As I have written repeatedly in this space, the Russians and Chinese will not stand firm with the U.S., U.K., France and Germany regarding Iran's nuclear program. This morning's story about the talks going on by diplomats at the U.N. confirms my point.

This op-ed piece in the New York Times argues that the only way to get international cooperation in dealing with Iran is for the U.S. to forget about regime change in Iran and deal directly with the government in Teheran. I would find it difficult to deal with a government that loudly expresses the view that they wish to "wipe off the map" one of our allies.

Via the Weekly Standard website, here is an article about the possibility that Iran is harboring al Qaeda terrorists. If that is true, doesn't that mean we should demand that Iran turn them over or we declare war? Oh, I forgot. The Bush Doctrine is more about rhetoric than reality.

You may have heard about this story, which I encourage you to read. Apparently, the military is investigating an allegation about U.S. Marines killing old men, women and children after their convoy was hit by an IED in Iraq. I am very skeptical. Based on the accounts in the story, these people were shot to death, some while lying in their beds. I find it difficult to believe that U.S. Marines would deliberately shoot small children. Marines (and soldiers) in our professional, volunteer military are highly trained about the rules of engagement. While mistakes can happen, this seems more slow and deliberate, as opposed to those instances when soldiers mistakenly killed civilians who were approaching checkpoints in speeding vehicles, for instance. Let us hope there is a thorough investigation (although I'm sure you military-hating folks out there are already smugly satisfied that this validates you opinion of the criminal nature of our military establishment).

Christopher Hitchens writes about the continued necessity for defeating al Qaeda in Iraq, and the consequences of failure.

President Bush, speaking before an audience in Cleveland yesterday, cited the tactics used in pacifying the Iraqi border town of Tall Afar, which had been taken over by al Qaeda, as a great success. One day later, the MSM is reporting that Tall Afar is really a failure.

Jack Kelly points out how the distortion of reality in Iraq by the MSM is caused by the MSM's laziness, and unwillingness to make the effort to understand how our military works.

My friend Bill Roggio, an Army veteran and Web logger who was embedded with U.S. Marines in Iraq last fall, was a guest Saturday on a segment of the CNN show "On the Story." The topic was news coverage from Iraq.

Mr. Roggio gave the media a D+. Reporting often is inaccurate, usually lacks context, and often aids al Qaida, he said...

The latest example of what bugs Bill has been the coverage of a U.S.-Iraqi operation which began Thursday with an air assault...

"The reporting on Operation Swarmer is a microcosm of the sub-par reporting on the Iraq war," Mr. Roggio said. "Events are immediately placed into a political context. Commentary is often mixed in with reporting. There is little understanding of operational intent or how the military even works. Operations are viewed as individual events, and not placed in a greater context. Failure and faulty assumptions are the baselines for coverage and analysis. Success is arbitrarily determined by a reporter or editor's biases. The actions of the U.S. and Iraqi military are viewed with suspicion and even contempt."

CNN correspondent Abbi Tatton implied that because Bill is a former soldier, his view is biased. "Are you not too close to this to be objective yourself?" she asked.

Consider the implications of this attitude. Would a reporter who is a lawyer (such as Fox News' Megyn Kendall) be considered biased in covering the courts simply because she actually knows something about the law? Would a reporter who is a doctor (such as CNN's Sanjay Gupta) be considered biased simply because he actually knows something about medicine? Yet news organizations consider it proper to have our wars covered by people who are unclear about from which end of the rifle the round comes.

Read the whole thing.

Will democracy cure the ills of the Middle East? This article, about the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, is evidence that skepticism is warranted.