US Middle East Commander Gen. John Abizaid puts in request for another carrier in Gulf region as warning to Syria and Iran.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that this request, revealed by a senior Pentagon official, is the first time in four years that an American general has asked for a special force as a deterrent for Syria and Iran.
Our Washington sources interpret the publication of Gen. Abizaid’s request during the visit to Iraq of the new defense secretary Robert Gates’ and head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace as indicating that the Bush administration is heading for a major operation against the two key threats to Iraq’s stability: the Sunni insurgents supported by Syria and the Shiite militias, which receive arms, intelligence and funding from Tehran.
In its latest quarterly report, the defense department accused Iran and Syria of undermining the Iraqi government by providing both active and passive support to anti-government and anti-coalition forces.
The application to deploy a third carrier in the Gulf in late March 2007 is a pointer to the projected timeline of this operation. It will confront Tehran and Damascus with the option of direct intervention to rescue their Iraqi allies, or standing aside. President George W. Bush is officially reported to have not yet decided on the coming steps in Iraq. However the central command’s application for another carrier suggests that the decision is more or less final.
The carrier Eisenhower and its strike group are already in the Gulf region accompanied by guided missile destroyers and the nuclear assault submarine USS Newport, as is the USS Boxer Strike Group.

"The latest update to our measure of commodity speculation shows that there is
still considerable speculation on commodities. By our reckoning, commodities
with listed futures are now about 54% above prices that could be explained by
fundamental supply and demand factors. As the chart on the next page shows,
this has come down a bit, but is still extraordinarily high relative to history.
As a reminder, this measure of speculation is based on the spot prices of
industrial commodities that trade listed futures versus the spot prices of
commodities that do not trade listed futures. Our theory is that one is more likely to speculate in the futures markets than by hoarding physical commodities. Thus, the spot prices of the unlisted commodities should be based more on fundamental supply/demand factors, whereas the spot prices of listed futures would be based on fundamentals plus or minus some speculative premium or discount. We continue to be concerned about the possibility of a cyclical bear market in commodities." ML US Strategy

Leverage in the Bond mrkt

Euphoric appetite for high risk assets, according to Citi Quant Group. D