Gotta love Tom Toles' cartoon in the Post this morning: President Bush, looking goofy, standing at the plate with a golf club for a baseball bat, and the scorekeeper at the "Axis of Evil Scoreboard" has marked down "Iraq: Strike One," "North Korea: Strike Two" -- and he's waiting for the Iran pitch.

Underneath, Toles notes sardonically: "Mighty Crazy at the bat."

Conservatives who raved about "traditional marriage" at the just-concluded Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington might give a thought to how traditional marriage has been destroyed in Iraq since 2003. A good Post piece told that story this weekend. It mentions that one third of Iraqi marriages crossed sectarian and ethnic lines. In other words, perhaps 8 million Iraqis are Sunni-Shiite, or Arab-Kurdish, or some other mixture. Here's an excerpt and the link:

While there are no official statistics, sociologists estimate that nearly a third of Iraqi marriages are unions between members of different sectarian or ethnic communities. In the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, many Iraqis argued that the prevalence of such unions showed that Iraqis cared more about their Arab or national identity than their sect, which would spare the country a civil war.

But Iraq's sectarian strife has risen sharply since the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra by Sunni militants a year ago. Since then, more than 500,000 Iraqis have fled their homes, a number that is growing by 50,000 every month, according to the United Nations. The vast majority have left mixed areas, the main battlefields of the sectarian war.

A leading Sunni group, the Muslim Scholars Association – which is close to Iraq’s resistance groups – has strongly attacked the new Iraqi oil law:

The Muslim Scholars Association, a leading Sunni clerics group accused by the Iraqi government of fomenting violence, said the law as drafted was "invalid and lacks legitimacy.”

"The occupation forces have been rushing to pass such a law in a way that the rights of generations of Iraqis will sold," the group said in a statement, adding that U.S. and British forces had "hidden their intentions for many years.”

"The Americans backed by the British occupation forces have started to reveal their greed for Iraq's oil wealth," it said.

A back-and-forth exchange between me and Quin Hillyer, senior editor of The American Spectator, can be found on line at the Public Square web site. It starts with a piece by me called "Catch 22, Iraq Style."

Impeachment may be too good for George W. Bush, but I'm all for it. Needless to say, it's an explosive issue on Capitol Hill, among Democrats trying to find a least common denominator to express their opposition to the war.

There's a coalition ("Citizens Impeachment Commission") building toward an April 28 demonstration over the issue of impeachment. Take a look at ImpeachPAC.

You can read my Huffington Post blog item on Jim McDermott's teleconference with Iraqi parliamentarians and the emerging National Salvation Front in Iraq here.

Here's an excerpt:

The substance of the event was critically important. All five Iraqi parliamentarians called for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, along with urgent steps to help end the civil war, restore Iraq's old army, accommodate the dissolved Baath party, and rebuild the shattered economy. And they are not alone: a majority of the Iraqi parliament favors the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, a fact that gets little or no attention from either the media or the U.S. government.

The most important participant in the event from the Iraqi side was Nadim al-Jaberi, a member of parliament and co-founder of the Fadhila party. Until last week, the Fadhila party was part of the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite bloc that is the largest faction in the 270-member assembly. Fadhila is a nationalist party with tremendous grassroots support across southern Iraq, and it holds 15 seats in parliament. Last week, Fadhila pulled out of the UIA, announcing its attention to seek the establishment of a new power bloc in Iraq, one that includes both Sunnis, secular Iraqis, and Shia.

Fadhila is working with several other Iraqi factions, all of whom had participants in the teleconference organized by McDermott, including the National Dialogue Front (11 seats), which was represented by Saleh Mutlaq; the Iraqi Accord Front (44 seats), which represents religious Sunnis; the Iraqi National List, led by Iyad Allawi, the former Iraqi prime minister (25 seats), and others, including independents. Altogether, the coalition with Fadhila would muster close to 100 seats, putting it within striking distance of a new majority coalition that could unseat Prime Minister Maliki.

According to Iraqi sources, the new coalition is attempting to organize what they call a "National Salvation Front," that would include not only the above parties but also Muqtada al-Sadr's bloc, which has 35 seats in parliament.

Readers will recall that Haditha, Iraq, was the scene of the U.S. massacre of two dozen Iraqis in 2005. Today, according to a report from UPI in the Washington Times, an atrocity of another sort is being perpetrated there: the Sunni town in far northwest Iraq is under complete lockdown, patrolled by an occupying army of U.S. troops and southern Iraqi Shia:

HADITHA, Iraq -- Haditha is like a police state, surrounded by a dirt berm topped with concertina wire, with two tightly controlled entrances and no private cars permitted to drive in the town proper. "That's what it is; that's what it needs to be," said U.S. Lt. Col. Jim Donnellan, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment. ...

