Informed Comment

Helman: Iraq and Vietnam

Ambassador Gerald B. Helman writes:

In recent days, events in the Vietnem war have been cited and compared to what is happening in Iraq. Even the President referred to the Tet offensive to argue that the Iraqi resistance has been deliberately seeking to turn American public opinion against the war by raising the level of violence. The Vietnam experience certainly holds lessons in combatting an armed insurgency embedded in an increasingly disaffected population. But more pertinent now, with speculation regarding different options for disengagement from Iraq, might be a brief examination of the political and diplomatic environment surrounding our involvement in Vietnam, our departure and its aftermath. What can it tell us about our Iraq dilemma?

The US’s progressive involvement in Vietnam began with a military assistance and advisory program that gradually escalated into a 500,000 man expeditionary force. The rationale to justify the effort evolved over time from its initial focus on the need to provide the South Vietnamese government with the training and material it needed to defend itself against threats from the north. As its involvement deepened, the US evoked the legitimacy of collective self defense, and the importance of helping an independent government that was seeking to operate on democratic principles. More broadly, we evoked Hitler’s early unanswered conquests to argue that if aggression is not stopped in Vietnam, the US would be faced by escalating aggressions in Asia and around the perimeter of the Soviet empire–the famous domino theory.

The US withdrawal from Vietnam was the product of failure to defeat a determined enemy on the battlefield and the loss of domestic support. President Johnson thought he could finance “guns and butter”; he was wrong. Both the Johnson and Nixon Administrations warned that a US failure to win the war in Vietnam and to withdraw without achieving its objectives would have dire consequences. Our allies would be dismayed and our enemies emboldened. Widespread instability would be certain to follow. In the event, negotiations were undertaken to cover the withdrawal. It was the product of a complex diplomacy, including the establishment of a dialogue with Communist China, and negotiations with North Vietnam–both countries the US vowed it would never talk to.

And the consequences of withdrawal? North Vietnam lost little time trashing the agreement, absorbing the south and unifying the country. It bloodied China’s nose in a brief war and was the sole outside force that sought through force to restrain the Khmer Rouge from its genocidal actions against its countrymen. The worst consequences of the US departure were visited upon those Vietnamese who supported us. Some emigrated to the US. Others were killed or sent to reeducation camps. Many escaped and others were lost as “boat people.” Now forty years later, the Vietnamese sought and achieved diplomatic relations with the US and a growing amount of trade with and investment from the US. Dominoes did not fall in Southeast Asia and, if anything, Vietnam is a stabilizing factor in the region.

Elsewhere, our allies were relieved that the US was no longer exhausting itself–militarily, politically and morally–in a fruitless conflict they could only increasingly oppose and the US could not sustained. The US thereafter could turn its attention to matters of far greater strategic concern, undertaking a major revitalization and modernization of its army, concentrating on the defense of Europe and the strengthening of its traditional alliances. As a broad generalization (and acknowledging exceptions such as Iran), it is fair to argue that the almost unbroken series of political and strategic successes that marked US foreign policy through to the disintegration of the Soviet empire would not have been possible without our disengagement from Vietnam.

In applying the lessons of Vietnam to Iraq, it is important to bear in mind that there will be consequences for the United States, both in terms of its position in the region and globally. The US will be critisized, reviled and congratulated. Even if some measure of stability prevails in Iraq, provision will have to be made, perhaps through emmigration to the US, for those Iraqis whose lives are at risk because identified with us. In any case, countries of the region as well as globally, will recognize and accommodate the reality of US military, economic and political power.

Whether the US can limit damage from withdrawal, or even turn it to advantage, will depend very much on how it conducts the politics and diplomacy of withdrawal and its success in connecting it to a strategic vision for stability in the region and for the suppression of terrorism globally. Any restatement of strategic posture should take into account the uncontested reality that need not be stated, that the US will continue to possess unmatched military and economic power and that active US engagement in the affairs of the area and region will remain essential to stability and prosperity. The US should make clear its intention to work with all states in the region on the basis of the commonly accepted standards of international behavior to promote stability, representative government, human rights and national integrity and in that context to cooperate fully with all to combat terror, the common enemy of all those standards and the states that live by them.

