A strategic breakthrough occurred, I believe, in summer 2007 in the Fourth World War declared on the West by the Islamic radicals of al Qaeda and kindred organizations. Not everybody seems fully to have appreciated the significance of this, or indeed even to have noticed it.

...After blowing up the Golden Mosque in Sammara it managed to push Iraq into the abyss of a mutual Sunni-Shiite terror campaign which cost the lives of tens of thousands of civilians. American troops found themselves in an increasingly absurd situation between two groups of fanatics who were fighting each other and who both equally hated America. After their victory in the mid-term elections, the Democrats, with broad public support, demanded the withdrawal of troops from Iraq without delay. Full Piece