The clearing served as an advertisement that the U.S. Marines and the reconstituted Haditha police department -- comprising a charismatic local chief and 200 officers, many of them Shi'ites from southern Iraq -- now would be exerting their will over the city instead of the insurgents.

U.S. Marines serving in the Iraqi city of Haditha still feel the psychological weight of the November 2005 massacre, when a squad of Marines reportedly fatally shot 24 Hadithans shortly after one of their troops was killed by a roadside bomb.

Hadithans don't bring up the incident with the Americans much these days.

Speaking in its neocon voice, the Washington Post blasted Nancy Pelosi (and, by extension, the vast majority of American voters) for her plan to end the war in Iraq by no later than August 2008.

The Post attacked the Democrats' plan not because it's too conservative, of course, but because it's designed to end the war:

In short, the Democratic proposal to be taken up this week is an attempt to impose detailed management on a war without regard for the war itself. Will Iraq collapse into unrestrained civil conflict with "massive civilian casualties," as the U.S. intelligence community predicts in the event of a rapid withdrawal? Will al-Qaeda establish a powerful new base for launching attacks on the United States and its allies? Will there be a regional war that sucks in Iraqi neighbors such as Saudi Arabia or Turkey? The House legislation is indifferent: Whether or not any of those events happened, U.S. forces would be gone.

... Aggressive oversight is quite different from mandating military steps according to an inflexible timetable conforming to the need to capture votes in Congress or at the 2008 polls. Ms. Pelosi's strategy leads not toward a responsible withdrawal from Iraq but to a constitutional power struggle with Mr. Bush, who has already said he will veto the legislation.

As I pointed out in my recent Washington Monthly piece, those doomsday scenarios are by no means guaranteed: Iraq might not collapse into "massive civilian casualties" (beyond those already occurring!), nor will Al Qaeda take over, nor will Iraq's neighbors necessarily be sucked in. By trotting out scare talk like that, the Post is simply carrying water for President Bush's stay-the-course strategy or, rather, his recent (and now permanent-looking) escalation.

The long-running U.S. project to dump Prime Minister Maliki in Iraq is gaining momentum again. It comes at a time when the Iraqis themselves are taking steps to organize a replacement government for Iraq, one that could cross Sunni-Shiite lines. (See entry below on the possibility of a Sunni-Shiite bloc emerging to oppose Maliki and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.)

The AP carries a report today saying that Maliki has been told by the Americans that he must form a government acceptable to Iraq’s Sunnis and to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. And it notes this startling news: that former Prime Minister Allawi, the secular Shiite who heads the Iraq National List, and Kurdish warlord Massoud Barzani are both in Saudi Arabia, where they are talking about an alliance to get rid of Maliki. (Last week, Allawi went up to the Kurdish region to see Barzani, accompanied by Ambassador Khalilzad.)

This ought to be seen as a U.S.-inspired effort to form an anti-Iran government in Iraq. Interestingly it occurs while President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, is sidelined with an illness. Talabani, much more than Barzani, is close to Iran – and to Maliki.

According to AP, the U.S. has given Maliki a June 30 deadline. Here are some excerpts from the AP report:

Al-Maliki associates told AP, American officials have informed the prime minister they want an Iraqi government in place by year's end that would be acceptable to Iraq's Sunni Arab neighbors, particularly Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.

"They have said it must be secular and inclusive," one al-Maliki associate said. …

Compounding al-Maliki's fears about a withdrawal of American support were visits to Saudi Arabia by two key political figures in an admitted bid to win support for a major Iraqi political realignment. Saudi Arabia is a major U.S. ally and oil supplier.

Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a Shiite, arrived in the Saudi capital Tuesday. Masoud Barzani, leader of Iraq's largely autonomous Kurdish region, flew in a day earlier. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims.

"Allawi is there to enlist support for a new political front that rises above sectarian structures now in place," the former prime minister's spokesman Izzat al-Shahbandar told AP.

Barzani spokesman Abdul-Khaleq Zanganah said the two had met in Kurdistan before traveling to Saudi Arabia for talks on forming a "national front to take over for the political bloc now supporting al-Maliki." …

The al-Maliki associates said U.S. officials, who they would not name, had told the prime minister that President Bush was committed to the current government but that continued White House support depended on positive action on all the benchmarks — especially the oil law and sectarian reconciliation — by the close of this parliamentary session on June 30.