Separately, the US should undertake a twofold process of very private diplomacy. The first would be with the major political factions in Iraq to force them, against the reality of our decision to withdraw, to reach a political deal that would enable Iraq to continue as a unitary state. Putting details aside (others are more competent to identify and evaluate them), we should proceed on the assumption that a the people of a country that have managed to continue as a definable political entity for most of the last several thousand years can figure out how to continue to do so. Their blaming the US would be a useless reposte to the chaos that would follow if no political deal is struck.

The separate, parallel diplomatic process would be with the countries of the region and would have to involve direct talks between the US and friendly states in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey, and, most importantly, Syria and Iran. It would be the height of folly to leave discussions with Syria and Iran to others. The message to all would be that the US has decided to begin withdrawal (and this would not be subject to negotiation, though its phasing might be), that the US intends to continue as an active force for stability in the region and to cooperate with all in that objective and in combatting terrorism. The initial aim would be to define with them the role they might play in helping the major factions in Iraq to strike a deal that would sustain a unitary state. The US bet would be that Syria and Iran (as well as other states involved) would have much more to lose than gain from chaos in Iraq. They would bargain hard and seek concessions from the US in other areas, and we will have to be prepared to deal with that. The bet would also be that within the context of a successful peace process, these countries (including Iraq) are capable of dealing summarily with the terrorist threat.

A final note: while the parallel political process described above should proceed in secrecy, it inevitably will become known. To meet that contingency, the US should be ready with a a program of aggressive public diplomacy in support of the peace process. The presently widely advocated peace conference should come as a stage in the process, to confirm and codify the results of more private diplomacy, to structure an economic assistance program for Iraq, and to legitimize watching brief for th conference. The premature convening of a conference would only invite posturing and worse on the part of participants.

Helman “was United States Ambassador to the European Office of the United Nations from 1979 through 1981.”

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Iraqi Guerrillas Kill 4 US GIs
al-Hakim Supports Regional Confederacies

(Don’t miss the second part of my interview with Rajiv Chandrasekaran on Iraq, below.)

The US military announced the deaths of 4 GIs in Iraq on Tuesday. AP reports, “A Baghdad-based soldier died at about 2:15 a.m. (2315 GMT) from wounds received when his patrol was struck by a roadside bomb in central Baghdad, the military said. Earlier, the miltary said a sailor and two Marines were killed during combat in the insurgent stronghold of Anbar province in fighting on Monday.”

Reuters reports on other political violence on Tuesday:

‘ BAGHDAD – A carbomb killed two people and wounded 11 in the Hurriya district of northwestern Baghdad . . .

BAGHDAD – Clashes erupted between gunmen and police in Baghdad’s southern Zaafaraniya district, killing two civilians and wounding eight others . . .

BAGHDAD – A bomb inside an ice-cream shop killed one person and wounded seven others in Baghdad’s central Sadriya district . . .

FALLUJA – U.S. troops pulled over a fire truck and killed four Iraqi firefighters in a case of mistaken identity on Monday after a report that a fire truck had been hijacked in western Falluja . . .

KIRKUK – Two roadside bombs exploded in quick succession in the northern oil city of Kirkuk . . .

KIRKUK – A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol killed two soldiers and wounded another one in central Kirkuk . . . ‘

The US GI who went missing Monday has still not been found. Al-Hayat is reporting that he is an Iraqi-American. Reuters says: “A U.S. soldier missing on Monday was kidnapped by gunmen while visiting a relative’s house in Baghdad outside the fortified Green Zone compound, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.”

Al-Hayat reports that the US military [Ar.] has launched a major operation to assert itself in downtown Baghdad. The London daily writes that the stated reason for the reoccupation of the area by US troops is their search for the missing US soldier. “But the operation appeared bigger than that by far.”

Iraqi Shiite cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim defended provincial confederacies in his sermon on the occasion of the breaking of the Ramadan fast. He is the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, the largest bloc in parliament. He led the charge to ram through a law 2 weeks ago permitting the Shiites of the south, after 18 months, to merge their southern provinces into a regional confederacy. He said that opponents of the plan for loose federalism are implicitly supporting a return to a dictatorial central government.

The US ambassador in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, is demanding that the Mahdi Army, loyal to young nationalist Shiite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, be disbanded and decommissioned. Al-Sadr appears increasingly to have lost control of the militia, as he has become identified with the mainstream political institutions.

