Let's Go Already

This column was written by CBS News Early Show co-anchorHarry Smith.

They need a few more Sunnis in the government, and the Sunnis seem to be floating the idea that if they choose the right ones the insurgency may quiet down a little.

(Click here to listen to MP3 of Harry Smith's commentary.)

Of course, the Sunnis were the ones who decided to opt out of the election where Iraqis risked their lives to go vote.

The Bush administration is a little fed up too. The Iraqis need to get to work on a constitution. It's supposed to be done by August, so new elections can take place soon thereafter. That's why Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice showed up in Baghdad over the weekend. The message was clear: Let's go already.

The Shia's may have to make a deal with some devilish old Baathists in order to get a government going and frankly they may have no choice.

The insurgency that grew quiet after the election has roared back in an ever more lethal form. Iraqis have been murdered by the hundreds in the last couple of weeks. New mass graves have been uncovered, and the brave Marines who suffered significant casualties pursuing would-be infiltrators and suicide bombers found some of their enemy apparently slipped across the border to Syria.

Today we read that Muqtada al-Sadr, the influential Shia cleric whose followers fought Americans in Bagdhad and Najaf until last August, has demanded the coalition get out of Iraq immediately. I keep looking for hopeful signs, but it's been a bloody spring and summers in Iraq are long and hot.

By Harry Smith