Allawi, long a U.S. favorite, isn't necessarily playing Washington's game entirely. A top official of Allawi's National List party blasted the new Iraq oil law, which is a U.S. priority, on the grounds that it pushes Iraq toward partition and hands Iraq's national treasure to foreign oil companies:

The draft oil and gas law could lead to the “partition of Iraq” and the dissipation of its wealth, said Usama al-Najifi, former minister of industry and current member of parliament in the opposition Iraqi National List.

Najifi said, “The oil law project in the form as sent to parliament is very dangerous, and in it is the partition of Iraq and the dissipation of its riches”

In remarks to German media, relayed in Arabic in Al-Sharq al-Awsat, Najifi said that "the oil law project is in need of extensive study and complete review,” calling for postponement of the discussion until after the departure of the US occupation, and the realization of the “appropriate conditions for discussion” of the law.

Al-Najifi also added that the law’s provision for foreign companies to conclude contracts with Iraq’s provinces would lead to the “control of those companies over Iraq’s wealth.”

Allawi has also indicated his intent to visit Egypt, Syria, and other Arab countries, as well as Iran, to build support for his proposed coalition. According Asharq Alawsat newspaper, he blasted the Maliki regime as hopelessly sectarian:

In an interview with Asharq al-Awsat conducted with him during his visit to Kuwait, where he was accompanied by a delegation from Al-Iraqiyah List, Allawi said, "This government does not represent me as a Shiite nor the Shiites in Iraq as much as it represents the politicized Shiites. We warned before and continue to warn that political sectarianism will impede and thwart the government's work as it will impede and thwart the unity of Iraqi society." He asserted that the "the Kurdish-Sunni-Shiite division is the most dangerous thing facing Iraq and is lethal to it." He proposed the alternative of the "Iraqi national approach that believes in pluralism and the diversity of Iraqi society and gives the rights voluntarily to all the people's sectors without sectarian or factional tyranny."

And Allawi's spokesman confirmed that that Allawi-Barzani visit to Saudi Arabia was coordinated with Khalilzad (which is unfortunate, since it brands the effort as American-inspired):

Asked if Allawi's visit to Riyadh just one night after Barzani's arrival there was coordinated beforehand or not, Al-Shabandar said: "I believe that this visit was coordinated so as to have both Allawi and President Barzani in Riyadh. This coordination was made during Allawi's visit to the Kurdistan region with US Ambassador in Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad before the start of the Gulf tour so as to be within the framework of the joint efforts of Dr. Allawi and President Barzani to back the Iraqi national plan."

From IraqSlogger blog comes this scary threat from President Jalal Talbani, who sounds less like Iraq's president and more like a separatist fanatic:

In a chilling interview with the Jordanian state-run Al-Rai newspaper, Iraqi President Jalal Talibani warned that Kurdish and Shi’ite militias would “overrun” Iraq in the case of a U.S. withdrawal. Talibani, speaking from the Al-Hussein Medical City, where he was recuperating from exhaustion and pulmonary inflammation, said the Kurds and Shia can prepare “hundreds of thousands of trained fighters” to quickly control all of Iraq, adding that he does not wish to see this scenario take place. “We in the Kurdistan region can take control of Mosul and surrounding Arab areas within hours,” said Talibani. “This is not in the interest of Iraq because there has to be an Iraqi force that represents all components of the Iraqi people.” President Talibani arrived Wednesday afternoon at the Suleimaniya International Airport in the Kurdistan Region north of Iraq.

The Times reports point blank today what ought to have been obvious since the start of the so-called "surge," namely, that the United States has decided to concentrate its fire on the Sunnis and give the Shiite death squads and paramilitary forces -- read: SCIRI -- a free pass. Notes the Times:

In Baghdad, American officials seem increasingly willing to tolerate some of those Shiite militias as long as they patrol their own neighborhoods. Administration officials said they had eased up on parts of the timetable for re-integrating former Baathists, for fear of a Shiite backlash.

An accompanying Times piece makes this even more explicit, citing Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the top spokesman for the United States military :

General Caldwell’s comments — combined with praise for the cooperation of Shiite officials and negotiators for the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia loyal to the cleric Moktada al-Sadr — seemed to suggest that the military was returning to its former strategy of concentrating on Sunni extremists. That would represent a change from American officials’ comments in the past few months that identified Shiite militias as Iraq’s largest threat.

Thanks to Juan Cole's Informed Comment blog, we have an interview with Khalaf al-Ulayyan, a Sunni member of parliament, who accuses the United States of launching an all-out assault against the Sunnis while bringing Shiite militamen into the Iraqi forces involved in the "surge." In Amman, speaking to Iraq's Al-Zawra TV, here's part of what Ulayyan says:

Al-Ulayyan accuses the Government of trying to gain time by impeding the security plan. "They want to gain time to evict and kill the largest possible number of Sunnis, especially in the Baghdad Governorate," he claims, adding: "They dissolved Al-Mahdi Army before the implementation of the plan and asked the Al-Mahdi Army not to take up arms against US forces." He says the government has absorbed them into the National Guard, the Interior Ministry storm troopers, or law enforcement personnel.

