Isn't it obvious that Iraq is on the brink?

This NYTimes article is interesting. So, the president acknowledges that there are high levels of sectarian violence in Iraq, but he puts the blame for the disorder on Al Qaeda. Alright. But is anyone else buying this? Doesn't look like it. Even the generals aren't mentioning Al Qaeda as much or at all.

We hear Bush using more and more strong language when referring to Iran and Syrian. This worries me. Many in the Democratic party (Joe Biden's plan is wonderful - http://uniteourstates.com/documents/iraq_a_way_forward.pdf) see a viable and probably very effective way of maintaining some sort of peace in the Middle East by involving those two very vocal and very important countries.

But when it becomes a question of liguistics, maybe we should worry--
"The question of whether the fighting constitutes a civil war has becoming an increasingly sensitive one for the Bush administration, as Democrats cite agreement among a wide range of academic and military experts that the conflict meets most standard definitions of the term."