Ha, ha, ha — Michael Ledeen catches France thinking they should be giving us advice as to what to do in Iraq. Imagine that! You’d think they’d just be hiding their heads in shame after the events of the past four years proved them right utterly discredited French thinking about this. Mark Steyn has more on French perfidy. If Dominque de Villepin thinks we should withdraw from Iraq, then I say let’s stay forever just to stick it to him!

“Surge” into Baghdad prompts surge of insurgent violence in Diyala, presumably because folks just moved over there. Now there’s going to be a “mini-surge” of additional forces to Diyala to clamp down on the new problems there.

UPDATE: Oh, also, remember when killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi meant we didn’t need to worry about his local jihadist franchise anymore? Oh, well.

It’s not available online as best I can tell, but Laura Rozen has a story in National Journal about the mild opening to talks with Iran which indicates that “State Department officials caution that the shift is less dramatic than the media have portrayed it.” It’s an interesting article, full of reporting on the many ins-and-outs of low-level Washington-Teheran dialgue since 9/11, but the key takeaway is that there’s no bona fide change of heart about the merits of serious diplomatic engagement: “Middle East analysts are divided over whether Washington’s openness to limited dialogue with Iran means that the Unites States is moving away from possible confrontation — or just delaying it.”