The Dish

Some troubling signs that Iraq is not heading for political reconciliation – the key objective of the surge – any time soon:

Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani, using unusually strong language, told Iraqi state television late Sunday that the contracts signed by the self-rule Kurdish region were illegal.

"No region has the right to go it alone and sign a deal," he said. "This will lead to the breakup of Iraq … oil is the business of the federal government and any attempt at extracting oil without the approval of the federal government is tantamount to smuggling."

That’s what the government intelligence agencies are reporting:

The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran’s ultimate intentions about gaining a nuclear weapon remain unclear, but that Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.”

“Some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways might — if perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible — prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program,” the estimate states.

Cheney allegedly tried to stop the report coming out sooner.

One option in the sad and troubling case of soldier Elizabeth Whiteside. Phil Carter is flummoxed.

Norquist welcomes Huckabee.

Know hope:

Television preaching in the Middle East was once largely limited to elderly scholars in white robes reading holy texts from behind a desk, emphasizing the afterlife over this life, and sometimes inciting violence against nonbelievers. But as TV has evolved from one or two heavily controlled state channels to hundreds of diverse, private satellite offerings, Masoud and perhaps a dozen other young men — plus a few women — have emerged as increasingly popular alternatives.

Masoud and others promote "a sweet orthodoxy, which stresses the humane and compassionate" as an alternative to "unthinking rage," said Abdallah Schleifer, a specialist in Islam and electronic media at the American University in Cairo.

The tone of this message is as striking as its content:

More video here. The spiritual humility is what is so encouraging.

A recent pc definition, made part of a mandatory training program at the University of Delaware:

A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e. people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture, or sexuality.

Montreal, Canada, 9.15 am.

Pretty rough for a "nice guy". And the gay-bashing is ubiquitous. He’s got to be worried about the Dumond story too, his very own Willie Horton moment.

Chris Allbritton has the email he sent to NRO’s The Tank two months ago. Here’s the text:

Sirs, Your posts by W. Thomas Smith Jr. are hilarious! Great fiction reading. Such as this one: “The general briefed me regarding the battlefield at Nahr al-Bared, near his camp, and what I would see today as the first American journalist to visit the site of Lebanon’s defeat of Al Qaeda-affiliate Fatah al Islam.” Ah, no. You do know that almost every American journalist living in Beirut has been up to Nahr el-Bared several times during and after the fighting? I myself filed stories for the Washington Times and the Newark Star-Ledger, the day after the fighting stopped — and I was in a hell of a lot more danger than your man is in today. (Star-Ledger seems to have archived the story, so that link goes to my personal site, but that’s the story that ran there. WaTimes is still available.)

You know, for a publication that went after the New Republic so hard for its soldier-in-Iraq stuff, your guy here is horribly, horribly inaccurate and sensationalist.

I’m an American and I never have bodyguards and never needed one. He is making Beirut seem much more dangerous than it is. He also is — as are you, since I assume he’s expensing it — getting fleeced by some Lebanese con artists. He doesn’t need weapons and he’s making a big problem by carrying them and publicly writing about his “recon missions” in the Dahiyah. That’s not what journalists do; it’s what spies do, and by his actions, he’s making everyone suspicious of western journalists. That is the height of irresponsibility.

Secondly, he’s a liar. Hezbollah never invaded east Beirut on the 29th. And they don’t have 200 “heavily armed” militiamen downtown. I passed by today. There are about 40 guys down there with no weapons at all. They sit around, smoking shisha in jeans and t-shirts.

Perhaps your man in Beirut should not rely solely on March 14 guys and get a wider perspective. And stop lying and making careless errors. It’s your credibility on the line, after all.

Sincerely,

Christopher Allbritton

It’s propelling Huckabee to national status; and it allows him to rally an informal national network of pastors, whom he’s addressing in Iowa this week, Ambers reports.