No Minarets, No Peace

What, exactly, is this "surge" supposed to cure? Come September will there be anything left of Iraq?

In a bold blow to Iraqi hopes for peace, suspected al-Qaida bombers toppled the towering minarets of Samarra's revered Shiite shrine on Wednesday, adding new provocation to old wounds a year after the mosque's Golden Dome was destroyed.

The attack stoked fears of a surge in violence between Muslim sects. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government rushed to contain Shiite wrath against Sunnis: It clamped a curfew on Baghdad and asked for U.S. troop reinforcements in Samarra, 60 miles north of here, and for a heightened American military alert in the capital.

But sketchy reports of sectarian strife began to come in. Police told of at least four Sunni mosques in Baghdad and south of the capital attacked by arsonists and bombers, and of a smaller Shiite shrine bombed north of here.

Wednesday's Samarra attack also threatened to deepen Iraq's political crisis, as the 30-member bloc of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr immediately suspended its participation in parliament in protest.

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