We can only hope that the latest wave of violence doesn’t do similar damage.

If it doesn't the next one will. Or the one after that. Iraq is too unstable a target, with deep rifts, not to mention very legitimate grievances, that the insurgents can play on and use.

The surge was always just about kicking the can down the road. It was never going to give ample space to heal the divides. It'd need a decade at least, maybe a few, and the American public quite reasonably isn't going to make that kind of investment. There will be an uptick in the violence, in fact there are already indications the violence may have slowly started creeping upwards before this latest tragedy. For US troops March was the slowest month for casualties but April has gone back up to at least the level seen since October of last year. For Iraqis January was the best month and since then the numbers have gone back up slowly.