For Sgt. Matthew Villalpando, Tuesday wasn't so Super in Baghdad. The California native has to be at the International Zone's Checkpoint Two by 6 a.m. every day for work, so when the results of the primaries started rolling in late Tuesday night, he was sound asleep in bed with his alarm set for 4 a.m. He didn't even have time to check on what had happened before heading out the door Wednesday morning.

Like Villalpando, most troops were too busy--or tired--to stay up to watch Super Tuesday's results as they unfolded back home. Few had the time to vote themselves, saying that, given their busy schedules, it was not a priority. While the Iraq war provides unprecedented means for soldiers to follow events back home--satellite television, cellular telephones, Internet and daily deliveries of the Stars and Stripes newspaper--there are still pockets that are out of touch. In a new base set up two weeks ago in an abandoned house in the Arab Jabour area, less than 100 soldiers live without any hook-up to the civilian world--they only have one room with electricity so far. Not only did most not know Super Tuesday was held yesterday, many still did not know the outcome of the Super Bowl.

Soldiers abroad vote by absentee ballot, which they can request over the Internet from their home states. Voting Assistance Officers at the U.S. Embassy can also help, but some still say the process should be made simpler.

With news of U.S. and Iranian ships passing uncomfortably close in the night off the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend, it's time once again to consider what's on the minds of the power-brokers in Tehran. Was the incident the result of rogue Revolutionary Guard ship commanders or part of a deliberate escalation by Iran? That the incident was announced by the Pentagon is noteworthy, as Iran might have been expected to toot its own horn, were it proud of the maneuvers. (Think of the drama it whipped up over the British seamen captured in the same waterway back in 2007.) This time, the official line from Tehran is that this was the "normal" kind of bumper-to-bumper traffic in the strait.

This is the foreign policy parlor game that used to be called "Kremlinology" during the old Cold War, and has no name at all now. But all intelligent guessing aside, one thing is clear: as a contentious symbol in the struggle between reformists and conservatives in Iran, America remains without peer. In legislative elections scheduled for March 14, conservative supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are attempting to maintain their dominance by appealing to a sense of nationalism -- specifically touting the president's success in countering U.S. threats and "intimidation." For their part, the reformists are playing on the suspicions of many Iranians that Ahmadinejad's provocations risk too much in the service of too little.

While the reformists have been distracted in recent days by the usual controversies over who can vote (the conservative parliament just passed a bill raising the voting age) and which of their candidates can run (an unelected government body can toss out any candidate deemed to be insufficiently "qualified"), the conservatives have, appropriately enough, had their analytic eyes trained on America.

Here's the revealing close to an otherwise windy tract in the January 5 edition of Iran's conservative Jomhuri-ye Eslami:

"Due to the continuous failures of the Bush administration in Iraq and Afghanistan, the circumstance is extremely difficult for the Republicans inside America. The situation is so dramatic in the Republican camp that an unknown candidate like [Gov. Mike] Huckabee has won the internal Republican election [referring to the Iowa caucus]. Huckabee's victory sends this message to Bush and his administration that they have lost their popularity even amongst their own party members. The Democrats have also faced a similar situation. Due to their failure to take the Bush administration into account the people do not trust the main body of the Democrats anymore. ... The victory of Obama and Huckabee proves the failure of both leaders of the two main parties in America and a gradual deterioration of America's power in general."

The purpose of such agit-prop is unmistakable. To any voters worried about American reprisal in the face of Iran's nuclear policy, the message from Ahmadinejad's forces is that the U.S. electorate is sure to blink first and change political course -- like a ship in the strait -- as part of an increasing powerlessness. Therefore, a tack in the direction of Iran's own "agents of change" in the legislative elections would be not only unnecessary, but the renunciation of a great victory. In this light, it's not hard to understand how the decision to instigate some mischief on the Strait of Hormuz might have been conceived. And while there's no guarantee such stunts will continue to work on Iran's voters, Iran's conservatives must privately be weeping over the coming end to the era of such ready-made propaganda in the Bush 43 years. Just as we no longer have an analogue for "Kremlinology," so, too, will they be forced to discard some expired political language at approximately this time next year.