He says that "top Al-Mahdi Army commanders" were smuggled outside Iraq to keep them from being arrested or killed, and notes that there was "an order to that effect signed by the prime minister himself and was displayed on space channels and on the Internet." He argues that the US forces go to the Al-Sadr city but they do not encounter any resistance. He says they announce on television that "the US and government forces will be storming the Al-Sadr City to search for concealed arms," noting that this is a warning to them to be on their guard. He says once they hear such warning, they will conceal their arms or bury them and the wanted people will escape. Al-Ulayyan asks: "Why do they not do that in our areas? Why do they not say that they will storm Al-A'zamiah neighborhood? Why do they not say that they plan to storm Al-Khadra or Al-Ghazaliyah neighborhoods?"

Not surprisingly, though you don't often hear this from a member of the Iraqi parliament, Ulayyan explicitly supports the resistance in Iraq, though he condemns Al Qaeda.

Al-Ulayyan says the Iraqi resistance is an honor to every Iraqi. He says that "when the Iraqi state collapsed in such a short time, we were ashamed and I could not appear in public because I was ashamed." He says the Iraqi resistance restored the honor of the Iraqis. He says he is prepared to offer everything to the resistance, adding: "The Iraqi resistance that fights the occupation, that defends the Iraqis, and that does not shed the blood of the Iraqis is the real resistance. We do not recognize terrorism that kills the Iraqis -- Shiites, Sunnis, or others -- and we do not consider it Iraqi resistance.

The Washington Times (yes, them) has a page-one story today about the devastating effect of the war on the mental health of Iraqis:

Iraqi psychiatrists are seeing what they call a disturbing spike in mental health disorders as terrorism, an armed insurrection and a bloody sectarian divide grip the country. Escalating psychiatric caseloads are compounded by Iraq's lack of mental health workers, facilities and services.

Several mental health care professionals say the number of untreated or undertreated people nationwide reaches into the millions, and the consequences could permanently damage generations.

"Iraqis are being traumatized every day," said Said Al-Hashimi, a psychiatrist who runs a private clinic and teaches at Mustansiriya Medical School in Baghdad. "No one knows what will result from living through this continuous trauma on a daily basis."

And this:

"I look into the eyes of children whose parents have been killed or are imprisoned every day," said Nadal Al-Shamri, a pediatrician at the Medical City health complex in Baghdad. "The psychological trauma is so deeply ingrained in some children that they may never lead a normal life."

No wonder polls are showing that more and more Iraqis are depressed, and that they support violence against the U.S. occupation forces. More than nine out of ten Sunnis support attacks on U.S. troops, the poll reported:

The optimism that helped sustain Iraqis during the first few years of the war has dissolved into widespread fear, anger and distress amid unrelenting violence, a survey found.

The poll - the third in Iraq since early 2004 by ABC News and media partners - draws a stark portrait of an increasingly pessimistic population under great emotional stress. Among the findings of this survey for ABC News, USA Today, the BBC and ARD German TV:

The number of Iraqis who say their own life is going well has dipped from 71 percent in November 2005 to 39 percent now.

About three-fourths of Iraqis report feelings of anger, depression and difficulty concentrating.

More than half of Iraqis have curtailed activities like going out of their homes, going to markets or other crowded places and traveling through police checkpoints.

Only 18 percent of Iraqis have confidence in U.S. and coalition troops, and 86 percent are concerned that someone in their household will be a victim of violence.

Slightly more than half of Iraqis - 51 percent - now say that violence against U.S. forces is acceptable - up from 17 percent who felt that way in early 2004. More than nine in 10 Sunni Arabs in Iraq now feel this way.

Wayne White, who led the State Department's intelligence team on Iraq until 2005, notes that polls understate the problem, since pollsters necessarily underrepresent the most violent, disaffected areas of the country.

Most of the coverage of the 3 a.m. hanging of Taha Yassin Ramadan, Iraq's former vice president, fails to mention that he was a Kurd. That would spoil the current narrative in the media (and from many so-called Iraq experts) that the Baath party was 100 per cent Sunni Arab. Tariq Aziz, of course, the voluble foreign minister and a key insider in Saddam's regime, wasn't even a Muslim, but a Christian. True, during Saddam's 35-year rule, the leadership was increasingly concentrated among the family and friends of Saddam and his Tikriti allies. But like most stories, it's a lot more complicated than that.

