From an enlightening piece in the Post today on Hillary's foreign policy triangulation, by Anne Kornblut, there is this quote from Bill Kristol, editor of the neocon Weekly Standard:

"Obama is becoming the antiwar candidate, and Hillary Clinton is becoming the responsible Democrat who could become commander in chief in a post-9/11 world."

First it was the Iranian-allied, Shia-led government of Iraq that waxed effusive with praise for Iran. Now it's Hamid Karzai, the U.S.-installed president of Afghanistan, with kind words to say about the Axis of Evil next door:

"So far, Iran has been a helper and a solution," says Karzai on CNN. "Iran has been a supporter of Afghanistan, in the peace process that we have and the fight against terror and the fight against narcotics in Afghanistan. [We have] very, very good, very, very close relations ... We will continue to have good relations with Iran. We will continue to resolve issues, if any arise."

The next day President Bush was all kerfuffled, speaking next to Karzai. One can only imagine the president's confusion. How annoying. We go to all the trouble of occupying two countries, and just when we're starting to think about attacking the one in the middle, the two that we occupy start supporting that one.

First Karzai of Afghanistan praises Iran (see below), then today Prime Minister Maliki of Iraq visits the capital of the Axis of Evil itself, meeting with Ayatollah Khamenei, President Ahmadinejad, and others. Says AP:

Mr. Maliki met in Tehran with Iranian Vice President Parviz Davoodi and was to hold talks later with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, according to the Iranian state news agency IRNA.

Fact is, Maliki must be worried that he might lose the support of the United States. Echoes of the Hadley memo from last winter. Come September, Bush is going to have to blame the continuing crisis in Iraq on someone, and it might as well be Maliki. Maliki, in turn, is smart enough to seek allies elsewhere.

The Christian Science Monitor reports in depth about efforts by SIIC and the Hakims to carve out a Shia state in the south of Iraq:

The Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), one of the most powerful Shiite parties, is leading the charge to form an autonomous "South of Baghdad Region." ... In recent weeks, Ammar al-Hakim, the son of SIIC leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, has been leading a passionate grassroots campaign to rally support for the project.

"A fundamental cornerstone of the new Iraq is the creation of regions all over Iraq, especially the South of Baghdad Region," said the younger Mr. Hakim during a rally in Najaf on July 19 commemorating the killing of his uncle Muhammad Baqer al-Hakim in August 2003 in the same city.

"I call upon you to be totally prepared from now to form the South of Baghdad Region at the end of the period prescribed by parliament," he said.

On July 21, he repeated the plea at another rally in Baghdad.

That would be April 2008, when regions can formally be created.

Partition is increasingly being advocated by Washington lawmakers and think tanks as the only way to bring peace to Iraq. "There is a massive operation underway to pave the way for the [south of Baghdad] region, but it's being done quietly," says Sheikh Jalaleddin al-Saghir, a senior parliamentarian and Hakim partisan who favors the SIIC plan.

It's not like SIIC controls things, though. Earlier this week, the Post reported a three-way battle for control of Basra, the oil and port city in the south that is key to everything in Iraq.

Three major Shiite political groups are locked in a bloody conflict that has left the city in the hands of militias and criminal gangs, whose control extends to municipal offices and neighborhood streets. The city is plagued by "the systematic misuse of official institutions, political assassinations, tribal vendettas, neighborhood vigilantism and enforcement of social mores, together with the rise of criminal mafias that increasingly intermingle with political actors," a recent report by the International Crisis Group said. ...

"The British have basically been defeated in the south," a senior U.S. intelligence official said recently in Baghdad. They are abandoning their former headquarters at Basra Palace, where a recent official visitor from London described them as "surrounded like cowboys and Indians" by militia fighters. An airport base outside the city, where a regional U.S. Embassy office and Britain's remaining 5,500 troops are barricaded behind building-high sandbags, has been attacked with mortars or rockets nearly 600 times over the past four months.

It's clear that none of the Shia players are paying attention to the crumbling Maliki. SIIC is doing its own thing, and Sadr's forces and Fadhila are battling SIIC and each other for power across the south. Tribal chieftains in the south are weighing in, too.

From Hassan Fattah, writing in the Times about the election in Lebanon in which a former president, Amin Gemayel, lost a parliamentary election to an unknown opposition candidate:

“It’s the kiss of death,” said Turki al-Rasheed, a Saudi reformer who watched last Sunday’s elections closely. “The minute you are counted on or backed by the Americans, kiss it goodbye, you will never win.”

The paradox of American policy in the Middle East — promoting democracy on the assumption it will bring countries closer to the West — is that almost everywhere there are free elections, the American-backed side tends to lose.

