Iraq Quickhits

The Iranians an Turks are upping their efforts to restrain the Kurds in N. Iraq. There have been artillery attacks from both into Iraq, and both have also raised troop levels along the border. The Turks are still threatening a large scale military incursion into N. Iraq.

This also helps reframe the recent attack by Sadr gunmen on several PKK offices throughout Iraq. (The US has attempted to use Kurdish influence to destabilize N. Iran.)

The Economist on how Basra is devolving into more violence as the various Shia militias try to carve out their own fiefdoms of patronage.

An AP article on the growing use of sectarian slurs in Baghdad.

And a great analysis/book review on how the emergence of a "Shia Crescent" is a bit of a canard that obscures the real, mid-term shaping forces in the middle east, a rise of identity and that the main future conflicts will be between individual groups and their autocratic governments. Just a very different, non-US centric view.

Later: And the violence goes on. "Car bombs and a rocket barrage struck a crowded predominantly Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad late Sunday, killing at least 47 people and wounding at least 148, authorities said."