Editor's note: This is the latest installment of the World Politics Review Commentary Week in Review, in which we look back at the week's opinion pages. The column will be posted every Saturday by noon.
Last week, I said I was pining for somebody to write something about Iraq, given how the bloodshed there recently has been overshadowed by the Lebanon conflict. This week, I got my wish. While poverty in Asia, the future of Iran, Lebanon, and the balderdash of Chavez and Mugabe all were represented in the opinion pages, this week's op-ed action was rooted in the soft soil along the Tigris and Euphrates.
It's been a bloody summer. In July alone, "there were 558 violent incidents in Baghdad, a 10 percent increase of the already high monthly average," noted Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, in an Aug. 23 Wall Street Journal op-ed.