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From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

I'm Bob Garfield. And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Remember this in last

month's state of the union address? For American forces step back before Baghdad is secure,

the Iraqi government would be overrun by extremists on all sides. We could expect an epic

battle between Shia extremists backed by Iran and Sunni extremists aided by al-Qaeda and supporters of the old regime.

A contagion of violence could spill out across the country, and in time, the entire region could be drawn into the conflict.

TV reporters and pundits noted that for the president, it was an unusually detailed

summation.

Unusual, given that so much rhetoric about the war, has ignored the Sunni-Shi-Shiah divide.

For over a year, Jeff Stein, a national security reporter for the congressional quarterly,

has added this final question to every interview

...