This video of Lindsey Graham being interviewed by Gloria Borger and Dana Bash is keyed to the eight minute mark. I like Graham a lot, and appreciate his Southern
sensibilities. He puts me in mind of Mark Twain. He is explaining to them why it is
important that the US, rather than Iran, be the one to save Baghdad. It is amazing how far the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS or IS] has gotten:
"...The fight for Jurf al-Sakhar within what U.S. forces in Iraq once called the "Triangle of Death"—a major combat zone during the American occupation—shows how Iraqi forces are struggling to stave off the insurgents encroaching on the capital.
While in the north the government has blunted the Islamic State's drive toward the capital beyond Tikrit, the militants are pushing the frontline toward Baghdad from the south.
Jurf al-Sakhar is a case in point. Iraqi military officials say majority Sunni towns in the province bordering Baghdad in the south, such as Jurf-al-Sakhar, have become command posts for the Islamic State, an al Qaeda spinoff that used to call itself the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham ['Syria'].
...Iraqi forces are focused on repelling a militant advance south from Tikrit to Samarra, which lies on the highway to Baghdad. "We are trying our best not to have civilian casualties," the official said.
The Islamic State is now targeting roads and installations in Samarra, in Salehddine province, where the bombing of a Shiite shrine in 2006 started the country's violent descent into sectarian bloodshed. The government is hitting back with airstrikes, the official said. Military officials believe Samarra is the Islamic State's next big target in their attempt to push southward toward Baghdad.
A new Islamic State [graphic] video that circulated online on Monday purportedly showed scenes of execution of Iraqi soldiers in an apparent warning to the forces of what awaits them if they press on their fight. One commander in the video tells fighters the takeover of Samarra would be part of a successful campaign at the end of which heaven in paradise awaits them.
Islamic State militants on Tuesday blew up a bridge over a Tirgris River tributary that connects Samarra to Tikrit in what a local security official described as a spectacular operation started under the cover of dark a day earlier. Militants swam up to the bridge and wove explosives all along one outer side of the bridge, the official said. When the bridge exploded, a manned army checkpoint positioned there plunged into the water."
-WSJ
-LWJ