In most countries, soldiers returning from being held hostage in enemy territory would probably be treated as national heroes. Not so in Turkey. Last Monday, eight Turkish soldiers kidnapped in an Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) ambush on Oct 21st were released unconditionally by their captors. But the soldiers – six privates and two non-commissioned officers - returned to their homeland to face accusations of betraying their motherland. Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin said on Monday that was “not entirely happy” about the soldiers' release – adding that they were still being questioned by Turkish military interrogators about their ordeal. "No member of the Turkish armed forces should have found themselves in such a situation," Sahin told an audience at Ankara University. “As a Turkish citizen I cannot accept the fact that they went with the terrorists that night. Our soldier is prepared to die if necessary when he is protecting the country." Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek yesterday denied telling ministerial colleagues that two of the kidnapped soldiers had PKK sympathies and could have gone over voluntarily.

The story says a lot about the way Turkey works – and how, despite years of EU-inspired reforms, the country has still retained many of the habits of mind formed during years of military dictatorship.

Reporter Seth Colter Walls has filed this analysis of recent military maneuvers:  

The wires are hot today with news of Hezbollah's weekend maneuvers along the border with Israel, as reported by Lebanese outlets. Pretty much everything about the revelation is newsworthy – in particular that Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was supervising the exercises in person, and that anyone was ever told about them at all.

What did Vladimir Putin hope to achieve as he stood side by side with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Teheran yesterday?

  Photo: AFP

Certainly the visit was a boost to Ahmadinejad. Ever since Russia – believed by many in Tehran to be Iran’s only major international ally - backed a UN Security Council resolution censuring Iran and imposing mild sanctions last March, Iran has been dangerously isolated internationally. Now, it seems, the relationship is back on track – and, crucially, Iran is a degree more confident that thanks to Russia’s veto on the Security Council, there will be no further tightening of sanctions.

That diplomatic boost for Ahmadinejad sounds like a loss for Washington. Indeed, when George Bush hosted Putin at the family estate at Kennebunkport, Maine, this summer, much of the talk was on Iran and persuading Putin to continue his support for UN sanctions. At the time Putin agreed that Iran should be prevented from developing nuclear weapons. Yet yesterday Putin confirmed at a press conference in Tehran that Iran also had the right to "pursue its civilian nuclear power projects." That’s actually something not even the United States denies – but the symbolism of Putin coming to Iran’s defense was significant.

Turkey argued that if Congress passed the bill, Turkey would excercise its “strategic leverage.” That’s a common Turkish argument with all foreigners – but now it's being put to the test. What does Turkey’s strategic leverage mean – or is it just verbiage? The government is under huge pressure to do something to show its disapproval. But already Prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan seems to be backpedaling. He told CNN Turk last night that “political realities do not permit sentimentalism” and that “the consequesnce of any action should be carefully studied in the light of the common interests and links we have with the US.”

İf the Turks really wanted to hit the Americans where it hurt, they could, for instance, prohibit Turkish airspace to US military flights en route to Iraq. They could limit use of Incirlik air base, a major US Air Force hub for the region. And they could cut truck traffic between Turkey and Iraq, which accounts for 70 per cent of the Coalition’s total supplies.

Its unlikely that any such serious measures are on the cards, if only because Turkey doesn't yet want to risk a complete alieniation fron the US, and the dramatic shift of its pro-Western strategy that would entail. At the same time, a kind of turning point has been reached. Ankara is deeply disappoınted over the US failure to make good on repeated promises to rein in the Iraq-based PKK Kurdish separatists. Turkey has decided to tackle the insurgents themselves; next week the government will present a bill to parliament authorizing a cross-border incursion into Iraq.

