Patrick Cockburn

An old Israeli saying describing various less-than-esteemed military leaders says: "He was so stupid that even the other generals noticed." The same derisive remark could be applied almost without exception to the present generation of Israeli politicians.

General Petraeus's oft declared uncertainty about the future stability of Iraq is genuine. It is the Iraqi Shia and their Iranian backers, not the Americans, who are the true victors in the Iraqi war.

If fewer US troops and Iraqis are being killed, it is only because the Shia community and Iran now dominate

The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made an unprecedented visit to Baghdad yesterday, demonstrating Iran's powerful influence in Iraq since the US overthrew Saddam Hussein five years ago.

Iraq is disintegrating faster than ever. The Turkish army invaded the north of the country last week and is still there. Iraqi Kurdistan is becoming like Gaza where Israel can send in its tanks and helicopters at will.

Last week George Bush flew into Iraq to meet Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, leader of Anbar province. This week General David Petraeus told the US Congress how Anbar was a model for Iraq. Yesterday Abu Risha was assassinated by bombers in Anbar

The withdrawal of British forces from Basra Palace, ahead of an expected full withdrawal from the city as early as next month, marks the beginning of the end of one of the most futile campaigns ever fought by the British Army.

President George Bush flew into a US airbase in Anbar province in western Iraq yesterday to announce that recent American military successes would allow a reduction in the 160,000-strong US force in Iraq.

Bombers have blown up the two golden minarets of the Al-Askari mosque, a revered Shia Muslim shrine in Samarra, repeating an attack which led to a bloodbath last year and provoking panic in Baghdad as people rushed back to their homes fearing retaliatory killings of Sunni Muslims.

Several thousand Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish guerrillas early yesterday. The incursion, though limited in scope, gives the crisis in Iraq a new twist.

Amid the anarchy, farmers begin to grow opium poppies, raising fears that the country could become a major heroin supplier

The US Army tried to kill or capture Muqtada al-Sadr, the widely revered Shia cleric, after luring him to peace negotiations at a house in the holy city of Najaf, which it then attacked, according to a senior Iraqi government official.

There are growing suspicions in Iraq that the official story of the battle outside Najaf between a messianic Iraqi cult and the Iraqi security forces supported by the US, in which 263 people were killed and 210 wounded, is a fabrication.

"We Worry About Staying Alive, Not the U.S. Elections"

Neither will admit that Iraq is a disaster. But while their state of denial may cost votes in Washington and London, on the frontline in the Middle East, it continues to cost lives

Iraqi hospitals are dangerous places. Policemen and soldiers carry their wounded comrades into operating theatres and demand immediate treatment, forcing doctors at gunpoint to abandon operations on civilians before they are completed.

Civil war is raging through the Iraqi countryside. Sunni insurgents have largely taken control of the province of Diyala, where local leaders believe the insurgents are close to establishing a "Taliban republic".

Lebanese villagers must risk death in fields 'flooded' with more than a million Israeli cluster bombs - or leave crops to rot

The Israeli military and economic siege of Gaza has led to a collapse in Palestinian living conditions and many people only survive by looking for scraps of food in rubbish dumps, say international aid agencies.

Gaza is dying. The Israeli siege of the Palestinian enclave is so tight that its people are on the edge of starvation.

A leaked cable from the US embassy in Baghdad signed by the ambassador paints a grim picture of Iraq as a country disintegrating in which the real rulers are the militias, and the central government counts for nothing.

Blair's view: 'We have a government of national unity that crosses all boundaries. Iraqi people are able to write the next chapter of their history themselves' - Tony Blair on a visit to Iraq yesterday

A cruel and bloody civil war has started in Iraq, a country that President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair promised to free from fear and establish democracy. I have been visiting Iraq since 1978, but for the first time, I am becoming convinced that the country will not survive.

Iraq is disintegrating. The first results from the parliamentary election last week show the country is dividing between Shia, Sunni and Kurdish regions.

From Shock and Awe to a country torn between insurrection and democracy.

The British government is trying to stall an investigation into the theft of more than $1.3bn (£740m) from the Iraqi Ministry of Defence, senior Iraqi officials say.

The number of American soldiers killed in Iraq was climbing inexorably towards 2,000 yesterday, with the announcement of the 1,996th casualty since the invasion in 2003. US forces suffered 15,220 wounded over the same period.

Saddam: 'I do not respond to this so-called court'