"A Stunning Assault"

MANIFESTO

With everything going on today, this may be the day's most important story:

A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up Thursday in the Iraqi parliament's cafeteria in a stunning assault in the heart of the heavily fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone, killing at least two lawmakers and wounding dozens of other people.

The blast in the parliament building came hours after a suicide truck bomb exploded on a major bridge in Baghdad, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars tumbling into the Tigris River, police and witnesses said. At least 10 people were killed.

If even the US-protected Green Zone is vulnerable to an attack of this type, we definitely need to fold up our tents and leave. At the very least, it brings to exactly zero the number of "neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods."