Headlines: 23 April 2008

• Moqtada al-Sadr issues 'all-out war' ultimatum

• Sorry this article is a little old. Why are we walling off Sadr City anyways?

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• Petraeus to Be Nominated to Lead Central Command

• Because "staying [the] course is not a bad idea." Funny quote:

• Though the Central Command was created in 1983 to cover the "central" part of the globe between the European and Pacific Commands, according its Web site, its main headquarters is located not in its theater of operations, but rather in Tampa, Fla., at least in part because of the political sensitivity of basing it in the Mideast.

• You think?

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• $100 fill-ups arrive at gas pumps

• This Summer: $4/gallon: Coming to a gas station near you!

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• Sri Lanka suffers bloodiest clashes since 2006

• The minority Tamils want their own state; the majority Sinhalese government vowed to destroy the rebels before elections in May.

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• Violence mars Zimbabwe recount

• Robert Mugabe intimidates his political rivals as a recount determines which party controls Parliament. Zimbabwe, by the way, has the world's highest inflation rate, at an astounding 100,000%. And that's according to officials. The real rate might be higher.

Fear and Trembling

From Joe Klein:

[Attacking Moqtada al-Sadr] would have been extremely foolish. The U.S. would have been inserting itself into a part of Iraq that we don't know very well—the south—and taking sides against what is probably the most popular mass movement in Shi'ite Iraq. But the Petraeus battle plan apparently includes an anti-Sadrist move, which may mean a spurt of violence as widespread and vicious as the worst of the Sunni insurgency. Is that why the general wants a "pause" in the U.S. withdrawal this summer?

What could possibly be the rationale for this? Perhaps it is that Sadr's Mahdi Army is the most potent force opposed to long-term U.S. bases in Iraq—and that a permanent presence has been the Bush Administration's true goal in this war. I suspect the central question in Iraq now is not whether things will get better but whether the drive for a long-term, neocolonialist presence will make the situation irretrievably worse.