Tom Engelhardt on Bush’s war on images.

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Chandrasekaran Interview, Part II

This is the second part of my interview with Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post, concerning his book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in how we got to where we are in Iraq.

Cole: Former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik in Baghdad sounds like a character from the Noir film “Sin City.” He was supposed to be overseeing the training of a new Iraqi police force, but seemed to want to go on mysterious busts instead. You did not say anything about the later scandals that have emerged concerning him. He pled guilty to taking tens of thousands of dollars from a firm with ties to organized crime. You often quote observers as saying that the tendency of the Bush administration to hire loyalist cronies for key tasks in Iraq produced mismatches of talent to task. But isn’t it the case that there was also a lot of sheer corruption, and that highly corrupt individuals were given responsibilities that they should not have been?

Chandrasekaran: I didn’t mention Kerik’s plea because that occurred after his time in Baghdad. For the purposes of narrative structure, I chose not to include events that happened after June 28, 2004, with the sole exception of the epilogue.

Yes, there was a mismatch of talent to task, particularly in the case of Kerik. And yes, there was a lot of corruption. But I did not uncover any evidence pointing to corrupt acts committed by Kerik while he was in Baghdad. As such, I did not — and still do not — want to suggest otherwise.

Cole: A good deal of your book is about how the Americans attempted to destroy the vestiges of Arab Socialism in Iraq, and how they failed miserably. What I could never understand was why they did not just immediately privatize the petroleum industry. Was it that Bremer needed the income and so became a rentier emir himself? You later suggest that just mentioning privatization got one factory head assassinated by guerrillas. Was such a project of privatization out of the question to begin with, or did Peter McPherson and Thomas Foley just mishandle the assignment?

Chandrasekaran: Privatization of the oil industry was a long-term goal of Bremer’s economic advisers, but the reasons for not doing so immediately after the fall of Saddam’s government had little to do with Bremer’s desire to dictate how oil revenue would be spent. (Even if a private firm was pumping the oil, the proceeds would still have flowed to the state, which, in this case, would have been Iraq’s occupation government, the Coalition Provisional Authority.) Bremer and his advisers concluded that trying to privatize the oil industry right away would have been too controversial, fueling fears that the United States was out to steal Iraq’s oil. As a consequence, they opted to focus on privatizing other state-owned businesses first. But, as we know, that didn’t happen either. Why? I believe there are two reasons. First, the CPA didn’t devote enough resources to the privatization effort. As I write in Chapter 7, just three people were devoted to the task of trying to privatize 150 state-owned factories.

‘Even more significant at the time was a practical challenge. There was no way [Glenn] Corliss, [Brad] Jackson, and [Tim] Carney could do it by themselves. Financial records would have to be scoured, offers posted and evaluated, financing arranged. When the trio met with a team of Germans to discuss how factories in the former East Germany had been privatized, the CPA team was told that the Germans had eight thousand people working on the project.
“How many do you guys have?” one of the Germans asked. “You’re looking at all of them,” Corliss responded.
The German laughed and asked again. “No, how many people work for you?”
“No, this is it. Three people,” Corliss said.
“Don’t bother starting,” the German said. ‘

Once the complexity of privatization became clear, Bremer’s economic advisers, among them Peter McPherson, opted for a different strategy. Instead of trying to help all the state-owned factories, McPherson wanted to devote resources to the healthiest. The others would wither away. He called the strategy “shrinkage.” He assumed that foreign firms would set up new, more efficient factories in Iraq to replace the shuttered state-owned plants. But which foreign firm wanted to invest in a country that didn’t have reliable electricity or basic security? During the summer of 2003, Baghdad’s airport wasn’t open to commercial flights; investors had to drive to Baghdad from Jordan, through the restive cities of Fallujah and Ramadi.

Some people involved in the privatization effort contend the CPA’s mistake was not devoting enough resources to the task. Others maintain that privatization wasn’t something the CPA should have addressed. Such decisions, they argue, should have been left to a sovereign Iraqi government.