The LA Times has a piece on the General Petraeus and the "surge," which quotes Ken Pollack thus:

"We are doing it, and all the other smart aspects of the new Baghdad security plan, very late in the day," said counterinsurgency expert Kenneth M. Pollack, a former National Security Council official now at the Brookings Institution who was an advocate of the 2003 invasion. "It is going to be very difficult to build up the trust among the Iraqi public to make any of this succeed. ...If we're not willing to stay for the months, if not years, it will take to regain the trust of average Iraqis, none of Petraeus' smart moves are going to work."

In a recent speech to the American Enterprise Institute, Bernard Lewis -- who invented the term "clash of civilizations" in the 1950s -- held forth on what he sees as Islam's latest imperial plot.

He outlines a world in which nefarious, plotting Muslims are busily taking
over Europe, an event that he describes as a reconquest. Not content to rely
merely on terrorism, the Muslims are cleverly using an even more insidious
tactic: migration! Even more cleverly, these evildoers are using their
dangerously high birth rate to make use of the deadly weapon of
"demography." Think I'm exaggerating? For those of you who haven't bothered
to read the speech, here are some important excerpts:

"In the eyes of a fanatical and resolute minority of Muslims, the third wave of attack on Europe has clearly begun. We should not delude ourselves as to what it is and what it means. This time it is taking different forms and two in particular: terror and migration. ... Where do we stand now? Is it third time lucky? It is not impossible. They have certain clear advantages. They have fervor and conviction, which in most Western countries are either weak or lacking. They are self-assured of the rightness of their cause, whereas we spend most of our time in self-denigration and self-abasement. They have loyalty and discipline, and perhaps most important of all, they have demography, the combination of natural increase and migration producing major population changes, which could lead within the foreseeable future to significant majorities in at least some European cities or even countries."

There are, says Lewis, "signs of a return among Muslims to what they
perceive as the cosmic struggle for world domination between the two main
faiths--Christianity and Islam," part of a "Muslim attack on Christendom."

And he quotes what he admits is an apocryphal letter (a "declaration of
war") from the Prophet Muhammad stating the prophet's goal of world
domination:

"The declaration of war begins at the very beginning of Islam. There are certain letters purported to have been written by the Prophet Muhammad to the Christian Byzantine emperor, the emperor of Persia, and various other rulers, saying, "I have now brought God's final message. Your time has passed. Your beliefs are superseded. Accept my mission and my faith or resign or submit--you are finished." The authenticity of these prophetic letters is doubted, but the message is clear and authentic in the sense that it does represent the long dominant view of the Islamic world."

Oh. One more thing. Sitting in front of him was VP Cheney. Lewis couldn't
pointing out (and here I am assuming he didn't make this up) that when
Muslim raiders invaded Ireland and took prisoners back to Algiers in 1631,
they captured a Cheney: "In a contemporary document, we have a list of 107
captives who were taken from Baltimore [Ireland] to Algiers, including a man
called Cheney." So THAT'S why Cheney supports Lewis' clash of civilizations:
it's clan revenge.

Ambassador Khalilzad, our man in Iraq, can't seem to figure out who the bad guys are. First he spent years attacking the Sunni-led insurgency, until it became clear that the Shiite-based paramilitary forces and death squads were responsible for most of the killing. Then he switched sides: it was, he said, the Shiite militias who were the chief bad guys. Now he's switched again, the Post reports:

In an interview at his residence shortly before the bombing [attack on an Iraqi deputy prime minister], Khalilzad said that he now sees al-Qaeda in Iraq as "the big threat" to stability in Iraq. In previous interviews, Khalilzad had pinpointed Shiite militias, such as cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, as Iraq's main troublemakers.

That's despite overwhelming evidence that if the Shiite radicals who dominate Iraq's government were curbed, along with their militias, the Sunni resistance would lay down its arms and join the political process, as long as it is tied to a U.S. withdrawal. The latest explicit statement to that effect comes from a leading Sunni tribal leader in Anbar, via AP:

A prominent Iraqi Sunni leader said Friday that the insurgency in Iraq could end if the U.S. showed determination to stop the influence of pro-Iranian Shiite militias there.

"The Americans must act seriously and abolish those militias, confiscate their weapons, arrest their criminals and at the same time stop the Iranian influence which is penetrating all of Iraq, including the government," said Sheik Majeed al-Gaood, a prominent tribal leader in Anbar province, the heartland of the Sunni insurgency.

Al-Gaood is a leading member of a Sunni family that plays a major role in tribal politics in Anbar. He is believed to have close ties with factions of former dictator Saddam Hussein's disbanded Baath Party.

