Several media outlets are warning that President Bush is spinning a way-too-simple explanation of the escalating violence in Iraq. Bush describes brave Iraqi government forces pitted against "militia fighters and criminals."

But on baltimoresun.com, Frank James quotes Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies as insisting that this isn't a battle between good and evil. It's a power struggle between Shiite factions, says Gordesman. "No one should romanticize" the head of one of the factions, Moktada al-Sadr, says Cordesman. But nobody should romanticize the leaders of the Iraqi government, either, he says.

"The current fighting is as much a power struggle for control of the south, and the Shiite parts of Baghdad and the rest of the country, as an effort to establish central government authority and legitimate rule," says Cordesman.

"The wars in Iraq (the plural is no typo) are about to expand and possibly explode," writes Fred Kaplan on slate.com, in another analysis of the Iraq situation, "so it might be useful to have some notion of what we're in for.

And the Washington Post is reporting that US troops now seem to be "taking the lead" in the battle against al-Sadr's troops.