Cole: Your sources depicted American Civil Administrator of Iraq Paul Bremer as relatively passive in the drafting of the Transitional Administrative Law or interim constitution, in February of 2004, and you regard Faisal Istrabadi (now Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations for Iraq) and Salem Chalabi as its principal authors. But someone told me that Chalabi’s drafts were actually based on language suggested by Bremer behind the scenes. Also, Larry Diamond, the Stanford University political scientist sent to Iraq by Condi Rice, played a role in the drafting that I didn’t notice your mentioning. Is it possible that Bremer was quiet in the Interim Governing Council sessions discussing the TAL because he had already had a major say in the language behind the scenes via Chalabi and Diamond? That is, was this more of an American document than it might have appeared?

Chandrasekaran: Salem Chalabi and Faisal Istrabadi were the authors of the principal draft of the TAL. But that draft was extensively revised by members of the Governing Council and by the CPA. My understanding is that the Chalabi-Istrabadi draft was written by them, not the CPA, although elements of their constitutional philosophy were clearly in agreement with many at CPA. That said, Bremer and the CPA certainly influenced the final product. They did so in two ways: making revisions to the draft before the final negotiating session, and by working through allies on the Governing Council. So, yes, it was more of an American document than it appeared.

Cole: I see Sistani as perhaps more consistent than your informants, such as Adel Abdul Mahdi, seem to have portrayed him. His June 28, 2003, fatwa to Bremer on the need for drafters of the Iraqi constitution to be popularly elected was very clear about his embrace of the principles of popular sovereignty and one person, one vote. I don’t think there was ever any chance of his accepting the November 15, 2003, agreement or caucus voting or the elite system favored by Abdul Mahdi and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, all of which restricted the electorate in some way. Sistani would have struck them all down, since he had already made clear the basic principles that guided his thinking on this matter. Is it possible that neither the expatriate Shiites, who were used to the Iranian system, nor Bremer could really understand where Sistani was coming from?

Chandrasekaran: Of course, and I suggest that in the book. The CPA’s governance team and the expat Shiites never really understood Sistani. In conversations with CPA officials, the once-exiled Shiite political leaders sought to minimize Sistani’s stature because they didn’t want it to appear that they were beholden to an ayatollah. The CPA officials were pleased to hear that because they too didn’t want to have their political plan shaped by a cleric.

Cole: I was surprised, too, that you did not give more attention to the demonstrations he got up in mid-January 2004, which I believe were decisive in convincing the Bush administration to allow open elections with United Nations involvement. Did CPA interviewees allege the contrary?

Chandrasekaran: I’m not sure I agree here. Sistani wanted elections in the summer of 2004 to select an interim government. The Bush administration didn’t. Sistani, as you’ll recall, dropped his demand for early elections after U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said it would be impossible to hold balloting by the summer of 2004. After the November 15 agreement, the plan was always to hold elections by early 2005.

Cole: I had some questions about your account of the outbreak of the fighting between the Americans and the Mahdi Army in April-May of 2004. Your account stresses that Bremer was upset about scurrilous articles in the newspaper of young Shiite nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, leading him to close it. But my recollection is the al-Hawzah newspaper was mainly exercised in late March about the Israeli murder of the clerical guide of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, an old man in a wheelchair. Muqtada al-Sadr said that he was the right arm of Hamas in Iraq. I have long suspected, and have actually been told by one knowledgeable source, that Muqtada’s pro-Hamas stance disturbed the Neoconservatives in the Coalition Provisional Authority and was another impetus for the attempt to “kill or capture” him.

Chandrasekaran: I’m not aware of the pro-Hamas pieces in al-Hawza in late March. My reporting indicated that Bremer was upset by earlier stories in the newspaper about the CPA. What your source told you may well be true, but I have no personal knowledge of it.

Cole: You say that the Sadrists replied more forcefully to the closing of the newspaper than Bremer had expected, leading to an escalation of the conflict. But my recollection is that the Sadrists and the Mahdi Army did not attack the Americans and the police stations until *after* the US military began arresting Muqtada’s close aides. Moreover, the Spanish foreign minister, Jose Bono, maintained that Washington first asked the Spanish, some time before, to make the arrests, but Madrid declined because Spanish officers predicted major turmoil in Najaf province and they only had 1200 coalition troops there. Bono’s account suggests that the US arrest of key Sadrists was aggressive and pre-planned, not a reaction to the Sadrist response to the closing of the newspaper. How would you respond to this critique?