Al-Gaood has previously said a truce with the United States was possible if the Shiite-dominated government of Iraq were "dismissed" and new elections held. He said he was committed to the unity of Iraq and wanted sectarian violence to end.

"We are very keen to stop the bloodshed of our people," he told an Associated Press reporter by telephone from the Jordanian capital, Amman. Al-Gaood suggested that the end of the insurgency was contingent, however, on ending Iranian influence in Iraq.

"Iran is a worse enemy for Iraq than the United States," he said.

Iraq has been crippled by violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims since the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein and his Sunni-led government in 2003. Hussein's overthrow led to the election of a Shiite-dominated government and kicked off fighting between the two religious groups that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Iran, which is overwhelmingly Shiite, is widely believed to be supporting several armed Shiite militias in Iraq.

Al-Gaood heads a group called "Wahaj el Iraq," or "Flame of Iraq," a Sunni-dominated Iraqi political faction believed to have close ties to the disbanded Baath Party.

Al-Gaood said that talks with Shiite militias were out of the question and that his group would side with all "Iraqis who reject the occupation and want to preserve the unity of Iraq."

According to iCasualties.org, the patterns of Iraqi deaths hasn't changed much since the U.S. escalation, or surge, began. They report that 1,802 Iraqi security forces and civilians died in January, 1,531 in February, and 1,134 so far in March, meaning that this month's total will pretty much match last month's. Among American forces, death totals are: 83 in January, 80 in February, and 70 so far in March.

Yesterday, NPR reported that morgue officials in Baghdad accuse the government of understating the number of deaths since the surge began, presumably for political reasons -- meaning that the supposedly lower figures for bodies turning up tortured, mutilated, and executed in the Iraqi capital are wrong. Still, those reported totals are creeping up again, with daily totals in the several dozens again.

I couldn't have written a better op-ed myself on the overblown "war on terror." Zbigniew Brzezinski gets it right:

The "war on terror" has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush administration's elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the world. ...

Government at every level has stimulated the paranoia. Consider, for example, the electronic billboards over interstate highways urging motorists to "Report Suspicious Activity" (drivers in turbans?). Some mass media have made their own contribution. The cable channels and some print media have found that horror scenarios attract audiences, while terror "experts" as "consultants" provide authenticity for the apocalyptic visions fed to the American public. ...

Where is the U.S. leader ready to say, "Enough of this hysteria, stop this paranoia"?

Parallel to that: two new reports of paranoia-gone-wild: the Times reports that the NYPD spied massively on peaceful protesters and dissenters before the 2004 GOP convention in New York, a theme that I've written about many times, including several investigative articles on police spying [see here, here, and here], and the Post carries a report that more than 400,000 people are in the anti-terror data base with little or no quality control.

The Times, in its farewell paeon to departing Ambassador Khalilzad, headlines the least-secret secret of his tenure in Baghdad: that he held talks with representatives of Iraq's resistance:

The senior American envoy in Iraq, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, held talks last year with men he believed represented major insurgent groups in a drive to bring militant Sunni Arabs into politics.

“There were discussions with the representatives of various groups in the aftermath of the elections, and during the formation of the government before the Samarra incident, and some discussions afterwards as well,” Mr. Khalilzad said in a farewell interview on Friday at his home inside the fortified Green Zone. He is the first American official to publicly acknowledge holding such talks.

The meetings began in early 2006 and were quite possibly the first attempts at sustained contact between senior American officials here and the Sunni Arab insurgency. Mr. Khalilzad flew to Jordan for some of the talks, which included self-identified representatives of the Islamic Army of Iraq and the 1920 Revolution Brigades, two leading nationalist factions, American and Iraqi officials said. Mr. Khalilzad declined to give details on the meetings, but other officials said the efforts had foundered by the summer, after the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra set off waves of sectarian violence.

The talks were widely reported, beginning as long ago as 2005. They collapsed not because of the post-Samarra "sectarian violence," but simply because the United States isn't willing to go even halfway toward meeting the insurgents' demands.

Those demands were described, accurately, by none other than Ahmed Chalabi, in the Times piece:

Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi politician who is a friend of Mr. Khalilzad, said the talks fizzled out partly because the insurgents’ representatives made untenable demands. They asked for a suspension of the Constitution, breakup of Parliament, a reinstatement of the old Iraqi Army and establishment of a new government, he said.

That's pretty much correct, although Chalabi ignores the reality that the central demand of the resistance (the non-Al Qaeda-linked mainstream resistance) is the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, in exchange for which they're willing to declare a ceasefire. The Bush administration, of course, isn't willing to consider that.

