The wrongheadedness of the Bush administration's current posture on Iraqi politics -- throwing its hands up and muttering about the Sunni-Shiite conflict -- is that the United States, since March 2003, has clearly sided (and heavily so) with the Shiite side. That would be the death-squad-sponsoring, Sharia-imposing, militia-harboring, Iran-sympathizing Shiites. And now, more than three years later, Ambassador Khalilzad is shocked, shocked to find that the Shiites have militias?

This does deserve an inquisition. Maybe the latest talk (see today's New York Times) about the Leahy Law will get us there. That's the U.S.law that prohibits U.S. aid to human rights-violating police agencies abroad. Reports the Times:

American officials have warned Iraqi leaders that they might have to curtail aid to the Interior Ministry police because of a United States law that prohibits the financing of foreign security forces that commit “gross violations of human rights” and are not brought to justice.

If the Shiite militias are carrying out massacres, it's the Bush's administration's responsibility. How deep that goes is a fit subject for Democrats to investigate if they take the House or Senate. It certainly isn't trivial.

That Khalilzad is directly his wrath at the Iraqi government, rather than the American government, is typical of his record of U.S. imperial proconsul.