There is always a danger in playing up crises like this and giving the impression that disaster is just at hand.

But here in Baghdad, a lot of the politicians on the Iraqi governing council think it is true.

Americans are criticised for playing into the hands of extremists They are the ones who will be taking nominal control of the country on 1 July.

Last night I asked one of the senior political advisers with the council if he was depressed.

"No, I am not. I am angry," he said.

"This was all completely avoidable."

People like him feel the Americans have just played into the hands of the extremists by letting themselves be drawn into a war, or at any rate a crisis on two fronts

Falluja, which is predominantly Sunni Muslim and is now violently anti-American the Shia Muslim towns of southern Iraq

Although most of the Shia are not followers of Moqtada Sadr, the Shia cleric who is now being hunted by the Americans, they do deeply resent the tactics the Americans are using against him.
Sadr was not particularly highly regarded before this crisis though his father, the ayatollah after whom Sadr City in Baghdad is now named was extremely popular.

The American military have got no time for the British softly-softly approach. They believe they have got to show who is boss

Moqtada Sadr was something of a tearaway who gathered a small army of thugs around himself.

Now, because the Americans have decided to take them on, he and his Mehdi army have suddenly assumed the status of defenders of the faith.