The Washington Post reports that the U.S. and Iraq have abandoned attempts to forge a long-term security agreement. The focus is now on a “bridge document” that would provide for basic military operations after the UN mandate expires at the end of this year, and it would fall to the next administration to deal with any extended security agreement.

Story here.

Some U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq appear to have launched a major initiative to convert thousands of Iraqi citizens to Christianity by distributing Bibles and other fundamentalist Christian literature to Iraqi Muslims.
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Note: I say credible because these guys aren’t part of the neocon orthodoxy that informs the top people in the Bush administration, slack-jaw lowbrows like Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack. Lynch and Martin are usually very interested in real discussion and engagement with the players throughout the Middle East beyond the ever-shifting borders of Israel.

Abu Aardvark (Marc Lynch)

American Footprints (Eric Martin)

The following is courtesy of my other half. I’m biased, to be sure, but I found this to be quite touching.
-Fashion Mujahid

City between two rivers Ibrahim’s Iraq war

by Bashir al-Hamim

I am drowning in my own pain the world is different my hand is called. In the sea of blood I am lost afloat on a Qur’an that is dead, and a faith that has gone mad.

Yet another case of pictures speaking a thousand words…

The caption, if you can’t read it, says: "Farah is like an old man, sitting on his chair praying."

The Guardian has the rest of the photos by 6-year-old Dima, here.