140 bodies
turned up in Baghdad, adding to the
160 dead and 260 injured in the recent blasts in Sadr City, making it the biggest single killing of the entire war. I guess that's a little Sunni payback for months of Interior Ministry death-squads operating with impunity.
Meanwhile, the US is
planning to talk to the insurgents to see if they can get some sort of deal, and so is
Iraqi PM al-Maliki. But wait, US plans may involve deposing Maliki in a coup, because as a Shia he is either unwilling or unable to stop the death-squads and militias from butchering people. Apparently Iran and Syria, or at least Syria, are being brought into talks, but it's questionable how much Syria can actually help, even if they wanted to, given the length of their border with Iraq. Anyway, high-ranking Iraqi officials are visiting Tehran and
Damascus in the next few days, ahead of a US conference on Iraqi stability. But oops, Iran is
holding its own rival conference, involving Iraq and Syria but not the US. But the plot thickens still with Pierre Gamal dead in Lebanon, and everyone
suspecting Syria by default, the US may reconsider its talks. Will the Lebanese Christians and Sunnis win this round, or will Hezbollah get back on top?
The Iraq Study Group, headed by James Baker and Bush 41's gang, are recommending that the US has three options:
Go Big, Go Long or Go Home, and rumour has it that the US in planning one last big military/financial/diplomatic push to get things back on track. Syria may ask for the Golan Heights in return for cooperation, and Iran may ask for the US to tolerate its nuclear program. The IDF is warning that for some reason or another, it may come to war with Syria by next summer, aside from the obvious threat of either a US or Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
The whole Middle East is now truly one big circus. What a glorious time to be alive.
