Category: Uncategorised

The problem with the comments should now be fixed. Sorry about that!

I hope [this](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/world/middleeast/12iraq.html?ei=5090&en=74b3dc217e1b9437&ex=1323579600&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all) article is the result of “Iraqi officials” messing with the New York Times:

>After discussions with the Bush administration, several of Iraq’s major political parties are in talks to form a coalition whose aim is to break the powerful influence of the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr within the government, senior Iraqi officials say.

The US wanting to form a new coalition – I can live with that. The idealist in me says that Iraqi politics should happen without international meddling, but I realise that isn’t going to happen. Openly making it a specifically anti-Sadr coalition, though? That’s just going to needlessly piss off Sadr and his followers. Worse, openly making it an _American-backed_ anti-Sadr coalition. No way that’ll energise the Shiite militias, is there?

You’ve just staged a military coup on a Pacific island, but your cronies don’t seem up to the job of running the country. What do you do? You take out newspaper ads to recruit your cabinet, of course.

One of Vladimir Putin’s creepier achievements is his success in setting himself up as a sex symbol. The funniest example of this was in 2002, when the Kremlin created a girl-band to sing “I want a man like Putin” (

audio

, [BBC report](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2212885.stm).

My boyfriend is in trouble once again:
Got in a fight, got drunk on something nasty
I've had enough and I chased him away
And now I want a man like Putin

Now his ever-adventurous PR department have come up with these [charming T-shirts](http://putin.su/show_article.php?aid=70) – slogan “I want Putin….for a third term”:



How did all this strangeness come about? Maybe Putin really does seem incredibly sexy, but maybe it’s just that – unlike plenty of other Russian politicians – he lacks obvious personal vices. I’ve heard it explained along the lines that “he’s not an alcoholic or a wife-beater; isn’t that enough?”

Hmm…I may have been a little hasty with that last post – the Israel reference in the ISG report has actually gone down quite well in many places.

Here’s Jordanian daily [al Ghad](http://66.249.93.104/translate_c?&u=http://alghad.jo/%3Farticle%3D5236)

>The report showed a deep understanding of the Middle East when it drew the link between regional conflicts. It was clear in its reference to the impact of the failure to solve the Palestinian issue on the situation in Iraq

[NB: I don’t read Arabic: these iraq posts are beng put together with Google translate, [Mark Lynch’s bookmarks](http://del.icio.us/abuaardvark), [this Iraqi blog](http://www.roadstoiraq.com/), and whatever other snippets I can find]