Really Bad Day in Iraq

Over at Too Hot For TNR, Spencer highlights the ominous significance of today's suicide bombing in the Green Zone and the destruction of the al-Sarafiya bridge in northern Baghdad, respectively. On the Green Zone:

...someone in a uniform had to wave the bomber into the parliament building. I didn't visit the parliament, but getting into a facility like the U.S. Embassy chow hall requires passing through several tiers of security. You are scanned and frisked. Your papers are scrutinized. Your companions are questioned. Items on your person are confiscated, even without suspicion of their use for terrorism. It's a likely bet that someone guarding the facility, and quite possibly a beneficiary of our training, equipping and mentoring efforts, wanted the attack to occur.

And on the bridge bombing:

This is the first successful attack with real military significance since the beginning of the surge. There aren't too many ways across the Tigris in that area, and it's bound to have something of a deterrent effect on either resupply or the mobility of U.S. or Iraqi forces who need to get from one side of Baghdad to the other. It may not be major, but it'll be a factor....Add to that the cost of hardening the rest of the city's bridges to ensure that further access doesn't get lost -- which has the effect of frustrating Iraqis who already endure massive traffic snarls at the city's numerous checkpoints -- and we see an insurgent/terrorist strategy developing that displays real military sophistication.

As Matt notes,

Two different attacks both of which indicate a qualitative leap in insurgent capabilities or intentions over what we've seen over the past four years of combat does not, to me, suggest an insurgency that's in its last throes or a "surge" that just needs more time to succeed.

Posted by Kingston