Surprise, Here Comes Condi.

Our dear leaders have made surprise visit after surprise visit (Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld) to Iraq and now Sec. Rice is surprising Beirut. We did such a great job with Iraq I can't imagine the impact our efforts will have in the Middle East. Actually I can and that's what makes me cringe.

"Iraq as a political project is finished," a senior government official was quoted as saying, adding: "The parties have moved to plan B." He said that the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish parties were now looking at ways to divide Iraq between them and to decide the future of Baghdad, where there is a mixed population. "There is serious talk of Baghdad being divided into [Shia] east and [Sunni] west," he said.

In the past two weeks, at a time when Lebanon has dominated the international news, the sectarian civil war in central Iraq has taken a decisive turn for the worse. There have been regular tit-for-tat massacres and the death toll for July is likely to far exceed the 3,149 civilians killed in June.

UPDATE:

I'm sure I'm being too critical but do you think she could take the sun glasses off the top of her head before meeting with the Lebanese leaders. Is she serious or what?