Chandrasekaran: You’re right that the Sadrists and the Mahdi Army did not attack the Americans and the police stations until after the U.S. military arrested Moqtada’s top aide. But tensions had increased significantly after Bremer ordered al-Hawza to be shut down. There were large demonstrations in Baghdad and it certainly angered Sadr’s supporters, making a violent reaction to the arrest more likely. It was the equivalent of pouring fuel on the tinder. The arrest of Yacoubi, however, was the spark.

As for the Spanish, the Pentagon had been trying for months to get the multi-national troops in central Iraq to be less passive in dealing with Sadr and his lieutenants.

Cole: You have painted a vivid first-hand portrait of the Coalition Provisional Authority and its many flaws and failures. Do you see long-term consequences of the mistakes made during the first year? Or was it just always unlikely that a modern Arab nationalist country such as Iraq would accept a US military occupation and cooperate with it?

Chandrasekaran: I don’t believe the mess we’re seeing now was inevitable. Had fewer bad decisions been made, and had the appropriate resources been brought to bear, Iraq would be a fundamentally different place, one that is a lot more stable and secure. I don’t believe we could have prevented an insurgency — there always would have been one, led by zealots who saw no room for compromise. There always would have been some degree of sectarian conflict. But it didn’t have to be this bad. It’s hard to remember now, but we did have a window of opportunity in the weeks and months immediately following the fall of Saddam’s government. But instead of listening to the Iraqi people, and marshaling the appropriate resources to reconstruct the country, the CPA squandered that opportunity by pursuing irrelevant policies and preventing Iraqi leaders from exercising any real governing authority.

Let me quote a bit from the last chapter of Imperial Life in the Emerald City:

‘Shortly before the handover of sovereignty in June 2004, I met [SCIRI political chief] Adel Abdel-Mahdi for breakfast in the front courtyard of his modest house. As we nibbled from a plate of dates and pastries, I asked him what the CPA’s biggest mistake had been. He didn’t hesitate. “The biggest mistake of the occupation,” he said, “was the occupation itself.”

He, of course, had wanted the United States to anoint exiled politicians as Iraq’s new rulers in April 2003. But his self interest aside, what he said was true. Freed from the grip of their dictator, the Iraqis believed that they should have been free to chart their own destiny, to select their own interim government, and to manage the reconstruction of their shattered nation.

Iraqis needed help—good advice and ample resources—from a support corps of well-meaning Americans, not a full-scale occupation with imperial Americans cloistered in a palace of the tyrant, eating bacon and drinking beer, surrounded by Gurkhas and blast walls.

The compromise between their desire for self-rule and the absence of a leader with broad appeal could have taken many forms, as the State Department’s Arabists pointed out over the months after the invasion: a temporary governor appointed by the United Nations, an interim ruling council, or even a big-tent meeting—similar to the loya jirga convened after the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan. There certainly was a role for a tireless, charismatic American diplomat to shepherd the process. It could easily have been Bremer, with a different title and a shorter mandate, with a viable political plan and meaningful resources for reconstruction.

Would that have made a difference? We’ll never know for sure, but doing a better job of governance and reconstruction almost certainly would have kept many Iraqis from taking up arms against their new leaders and the Americans. There still would have been an insurgency, led by zealots who saw no room for compromise, but perhaps it would have been smaller and more containable.

“If this place succeeds,” a CPA friend told me before he left, “it will be in spite of what we did, not because of it.” ‘

Cole: Some policy-makers are talking seriously about a partition of Iraq along ethnic lines. One of the major experiments in partition of the twentieth century was that of India and Pakistan. Do you see any parallels? Are there dangers for Iraq that the Indo-Pak partition should tip us to?

Chandrasekaran: Partition in India was very, very bloody. If you try to split up Iraq to prevent a civil war, you could spark the very sort of broader sectarian conflict you’re trying to prevent.

If your readers have questions for me, or want to send me a comment, they can visit my Website, www.rajivc.com.

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Amara Explodes in Violence Again
US Raids Sadrist Offices in Diwaniyah, Hillah

2 GIs were announced killed on Monday and one has disappeared, presumably kidnapped. The US military has launched an intensive manhunt for him.

Reuters reports further political violence on Monday.

