Barzani Forbids Iraqi Flag;
Baker in Baghdad
The Pentagon says that violence was up substantially this quarter over last in Iraq. There was a decline violence and deaths in August, but July was so hellish that it frankly does not mean much. At August's rates nationwide, surely 10,000 would be dying a year, which is not good news.
Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani has ordered that the Iraqi national flag not be flown in Iraqi Kurdistan. Only the flag of Iraqi Kurdistan will be flown at government offices, schools, etc.
I think this step is another move toward de facto independence for Kurdistan.
Bush's Iraq war not only hasn't made us safer, it is impelling even Moroccan women to join terrorist cells and fight the occupation.
Look at a map, where Iraq is and where Morocco.
Jim Baker is in Baghdad meeting with Sunni leaders and trying to save W.'s bacon. Al-Zaman says that he is exploring ways of ending the marginalization of some groups (i.e. Sunnis) in the new Iraq.
A key difficulty is this. Sunni marginalization would be lessened if provincial elections were held and more representative provincial governments were brought to power, including in Baghdad. (Provincial elections should have been held by now). On the other hand, the Sadr movement has become so popular in the Shiite south that there is a prospect that it would sweep to power in provinces such as Muthanna, Maysan, Dhi Qar, Wasit, Babil and Qadisiyah. The current provincial administrations in the south are mainly Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and relatively cooperative with the US. So the US can reduce Sunni marginalization by holding provincial elections soon; but thereby risks that the Mahdi Army will end up controlling most of the South. (SCIRI wouldn't lose everything-- Najaf and Karbala are safe for it).
Civil war violence lessened on Friday, though bodies continued to be pulled from rubble after the attack late Thursday on Shiite East Baghdad.
posted by Juan Cole @ 9/02/2006 12:30:00 AM
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4 Comments:
A nice trick: Talabani the President speaking of Iraqi unity, Barzani back home in the hills announcing independence (what else can a Kurdish flag mean?). Talabani closes the PKK offices, Barzani says...nothing. I finally got around to reading Bill Polk's semi-retrospective "Understanding Iraq". He talks about "qawmiyyah" and "wattaniyyah" but barely gets the "ethnisitiyyah" we've bought on Iraq - maybe because it wasn't as evident in 2005 when he wrote the book. Now it's as if qawmiyyah and wattaniyyah have disappeared. He wants us out now - but doesn't offer a date. Only an announcement that we won't muck about in economic patterns a la Bremmer. From a State Department advisor of the 60s, that's pretty heady stuff.
"The Pentagon says that violence was up substantially this quarter over last in Iraq....At August's rates nationwide, surely 10,000 would be dying a year..."
And yet, the President of the United States is on a speech-making tour, promising aid to New Orleans (again!) and asking Americans to stay the course in Iraq. That's the problem. This nation has been without a(n overt) leader for six years, we have no direction beacause we have no leader, and the child in the White House thinks it is funny to pepper his speeches with deliberate mispronunciations.
Compare: One to two billion people ready to explode into wars of annihilation due in large part to Bush's "bring it on" bravado, and he stills thinks it is funny to mispronounce words.
One more time: Potentially millions of deaths and Bush is making funny sounds.
Once more to make sure the dead horse is fully motivated: Genocide versus baby noise.
One of my bigger fears is that House Speaker Pelosi will choose to politicize the impeachment process rather than do what is right.
James Baker's Iraq Study Group should not be taken lightly, and is ~ in my humble opinion ~ the most significant IRAQ milestone since the capture of Saddam Hussein, including all subsequent "turning points" touted: eg., the departure of Bremer/CPA = "sovereignty" and "free" elections, etc.
In this role Baker himself is a kind of re-incarnation of the Vietnam era's Clark Clifford. You will recall that when Clifford was called in (by whom ~ the unseen board of directors in the back-room? :) to consult with President LBJ and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he asked the now-famous question:
What is The Plan to Win The War ?
...to which none of the characters sitting around the table had an answer (!)
And that silence then, said it all. so, here we go ~ deja vu all over again? Though we could begin to speculate, as The Professor has herein to the nature of the political maneuvers necessary for the AngloAmericans to finish Act III of HELL = NO EXIT...
...in my opinion the final arrangement will more likely resemble some sort of business deal : cherchez le petrole ;-)
Juan, no recent on-topic place to park this but
I hope you have a chance to comment on today's LA Times article...Palestinians Begin to Direct Blame Inward which presents evidence that the US/Israeli starve and kill strategy may be working. I have long believed that Hamas should have moved to dissolve the PA, a sentiment shared by Palestinian- American friends
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