Civil War Violence Kills 100;
Abizaid Meets Maliki;
Olmert Thinks Iraq is Stable
Guerrillas attempted to assassinate Iraqi Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi on Monday, but only succeeded in killing two of his bodyguards. The gunmen attacked the vice presidential convoy. Abdul Mahdi was narrowly defeated for the position of prime minister last spring, and is a prominent member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). That group has taken a controversial position in advocating the establishment of a single Shiite superprovince in the south of the country.
UK PM Tony Blair's speech on Monday, which had been bruited as a change of course in foreign policy, struck me as just a 'stay the course' standard bromide. He blamed Iran for instability in Iraq, whereas most of that comes from the anti-Iranian Sunni Arabs. He blamed Iran for supporting Lebanon, even though he had done nothing to stop the brutal Israeli bombing of south Beirut. He just gave the standard Bush speech, which even Bush may not be giving long. As for Israel and Palestine, he is right that it is the core issue. But it is pitiful for him to keep saying that as the situation drops into the 13th level of hell for the Palestinians, and to fail to do anything practical about it.
US General John Abizaid met Monday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, pressing him for a practical plan on deploying the new Iraqi army against the guerrilla movement, and cautioning him to disband the Mahdi Army militia and give proof of progress on that score. Al-Maliki has said repeatedly that he disagrees with the Americans that the Mahdi Army is the main problem in Iraq, and wants to focus on fighting the Sunni Arab guerrillas. (Al-Maliki has a point. I'd say that the Sunni Arab fighters are responsible for the vast majority of attacks in Iraq).
Haaretz is outraged and a little amused that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert came to Washington and said this to Bush about Iraq:
' "We in the Middle East have followed the American policy in Iraq for a long time, and we are very much impressed and encouraged by the stability which the great operation of America in Iraq brought to the Middle East. We pray and hope that this policy will be fully successful so that this stability which was created for all the moderate countries in the Middle East will continue." '
There is no mystery here. Olmert has already proved that he does not understand asymmetrical warfare or the Arab world, and that he has a mystical faith in tanks. Saddam had a tank army, of which the Israeli military was always mysteriously afraid, and it is gone. Iraq has 78 tanks, last I knew. If you equate a big tank army in the hands of an enemy of Israel as "instability," then now you have "stability."
It seems to me in contrast that Hamas is picking up Ramadi and Falluja as hinterland support, and Hizbullah now has the opportunity for backing from the ruling Iraqi Shiite parties of Da'wa, SCIRI, and the Sadr Movement, which in turn have the prospect of getting rich off Iraqi petroleum. But if Olmert and Bush understood these sorts of things, they wouldn't have adopted such disastrous policies.
Olmert's predecessor was trying openly to goad the United States into a war with Iran. Most of the time you can't listen to Israeli hawks about Middle East policy. They are like carpenters with a hammer to whom every problem looks like a nail. Every political issue looks to them like a good little war would solve it. They don't seem to be able to notice that nearly 60 years of such war-at-the-drop-of-a-hat has not gotten them anywhere in the region and if anything, as Bashar al-Asad said last summer, every generation of Arabs hates them more. The hawks don't fear the hatred of the masses because they only understand tanks, not asymmetrical or geopolitical struggles. And that is where we came in.
The NYT says Muqtada al-Sadr has become more of a political insider but is thereby losing control over his militia.
Speaking of which, the US military raided some homes and offices of Muqtada's followers in Shula, Baghdad, on Monday. In recent weeks such actions have drawn howls of outrage from PM al-Maliki, but let's see if they coordinated this one with him.
Reuters reports civil war violence in Iraq on Monday, identifying 100 or so of the fatalities that day. Excerpts:
'BAGHDAD - A blast that police said was caused by a suicide bomber killed 11 and wounded 18 on a minibus in north Baghdad.
BAGHDAD - Two U.S. soldiers were killed and two wounded in a bomb attack in Baghdad . . .
