From Michael Yon, over e-mail: “The Shia militia issue is pure power-play. This is not civil war. All about power and money. And so, unlike with AQI, these people can be brought back to the table. That’s the good news. Bad news is that the militias actually are quite strong, but I am not sweating it at this time. Let’s see how it shakes out in next week or so.”

Yon’s new book, Moment of Truth in Iraq: How a New ‘Greatest Generation’ of American Soldiers is Turning Defeat and Disaster into Victory and Hope, is now in print.