Countersurge

Across the centuries the fortunes of the two religions have risen and fallen in a sequence of momentous surges, pauses, and countersurges.

With the Shiite militias having taken a lower profile since the troop increase began, and with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia embarking on its own sort of countersurge, a main focus of the American military operation is to deprive the group of its strongholds in the areas surrounding Baghdad — and thus curtail its ability to carry out spectacular casualty-inducing attacks in the Iraqi capital.