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In a speech to the Labour Party conference shortly after he become Foreign Secretary in 2007, David Miliband confessed that the world "can be a very scary place". Just how scary has been in evidence this past week. In Baghdad last Sunday, more than 150 people died in a series of bomb blasts around government buildings, in what could be the start of a co-ordinated campaign of carnage, either by Ba'athist remnants or al-Qaeda, to disrupt the elections planned for January. On Monday in Kabul, Taliban gunmen attacked hotels occupied by UN staff, killing nine people, to demonstrate the insurgents' reach ahead of the presidential run-off election next weekend, which is itself likely to be neither free nor fair. On Wednesday in Peshawar, more than 100 people were killed by a bomb detonated in...