I’m all for the Iraqi government finding ways to reach out to the Sunnis–and realize that we won’t like all of them–but the effect of this new ban on military raids on mosques is going to be entirely predictable: the increased use of them by the insurgents as a base for attacks. The Times details a few of our experiences to this point: “Ramadi, another insurgent stronghold, has also been the scene of mosque raids, including one in November witnessed by a reporter for The New York Times in which American troops from the 503rd Infantry Regiment attacked after taking fire from a minaret. They used the minaret to fire on a suspected suicide bomber racing toward the mosque, causing the car to explode. Inside the mosque, the soldiers found Kalashnikov rifles and ammunition magazines hidden in an air duct.

American officers from the First Cavalry Division who accompanied Iraqi national guardsmen to a mosque in the Qaddisiya area of Baghdad in November recounted how they had been greeted by the mosque’s senior imam with assurances of good will and of hostility toward the insurgents. When the Americans withdrew and the Iraqis searched cars in the mosque’s parking lot, they discovered trunkloads of Kalashnikovs, grenade-launchers, bomb-making equipment and ammunition. The cleric was arrested and sent to Abu Ghraib.”