Summaries here and here and here and also here.

Other blather-quoting (the reality is the blatherers quoted have only the most tenuous control of events – events now control them) summaries here and here.

And a round-up of some regional media here.

Widening the rift: In a parliamentary system, a power bloc numerically substantial enough to negate a coalition majority can control or topple the uppermost layer. It’s classic political divide and conquer, and into a power vacuum accompanied by a stew of chaos mixed with nationalism and simmered with spiritual fervor nearly always emerges not a compromise candidate but a draconian ’strongman’ (or a similarly iron-fisted tight-knit cabal) eclipsing the political structure.

Earlier on Thursday, Salih al-Agaili, a member of Sadr’s parliamentary group, said the bloc now hoped to persuade more lawmakers to follow their suspension, adding that some have “started contacting us to take a similar position. We are holding talks with them.”

He did not name the groups but said they would soon declare their intentions. “We are endeavouring to form a national front inside parliament to oppose the occupation,” Agaili said.

He stressed that the minimum condition for Sadrist deputies to rejoin the government would be “a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces.” Article

Related:

The United States and Iran have reached a critical crossroads at which the path of potential conciliation rooted in their shared “common concerns”, to paraphrase President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s latest letter to Americans, intersects with the path of even greater hostility, which could turn Iraq and the rest of the Middle Eastern landscape into a theater of their power rivalry.

Unfortunately, the latter alternative appears to be gaining, and unless remedial action is taken by both sides, in Tehran and Washington, to arrest the growing momentum toward the “clash of titans”, it may not be long before we observe a new realignment of forces in Iraq and beyond, with both sides jockeying for influence and support among the Sunni insurgents in Iraq and beyond.

[snip]

As for the Iraqi Shi’ites and their present quandary, signs of a more assertive anti-occupation stance on their part point to a growing realization that the best way to avert a costly civil war might, indeed, be none other than to form common cause with the Sunni insurgents against the occupation forces. Switching allegiance from government backers to outright opponents is a distinct possibility that may save the beleaguered Shi’ites from the Sunnis’ wrath, yet expose them to the lethal power of the United States.

Who could blame the Shi’ites if they shed their collaborationist behavior and put their military prowess at the disposal of a great nationalist crusade to liberate Iraq? For more than three years, the Shi’ites have vested their hopes on the state-building process, elections and non-violence with regard to the occupation armies. With those hopes increasingly dashed at a time of their growing military strength, the Shi’ites now seem poised to challenge the United States’ power directly, with direct assistance from Iran, should the US refuse to set a timetable for withdrawing its forces.

[snip]

…short of a massive infusion of new troops to bolster the insufficient troop levels currently deployed by the Pentagon, Bush’s bravado about fighting in Iraq until victory sounds hallow. And so does the White House’s new thinking that somehow the insurgency can be channeled into a civil war that pits Iraq’s religio-military sects against each other. That thinking is flawed on two grounds. First, it fails to take into account the Shi’ites’ counter-strategy mentioned above and, second, it takes for granted that US forces could remain insulated from the waves of civil war. Article

So how’s that freedom and democracy going?

Iraq’s Interior Ministry said Thursday it had formed a special unit to monitor news coverage and vowed to take legal action against journalists who failed to correct stories the ministry deemed to be incorrect.

Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, spokesman for the ministry, said the purpose of the special monitoring unit was to find “fabricated and false news that hurts and gives the Iraqis a wrong picture that the security situation is very bad, when the facts are totally different.” Article

The many colors of chaos.

“Do you agree that security can be colour-coded green?” asked the US colonel. There was an awkward pause. The governor of Mosul, the deputy governor, and the police chief looked at each other, then focused on the piece of paper the Americans had handed them at the start of the meeting.

[snip]

The deputy governor decided not to beat about the bush. “I don’t agree that security is green and people feel safe. Not one day goes by without someone being killed in Mosul.” He added: “The terrorists are a hidden force. They go out in civilian clothes and threaten contractors with death if they start work on reconstruction projects. They kill interpreters. They hand out flyers at the mosques, calling for support for al-Qaida and the Ba’athists. On Thursday when I was visiting people they told me 15 families had been told to leave town. A well-known singer was shot in the street this week.”

Mosul, in northern Iraq, is Iraq’s second city, with a population of 1.7 million people. Yet unlike Baghdad and Basra it receives minimal media coverage. Car bombs and suicide attacks are relatively rare, but as the city’s senior officials make clear, a more complex war is under way.

