Another fence

This is a sign of how bad things really are in Iraq right now.

Security in Iraq has collapsed so dramatically that Saudi Arabia has ordered the construction of a 550-mile high-tech fence to seal off its troubled northern neighbour.

The huge project to build the barrier, which will be equipped with ultraviolet night-vision cameras, buried sensor cables and thousands of miles of barbed wire, will snake across the vast and remote desert frontier between the countries.

The fence will be built despite the hundreds of millions of pounds that the Saudi kingdom has spent in the past two years to beef up patrols on its border with Iraq, with officials saying the crisis in Iraq is now so dangerous it must be physically shut out.

"Surveillance has already been stepped up over the past 18 months," said Nawaf Obaid, the director of the Saudi National Security Assessment Project, an institute that advises the government on security affairs.

"But the feeling in Saudi is that Iraq is way out of control with no possibility of stability. The urgency now is to get that border sealed: physically sealed."

The fence is a fresh sign that key allies of the United States in the Middle East are resigned to worsening violence and the possible break-up of Iraq, where American intelligence agencies said this week that the continuing conflict fuelled global terrorism. The National Intelligence Estimate, a report compiled by 16 spy agencies, concluded that the Iraq war had become a cause célèbre for Islamic extremists and was cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement

The question really is, what is it that's in its last throes? My thinking is a) the Iraq "unity" government (if you can even call it that) is, b) the US occupation is. Put (a) and (b) together and perhaps Saddam isn't.

People do seem to be enamored of fences these days, don't they? Palestine, US-Mexico border, now Saudi-Iraqi border, what's next?