Remember that Iranian Oil Bourse everyone was talking about a few months ago? I happened to read a comment thread wondering about what had happened to it, any nobody knew. It took me a few google searches to finally find an answer.

"Oh, crikey, it's at a much earlier stage than people would think," said British consultant Chris Cook, who claims credit for coming up with the idea for the exchange in the first place and is a member of the consortium headed by the Tehran Stock Exchange that is charged with bringing the project to life.

"You can rest assured, there will not be a crude oil contract, Gulf-based, in my opinion, within a year -- and that would be really pushing it," Mr. Cook, a former director of ICE's predecessor, the International Petroleum Exchange, said when reached in Scotland.

The reason for his death was the subject he was about to discuss - his declaration that democracy, not the gun, is the best way forward for Iraq's Sunnis. Qassim al Janaabi, his assistant, said: "In the last two weeks he had been saying in prayers that all Iraqis should vote. He said if we get a government, president and constitution, the Americans will have no reason to stay.

"Some groups sent messages to him saying, 'Don't be a traitor, if you carry on doing this you will die.' But he didn't care - he insisted that he would carry on with this subject. Then two cars full of men came and took him away."

Stories like this are important because there are many Sunni's in Iraq who say the terrorist groups who attack Americans are morally justified. If they read in American media about American troops who violate the laws of war, they should read as well about things like this - to know who regularly kills Sunni clerics without trial, investigation, or apology. Oddly, we don't seem to see many stories like this in Fox news or the Washington Times, which seem to get much of their coverage from wire services. Good for the British Telegraph.

Has Al-Zarqawi messed up big time?

This could be worse that any blunder Bush ever made - if we can somehow aeize the moment. Zarqawi has explicitly told the Sunni minority that he does not fight to make them safe in their own country, but to embroil them in civil war.

And how about little Sadr, who has tried to pretend they are all good friends, and there would be peace if only the Americans leave?

This time they have it right at GOP.com:

More important, the terrorist acknowledges that the agreement of Iraq's leading Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties on the country's first permanent postwar government last week was, as he bluntly put it, ‘a dagger in the heart.’ The Zarqawi movement has spent the past several years trying to ignite a sectarian war between Iraq's Sunnis and Shiites; the new ‘unity’ government, if it takes hold, could be the turning point toward defeating that strategy.”

I actually was more worried about the compromises involved in creating this new government, but if it scares the piss out of Zarqawi it's got to be good.

It seems that Osama Bin Laden, like George Bush, believes that those who are angry at Bush are Osama's allies. I say they both are seriosuly mistaken.

The speaker said Bush should have paid attention to polls that showed most Americans want U.S. troops withdrawn from Iraq instead of saying that it's better to fight the terrorists on their land rather than on American soil.

I was one of those inclined to think Bush was mistaken in his decision to invade Iraq. After seeing some of the successes we have had because of military initiatives on a lower level, sometimes despite the Bush administration, I suspect I may have been wrong. Not that there aren't other things we could do to undermine Bin Laden which we should have started trying before resorting to war in Iraq - but none of those were advocated by the Democrats either.

Osama directed two of his four murderous hijacking teams at New York State, two at Washington DC, and none at Waco Texas - or even Houston Texas. If he's forgotten why, that is his mission accomplished banner - his empty declaration of victory.

Liberals need to remind him why he feared the twin towers. So how should a Democratic president strangle Osama once in for all?

Even some otherwise sane people somehow seem to think Osama is a voice for Arab pride and dignity. It is amazing how deep this sort of feeling can reach - many North Korean refugees who left to feed their families still seem to have some sort of idea that their former 'dear leader' is a hero for standing up to the USA. The next US President should lavishly praise the leadership of Dubai - old and new - for the economic achievements of their nation. Too many nations, like Iran, seem to believe owning a nuclear bomb is the best route to international respect.

A Democratic President would be free to frankly state that Bush drastically underestimated the difficulty of the task before him. We should be prepared to keep troops in Iraq for periods comparable to Japan and Germany. This would be tricky - but I believe that if John Murtha were treated with respect and included in classified briefings it could be done. We should start increasing the size of the military. It should no longer be considered patriotic to hate the US government (big or small) or to desire to 'starve the beast'. If we can rebuild Iraq we can rebuild America.

We need to seriously improve the efficiency of cars and trucks. Not that much oil is used to generate electricity now, so that is the major area in which waste can be eliminated. Iran funds terrorists almost openly - and few outside Saudi Arabia would deny a great deal of money makes it's way from there to Osama's organization. If the price of oil went back to thirty dollars a barrel both of these would continue - but the funding cut would still be a heavy blow.