The Seminal's George Turner provides some background to the conflict here and here:

Kosovo's declaration of independence destabilized the region and added fuel to the flames of other regions' calls for autonomy, and 

in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, there is the possibility of real problems. These areas are strongly pro Russian, are being financially and militarily supported by Russia, and have Russian peacekeepers in the country under the guise of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). South Ossetia yesterday called on the world to recognize their independence citing the "Kosovo Precedent" and Abkhazia is expected to do the same next week.

What Russia will do is anyone's guess. They have recently been backing away from reassurances made previously that they would not recognize these two regions. However they have their own problems in Cechnia that they will not want to inflame and it would look hypocritical of them to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia, given the fuss they have made about Kosovo.

If South Ossetia and Abkhazia do succeed in their independence bids, the West could easily lose a major ally in the region. Mikheil Saakashvili, the President of Georgia has staked a lot on his pro Western outlook and the dismemberment of Georgia, in part provoked by a Western act could seriously damage him. Without going to the brink of war, there would be little the West could do for Georgia.

Prescient words, it seems. So far the US has called for an immediate cease-fire, and the EU and NATO have as well. But whether it escalates from here is beyond my expertise, though I somehow doubt western powers will be keen to intervene military. Meanwhile, hundreds are dying.

Anyone with more information, please paste links in the comments section.

With this year's casualties poised to eclipse those of last year, the deadliest so far, we need to think about this war. We need to remember this war, both for the sake of those who have died in it and for the sake of those who will sacrifice their lives in the coming months. The president has insulted them and their memories by running this war incompetently, by letting corruption fester among our contractors, our development specialists, and our allies, and American soldiers and Afghanistan's poor are paying the price for that incompetence.

I think both presidential candidates should be asked, as often and as directly as possible, what their specific plans are regarding Afghanistan. It's not enough to say "we need to get the job done," because I don't want to see more blood spilled in the service of politicians' fantasies, while at the same time any hope of stabilizing the country or making a smooth exit fades away. And the American people need to take a look in the mirror and recognize that our countrymen are dying in not one, but two conflicts, and when we forget Afghanistan we dishonor our soldiers and ourselves.

Rest in peace to all the soldiers who have died in Afghanistan.

The Jerusalem Post also reports that two additional US aircraft carriers are traveling to the Red Sea and the Gulf, which is making Kuwait nervous.

I still don't expect to see war with Iran, or even war between Israel and Iran, before the end of Bush's term. Hannes Artens at the Agonist made a strong case for why a few weeks back, and I think his analysis still stands. Hopefully anyone with a scrap of sanity recognizes that any prolonged conflict with Iran would become a pit for American dollars and lives, and would stretch our military very thin indeed. Not to mention conflict with Iran would destabilize the whole region.

But even if war is unlikely, I still don't see the benefit in such aggressive rhetoric - particularly when opening diplomatic channels seems to be working on other fronts. At the same time we hear of Israel's bellicose stance toward Iran, we hear that negotiations with Syria are going forward. The EU recently offered to broker talks, and Syrians feel that while indirect talks have mostly covered old ground, the talks are moving in the right direction. So if that's the case, why not open greater diplomatic channels between Israel and Iran? Pragmatically, it doesn't seem the tough rhetoric regarding Iran has achieved much either for Israel or for us.

And when's the last time Iran attacked another country anyway? As far as I can tell, it's been a long time - it was Iraq who attacked first in the Iran-Iraq war. I think Israel is misinterpreting the nature of the Iranian threat, and misreading Iran's capacity or desire for military strikes on Israel. So while ratcheting up tensions in the region may have its short term appeal, a long term solution to these problems is more likely to come at the negotiating table than on the battlefield.

He is not alone. The Guardian also interviews Dahr Jamail, an American journalist who set out with $2,000 for some "do-it-yourself journalism" in Iraq. Jamail visited the country several times between 2003 and 2005, and lays some harsh criticism on his peers in the American press:

Jamail, a spruce 39-year-old who is the author of a new book, Beyond the Green Zone, says the supine nature of the US media encouraged him to act. "With a few exceptions, most of the US mainstream was just stenography for the state," he says. "It wasn't journalism; it was writing down what the Bush administration was telling them. I was amazed and outraged. I felt that the lack of clear information was the biggest problem I could see in the US, so I decided I should go over and write about it."

