Morning Brief, Monday, December 4

John Bolton has resigned.  

In a BBC interview over the weekend, Kofi Annan expressed regret at not being able to stop the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the continuing genocide in Darfur. Calling the Iraq conflict a civil war, Kofi mused that through the eyes of an average Iraqi, a brutal dictator who protected the streets and kept a mother or father from worrying must seem better than the current situation. His comments prompted Iraq’s national security advisor to issue a condemnation and complain that Mr. Annan could not differentiate between “mass killing of Iraqis by the security and intelligence apparatus” and the “indiscriminate killing of civilians, Iraqi civilians, by the al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq.”

Iraq

In an exceptionally brutal weekend, nine U.S. servicemen and 150 Iraqis died across Iraq over the weekend. Fifty people died after three car bombs exploded in quick succession in a Shiite area of central Baghdad. In the midst of all this violence, David E. Sanger examines whether Bush will change course on Iraq.

Elections, Coups, and Revolutions

Chavez has won the Venezuelan elections in a landslide victory. With most of the votes almost counted, Chavez has gathered over 61 percent of the vote. Buoyant in victory, Chavez declared his victory “another defeat for the devil [President Bush], who tries to dominate the world” and gave a “brotherly” salute to Cuba’s ailing president, Fidel Castro.

In Fiji, the tussle for power between the prime minister and the military’s commander continues. The military has disarmed the police and taken over the capital. The stage looks set for this island nation’s fourth coup in 20 years. 

Somini Sengupta, writing in the NYT, gives us a better look into how Nepal’s anachronistic revolution will play out.  

Elsewhere

Tony Blair outlines a review of the UK’s nuclear deterrent. Meanwhile, in the Philippines, more than a 1,000 people are feared dead in typhoon-triggered mudslides. In the same country, a U.S. marine was found guilty of rape and sentenced to 40 years in prison.