The Mahdi Army militia engaged in a military operation in Amara, killing 4 policemen (presumably actually members of the rival Badr Corps militia that was trained in Iran). They also attacked a police station with bombs and mortar shells, causing extensive damage to it. Al-Hayat reports that [Ar.] the renewed violence was set off when the body of the brother (named Husain al-Bahadili) of a major Mahdi Army leader was found. It was headless and showed signs of torture. He had earlier been detained or kidnapped by the police (which has been infiltrated by the rival Badr Corps militia). By the way, Bahadili is a Marsh Arab name, which suggests that there is an ethnic dimension to the fighting. The Maadan or Marsh Arabs are viewed by many Arab Iraqis as a lower caste and looked down on, rather as Gypsies are viewed in say Hungary. Many Marsh Arabs have become followers of nationalist Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who poses as a champion of the poor.

Authorities again imposed a curfew in the city. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki condemned the militia violence in Amara and said his army should confront it, but he has not appeared to do anything practical about it. AP maintains that the Iraqi soldiers in the area set up some road blocks but did not interfere with the Mahdi Army’s killing spree.

Al-Hayat also said that the Sadr Movement complained that US and Iraqi forces had raided the home of a Mahdi Army commander in the southern Shiite city of Diwaniyah. In Hillah, US soldiers raided the home of a Sadrist leader and that of a deputy of radical Shiite cleric Sheikh Mahmud Sarkhi al-Hasani.

Al-Hayat says that the Iraqi Army 4th Division in Mahmudiyah raided the offices of the Iraqi Islamic Party. The IIP is part of the Iraqi Accord Front, a fundamentalist bloc with 44 seats in the federal Iraqi parliament. The IIP issued a statement asking that the 4th Division be transfered out of Mahmudiyah because it was pursuing a sectarian and partisan policy. (I.e. these Sunni fundamentalists were saying that the army is functioning to support the Shiites). Mu’ayyad Fadil al-Amiri, the governor of Mahmoudiyah, rejected the charges and said that the raid on the IIP had discovered explosive stores at their HQ. Mahmudiya is a mixed Sunni-Shiite area where Saddam Hussain had given Shiite land to transplanted Sunnis. Shiite families displaced to the slummy parts of Hilla and elsewhere in the South have been coming back up to reclaim their property, producing a great deal of sectarian violence in this area.

Robert Reid of AP asks the good question of whether Iraq’s electoral and parliamentary system has made the country’s political crisis worse than it need have been. In a country with a clear ethnic majority like Iraq, the minorities are in danger of being forever outvoted. This prospect of always being defeated in parliament is one of the things that led Indian Muslims such as Muhammad Ali Jinnah to support a Muslim-majority region, and ultimately, Pakistan. Addendum: I had meant to go on to say that something like a Connecticut compromise would have been desirable, right off the bat, with, say, a two-chamber legislature, one house of which over-represented the Sunni Arabs and worked by consensus so that it was not easy to just run roughshod over them– on analogy from the US Senate, which operates to protect Wyoming and Rhode Island from California and New York.

This article on Iranian strategy toward the Iraq situation by Dr. Mustafa al-Alani of the Security and Terrorism Programme at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai makes some suggestive points. I disagree with him on two things. First, I don’t believe Najaf and Qom are close. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani does not like the Iranian regime and told someone I know, “Even if I have to be wiped out, I will not allow the experience of Iran to be repeated in Iraq.” He was referring to Khomeinism. Second, I don’t believe Iran wants Iraq to fragment. It is as afraid as Turkey of an independent Kurdistan. But the piece is worth reading and gives an idea of what Gulf Arab intellectuals are thinking about this problem.

Patrick J. McDonnell of the Los Angeles Times reports on how, during the past year, Iraq has gone from bad to worse– “Night of the Living Dead” worse.

Ma’ad Fayyad reports on the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement, which insists that neither the US nor the al-Maliki government are offering anything toward negotiations that would make it worth their while to lay down their arms and talk.

Atrios catches Joe Lieberman contradicting himself on Iraq.

Josh Marshall suggests to Bush a strategic retreat as the best policy in Iraq.

Susie Madrak relays an AP story pointing out that if the Dems take back Congress, they’ll likely put a stop to the plot to destroy net neutrality. Those who like being able to get this blog to come up on their browser in less than 5 minutes should just keep that in mind when they go to the polls.

