Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/iraq-democratic-rivalry-top-the-weeks-headlines Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript New violence in Iraq pitted security forces against Shiite militias, likely GOP nominee Sen. John McCain outlined his foreign policy plans and Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean called for a cooling of the rhetoric between presidential rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Mark Shields and David Brooks discuss the week. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JIM LEHRER: And to the analysis of Shields and Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks.On Iraq, David, President Bush said it was a defining moment in history, this going after — the government going after the Shiite militias. Do you see it that way? DAVID BROOKS, Columnist, New York Times: Well, it certainly is an important moment and what's happening, from abroad, is really hard to figure out what's going on, there are so many conflicting reports.But if you cover the Palestinian territories, if you cover Lebanon, one of the crucial issues in those sorts of countries is, does the government have monopoly of force? And if, indeed, what this is happening is the government of Maliki trying to establish a monopoly of force, that is to say to de-fang these militias, including the Mahdi Army of Sadr, then that's a good thing.It's a good thing if that's what's happening. And it would be a really good thing if they would actually win. And both those things are in doubt.But it certainly would be a good thing if they could crush the militias and establish real authority. There are other factors in here which do complicate that, of course. JIM LEHRER: Sure.