So says the Iraqi VP. And Anthony Shadid 'splains why in the New York Times. Anthony was always Mr. Mellow in Baghdad ("just take a taxi to Karbala, Tom") so when he gets worried, I start getting really worried.

A friend with decades of experience in intelligence makes the prediction that Iraq eventually will cease to exist, perhaps just five years from now, with the big pieces swallowed up by Syria, Iran and perhaps Turkey and some other neighbors, and with an independent Kurdistan in the middle:

Within the next five years I see Syria moving into southern Mesopotamia, then being pushed south by the Kurds, further thwarted by the combination of the desert and home problems from Lebanon and Israel, to be stopped no further east than al Haibbaniyah by the threatening Saudis. 

Iran will move on all fronts into Iraq except the southeastern corner around al Basrah where Kuwaiti and Saudi forces aided by the US will stop them . . .  and in the northeast arrested by Kurds supported by the US.

Meanwhile, here is more from Joel Wing, known to fans of this blog's comment pages as Jwing.

(HT to Blake Hounshell, who has yet to appear on Great Satan's Girlfriend)

Many threads to ravel together:

• Writing in Asia Times Online, Pepe Escobar gives the bottom line on recent auction action in the Iraqi oil industry:

What the early 2010s will definitely see is the rise of a relatively wealthy, Shi'ite-controlled Iraq friendly with Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah.

(I loves me the interweb: On the other hand, a quick search shows that Pepe was the guy who wrote from Peshawar in, oh, August 2001 (!) that Osama bin Laden was washed up and the United States was paying too much attention to him and to al Qaeda, which he said was "in tatters.") 

• Also, the other day, Prime Minister Maliki alleged that dozens of  members of Iraqi security forces were involved in the recent big round of bombings in Baghdad.

• And Maliki was in Cairo today, which is interesting because the Egyptian government lately has become quite vocal about its worries about growing Iranian interference in Yemen and other parts of the Arab world. Let's see what comes out of this meeting.
• Meanwhile, there are more complaints that Sunni Awakening groups are being screwed by the Baghdad government. From a report by the AP's Brian Murphy:

We have no [Awakening] checkpoints in the area anymore," said Sheik Shebib, who leads Awakening militias in the Arab Jabour area just south of Baghdad. "Now, al Qaeda is coming back and we are feeling more and more powerless."

• And a Shiite cleric is warning of a creeping Baathist takeover.

(HTs to John McCreary's NightWatch and FP 's Blake Hounsell)

I couldn't bring myself to write about the round of bombings in Iraq yesterday. More today. I have nothing useful to say about that.

Meanwhile, there is some word that payoffs to Awakening groups will stop at the end of this month. Interesting campaign move. 

And once again foreign fighters seem to be slipping into Iraq from Syria. 

Proven provider John McCreary's bottom line: "Day by day, the security situation is deteriorating  ... [I]t will get much worse in the next few months."

Getty Images

I hope there is a special corner of Hell reserved for people who bomb schools, which happened today in Sadr City in eastern Baghdad, killing at least seven students and wounding another 41. 

In other news, there was renewed fighting in Tarmiyah, site of one of the more interesting battles of the Surge era in Iraq. Nasty little town.

The U.S. Army

Iraq's vice president, a Sunni Arab, says the recent killing of 13 people associated with a local political leader in eastern Anbar province was carried out by Iraqi army troops commanded by Colonel Raheem Kareem Resan. This somewhat undercuts the "those crazy Anbaris and their wacky tribal disputes" line previously issued by the Baghdad government.

Also someone is bombing the houses of policemen in Fallujah.

It looks to me like relations between Iraqi security forces and the people of al Anbar are deteriorating. If this is the wave of the future, fasten your seatbelts for 2010.

AZHAR SHALLAL/AFP/Getty Images

Someone killed 13 people in al Anbar province, many of them relatives of a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party. Is this more pre-election jockeying, or what? The Baghdad government is calling it a tribal dispute. That may be true -- but it certainly is what I would say if I wanted to just chalk it up to those rowdy Anbaris.

Anybody got a clue as to what is happening in Anbar?

KHALIL AL-MURSHIDI/AFP/Getty Images

I didn't see this in my regular newspapers. It happened up in Baqubah. Police took two wounded, army apparently none. I don't know what it means. Maybe just a personal dispute, maybe more than that.

Photo:  ALI YUSSEF/AFP/Getty Images