…may have started. Michael Totten is lucky (or unlucky) enough to be on the scene in burning Beirut. Palestinians are involved as well.

The LA Times is reporting good news in Iraq.

his month, Fatikhan was host of the first Ramadi reconstruction conference, held behind the high walls of his family compound. Contractors, sheiks and others met with U.S. officials to discuss projects to pave roads, rebuild schools and improve electrical, sewer, phone and water systems.

Fatikhan, who wears tailored suits when not in traditional clothing, understands U.S. politics. He told a visiting journalist, “Please take a message to the Democrats: Let the American forces stay until we can hold Iraq together. Then we will have a party when American forces go.”

Outside Fatikhan’s meeting room, other sheiks, some much older, waited to talk to him. So did Iraqi police officials. The sheik’s bodyguards were nearby.

He offered his American and British visitors sweet tea and insisted that they stay for a lunch of goat, rice and sauces.

“The terrorists are not here for the interests of Iraq,” Fatikhan said. “We don’t need them here to say they’re here to defend us. If Iraq was in danger, the real people of Iraq would stand up and defend Iraq.”

He referred to the U.S. and Britain as “the two great nations.”

What’s wrong with them? Don’t they know it’s a hopeless quagmire? And on the day of the State of the Union speech, too.

Between the Arabs and the Persians.

I do think that the current oil prices reflect the use of Saudi Arabia’s “oil weapon,” except instead of wielding it by forcing prices up (OPEC no longer has the clout to do that unilaterally) they’re forcing them down and starving Iran (not to mention Venezuela) of oil revenues. In fact, I’d be surprised if this wasn’t one of the things that Secretary Rice discussed with them a few weeks ago.

Everyone else has been linking to this piece, so I might as well, too. This holocaust will be different. But we continue to sleepwalk toward it.

Sam Ser has a review of what looks to be a fascinating new book by Michael Oren, on the history of the US involvement with the Middle East and the Arab and Muslim world, going back to the Barbary Pirates.

Donald Stoker writes that, historically, most insurgencies are failures.

the real question in Iraq is not whether the insurgency can be defeated

A long, but insightful essay.

There are a number of factors that explain European behavior towards Israel. I have identified seven of them:

1. Europe’s dependence on Middle East oil
2. Europe’s rivalry with the US
3. The growing number of Muslims and their militancy
4. The small number of Jews, and their passivity
5. The role of elites in Europe’s politics
6. Europe’s long term disease of anti-Semitism, and
7. The decline of Christianity in Europe.

Maybe we’re starting to get serious.

And yes, the notion of Iran complaining about violations of diplomatic facilities bent the needle on my irony meter.

Somalia isn’t the only place that Al Qaeda is in retreat. They’re fleeing Baghdad as well.

The apparent evacuation of Baghdad by al Qaeda forces comes from direct orders issued by al-Masri, the former soldier who took control of the Iraqi wing of al Qaeda following the June 2006 bombing death of Zarqawi.

Initially, the intelligence officer informed Pajamas, the Baghdad-based AQ fighters did not want to leave. Al-Masri had to send unequivocal orders for their retreat, adding that one of the lessons from the Fallujah campaign was that Americans have learned how to prevail in house-to-house fighting. Masri said that remaining in Baghdad was a

Anne Applebaum has some good policy advice for the fanatical drug warriors in the administration.

This is yet one more reason to wish that we’d had better choices in the last couple elections.

But the anonymous morons in my comments section will continue to call me a “republican stooge.”