Meanwhile, in Iraq...

With possibly over 200 dead in suicide bombings, let's look at the bigger picture this week...

Prime Minister al-Maliki continues to struggle to hold his government together-

Sunni politicians maintained a hard line Monday after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki invited key Sunni and Kurdish allies to a crisis conference in a desperate bid to reach a compromise among Iraq's divided factions...

...Al-Maliki called for the meeting during a news conference Sunday and said he hoped it could take place in the next two days as he faces growing impatience with his government's perceived Shiite bias and failure to achieve reconciliation or to stop the sectarian violence threatening to tear the country apart...

This announcement likely occurred in light of news last week that "four secularist ministers withdrew from Cabinet meetings, less than a week after the main Sunni Arab bloc quit." No Sunnis remain in this government.

This has lead conservatives like the Washington Times' Tony Blankley (the same ones urging eternal patience from Americans over our occupation of Iraq) to give up on Maliki and demand a do-over. Blankley said on KCRW's 'Left, Right, and Center' on Friday that "it might be in our interest to change the government in Baghdad" and that we may need "a ruthless policy to find a pragmatic leader." Arianna Huffington was kind enough to remind him that type of thinking put in power Saddam Hussein in the first place.

Meanwhile, an article in the Guardian Unlimited paper (UK) looks at what our overstretched military is going through just to keep holding this Jenga pile together-

...Where once the war in Iraq was defined in conversations with these men by untenable ideas - bringing democracy or defeating al-Qaeda - these days the war in Iraq is defined by different ways of expressing the idea of being weary. It is a theme that is endlessly reiterated as you travel around Iraq. 'The army is worn out. We are just keeping people in theatre who are exhausted,' says a soldier working for the US army public affairs office who is supposed to be telling me how well things have been going since the 'surge' in Baghdad began.

They are not supposed to talk like this. We are driving and another of the public affairs team adds bitterly: 'We should just be allowed to tell the media what is happening here. Let them know that people are worn out. So that their families know back home. But it's like we've become no more than numbers now.'...

Don't worry, guys. Only another decade or so left to go. Hang in there, baby!