True, that. Of course, the Times doesn't mention that the Gemayel family has long been (1) an openly Nazi-admiring force with overt fascist leanings, whose militia, the Phalangists, was responsible for many massacres, including the famous rampage at two Palestinian camps in 1982, and (2) Israel's closest ally in Lebanon for many years.

But this was an election in a Christian, mostly Maronite, district, where fascist leanings and Israeli ties shouldn't have been held against Gemayel. His son, Pierre, was recently assassinated. So was his brother, who was killed in 1982 after being installed as president of Lebanon by the Israeli armed forces. (Amin, too, later was elected president.)

A brilliant piece in the Post, from Sudarsan Raghavan, that sums up perfectly the insanity of the war in Iraq. It describes the chaos of the battle front in a large area south of Baghdad, near Iskandiriya:

"We are in the middle of it," [Col. Michael] Garrett said, indicating the center of his area of operations, which is the size of Rhode Island. "I'm not fighting one sect or the other. I'm fighting both. And not only am I fighting both, but at certain points I have to put my forces in between the Sunni and Shia groups to protect the populace."

Here's the best part:

A series of tit-for-tat mosque attacks had put the town on edge. Then Shiite militiamen based in one mosque attacked a Sunni shrine down the street.

As a unit from the 1st Battalion rolled into the battle zone, not far from Khafaji's factory, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades suddenly targeted them, according to a military report.

"Both sides stopped shooting at each other, and both opened up on our men," Whiteside said. The Americans had to fight their way out.

And this sums it all up, from Sgt. Josh Claeson: "Our basic mission here is to drive around and get blown up."

From McClatchey:

Vice President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy.

Some quotes from Adnan Dulaimi, leader of the Iraqi Accord, the largest Sunni party in Iraq. Discount some of the rhetorical flourishes, and it's hard to find fault with anything he says:

"Arabs, your brothers in the land of the two rivers and in Baghdad in particular are exposed to an unprecedented genocide campaign by the militias and death squads that are directed, armed and supported by Iran. ...

"Areas such as Azamiyah, Sulaikh, Fadhil, Dora, Adil, Jami'a, Ghazaliyah, Amiriyah and Yarmouk are attacked daily by Iranian-made mortars that were given to militias to eradicate the Sunnis.

"I call on all Arabs, Muslims, presidents and kings and people to intervene and urge the Iraqi government to get out from this crisis and I call on them to stand beside Iraqis against violence and the oppression that come to us from Iran and its agents.

"Four years have passed with violations against our land, occupying our mosques, killing us, displacing us and marginalizing us while you Arabs were unaware and did not make any move,. You did not even bother to denounce what is taking place against your brothers at the hands of Iranian militias and death squads.

"If you think that what is taking place in Baghdad will end there, you are wrong and if you think it is in Iraq only, you are mistaken. It is a war that has started in Baghdad and they will not stop there but will expand it to all Arab lands.

"Your Sunni brothers in the land of two rivers are calling upon you and appeal to you to help them. You have to move strongly using all authorities, potentials and relations with the international community to defend Iraq's identity and to keep Baghdad an Arab fortress."

Even though it's strong, it doesn't mean that tomorrow Dulaimi won't sit down with Maliki and powwow again. But his comments are reflective of the broad Sunni view that the Maliki goverment and Iran are in league with each other to create a Shia power in Iraq.

Lee Hamilton, co-leader of the Iraq Study Group (which, it should be noted, suggested the idea of a military "surge" in Iraq, though linked to a withdrawal strategy), says the surge will continue into 2008:

“It is inconceivable that General Petraeus will say the surge has failed. So I think we’re going to have a military stay-the-course strategy well into next year.”

On Tuesday, the Heritage Foundation makes its contribution to the global war on terror by finding the real enemy -- no, not bin Laden. It's the CIA.

Rowan Scarborough and John Edward Hilboldt will tell us how the CIA is the bad guys. The name of the panel is called: "Sabotage--America's Enemies Within the CIA." The title comes from a book of the same name by Scarborough, a former writer for the Washington TImes.

The blurb for the event says:

"Significant elements within the CIA are undermining both the President and national security through leaks, false allegations, and outright sabotage. ... Using sources in all levels of national security – from field officers to high-ranking analysts to former intelligence heads – Scarborough presents a disturbing picture of partisan politics endangering the success of our campaigns abroad and the very lives of our soldiers and agents. In his view, the agency has become increasingly political and digressed from its job of being a scrupulously nonpartisan collector of facts."

You might have thought that it was the Bush administration and Vice President Cheney who've been twisting facts, leaning on the CIA to get in line with the prefabricated analysis that led to the war in Iraq. But no.

Two statistics jumped out at me reading the Times today, just getting back from vacation.