BAGHDAD - Police recovered 46 bodies around Baghdad in 24 hours to Monday evening, an Interior Ministry source said. Most had been tortured and were apparent victims of sectarian death squads. . .
BAGHDAD - U.S. forces killed at least five people and wounded 15 in a raid on the Shi'ite enclave of Shula in mainly Sunni west Baghdad . . .
BAGHDAD - Five employees of the state-owned North Oil Company, one of them a women, were ambushed and killed in the northern outskirts of Baghdad as they drove into the capital . . .
BAGHDAD - Gunmen stormed a petrol station on Sunday and seized 18 men, the Conference of Iraqi People party, one of three Sunni parties forming the Iraqi Accordance Front, said. They killed four and released the others, the source added. . .
YUSUFIYA - Police found the bodies of five people between the towns of Yusufiya, 15 km (9 miles) south of Baghdad, and Mahmudiya, police said. Two had been beheaded, the others shot.
So a Danish intelligence agent concludes before the Iraq War of 2003 that there is no good evidence Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. That puts the lie to Bush's constantly reiterated allegation that "everyone" agreed with him at the time about that. Then two Danish journalists tell the rest of us about this report, which was apparently suppressed by the rightwing Danish government, which is hand in hand with Bush. Thus, Bush can say that no other intelligence agencies disputed his story on Iraq WMD because we aren't allowed by his friends to find out about the dissents. So what happens then? Bush is reelected. And the Danish journalists now face jail time. I like Copenhagen a lot, but if these journalists go to jail I think progressives should get up some sort of economic boycott on Denmark. Isn't that the government that told the Muslims it can't interfere in even blasphemous freedom of speech?
Note to Henry Waxman: subcontractors for the US military appear to be making their truck drivers cross from Kuwait into Iraq without proper papers, to deliver things to Coalition bases. Surely there is a US law against recklessly endangering your employees?
The Iraqi judicial system, behind the scenes, is getting rebuilt. If the government could ever restore the streets to order, maybe the new judges could accomplish something.
Richard Haas of CFR doesn't think the Iraq War is winnable.
posted by Juan Cole @ 11/14/2006 12:34:00 AM
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9 Comments:
IMHO, Bush will allow the grown-ups to run the Iraq show from now on. He is a serial loser yet still survives. Bad losers can not achieve that.
There is too much concentration on procedures ib the USA (and has been since the start) at the expense of the objectives.
The most drastic change has already taken place. The reshaping of the Middle East, the pangs, and the democracy crap are all gone.
The main remaining problem objective is the "ally in this war against terrorism". Fighting terror in Iraq is top priority for the Iraqis but has nothing to do with the US, once they are gone. So, we are talking about using Iraqi resources in the wider world. This is not going to happen. Period.
The second problem is the idea that the US has the right to and can change regimes. The experience of Iraq will not be repeated, because the US can no longer do it, nor want to. However, it can still cause trouble by surgical attacks and by paying trouble-makers. The problem is, the USA in Iraq is now the hostage, not the hostage taker. They should be on their best behavior to be allowed to leave, and threats may make some like the VP feel like real men, but have little value. Moreover, they, with the a definite deadline to end the occupation, can be traded in for a verifiable end to supporting violence in Iraq, particularly by Syria and Iran.
Richard Haass states clearly that the policies of the US are still in the hands of the President and despite his somewhat curtailed pronouncements he has in no way indicated an intention of changing goals, strategies nor tactics.
In addition I would remind everyone (and I will probably do so ad infinitum) that the Congress has through legislation, beginning with the Patriot Act, given the President the right to take any unilateral action that he so desires. That has not changed and a new Congress will not change that fact.
"Isn't [Denmark] the government that told the Muslims it can't interfere in even blasphemous freedom of speech?"
Anyone who can call freedom of speech "blasphemous" has a serious problem that derives from confusing "free" speech with "supervised" dogma.
As the Buddha once pointed out: You can't give offense to anyone unwilling to take it. Or, put another way: If someone has determined in advance to take offense no matter what, then nothing on earth can prevent them from taking that which they desire most in their miserable masochistic lives.
