Looks like we are going to be getting an "'objective' timetable" in Iraq. The new Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, believes our troops will begin leaving by years end. That is, if they can get an actual government put together. Seems likely that they will need to have some united leadership in the police and army to ensure that this government doesn't get overthrown because without the police, army, and coalition troops, the religious strife/civil war blend that exists, indefinitely, in Iraq will easily upset the greenzone government.

Currently there are a handful of wars ongoing in Iraq, as laid out the Professor this morning:

There are now four distinct wars going on in Iraq simultaneously

1) The Sunni Arab guerrilla war to expel US troops from the Sunni heartland

2) The militant Shiite guerrilla war to expel the British from the south

3) The Sunni-Shiite civil war

4) The Kurdish war against Arabs and Turkmen in Kirkuk province, and the Arab and Turkmen guerrilla struggle against the encroaching Peshmerga (the Kurdish militia).

spreading out from Iraq, the Israeli PM Ehud Olmert, preparing for a visit to DC, claims that the Iranians are "just a few months from acquiring the technological know-how that will allow it to build a nuclear bomb."

"This technological threshold is nearer than we anticipated before. This is because they are already engaged very seriously in enrichment," Olmert said. "The technological threshold is very close. It can be measured in months rather than years."

This should work in nicely with republican Rovian politics that will have us attacking Iranian targets, conveniently just before the November mid-terms. Nationalism is a bitch, especially when it is misplaced and abused (see Michael Billig Banal Nationalism 1995).