[...]

Jamail visited hospitals and went to the town of Samarra, 50km north of Baghdad, to check out a "firefight" in which the US military said they had been attacked and had killed 54 Iraqi fighters. Jamail found the locals telling a different story: two Iraqi fighters had attacked a detachment of US troops guarding a delivery to a bank, and the soldiers had responded by firing indiscriminately, killing and wounding many civilians.

It's too bad that Jamail hasn't been back since 2005, because we certainly need more takes like his. Getting full and accurate coverage has been a major problem since before the war started, and even at the level of photographs the New York Times has complained that journalists in Vietnam had much more open access than in Iraq.

In fairness, takes like Jamail's and Abdul-Ahad's aren't the only ones out there. For those craving something more optimistic, here's Aseel Kami of Reuters arguing that Baghdad, as recently as last year a "city of ghosts," is starting to come back to life. Yet even Kami admits that a lot of work lies ahead, and a brief mention of how reconstruction money is remaining in politicians' rather than people's hands suggests that all may not be "back to normal" quite yet.

Readers, if you have any links to firsthand accounts of Iraq, please paste them in the comments section.

Now, the civilians - ie, Bhutto's PPP and Nawaz Sharif's PML-N - have been discussing impeachment and other such measures since the parliamentary elections nearly six months ago. So in a way I'm surprised they're moving forward with it at this particular moment. Al Jazeera (see link above) suggests that the main factor is simply that the two major parties finally reached an agreement, and feel that they have the votes in parliament (a two-thirds majority is required) to pull it off.

The New York Times suggest that Zardari and Sharif are making moves because they feel their own survival is at stake:

The sudden cohesion of the coalition and the decision to try to remove Mr. Musharraf comes against the backdrop of a serious economic crisis in the country, a surging Taliban insurgency and popular sentiment that the four-month-old government has failed to deal with the urgent problems facing the country.

It appeared that the two leaders found that the only way they could keep the coalition intact was to attack Mr. Musharraf, something Mr. Zardari had been reluctant to do.

Moving forward, everyone seems to agree that this is a major threat to Musharraf. He's cancelled a planned trip to Beijing. He's said in the past that he'd rather resign than face impeachment, and the New York Times says that Zardari and Sharif, by holding a vote of no confidence in the National Assembly prior to the beginning of full-blown hearings, may be trying to offer Musharraf a way to step down painlessly. Musharraf is apparently meeting with his lawyer today.

But the civilians appear determined to make it stick. Musharraf will face a vote of no confidence not only at the national but also the provincial level, and the opposition is also considering reinstating the judges whose firings represent a major piece of the current crisis. As for Musharraf, he could play the risky gambit of dissolving parliament, but he needs the military's backing to do so, and under new leadership their loyalties could swing more to the other side.

Several questions come out of this situation: How will the "War on Terror" in Pakistan go differently if the civilians, who favor negotiations with the Pakistani Taliban, take more control? How will US-Pakistan relations change?

And more importantly, how come the Pakistanis can get it together to impeach a corrupt president who fires top judicial officials for his own personal and partisan gain, but we can't?

The New York Times calls our attention to how Iraq's budget surplus is rising, but we're still paying for reconstruction:

Soaring oil prices will leave the Iraqi government with a cumulative budget surplus of as much as $79 billion by year’s end, according to an American federal oversight agency. But Iraq has spent only a minute fraction of that on reconstruction costs, which are now largely borne by the United States.

The unspent windfall, which covers surpluses from oil sales since 2005, appears likely to reinforce growing debate about the approximately $48 billion in American taxpayer money devoted to rebuilding Iraq since the American-led invasion.

Yes, so let's continue that debate now. Here's an idea: how about we leave? They can spend their budget surplus on themselves, and we can spend our money on ourselves.