It will almost certainly be passed. Erdogan says he wants the authorization in his pocket but will not use it until after the [Iraq] Neighbors Summit on Nov 3 in Istanbul, and will likely also hold off until after a scheduled trip to Washington to meet Bush the week after.

In the meantime Turkey has withdrawn its Ambassador from Washington, and cancelled other official visits. Congressman Brad Sherman (D-Calif) predicted last night that the only consequences of the genocide bill would be “angry words from Ankara, and then it will be over” – angering the Turks no end. But the hope is that he’s right – for Turkey’s sake, and America’s.

The funeral images on Turkish television are a familiar ritual. A line of plywood coffins draped in large Turkish flags stands in the courtyard of a school or government building; inside are the bodies of soldiers killed in the latest attack by Kurdish separatists. Behind the coffins a line of smart young soldiers standing at attention, a gaggle of hysterical mothers being restrained by male relatives and, if the crop of tragedy is big enough, a few senior generals and politicians. Today, the Turkish military buried 13 men killed in a PKK ambush near Sirnak, by the Iraqi border. Their death brings the toll to 97 soldiers killed this year alone.

Not surprisingly, calls for action from the media and opposition are overwhelming – and most center on the idea of raiding PKK camps in North Iraq, where around 4500 PKK fighters are thought to be holed up. The Baghdad government – and particularly the Iraqi Kurds who control the foreign ministry - has strongly rejected the idea of sanctioning any cross-border operations by Turkey. Its not hard to see why. The Iraqi Kurds need Ankara’s cooperation to continue their trade with Turkey, which is the lifeblood of their landlocked region. And though the Iraqi Kurds have had their differences with the PKK, the idea of siding with the Turks, a historical enemy, against fellow-Kurds is unthinkable. So Turkey’s government is between a rock and a hard place. Whacking the PKK is the easy option, providing the Turkish public with the quick satisfaction of revenge. But that’s exactly what the PKK wants Ankara to do. They’ve lost the war for a separate Turkish Kurdistan, and beggared their people for a generation in the process. There’s little support for the PKK’s twisted, Marxist version of nationalism among most Kurds – who just want basic rights and prosperity, not the eternal revolutionary struggle envisaged by the PKK. So what the dying PKK needs to revive its fortunes and its credibility is an aggressive raid by the Turks, which will create a new crop of martyrs and force even their old enemies, the Iraqi Kurdish administration, to back them.

Professional revolutionaries thrive on conflict. What they hate most is compromise of the sort forced on Turkey by the European Union, which made Ankara give Kurds cultural rights and liberalize free speech laws. A new escalation of violence – if Ankara succumbs to the provocation - would undo all those years of reform in a stroke by stoking knee-jerk nationalism, and a new spiral of violence. The key to asymmetric warfare is provoking your stronger opponent into self-defeating acts of over-reaction. That is precisely what the PKK is attempting to do. Perhaps the government will find the wisdom to resist the temptation to charge in and avenge its dead.

Photo: John Moore/AP

It was 111 degrees Fahrenheit for Americans in Baghdad today (43 Celsius for the Iraqis), and it's supposed to be hotter - 117 F or 47C - for the rest of the week. That's in the shade, of course, for those who can find it. Such infernal temperatures are pretty much the same every year. Nothing is quite as predictable in Iraq as the summer heat.

But another simple fact is just as evident: the death toll among fighters tends to decline in the dog days, because nobody wants to have to do battle in that stifling air, and those who have to go into combat tend to move more slowly and cautiously.

On the other hand, to the extent public records are available on non-governmental Web sites like iraqbodycount.org and  icasualties.org (the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, with which Newsweek did a major presentation on the Internet in December of last year), it seems that the civilian death toll, mainly from terrorist attacks, actually may remain high or rise in the heat of summer. Security forces are thinner on the ground. Roadside bombs can be put out at night and suicide drivers don't usually have to brave the hellish heat for very long before they punch their ticket to Paradise.