Froomkin nails it

This is a massive ground shift, an admission by the White House that we are no longer fighting terrorists in Iraq. We are a component in a factional (civil) war.

President Bush and national security adviser Stephen Hadley yesterday for the first time publicly acknowledged the momentous shift in the role for U.S. troops in Iraq, from fighting terrorists to trying to suppress religious violence.

This sea change was described in such understated terms that it was eclipsed by news about the crisis in Lebanon. Bush described a change in tactics; Hadley called it a repositioning.

But it's a historic admission: That job one for many American troops in Iraq is no longer fighting al-Qaeda terrorists, or even insurgents. Rather, it is trying to quell an incipient -- if not already raging -- sectarian civil war, with Baghdad as ground zero.

Certainly this has been the reality for awhile, but it marks a significant change in a now problematic administration narrative. This is the first, albeit oblique, admission of civil war.