Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting the Honorable Iraqi Ambassador Sumaidaei (Hope I got that right). He is a man of great distinction, and very worldy and well-educated.

Put him together with the likes of Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, and the current (Dr. Ali Baban) and former Ministers of Planning, and you have enough US and British diplomas to float a new think tank in DC.

So how do these distinguished and forward-looking Iraqis, who are all very much in important positions, fit into a view that tribes are anything more than relevant, but not central to Iraq's future?

Saddam was a nobody by birth, and leapfrogged to prominence by expanding the power of a lesser tribe into something powerful...using bloodlines for security first, and tribal factors as coincidental. No?

Sure he played up his link to Salah ad Din, but he was actually a Kurd from Erbil.

Steve