A new monkey-wrench in the works? (or stick in the spokes? Pick your metaphor)

Word today that Hamas and Fatah have signed what's being termed the Sanaa (Yemen) declaration, which looks toward reconciliation and common cause. This is a real smack in the puss to Cheney and Condi, who've just come from meetings with Palestinian Authority (=Fatah) prime minister Mahmud Abbas to push talks with the Olmert government - which, of course, will brook no talk of working with Hamas.

Meanwhile, the US has suffered its 4000th combat death in Iraq, the Sunni Awakening (upon which so much of the "success" of the "Surge" was predicated) seems to be turning out to be the short-sighted, but politically useful fix that many observers have thought it was indeed going to be, and the Mahdi Army seems to be raising its head again. Remember that the cease-fire that Muqtada al-Sadr, the Iraqi Shia leader who supposedly controls the Mahdi Army, declared (and recently extended) was one of the other legs upon which the Surge was able to rise up.

General Petraeus today says that Iran was behind yesterday's Green Zone shelling, which is a very serious allegation. Scary, actually, because it gives the Bush administration one more bullet in its magazine of alleged Iranian provocations to seize upon if it indeed decides, on its way out the White House door, to launch a military strike against Iran

Check out the Recommendations on this blog-page as well - especially the Washington Post piece on Fallujah.

And don't forget the PBS Frontline special - "Bush's War" - that begins this evening. Given the usual quality and incisiveness of Frontline's programs, this ought to be pretty special.