From ex-Centcom leader Gen. John Abizaid at CSIS on Sept. 17:

"Iran is not a suicide nation. I mean, they may have some people in charge that don't appear to be rational, but I doubt that the Iranians intend to attack us with a nuclear weapon. ... I believe that we have the power to deter Iran, should it become nuclear. There are ways to live with a nuclear Iran. Let's face it, we lived with a nuclear Soviet Union, we've lived with a nuclear China, and we're living with (other) nuclear powers as well."

"War, in the state-to-state sense, in that part of the region would be devastating for everybody, and we should avoid it — in my mind — to every extent that we can. On the other hand, we can't allow the Iranians to continue to push in ways that are injurious to our vital interests."

"I believe the United States, with our great military power, can contain Iran — that the United States can deliver clear messages to the Iranians that makes it clear to them that while they may develop one or two nuclear weapons they'll never be able to compete with us in our true military might and power. ... We need to press the international community as hard as we possibly can, and the Iranians, to cease and desist on the development of a nuclear weapon and we should not preclude any option that we may have to deal with it."

Meanwhile, from IAEA's Mohammed ElBaradei:

"I would not talk about any use of force. ... There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons. ... I do not believe at this stage that we are facing a clear and present danger that requires we go beyond diplomacy. ... We need not hype the issue."

President Bush today described Antoine Ghanem, who was assassinated yesterday in Beirut, as "an anti-Syrian, pro-Lebanese, pro-democracy" politician. Anti-Syrian perhaps. But Bush didn't mention that Ghanem was a leading member of the Lebanese Phalangist party, called Kataib in Arabic, which is an extreme right-wing, Nazi-leaning political organization. It was founded in the 1930s by Pierre Gemayel and his allies, modeled on the fascist forces of the Spanish Falangists, and Gemayel himself was an admirer of Hitler.

The media doesn't bother with history when reporting events like Ghanem's murder. It rarely (if ever) mentions the fact that Ghanem's militia was responsible in 1982 for the slaughter of hundreds of innocent Palestinian men, women and children at two refugee camps outside Beirut. (That action, of course, was carried out with the support of Ariel Sharon's Israeli army, which was then occupying Lebanon and parts of Beirut itself.)

Wondering why Ayatollah Sistani, the grand old man of the Iraqi Shia clerics and the man who, not long ago, was typically described as the most powerful man in Iraq, has been so quiet lately? He's under assault. All year long, partisans of Sistani's, including top aides, have been assassinated -- by whom, it isn't clear.

Today, two more Sistani aides were killed, one in Basra and another in Diwaniya. (That makes five since August.)

During that time, a war in Basra has broken out pitting Sadr, SIIC, and Fadhila forces and various gangs against each other. And two SIIC governors of southern provinces have been killed. Not to mention the armed clash that erupted in Karbala a couple of weeks ago, in which more than 50 Iraqis were killed. That clash pitted Sadr's forces against SIIC paramilitaries.

My own view is that Sadr's forces are a lot stronger than SIIC's. The army and police are bigger than either, of course, but who controls that, ultimately, is anybody's guess. If I were the United States, I'd bet on Sadr, and indeed there is talk of a U.S-Sadr dialogue underway. Then we read (in David Ignatius' column in the Post yesterday) that the United States has quietly given the green light to SIIC's Badr thugs to take control of Nasiriyah:

The American plan now, apparently, is to extend the Anbar model and create "bottom-up" solutions throughout Iraq. For example, I'm told that U.S. commanders met recently with the Shiite political organization known as the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and gave a green light for its Badr Organization militia to control security in Nasiriyah and some other areas in southern Iraq and thereby check the power of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. We're interposing ourselves here in an intra-Shiite battle we barely understand.

According to Newsweek, David Wurmser, Cheney's Middle East adviser, is gone. In late July, my blog reported: "According to multiple sources, Wurmser will leave the office of the vice president (OVP) in August for the private sector, where he will start a risk-consulting business."

Terrific story in the Post this morning about a classified program to drop little items like fuses and wires, then have snipers wait to shoot down anyone who picks them up! Lacking in the piece is any sense of how many Iraqis have died in this way, but it must be a great number.

Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said such a baiting program should be examined "quite meticulously" because it raises troubling possibilities, such as what happens when civilians pick up the items.

"In a country that is awash in armaments and magazines and implements of war, if every time somebody picked up something that was potentially useful as a weapon, you might as well ask every Iraqi to walk around with a target on his back," Fidell said.

Is Congress listening? Time for hearings.

Not only haven't there been any acts of terrorism by Muslims in the United States in the six years since 9/11, but not one American even been punched in the nose by an angry Muslim since then.

Now comes evidence that it isn't so different in Europe either. Reports Der Speigel:

There were almost 500 acts of terrorism across the European Union in 2006 -- but only one, the foiled suitcase bomb plot in Germany, was related to Islamist terror, a new EU report reveals.

One, repeat one, instance of Islamist terrorism in Europe during all of 2006! Some global Islamofascist threat!

By the way, nearly all of the non-Islamist terrorism incidents were small, mainly aimed at property damage.