Heading for partition

The fighting in the Lebanon has tended to push Iraq off the front pages, even although the death toll in the latter is far worse. The Independent has the figures here:

"At least 381 people have been killed in Lebanon, including 20 soldiers and 11 Hezbollah fighters, according to security officials. At least 600,000 Lebanese have fled their homes, according to the WHO - with one estimate by Lebanon's finance minister putting the number at 750,000, nearly 20% of the population.
Israel's death toll stands at 36, with 17 people killed by Hezbollah rockets and 19 soldiers killed in the fighting."

And here:

"In the past two weeks, at a time when Lebanon has dominated the international news, the sectarian civil war in central Iraq has taken a decisive turn for the worse. There have been regular tit-for-tat massacres and the death toll for July is likely to far exceed the 3,149 civilians killed in June."

Iraq is therefore undergoing the equivalent of a 9/11 experience every month. It would also appear that the end-game is in sight:

"Iraq as a political project is finished," a senior [Iraqi] government official was quoted as saying, adding: "The parties have moved to plan B." He said that the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish parties were now looking at ways to divide Iraq between them and to decide the future of Baghdad, where there is a mixed population. "There is serious talk of Baghdad being divided into [Shia] east and [Sunni] west," he said.