This Week in the Middle East

Here's a run down of some of the news on, or out of, the Middle East. Let's begin in Britain, where more evidence was unveiled that strongly suggests, if not proves, that Tony Blair knew before the invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein had no WMDs, certainly none that threatened the UK or the US, so he sexed up the pre-war dossier. Tony decided to make a surprise visit to Iraq this weekend, and was greeted by the normal spate of mass kidnappings. It's no wonder why Tony's advisers privately think his Labour Party has no chance of winning in the next election.

Meanwhile over in Gaza, there was an assasination attempt on the Foreign Minster of the democratically elected Hamas party, Mahmoud Zahar, which triggered more violence and a call by the leader of the Fatah party, Mahmoud Abbas, for new elections, which call itself has triggered even more violence and the threat of civil war.

At the same time, Lebanon crept ever closer to another civil war, when mass demonstrations by pro-Hezbollah supporters attempted to bring down the pro-US, Christian/Sunni/Druze government as a consequence of the Israeli bombings earlier this year.

In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad informed the delegates at an international conference questioning the Holocaust that Israel's days were numbered.

The oil-rich nation of Saudi Arabia warned that it might back the Sunnis against the Shiites were the US to pull out of Iraq.

Of course, the big news in the US this week was how it seems all but certain that a "stubborn or stalwart" Bush will ignore the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group and instead double the country's gambling loses in Iraq by a surge of somewhere between 20K and 40K US troops, thus insuring there will be "no graceful exit from Iraq." The primary target of this surge in troops will most assuredly be the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr, the latest antagoniste du jour of the American army. As a part of our democratization project in Iraq, some unknown external entity is now flooding Iraq with anti-Sadr Robo calls, thus preparing the people of Baghdad for the upcoming epic struggle between good and evil. But to quote Bush, "Don't worry, it's not as bad as it looks."

I don't know about you, but I sure do feel assured.