Holiday and Marriage Break

BEIRUT — This will likely be the last post of the year on B2I, as in two days I leave for Australia to get married. There’s also the little matter of holidays and declining interest on the part of the major papers in Iraq. I figure it will pick back up next year once the campaign gets into full swing and Iraq is a major issue again. I hope so anyway.

Lebanon is a mess, but it looks like things are moving again. I suspect it will be sorted out in a week or so. Don’t look for a presidential vote tomorrow, though. The Lebanese have to amend the constitution first, and there could be some legal wrangling. At the very least, there’s some paperwork of some kind and that won’t be done by tomorrow.

Iraq is improving, for sure, on the security front and the Bush foreign policy team isn’t as abjectly horrible as it has been in the past. But the real question, still, is whether the security gains matter. Are we looking at another example of Col. Tu’s comment to Army Col. Harry Summers? There’s some evidence the various factions are merely taking a breather. I hope it is a lasting decrease in violence leading to actual peace, but I wonder. …

Anyway, like I said, this is probably it for 2007. It’s been a rough year in some ways, but a blessed one in others. Wish us all luck over here in this part of the world.