Analysts' Views
"I think this is probably the most dangerous event that has occurred since the fall of Saddam Hussein," former CIA Middle East specialist Reuel Marc Gerecht told CNN. "It risks our entire enterprise in Iraq."
"We may be on the verge of taking communal violence to the next level," warned Juan Cole, professor of Middle-Eastern history at the University of Michigan, who called Wednesday "an apocalyptic day in Iraq".
"It's very clear that the Shiites are interpreting this chain of events as evidence that the Americans are weak and can't protect Shiite interests," said Cole. "And now Americans are having to come back to the Shiites and ask them to be magnanimous and give away a lot of what they've won in elections."
"It was always going to be a very hard sell, but now it's an impossible argument; Shiites aren't going to give away any power at all at this point," he said, adding that "it's possible that there could be a hung parliament, the government would collapse, and you'd have to go to new elections. And that would be a disaster in the present circumstances."
William F. Buckley, Jr. considered the bombing as an indication of a general failure of the US policy in Iraq.
Read more about this topic: 2006 Al-Askari Mosque Bombing
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