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Guerrillas Kill 5 GIs
Bombings, Attacks, Kill 44 Iraqis
UN: Nearly 1 Million Displaced since US Invasion

5 US GIs were killed or announced killed on Sunday in Iraq and guerrillas killed some 44 persons in political violence.

83 US military personnel have been killed by guerrillas in Iraq since October 1.

AP’s intrepid Hamza Hendawi reports on how the violence has ruined the Festival of the Breaking of the Fast (Id al-Fitr) for most Iraqi Muslims.

*Guerrillas near Baquba northeast of Baghdad ambushed a bus full of police recruits, killing 15 and wounding 25.

*Several bombers targeted Shurjah Market in Baghdad, killing 9 persons and injuring dozens. It was crowded with shoppers picking up gifts and food for the holy day.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports [Ar.] in southeast Baghdad, clashes broke out between a Shiite clan and a Sunni Arab clan that left 9 persons dead.

AP adds:

‘ Sunday’s killings raised to at least 950 the number of Iraqis who have died in war-related violence this month, an average of more than 40 a day. The toll is on course to make October the deadliest month for Iraqis since April 2005, when the AP began tracking the deaths. Until this month, the daily average had been about 27. The AP count includes civilians, government officials and police and security forces, and is considered a minimum based on AP reporting. The actual number is likely higher, as many killings go unreported. ‘

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that [Ar.] Salih al-Maliki, and adviser to the Ministry of Defense, has laid the blame for the failure of the current Battle of Baghdad on fifth columnists inside the Iraqi security forces.

He seems to be arguing that guerrillas and militiamen are getting tipped off when the sweep will come to their neighborhood. Also, he said, the security forces are still very badly equipped.

CBS news is reporting that corrupt arms deals cost Iraq $800 million. Nearly a billion dollars worth of embezzlement is a lot of fraud. Hat tip to The Democratic Underground.

The United Nations High Commission on Refugees estimates that 3 million Iraqis have been displaced from their homes during the past 36 years.

About 1 million have been displaced since the US invasion a little over 3 years ago.

*1.5 million have been internally displaced to other parts of Iraq. About half of these have been forced from their homes since the US invasion in 2003.

*1.6 million have been displaced abroad, mainly to Jordan and Syria. Of these:

*About 800,000 are in Syria
*About 700,000 are in Jordan (over 10% of the population!)
*100,000 are elsewhere in the region.

Some of those forced abroad have been there for years.

But the proportion of recent arrivals is rising quickly. Another 40,000 Iraqis arrive in Syria every month! That is half a million a year.

Syria only has 19 million people, so 800,000 is nearly 5 percent! Jordan, with 700,000, is over 10 percent Iraqi now. Iraqis are to Jordan as the Latino wave of immigration has been to the US. One problem: The US is an advanced economy and is growing. Jordan and Syria are both economically messes and there is no way they can absorb such a big influx economically without help. But the budget of the UNHCR for Iraqi refugees has actually been falling rapidly in the past 2 years.

AP reports on the Iraqis in Syria.

John Amato at “Crooks and Liars” points out that Bush actually peddled to George Stephanopolous the line that “we’ve never been ‘stay the course’”!

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Mulla Omar Threatens US Troops
Repubs: Good at Ads, Bad at Capturing

Mulla Omar, leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan and claimant on the title of Caliph, has issued a long statement in which he pledges to significantly increas attacks on Americans and other Western troops in Afghanistan.

Arabic report here.

You know that Republican campaign ad that shows Bin Laden and has the ticking clock?

My question to the Republican Party is, it has been 5 years, and your party has been running a one-party state in the US.

So, why is Mulla Omar still out there at liberty to target US troops? And, why haven’t you caught Bin Laden, the mastermind of the most successful terrorist plot against the US in history? Remember Bush saying “wanted dead or alive,” recalling his childhood viewing of Western movies?

Well, they are not dead. Nor are they in custody alive. They are still just wanted.

So I wouldn’t say I was very impressed with your ticking clock and your suddenly remembering that Bin Laden promised to hit us again. I want to know why you haven’t captured him, and how you would do that if you got back in. Mulla Omar, too.

I think this ad throwing the uncaptured Bin Laden in our faces, by the way, is a huge affront to the 9/11 victims’ families, and I think the Republican National Committee owes them a big apology.

