The Day We Lost Amarah

The Shiite militia run by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr seized total control of the southern Iraqi city of Amarah on Friday in one of the boldest acts of defiance yet by one of the country's powerful, unofficial armies, witnesses and police said.

A full AP report. It certainly provides some helpful context for this report on the future of the U.S. in Iraq from the Washington Post. The money quote:

Richard N. Haass, a former Bush administration foreign policy official, told reporters yesterday that the situation is reaching a "tipping point" both in Iraq and in U.S. politics. "More of essentially the same is going to be a policy that very few people are going to be able to support," said Haass, now the president of the Council on Foreign Relations. He added that the administration's current Iraq strategy "has virtually no chance of succeeding" and predicted that "change will come."

I had been–and still am, somewhat–skeptical that public disenchantment with the war would prove decisive in next month's congressional elections. But may the New York Times be right and me wrong.