The Dreyfuss Report (now at The Nation).

Today, by bipartisan a vote of 234 to 183, the House adopted Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s amendment to the Department of Defense Authorization Act requiring congressional approval of any agreement between the U.S. and Iraq making commitments related to Iraq’s security. ... "If prior review and approval is good enough for the Iraqi Parliament, it is essential for the Congress," said Lee.

In the past, al-Sistani has avoided answering even abstract questions on whether fighting the U.S. presence in Iraq is allowed by Islam. Such questions sent to his Web site — which he uses to respond to followers' queries — have been ignored. All visitors to his office who had asked the question received a vague response. The subtle shift could point to his growing impatience with the continued American presence more than five years after the U.S.-led invasion.

A longtime official at al-Sistani's office in Najaf would not deny or confirm the edicts issued in private, but hinted that a publicized call for jihad may come later. "(Al-Sistani) rejects the American presence," he told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment to media. "He believes they (the Americans) will at the end pay a heavy price for the damage they inflicted on Iraq."

In perhaps another sign of al-Sistani's hardened position, he has opposed disarming the Mahdi Army as demanded by al-Maliki, according to Shiite officials close to the cleric. Disarming the Mahdi Army would — in the views of many Shiites — leave them vulnerable to attacks by armed Sunni factions that are steadily gaining strength after joining the U.S. military fight against al-Qaida.

US President George W. Bush intends to attack Iran in the upcoming months, before the end of his term, Army Radio quoted a senior official in Jerusalem as saying Tuesday.

Obviously, Iran isn't a superpower and doesn't possess the military power the Soviet Union had. But that does not mean that the threat posed by Iran is insignificant. On the contrary, right now Iran provides some of the deadliest explosive devices used in Iraq to kill our soldiers. They are the chief sponsor of Shia extremists in Iraq, and terrorist organizations in the Middle East. And their president, who has called Israel a 'stinking corpse,' has repeatedly made clear his government's commitment to Israel’s destruction. Most worrying, Iran is intent on acquiring nuclear weapons.

On Monday, the hard-line Iranian newspaper Jomhuri-e-Eslami accused al-Maliki of lacking backbone in talks with Washington, which include the long-range status of U.S. military operations in Iraq. The daily, which is considered close to Iran's ruling clerics, claimed Washington wants a "full-fledged colony" in Iraq. It was a rare public jab at al-Maliki, a Shiite. But it was mild compared with the closed-door recriminations during the high-level Iraqi visit, according to accounts by Shiite politicians close to Iraq's prime minister. The five-member delegation sought to pressure and cajole the Iranians into cutting suspected support for Shiite militias that have battled U.S. and Iraqi forces. But the Iraqis mostly received a scolding, the politicians said. "The Iranians were very tough and even angry with us," said one of the delegates in the Tehran talks. "They accused us of being ungrateful to what Iran has done for the Shiites during Saddam's rule and of siding with the Americans against Iran."

We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage with the Iranians and then sit down and talk with them. ... If there is going to be a discussion then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the 'demandeur' with them not feeling they do not need anything from us.

I think the 'Six' could make the following step: directly put concrete offers on the negotiating table, give Iran security guarantees and ensure a more distinguished place in negotiations on the situation in the Middle East. I am convinced that this is an effective way of relieving tensions in the region and regulating the situation surrounding Iran's nuclear problem.

The Iraqi government and leaders of the movement of the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr agreed Saturday to a truce, brokered with help from Iran, that would end more than a month of bloody fighting in the vast, crowded Sadr City section of Baghdad. ... The Iranians helped end the standoff by throwing their weight behind the government after a delegation of Shiite members of Parliament visited Iran earlier this month, according to three people involved in negotiating the truce.... The members of Parliament asked Iran to lean on the Shiite militias they have influence with, said Ali Adeeb, a Parliament member from Mr. Maliki’s Dawa Party who was part of the delegation. “They said the better way to deal with the Sadrists is by negotiation; don’t fight them and don’t use force.” Haider Abbadi, another member of Parliament, said the Iranians “promised that they would pressure all the groups that they have communication with to defer to Iraqi law.”

The Iranians have seriously overplayed their hand along the Tigris and Euphrates.

Although conscious of the fleeting loyalty of Iraqi Shiites who once took refuge in Iran from the wrath of Saddam Hussein and are now blessed with ever-larger Iraqi oil revenues, Tehran probably didn't anticipate how quickly Shiite sentiment in Iraq could change.

An Iraqi Sunni delegation on a visit to Cairo on Wednesday urged Arab countries to act against what it called the "Iranian occupation" of Iraq. "We would like a common Arab position to save Iraq and its people ...(in the face of) the Iranian occupation," Sheikh Majid Abdel Razzak al-Ali Suleiman said after a meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit. "Such an Arab position, led by Egypt, is necessary to weaken Iran's role in Iraq, because if Tehran occupies this country, it will occupy other Arab countries too," said the head of the Dulaim tribe, which is concentrated mainly in Anbar province, west of Baghdad.

John Bolton, America’s ex-ambassador to the United Nations, has called for US air strikes on Iranian camps where insurgents are trained for war in Iraq. “This is a case where the use of military force against a training camp to show the Iranians we’re not going to tolerate this is really the most prudent thing to do,” he said. “Then the ball would be in Iran’s court to draw the appropriate lesson to stop harming our troops.”

A year ago, in one of a series of interviews with the Times, his voice rose in anger when he talked of Iran's efforts to co-opt the Mahdi Army movement. He seethed about Tehran's drive to recruit fighters to bomb U.S. convoys at a time when Sadr was trying to halt such activities. He railed against militia members whom Iran had bought off. At this time of immense pressure, however, he embraces the breakaway factions. "Not all Jaish al Mahdi members are angels," he acknowledged, using the group's Arabic name. "Some have material interests in mind and they're greedy, and so Iran was able to hit on this particular angle and put them on its side." But this is the price of survival.

"The Imam Mahdi is in charge of the world and we see his hand directing all the affairs of the country."

Two leading clerics retorted that Ahmadinejad would be better off concentrating on Iran's social problems -- most notably its double-digit inflation -- than indulging in such mystical rhetoric. "If Ahmadinejad wants to say that the hidden imam is supporting the decisions of the government, it is not true," sniped Gholam Reza Mesbahi Moghadam, the spokesman of the conservative Association of Combatant Clerics. "For sure, the hidden imam does not approve of inflation of 20 percent, the high cost of living and numerous other errors," he said, according to the Kargozaran daily. Ali Asghari, a member of the conservative Hezbollah faction in parliament, told the president not to link the management of the country to the imam. "Ahmadinejad would do better to worry about social problems like inflation ... and other terrestrial affairs," Etemad Melli daily quoted him as saying.

The State Department has begun drafting an ultimatum that would tell the Iranians to knock it off - or else.

Targets would include everything from the plants where weapons are made to the headquarters of the organization known as the Quds Force which directs operations in Iraq.