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Break-Up of Iraq Threatens Mideast Stability
Mahmudiyah Bombing Kills, wounds Dozens

The Guardian reported Saturday on the 8 options for Iraq allegedly being considered by the Bush administration:

1. British out now. This is possible, but as the events in Amara on Friday show, will be attended by instability.

2. US and Coalition troops out now: ‘ “We could pull out now and leave them to their fate,” a [British] Foreign Office official said. “But the place could implode.” ‘

3. Phased withdrawal. (Can be easily derailed by events.)

4. Talk to Iran and Syria.

5. Remove Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in favor of a strongman. (Iyad Allawi, the CIA asset and former Baathist thug has been mentioned.)

6. Break-up of Iraq

7. A US retreat to super-bases.

8. One last push.

The most promising thing on the list is talking to Syria and Iran, but apparently even that would be done not by the US but indirectly. I’m not sure indirect contacts are enough. I’m sorry that a continuous and inexorable phased withdrawal of US troops is not on the list. It could be done by making a rule that once the US force level falls to level X, it cannot again exceed that number no matter what. Otherwise, I don’t see anything on this list that will help the situation much less resolve it. No. 8, “one last push” is the stupidest and most dangerous tactic of all.

Liz Sly reports on how the prospect of an ethnic and religious partition of Iraq terrifies local Middle Eastern elites, who fear the consequences for other Middle Eastern countries. Ethnically diverse Syria could go in the same direction. Or south Lebanon could become a Shiite mini-state. Sly quotes Syrian President Bashar al-Asad:

‘ “Imagine a necklace that breaks and all the pearls fall to the ground,” he told the German magazine. “Almost all countries have breaking points, and when the ethnic-religious break occurs in one country it will not fail to occur elsewhere too. It would be as it was at the end of the Soviet Union, only much worse. Large wars, small wars: No one will be able to get a grip on the consequences.” ‘

She also quote International Crisis Group project director Joost Hiltermann,

“there is also a risk that neighboring states will seek to pursue their own agendas and turn the country into a regional battleground, said Joost Hiltermann . . . “We’ll have a replay of the Iran-Iraq War between the Iranians and the Arab states over what’s left of Iraq,” he said. And for a part of the world whose borders were drawn less than a century ago by British and French administrators, the consequences could indeed be dire, Hiltermann warned. “Everything here is new, a century old. The system has endured, but once it comes unstuck, anything can be challenged,” he said. “It’s madness, but if Iraq falls apart madness will rule the day.” ‘

If Americans think that these sorts of big changes in the Middle East will leave them unaffected, they have another think coming.

Sunni Arab guerrillas killed three Marines in al-Anbar province on Saturday, bringing the October death toll for US troops to 78.

Five cycle bombs in Mahmudiyah south of Baghdad targeted markets busy with shoppers preparing for the Festival of the Breaking of the Fast (Id al-Fitr), killing at least 20 and wounding 50. Another bomb hit a bus of shoppers returning from Baghdad, killing 4 and wounding 15.

The Mecca Declaration, a joint ruling of Shiite and Sunni clerics from Iraq, forbidding a Muslim to shed the blood of another Muslim, is in danger of going unheeded, according to close analysts of the region.

Be that as it may, the declaration is historic. According to al-Sharq al-Awsat [Ar.], it maintains that the differences between Sunnis and Shiites are a matter of personal interpretation (ta’wil), not a difference over basic principles (usul). To have such a declaration sponsored by Saudi Arabia, which adheres to the Wahhabi branch of Islam that was historically negative toward Shiites is a conceptual revolution. The statement has implications for Sunni-Shiite relations in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.– not just in Iraq.

Events in Iraq demonstrated that Western Powers could use the Sunni-Shiite divide to help overthrow governments, dominate major countries in the region, and even break up whole countries. The regional elites are increasingly deciding that Sunni-Shiite ecumenism is necessary to avoid more of these disasters.

Saudi investors are eyeing Iraq after the passage of an Iraqi law on foreign investments.

Digby at Hullabaloo on the relations of US soldiers with Iraqis.

Atrios on Yglesias on the illogicality of the US partitioning Iraq. Only, Muqtada al-Sadr is against partition and is a strong Iraqi nationalist albeit with a Shiite tinge.

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