Establishing a new baseline in Iraq

Whatever window there was, is closing.

BAGHDAD, July 11 — At least 50 people were killed in Baghdad today in a stunning array of violence that included a double suicide attack near busy entrances to the fortified Green Zone, beheadings, shootings, a series of car bombs, mortar attacks and the ambush of a bus carrying Shiite mourners on their way to a burial.

The day’s killings, many of them clearly carried out as sectarian vengeance, raised the three-day death toll in the capital alone to well over 100, and deepened the sense among residents that the violence was not going to ebb anytime soon — and that Iraqi and American security forces were powerless to stop it.

And Maliki broods in his tent.

Amid the spike in violence, however, Mr. Maliki himself has been remarkably quiet. On Monday, he made an appeal for unity during a speech in Iraqi Kurdistan, and late today his office issued a brief written statement condemning the attack on the bus carrying the mourners. Efforts to seek additional comment from his office today were unsuccessful.