As F.C.S. Schiller pointed out early in the twentieth century: "The word 'sacred' generally means a fear that anything so denominated cannot withstand investigation."
Put the two observations about the "sacred" and the "blasphemous" together and we can readily see "blasphemy," "heresy," "apostasy," et cetera, as just synonymous and eagerly self-interested attempts by medieval monotheists to silence any examination into their darkest and most sinister, i.e., "religious" impulses.
"Religion" will kill the world yet. Just give it a little more time. It hasn't far to go now. First it will snuff out the freedom that so offends it. Then it will snuff out the "free offenders." By all means, then; let us invite "religious" supervisors to tell us what our "freedom" means -- to them.
The "Atlas Shrugged" blog has a long laundry list of all the good things that have happened in Iraq since we invaded, citing improvements to education and infrastructure. I have to wonder how kidnapping 150 employees will be spun so it is another reflection of American competency. I do remember one statistic that I find totally unbelievable but is supposedly on the DoD site: 96% of all Iraqi children under age 5 have gotten the first stage of the polio vaccine. And then they criticize the Lancet study?
Olmert, amazingly enough, is seen by many Israelis as a wimp and lefty sell out. GWB is swiftly being castigated for the same softness by the Israeli rightwing. For these folks, not only do they have hammers, but the hammers are nuclear and a dispressingly large percentage seem ready to use them.
There seems to have been more Iran hawkery out of London lately - the Jerusalem Post today had a story that Ahmadinejad was seeking for form an alliance with al-Qaeda, sourced to British intelligence sources leaking to the Telegraph.
I think the Israeli right thinks more strategically than you are willing to concede. On the one hand, you're right: they're stuck in a 1948 mindset, and believe that the real mortal threat to Israel is being "thrown into the sea" by Arab armies. But is that mindset really wrong? At the end of the day, the only way to "destroy" Israel is to destroy it -- with tanks or nuclear bombs. Terrorism, asymmetrical warfare, suicide bombs, cheap homemade missiles -- these things are all just annoyances. In fact, they're actually good for the right: terrorism keeps the public inflamed, keeps them voting Likud (or whatever the post-Likud calls itself now), and gives them all the political cover with the U.S. that they need to never, ever, make a deal with the Palestinians.
You say: "if Olmert and Bush understood these sorts of things, they wouldn't have adopted such disastrous policies."
I think you're probably right about Bush, but I think Olmert and the Israeli right know exactly what they are doing. These "disastrous" policies are the only thing that keep them in control of the West Bank and Gaza. Israelis killed by terrorists are dying for their country, in their view. It's a price worth paying.
So what is it that you want? "Stay the course, but be nice about it"? Not clear what that would entail or yield. "No to partition"? But by what means? "Anything other than W"? But just what, dear Hillary, distinguishes Democrats from Republicans on Israel or the '02 posture towards Iraq? If Hamas doctrine is not vindication of a '48 mindset, what is? Even if the Sunni insurgents are a worse death machine than the Mahdi Army, does this say what can or should be done to eliminate either?
"It seems to me in contrast that Hamas is picking up Ramadi and Falluja as hinterland support, and Hizbullah now has the opportunity for backing from the ruling Iraqi Shiite parties of Da'wa, SCIRI, and the Sadr Movement, which in turn have the prospect of getting rich off Iraqi petroleum. But if Olmert and Bush understood these sorts of things, they wouldn't have adopted such disastrous policies."
Bush and Olmert are stuck in a racist, superior_than_Arab mindset. Their failure (refusal) to learn leads to unprecedented disaster for us.
Someone had better speak plainly to the American people and that right soon.
The US has lost the Iraq War and the longer we stay, the more we will pay. Bet the farm the ISG won't
ANTHONY SHADID: [I]t struck me, in the most recent visit there in October, how pronounced the despair was at this point, a certain hopelessness.... it's a certain hopelessness, I think, mixed with fear, and fear colors Baghdad almost in every respect these days.
PBS NewsHour Panel
11/14
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