Morning brief, April 10

Joe Cirincione's "Fool Me Twice" is quoted in the Seymour Hersh piece on Iran.

The world apparently can't get enough Condi: The number 2 most-emailed New York Times story is on Condi playing piano with some lawyer string players.

Surprise! The French government decides to abandon the youth employment law that sparked protests. Insert clever surrender monkey joke here.

Iraq 

Sunni Arabs and Kurds are pushing the Shiite bloc closer to picking somone other than Jaafari…. The U.S. embassy in Baghdad did a region-by-region progress report (pdf) and it doesn't look good.  

Noah Feldman in the NYT magazine: 

On at least one strategic point, the insurgents are correct, perhaps more than they know. Civil war in Iraq raises the likelihood that the United States will leave before a meaningful state comes into being [….] Yet in an odd twist of fate, it is precisely the danger that American domestic opinion might interfere with our continued presence in Iraq that gives Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad some leverage in urging the formation of a national unity government.

Iraqis are unhappy with Hosni Mubarak's over his comments that a civil war is under way in Iraq and that Iraqi Shiites are loyal to Iran…. The Kurds are relatively secure, but dissent isn't tolerated and freedoms have been curtailed.

Samantha Power and Morton Abramowitz think the Dems should be angrier and more critical of the administration on Iraq:

[E]ven more remarkable than the administration's convenient amnesia these last two years has been the seeming reluctance of foreign policy veterans in the Democratic Party to challenge it. Democratic critics of the administration, for the most part, have been cowed into making either "constructive," forward-looking comments or none at all.

Iran 

U.S.-Iran talks on Iraq will be delayed. The administration is dismissive of Seymour Hersh's report on Iran. 

If you've read the Hersh story on Iran, and are wondering if Iran's Natanz nuclear facility is so deep underground that only nuclear weapons could fully take it out, Jeffrey Lewis at Arms Control Wonk explains why you should relax. A BBC report also gets at why such and attack is improbable.

An excerpt from Shirin Ebadi's forthcoming autobiography in the NYT mag. 

Elsewhere 

The WaPo's Jackson Diehl on Hugo Chavez's dubious reelection tactics. Brazil will probably achieve energy independence this year, around 30 years after it decided to go after ethanol. The North Korean government wants sanctions lifted on its companies before it will return to 6 party talks. Danish dairy products back on sale in Saudi. And folks, let's be honest and just deal with the fact that Russia is not a democracy.