BAGHDAD — I’ve been talk­ing to some folks today about the polit­i­cal cri­sis, and was struck by a few quotes:

“We’re closer now than ever, if we’re not already in civil war, and I don’t know what can stop it now. Except maybe U.S. troops back on the streets.” — senior Coali­tion advi­sor to the Min­istry of Interior.

“This is their chance to take the polit­i­cal process hostage.” — from MP Mithal al-Alousi, sec­u­lar politi­cian wor­ried about the Shi’ites using yesterday’s attack to push back against American/Kurdish/Sunni pres­sure to loosen their grip on the levers of power.

“We did our best to bring him into the polit­i­cal process.” — head of SCIRI’s polit­i­cal rela­tions com­mit­tee, Redha Jawad Taqi, on Moq­tada al-Sadr. He is con­cerned that mem­bers of par­lia­ment loyal to al-Sadr resorted to threats of vio­lence to get their way in par­lia­ment. “They believe wrong things about democ­racy. We hope they can be taught the rules.”

In other news around Iraq, three jour­nal­ists from al-Arabiyah Tele­vi­sion were killed in Samarra after being kid­napped some time last night. They were cor­re­spon­dent Atwar Bah­jat, cam­era­man Adnan Abdal­lah and sound engi­neer Khalid Muhsin. They were cov­er­ing the attack on the shrine in Samarra.

Today, the office of Moq­tada al-Sadr issued a state­ment denounc­ing the attack on the Askari shrine and blam­ing the gov­ern­ment, the Amer­i­cans and “crusaders.”