First, at least 85 per cent of the Iraqi detainees in custody in Iraq at present are Sunnis. (The total has risen from 16,000 to 24,500 under the "surge," says the Times, citing Pentagon figures.)

Second, in a different article: "The military says that 78 per cent of the attacks against the United States are now carried out by Shiites, not Sunni militants."

The Times cites these figures in separate pieces, and doesn't connect them. It doesn't say how many Sunnis and Shiites were "detained" since the surge began in February, but even if all the Shiites in custody were seized since then, it still means that more than half of the Iraqis seized were Sunnis.

The figures do provide an important indication of how the war has turned, however. It's taken nearly two years, but the United States seems largely have succeeded in turning the war from a U.S.-Shiite war against a Sunni-backed insurgency into a hybrid war, in which the target of U.S. wrath is increasingly an Iranian-Shiite alliance. That's quite significant. It also explains why Prime Minister Maliki, who took office with the support of the Shiite bloc and Muqtada al-Sadr's forces, is now looking shakier. That's the context in which to read his comments this week that Iraq can "find friends elsewhere," i.e., in Iran.

From NBC yesterday, John Warner, asked if he might support a Democratic-led effort in the Senate to force a pullout from Iraq:

I'm going to have to evaluate it. I don't say that as a threat, but I say that is an option we all have to consider. ... That's precisely what I said to the president. I said, 'Here is an option. You can initiate a first withdrawal. You pick the number, Mr. President. And it would send a signal to the Iraqi government that matches your words. His words being, `We're not going to be there forever.' ... The president has got to put teeth in these comments that we're not there forever. ... We've got to show our resolve in the face of the Iraqi government inaction. I'm looking for in that message of the 15th what the president's going to do to get this (Iraqi) government jump-started to deliver on its commitment to our troops, 'You fight and die, get the security, I will deliver Iraq as a reconciled unity government.'

Clearly, we have a problem and we'd better solve it. ... This week, I have learned, the Department of Defense and our field commanders in Iraq ... are going to sit down and communicate with the White House team and reconcile such difference of views and approaches as they have. The team in Iraq wanted to stay there with the full force as long as they can, obviously. The team back home are looking at the broader picture.

Added Mitch McConnell, on Fox News Sunday:

It's entirely possible that the president will lay out a strategy that takes us into a different place. ... I think a lot of our members would be surprised if there was not some level of draw-down over the next coming months.

And Senator Sam Brownback, appearing on WIBW in Kansas:

I wasn't for the troop surge at first...but we need a political solution now...Now is the time to do that.

According to a recent poll, by a margin of 2-1 Americans think that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq will go down in history as a failure:

In the long run, will the U.S. mission in Iraq be seen as a success or a failure? Yes: 57% No: 29 %

French President Sarkozy, in his first major foreign policy address, hits President Bush right between the eyes:

The Iraq tragedy cannot leave us indifferent. France was, thanks to Jacques Chirac, and remains hostile to this war. ... The political solution includes the marginalisation of extremist groups and a sincere process of national reconciliation, which must include every segment of Iraqi society -- and God knows there are a lot -- and every Iraqi being assured of fair access to the institutions and resources of their country. ... It also includes a clear horizon concerning the retreat of foreign troops. It is then and only then the international community, starting with the countries in the region, will be able to act most usefully. France, for its part, will be prepared to help.

This follows the first-ever visit by a French foreign minister to Iraq, earlier this month. After that visit, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that Iraqi PM Maliki should resign. Maliki was outraged, and Kouchner apologized, sort of. Here is his (rather funny) apology:

"I was very polite and apologized,'' Kouchner said after the president's speech. "Maybe I shouldn't have said it straight away. Maybe I should have said that `people' have told me that he is going to leave, because he is going to."

Writing in the IHT, Kouchner once again offered France as a mediator in Iraq:

France is ready to act as a mediator in Iraq, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Monday, calling for the United Nations and Iraq's neighbours to take a more active role in helping to end the crisis in the war-torn country.

"Although the (US-led 2003) invasion ended a brutal dictatorship, the methods used to build a secure and democratic Iraq have failed," Kouchner wrote in the International Herald Tribune.

"It is time to start anew. There can be no lasting military solution to the crisis. The solution has to be political."

The minister said at least planning for the withdrawal of foreign troops must begin, in consultation with Iraqi authorities, if not commence immediately.

"At the same time, a broad-based government of national unity must be established. France is prepared to act as a mediator in this endeavor."

In his speech yesterday, Bush tried imagining:

Imagine an Iraq where militia groups backed by Iran control large parts of the country.

Unfortunately, we don't have to imagine it. It's right there. Our 2003 invasion catapulted into power militias like the Badr Brigade and secret societies like Al Dawa, backed by Iran, and they now run the place. As Bush said yesterday: "Together our coalition has achieved great things in Iraq."