We’re still fighting in Baghdad. Goodness, I thought the surge was supposed to end this. Instead…

Until Maliki’s push into the southern city of Basra, U.S. troops were not intensely engaged in Sadr City, a Baghdad neighborhood of roughly 3 million people that was among the most treacherous areas for U.S. forces early in the war.

But the southern offensive set off a violent chain reaction that spread quickly to Shiite sectors of the capital and has severely strained the cease-fire Sadr imposed on his followers in August and recently reaffirmed. U.S. troops, fighting at times Tuesday on foot and backed by air support, are now engaged in the kind of urban battle within Sadr’s stronghold reminiscent of the first years of the war.

Let’s repeat that. We’re engaged in the same sort of urban warfare that we were engaged in during the first years of the war. Just what have we accomplished in Iraq?

Meanwhile, we’re too busy talking about Reverand Wright to talk about the fighting in Iraq:

“Sadr City is under the American hammer and nobody is monitoring it,” said Leewa Smeisim, the head of the Sadr movement’s political bureau.

Iraq is on the brink of an all-out civil war. As I noted before, Sadr has threatened all-out war. His followers are “growing more eager for an all-out war to defend themselves,” as the Washington Post’s story says.

Here we are, in a very dangerous situation. Why doesn’t the press grill John McCain on this? Why do we focus on the Distraction of the Day?

Remember, this is why we’re voting for Obama. To end this endless war.