that. We are on the razors edge of civil war. One hopes and prays that does not happen.