Bomb attacks and shootings orchestrated by Al Qaida and other extremists over two days have taken a huge toll on innocent lives in Iraq and sent an agonising reminder to Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki's government that its struggles against extremist forces are far from over.
More than anything the terrorist attacks against soft civilian targets underline the important message that Iraq's internal security mechanism is quite fragile and operations to destabilise Al Maliki's government, in the face of an imminent US troop withdrawal, are on in right earnest.
Questions will no doubt be raised about the government's ability to fight extremism after US troops leave. The underlying desperation to restore normalcy at all costs seems to be evident with strong hints that Iraqi officials were considering fresh negotiations with Washington to try and retain a semblance of a force in the country.
On the other side of the fence, the White House has released a statement emphasising that it would consider an Iraqi request for US troop presence past 2011. In retrospect, this may not be a good idea. It is designed to bring only short-term relief. The onus is now on Al Maliki to step up and endorse his credentials as a leader and prove that he can navigate his country out of a crisis which, by all accounts, is threatening to spiral out of control.
An under-strength Al Qaida has shown that it is capable of wreaking havoc even though authorities insist that violence levels have been scaled down. There is also the equally dangerous propaganda tool. Should the US choose to overstay at the insistence of the Iraqi government then the common man would be sold the theory that the Americans are staying on as occupiers. This could provide justification for a fresh round of terrorist attacks to be unleashed.
Al Maliki is faced with a Hobson's choice, but clearly he must make one.
