Sunni insurgents in Iraq say they have taken complete control of the country’s main oil refinery at Baiji.  This gives the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters a ready supply of fuel, in addition to all of the border checkpoints to Syria and Jordan that they seized over the weekend.

ISIS is now bearing down on the all-important Haditha Dam on the Euphrates River, where the hydroelectric plant generates much of the country’s electricity and whose locks provide water for agriculture.  Iraq’s government rushed reinforcements to the dam, but whether that will be enough is anyone’s guess.  The ISIS forces have consistently out-fought and out-maneuvered the government troops.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry went to Baghdad to tell Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to form a new government, now.  Maliki has pleaded with Washington for support, but Kerry says that is not going to come until a new coalition government is formed, and represents some of the groups that Maliki cut out of his current Shiite-only regime.

One of those who met with Kerry, parliamentary speaker Osama Nujaifi, says Iraq will need a federal system to go forward.  Individual states would have more autonomy, but with central authority remaining in Baghdad.

“We'd been telling the US what was happening here, but they didn't get the message,” said Nujaifi.  “I have been telling them for years that there is a leader (Maliki) that is sectarian, a one-man band who listens to no-one else.  Now they understand.”