Time's Michael Ware has penned the single best article on the state of things in Iraq that I can remember, whose focus is the emerging or potential dialogue between the United States and the Baath party-led resistance forces.

It's most useful for its interview with Ambassador Zal Khalilzad. Here are some quotes from Zal:

"We want to deal with their legitimate concerns. We will intensify the engagement, interaction, and discussion with them. ... The fault line between Al Qaeda and the nationalists seems to have increased. ... Insurgency and terror are two different things. ... There is a reaching out to non-criminal Baathists. ... The time has come to reintegrate them into the political process."

It sounds like Zal is starting to get it. Most important is the distinction between "insurgency" and "terror."

So this is important stuff. See my interview, below, with Aiham al-Sammarae, who is mediating (or trying to) between the Baath-military resistance and the United States. He points out that so far there are no high-level talks underway, merely low-level contacts. But clearly Khalilzad has opened to the door to more high-level contacts. (No wonder SCIRI's Abdel Aziz Hakim is ballistic.) I urge you to read the whole piece in Time.