As Americans mourn the tragic shooting that left 12 dead in Colorado, consider that nearly ten times as many Iraqis died, in a country 1/10th the size, in a wave of attacks from presumably Sunni insurgents today.

The sad chapter of the Haditha massacre may have been put to bed in a legal sense when Marine Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich received an incomparably light sentence, walking away with no jail time, for ordering the troops under his command to “shoot first, ask questions later” in an incident that killed 24 innocent Iraqis. But this issue isn’t close to being over for the Iraqis in the village of Haditha.

The row between Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi has grown. Maliki issued a warrant for Hashemi’s arrest on terrorism charges, accusing him of operating pro-Sunni death squads. Hashemi denied the charges, and his supporters compared Maliki’s actions to that of Saddam Hussein. Maliki is now ordering a handover of Hashemi, who has fled to the Kurdistan region.

The war ended in Iraq last night, and within moments, it seems, chaos has reigned in the Iraqi Parliament. But while this is almost sure to be used as evidence that the military should never have left Iraq, the events here would have played out at some point, in absence of perpetual occupation.

It turns out that the Iraqi leadership essentially backed the Syrian side of the divide over their repressive attacks on their own people. It’s credible to suggest that Iran played a role in Iraq’s decision-making.

The Iraqi government is most certainly not unified on this point. The Parliament has denounced the violence in Syria, particularly the Kurdish and Sunni factions. But Maliki appears firmly in the Syrian camp, in contrast to his government’s anger at Bahrain when the Sunni minority brutalized a Shiite majority. So the sectarian lens has come to govern Iraq’s positions in the region.

An announcement of an extension to the US presence will not only lead to the dissolution of the Maliki government, but intensify attacks directly on US personnel. Service members will die, and the purpose of that spilled blood is inscrutable. And the US would take the position of Hosni Mubarak with a mass popular movement arrayed against them, demanding that they exit.

The US has urged “restraint” in Bahrain while sending emissaries like Mike Mullen and Robert Gates to show support for the ruling regime. They clearly want to hold the Fifth Fleet naval base, and will turn a blind eye to the horrific violence that has already occurred. But the sectarian component of this uprising brings up another point.

Let’s play a little catchup on the two most deadly flashpoints in the Middle East.

Despite the US “end” of combat operations in Iraq (hardly an end when troops are helping repel attacks), the biggest near-term problem is the lack of an actual government to resolve the election from March of this year.

Compared to Afghanistan, this latest development in Iraq looks like a glorious victory, which is more a commentary on Afghanistan than Iraq.