You probably forgot all about those Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Just a figment of Bush's imagination and a product of bad intelligence. But he's probably going to get revenge on all of his critics. There's a growing body of evidence that not only do the WMD's exist, but that they were all relocated to Syria just before the invasion. Chinese intelligence was aware of this transfer. There's a further body of evidence growing that Al Qaeda and Iraq did indeed have some pretty close ties. For instance, Iraq provided significant financial support for the Phillipine rebel movement, which are under the direct control of Al Qaeda.

Why have these revelations taken so long to uncover? During the invasion, troops confiscated mountains of paperwork. Credit card receipts. Family photos. Old magazines. Insurance policies. Think about it - what do you keep in your file cabinets? This completely overwhelmed the 2 or 3 Arabic translators with sufficient security clearance to review them all. It's literally taken years to dig through all these documents and find the handful that actually contain useful information. 

The downside of all of this is that it could require a military foray into Syria to produce the physical evidence. 

The focus of attention is now on Waziristan - that would be North Waziristan and South Waziristan. These are little pockets known as 'tribal areas' between Afghanistan and Pakistan. They sort of belong to Pakistan, but the truth is, they belong to nobody. Like some of the Mayan regions of Central America, there are places that have never signed a peace treaty with anybody. They don't recognize any sovereign government. They have never been conquered by any of the conquering armies of the region in all of history.

The Waziristan councils have recently been taken over by Taliban and presumably Al Qaeda fighters fleeing Afghanistan. The numbers have overwhelmed the small tribal rulers, who have been forced to give up their power to their distant cousins. Now the Afghanistan and Pakistani armies are moving in and it's starting to get real messy.

The other day a courier was picked up on the road from Waziristan to Kandahar with a letter from Al Zawahiri (amongst other messages).  They've found some rather impressive arms caches near the border in recent days. Musharef has given an ultimatum - get out or die.

But there's no place to go. The freedom-loving and fiercely independant Waziristanians are about to find themselves in the nexus of global conflict. Squeezed in by armies on both sides, terrorized by the Taliban in the middle. No place to run. No place to hide. Expect the situation to get a lot nastier.