Interesting, though, that the Times calls Chalabi a "friend of Mr.Khalilzad." Also, in its piece, the Times forthrightly calls Khalilzad a "neoconservative," which describes him exactly. (At a speaking engagement last fall, when I called Khalilzad a neoconservative, I was strongly criticized for saying so by Judith Kipper.) In any case, neocon Khalilzad, friend of Chalabi, is leaving Iraq.

An Indian media account reports that the CIA is plotting to topple Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan, replacing him with a military officer likely to reach out to that country's political parties:

The US sent head-of-state hunters from the Central Intelligence Agency to scour the Pakistani military apparatus to identify a suitable replacement for General Pervez Musharraf.

The extraordinary recruitment mission — reflecting the seriousness of purpose and urgency with which the Bush administration wants to oust its ‘most valuable ally’ — was disclosed recently by a well-placed diplomatic source.

The source said that some time last year, policymakers in Washington, DC, had begun to explore ways to establish a more democratic and civilian system in Pakistan. The plan was formulated despite Musharraf’s firm grip on the affairs of state and his record of serving American interests in the war on terrorism.

A team of CIA operatives was subsequently sent to the country to sort out pro-US army officers, one of whom could be considered Musharraf’s successor as the commander-in-chief. A vital skill required of the candidate was the capacity to enhance engagement with pro-democracy forces, which would eventually lead to the establishment of a civilian government.

I could fill the blog with these every day, but here are two that are particularly poignant. From the Times on March 26:

Ahmed Ali [is] a grizzled 72-year old carpenter who came for help getting his food ration basket. Mr. Ali closed his carpentry shop because there was no electricity. Known throughout Adhamiya for his craftsmanship, he was famous for making an Arab version of the lute for local musicians.

His eldest son was killed a year ago. When he collected the body at the morgue, he found that holes had been drilled through his son’s joints, a form of torture that is a mark of Shiite militias. Last summer, his younger son was kidnapped near the neighborhood.

He leaned forward slightly on his cane and looked hard at Mr. Daoud as he tried to explain the depth of his losses: the carpentry shop, his food rations, his family. “I made lutes and sometimes I played, but my fingers are numb now,” he said. “I cannot play. I want only to find my kidnapped son.”

And then from the Australian, this unspeakable story:

Near the shops, a group of children -- Sunni and Shia -- were playing football on an empty site. As Mr Amer, his wife and brother walked past, two cars pulled up. Four or five men in tracksuits got out and opened their car boots. They pulled out belt-fed BKC machineguns, a weapon known in Iraq as "the harvester" for its ability to kill many people quickly.

"We heard the shooting of the machineguns. It was so loud and continuous we thought they were targeting us," the 28-year-old Shia man said, his eyes red and brimming with pain.

But they were not the targets. "I started looking, and they were shooting the kids," he said. "Eight of the kids already fell on the ground. The guys kept shooting, they just wanted to make sure everyone was dead."

The next time you hear President Bush say that if the United States leaves Iraq, Al Qaeda will take over, remember the following, perhaps the most complete account yet of the fighting between Iraq's nationalist resistance and Al Qaeda. It's from the Los Angeles Times, whose reporter, Ned Parker, interviewed Iraqi resistance leaders for the story.

It's a complicated issue, since the United States wants to carve out cooperative, anti-Al Qaeda Sunnis to join the U.S.-backed Iraqi government. On the other hand, the Sunnis have their own reasons for battling Al Qaeda, and that doesn't mean they want to join the American side--nearly all Sunnis, and the entire Sunni-led resistance, want an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

Here's an extended excerpt from the LA Times piece:

Insurgent leaders and Sunni Arab politicians say divisions between insurgent groups and Al Qaeda in Iraq have widened and have led to combat in some areas of the country, a schism that U.S. officials hope to exploit.

The Sunni Arab insurgent leaders said they disagreed with the leadership of Al Qaeda in Iraq over tactics, including attacks on civilians, as well as over command of the movement.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, on his last day in Iraq, said Monday that American officials were actively pursuing negotiations with the Sunni factions in an effort to further isolate Al Qaeda.

"Iraqis are uniting against Al Qaeda," Khalilzad said. "Coalition commanders have been able to engage some insurgents to explore ways to collaborate in fighting the terrorists." [Note from Dreyfuss: Khalilzad is trying to take credit for something that is happening quite on its own, organically, among Sunnis.]

Insurgent leaders from two of the prominent groups fighting U.S. troops said the divisions between their forces and Al Qaeda were serious. They have led to skirmishes in Al Anbar province, in western Iraq, and have stopped short of combat in Diyala, east of Baghdad, they said in interviews with the Los Angeles Times.