Now, as Jason and others have argued, it is moral (and probably inevitable) for the US to continue to provide financial support for some projects in Iraq (and for refugees outside Iraq) even after we withdraw. But if the country is basically running at a profit, it would seem to me that we'd be justified in expecting them to pitch in more than they're doing now. We can set a timeline for withdrawal, and we can also set a timeline for how long we're going to contribute financially.

So let's lean on them to move their legislative agenda along, and then let's GET OUT.
 

A US soldier has died in western Afghanistan from a roadside bombing.

Reuters asks: "Would Peace between India and Pakistan Help Stabilise Afghanistan?"

After two years of no formal contact, Jordan resumes communication with Hamas.

The Muslim Brotherhood, Jordan's largest political opposition movement, said Wednesday that the two sides recently held what it described as a "preliminary meeting" in Amman. A senior Hamas official confirmed the talks, but Jordan's government had no comment.

The government's relations with the Palestinian group soured after the 2006 arrests. A military court convicted the three Hamas members of planning to attack Israeli businessmen and Jordanian officials and sentenced them to prison terms ranging from five to 15 years.

Jordan's intelligence chief, Mohammed al-Dahabi, and Syria-based Hamas official Mohammed Nizzal headed the delegations, said Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Jamil Abu-Bakr.

In other news, Israel and the US will collaborate to develop the Arrow-3 anti-ballistic missile defense system, seen as a way to defend against potential Iranian aggression. Sounds like Star Wars to me, ie a money pit.

but he stopped short of declaring an end to violence.

In a BBC interview, Salah al-Obeidi said future decisions about the Mehdi Army's strategy would depend on the long-term status of US troops in Iraq.

Iraq and the US are negotiating a status of forces agreement to decide the future role of US troops in Iraq.

"Resistance" would go on if a timetable for US withdrawal was not set, he said. 

I suppose we'll see what disarmament means. In countries where small arms are so widespread, though, I'm not sure that it's as easy as saying, "Okay guys, put down your guns."

Their threats about resistance in the case of a prolonged occupation, however, are probably worth noting. We can debate the factors that went into reductions in violence during the surge, but a lot of heads have said that the ceasefire with JAM played an important role. Here's a take from six months ago:

The reality is that the surge is not what has led to the lower levels of violence, and attacks on US troops are still causing considerable casualties. What has had a far greater impact has been the decision by the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to call a ceasefire between his Mahdi army, a force of up to 100,000, and US troops and Iraqi government security units. Although US commanders on the ground ascribe almost every attack on Iraqis and their troops to al-Qaeda-linked groups, this is mainly for political reasons - to support President Bush's notion that Iraq is the central battleground in the fight against the terrorists.

What is undeniable is that the Mahdi army is far more powerful militarily than groups linked to al-Qaeda, and it has been behind far more attacks. Unlike the dozens of Sunni-based insurgency groups, a number of which work with and are allied to al-Qaeda-linked groups, the Mahdi army is a proper standing military force and, as US commanders will tell you off the record, its soldiers in effect control at least half of Baghdad. What's more, the Mahdi army is openly visible around the city. When you visit predominantly Shia districts of Baghdad, such as al-Khadimiya, the Mahdi army's offices, flags, posters and patrols are everywhere to be seen.

The BBC says that JAM has been weakened military in recent months. But clearly they're still very much on the scene, and maneuvering not only to "encourage" a US withdrawal, but also to position themselves for a post-US Iraq.

(On a separate note, Juan Cole has an interesting video from journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad on the effects of the surge in Baghdad. "In my three weeks back home in Baghdad, 179 people were killed and no Baghdadi ever mentioned 'the surge' to me." Check it out.)

Another coup in Pakistan might prompt some real pushback, even intervention, from the US. But in Mauritania, which today saw a group of army officers overthrow the first democratically elected government and arrest the president and prime minister, I doubt we'll see any outsiders stepping in. The immediate cause for the coup seems to be - no surprise here - conflict between civilian leaders and the army, and when the president attempted to make some personnel changes things got ugly.

This coup follows one from 2005, after which military leaders proved amazingly willing to turn power over to elected leaders. This time, the transition may not be so smooth.