Was it the Turning Point?

The Washington Post ran an interesting story today on whether the Feb. 2006 bombing of the golden domed Askariya mosque was the tipping point when the situation in Iraq got out of control.

The President certainly stated as much when he announced the troop surge.

But in 2006, the opposite happened. The violence in Iraq — particularly in Baghdad — overwhelmed the political gains the Iraqis had made. Al Qaeda terrorists and Sunni insurgents recognized the mortal danger that Iraq’s elections posed for their cause, and they responded with outrageous acts of murder aimed at innocent Iraqis. They blew up one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam — the Golden Mosque of Samarra — in a calculated effort to provoke Iraq’s Shia population to retaliate. Their strategy worked. Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran, formed death squads. And the result was a vicious cycle of sectarian violence that continues today.

That speech and others since have often painted the pre 2/22/06 situation in Iraq as moving on a positive path toward democracy. That it wasn’t incompetency in the post-invasion management that led to growing sectarian violence, rather, this one event triggered an unstoppable tidal wave of violence.

A cursory look at casualty numbers from before and after reveal that, yes, since 2/06 there have been higher monthly totals, however, not by much..

The Washington Post:

Experts say the attack{the shrine bombing} did not begin a civil war but rather confirmed the ongoing deterioration and violence in Iraq — conditions the White House and the generals had resisted recognizing. In that sense, the bombing destroyed much more than the shrine: It also demolished the positive view of progress in Iraq, leading military and administration officials to a more pessimistic perspective, and eventually to a new U.S. strategy.

Others think the Post story is missing the point entirely. Counterterrorism Blog says:

Until late 2005, the majority of provocative terror attacks targeting Shiites in Iraq were executed by Al-Qaida and its local Sunni supporters. Other mainstream Iraqi Sunni insurgent groups didn’t really jump on that bandwagon until the winter of 2006 — when Shiite militiamen themselves went haywire in response to the bombing in Samarra.

In other words, the shrine bombing didn’t start the violence, it just changed the face of it..I wouldn’t dispute that…I just agree with the Post’s implication, that some are blaming one event for a dire situation whose roots date way back to the March 2003(or Nov. 2000, if you want).