Al Qaeda in Iraq, which has taken responsibility for many of the most brutal attacks on civilians here, is made up primarily of foreign fighters. Although it shares a name with Osama bin Laden's group, it is unclear how much the two coordinate their activities. [Note from Dreyfuss: You rarely see this in the mainstream media, but it's true: the cooperation between Al Qaeda, the Pakistan-based clique, and 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' is murky, if it exists at all.]

The General Command of the Iraqi Armed Forces, a small Baath Party insurgent faction, told the Los Angeles Times it had split with Al Qaeda in Iraq in September, after the assassination of two of its members in Al Anbar.

"Al Qaeda killed two of our best members, the Gen. Mohammed and Gen. Saab, in Ramadi, so we took revenge and now we fight Al Qaeda," said the group's spokesman, who called himself Abu Marwan.

In Diyala, the 1920 Revolution Brigade, a coalition of Islamists and former Baath Party military officers, is on the verge of cutting ties with Al Qaeda.

"In the past, we agreed in terms of the goal of resisting the occupation and expelling the occupation. We have some disagreements with Qaeda, especially about targeting civilians, places of worship, state civilian institutions and services," said a fighter with the brigade who identified himself with a nom de guerre, Haj Mahmoud abu Bakr.

"Now we reached a dead end and we disavow what Qaeda is doing. But until now, we haven't thought about fighting with them," he added. "We are counseling them, and in case they continue, we will cut off the aid and the logistical and intelligence support."

Shiite Muslim government officials said the Iraqi government was talking to insurgents both about fighting the radical movement and reaching a truce.

The government has proposed a trial cease-fire period to the 1920 Revolution Brigade, the Islamic Army in Iraq and other factions in western Baghdad. In return, the Iraqi government would mount a major reconstruction drive in battle-scarred Sunni areas, a senior member of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party said.

A rupture between Al Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgents could prove a significant break for the Iraqi government and the Americans. But there are many potential drawbacks. Sunni politicians describe the fighting against Al Qaeda in Iraq as localized and emphasize that in some areas the various movements exist in harmony.

The Iraqi factions are also believed to engage in turf wars that could sabotage any concerted effort against Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni politicians said.

The insurgents prefer to negotiate with the Americans and to bypass the Shiite-led government, which Sunni Arabs deeply distrust.

Khalilzad heralded the developing rift between insurgent groups and Al Qaeda in Iraq as "the key issue of the current period."

He said insurgents were "in touch with the government seeking reconciliation and cooperation" in both the conflict with Al Qaeda in Iraq and reconciliation with Maliki's government.

Khalilzad acknowledged that he had met with insurgent groups last spring to try to draw them into the political process, but had barred followers of Al Qaeda in Iraq from his plans.

Three Sunni politicians, most of them with contacts in the Sunni insurgency, said insurgent groups were struggling over domestic issues, even as Al Qaeda in Iraq pursued an international agenda.

"All Iraqi resistance groups are in real dissension with Al Qaeda network in Iraq," said Khalaf Ayan, a member of the Sunni Tawafiq bloc in parliament.

"Al Qaeda is pursuing a different agenda — an international one and not an Iraqi" agenda, he said. "Al Qaeda should join Iraqis and not the opposite. What happened is that Al Qaeda had targeted leaders of many Iraqi groups. That is why the resistance is in big conflict with Al Qaeda and is fighting against it."

The U.S. military had reported tension between Al Qaeda in Iraq and insurgent groups in 2005. But the movement, then under the leadership of Abu Musab Zarqawi, sought to repair relations through the establishment of a resistance umbrella association. Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike in June.

In October, Al Qaeda and its Iraqi affiliates announced the establishment of an Islamic State of Iraq, but insurgents have spurned it, saying it was a ploy to take over the insurgency.

"The Islamic Army and 1920 Revolution Brigade are fighting Al Qaeda," said Saleh Mutlak, a Sunni member of parliament. "Al Qaeda wants them to join Al Qaeda or the Islamic State of Iraq. They refused and this is why they are fighting now."

Mutlak said that there had been heavy fighting in Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, and that unrest had also spread to Diyala in eastern Iraq.

Iyad Samarrai, a Sunni member of parliament from the Iraqi Islamic Party, confirmed clashes in the last three months in the Abu Ghraib area and also in Taji, north of Baghdad.

The headline reads: "Saudi king blasts 'illegitimate occupation' of Iraq. Here's the lede:

Saudi King Abdullah, whose country is a close US ally, on Wednesday slammed the "illegitimate foreign occupation" of Iraq in an opening speech to the annual Arab summit in Riyadh.

"In beloved Iraq, blood is being shed among brothers in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation, and ugly sectarianism threatens civil war," Abdullah said.