“Of course the army can do raids, but what we have here is a cat and mouse game,” the deputy governor said. “We have 18,000 police now and orders to recruit 3,000 more. It would be good to have them as secret agents, in the mosques and at the university.…

[snip]

The security discussion was over and the colonel summed up. “We’ll change the coding to yellow,” he said. The US colonel embraced the three Iraqis. His officers picked up their M16 rifles and they all piled back into their armoured vehicles.

“Americans can sometimes be naive,” Mr Goran suggested. “At least they now call it yellow. They’re moving in the right direction.” Article

Perhaps the one thing at which the woebegone G. Walker administration excels: finger pointing.

When we think about an exit strategy for Iraq, we are really thinking about two things. Most obviously, we’re thinking about when and where to move U.S. troops, whether and how to replace those troops with Iraqi soldiers or an international force, and other material concerns. But we’re also thinking about something less tangible. We’re thinking about what we’re going to tell ourselves in the future about this fiasco, to borrow the title of Thomas Ricks’ disturbing book about the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. We’re thinking about who or what to blame. No troop withdrawal can occur until this narrative has been assembled.

That work has now begun. In a Nov. 29 Washington Post article, Ricks and Robin Wright report that a governmental consensus is emerging that nation-building failed in Iraq because the Iraqis just weren’t up to it.

[snip]

…there’s a crucial difference between the Vietnam war and the U.S. occupation of Iraq. [Actually, there are many, but let that go for now. — voxd] In Vietnam, we backed a weak but indigenous military force that was already battling the North Vietnamese. In Iraq, there was no indigenous military battling Saddam’s regime, and none emerged after we got there (unless you count the Kurds, who’ve enjoined relative success in stabilizing and governing their corner of Iraq). Overthrowing Saddam Hussein wasn’t the Iraqis’ idea; it was ours. Americans expected Iraqis to be grateful for ridding them of a bloodthirsty dictator, and for a brief time, they were. But it somehow doesn’t compute that Iraqis, following the same logic, now blame the United States for the civil war we unleashed.

[snip]

It may feel good to say that postwar Iraq is a failed society because of the Iraqis themselves. Ingratitude is a common theme among embittered reformers, because it’s usually too painful to blame oneself. But it’s rarely true, and it certainly isn’t true in the case of Iraq. We just have to live with that. Article

Bad means against bad actors ensures that, no matter what, bad comes out on top. This is from a decidedly British persoective, but the constant is clear: “security” and “order” imposed rather than organically established is a repressive stopgap.

…the deteriorating security situation casts a dark shadow over everything else. We owe it to our troops, just as we owe it to the people of Iraq, to be clear about the direction we should now take in Iraq.

That requires four things. First, we must be much more candid about the situation we are now dealing with. Sir Richard Dannatt, the Chief of the General Staff, did the country a service in taking the gloss off some of the more optimistic assessments we have been given. People want to be told the truth – good or bad. The security situation is dire, and there is no point in hiding it.

Secondly, we need to be more practical in the scale of our ambition in Iraq. It is just not realistic to talk of establishing a fully functioning Iraqi version of a liberal democracy. That process will take many years. Iraqis are crying out for a government that can give them security before anything else. They see every day that without order, there is no law, and no prospect of peaceful development that lasts.

Thirdly, it follows that we must give overriding priority to security, which means building up the Iraqi Army. It is the one institution in the country that appears to command a degree of respect and effectiveness – in contrast to the police, which is so heavily infiltrated by sectarians that some members are nominally police officers by day, but paramilitaries by night. The Iraqi Army has impressed coalition commanders in its ability to help to hold the ring. It fights well, but lacks critical logistical, intelligence and command and control capability. These deficiencies must be rectified urgently.

Fourthly, we have to accept that there is no purely military solution to Iraq’s problems. Lasting peace will depend on an internal political settlement between Arab and Kurd, between Sunni and Shia. That in turn will require the support of Iraq’s neighbours, who must be persuaded that their long-term interest lies in a stable Iraq at peace with itself and the region.

There is a great deal of discussion about the various models of federalism that might make sense for Iraq. But what matters more than the precise model of governmental structure is the need for a fundamental political accommodation between the different communities that will be required to underpin it. Without that, any structure, no matter how cleverly designed, will fall apart. Article