Kissinger Says no Victory Possible;
Bombings in Baghdad, Hilla Kill 74;
Chaos in Baquba
Bush's visit to Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country, has elicited protests. In 2000, 75 percent of Indonesians thought well of the United States. Now, only 30% do, according to polling.
Henry Kissinger now thinks the Iraq War is unwinnable and that the goal of a stable democratic pro-American state is unlikely to be achieved.
A Pentagon review sees three options in Iraq-- Go big, go long and go home. The generals seem to favor a combination of the first (increasing troop levels temporarily) and second (getting down to 60,000 US troops but stepping up the training of the Iraqi army). I'd suggest instead a phased withdrawal in a relatively short time frame. A long-term presence of 60,000 US troops just provokes Iraqis and inflames the situation.
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Syria's foreign minister, visiting Baghdad, called for the US to set a timetable for withdrawal of its troops from Iraq. He discussed with Hoshyar Zebari, his counterpart, the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Syria and Iraq, which were cut off in 1982.
Guerrillas kidnapped Iraq's deputy minister of Health on Sunday. The Ministry of Health is a Sadrist stronghold, with many employees following young Shiite nationalist cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr.
Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that guerrillas established control over four city districts in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad.
Guerrillas opened fire on season workers returning to Baghdad from orchards in the east of Baquba, killing 8.
Authorities said that on Saturday guerrillas had attacked a police checkpoint (killing two policemen and wounding two others) and opened fire on residents after pulling them from their homes or automobiles.
Police had declared a one-day curfew after attacks in the city on Saturday, but guerrillas still controlled several city quarters.
The police said that in a separate incident, guerrillas loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr set fire to numerous shops in the market in revenge for attacks on their own offices in the city.
On Sunday morning the curfew was lifted but the main street was closed off. The guerrillas still had 4 districts, and they attacked another police checkpoint.
Al-Zaman's correspondent says that Baquba is living through a parlous security situation. Police patrols disappear from the principal streets early in the day and various armed groups thereafter have enormous sway. A policeman who declined to be named said that no day passes but dozens of persons are killed, whether from gunfire, bombs, or being assassinated. This has been going on for months.
Note that no newspaper or wire service is reporting "dozens" of daily deaths in Baquba. That so many are being missed lends credence to the higher estimates for deaths of the Lancet study.
There were several assassinations in Fallujah, including one attributed to a Marine sniper.
Guerrillas in Basra fired a katyusha rocket at a residence in the southern Abi al-Khasib section of Basra next to al-Jahiz School.
Baghdad and Hilla were hit by a wave of suicide bombings that left at least 74 dead and dozens others wounded.
Iraqi authorities said that bombers detonated three car bombs in Mashtal in the southeast of Baghdad, killing at least 10 and wounding 54. The toll will likely rise.
Another bomb in southeast Baghdad aimed at a police patrol killed 3 civilians and wounded 3 policemen.
Guerrillas kidnapped a judge, Muzaffar al-Ubaidi, from his home in al-Khadra, West Baghdad.
Reuters reports that on Sunday:
' HILLA - At least 17 [al-Zaman says 22] people were killed and 49 wounded when a suicide bomber exploded his vehicle among day labourers waiting to be hired in Hilla, 100 km (62 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb wounded six people in Baghdad's southern Saidiya district, an Interior Ministry source said. '
Al-Hayat says that a Sunni Arab guerrilla cell claimed that it carried out the Hilla bombing in revenge for the kidnapping last Tuesday of Sunni employees from the ministry of higher education.
posted by Juan Cole @ 11/20/2006 12:37:00 AM
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Time magazine has released its 11/27 issue online and the cover story is The Pope Confronts Islam.
I was wondering how you react to the Pope's attitude, and the larger issue of the Western advocacy, or lecturing, on the need for a more docile Islam.
In my limited experience, I have found such Western rebukes to serve only the cause of Western chest-puffing... Such hostility usually emboldens the radicals and silences the reformers among Muslim communities. But that's just my analysis, based on my limited exposure to radical groups in Lebanon and India.
From the Post report the Pentagon study seems to have be front loaded to a predetermined outcome staying a safe political course.
Having been burned from the get-go, they're not sugar coating the time to Go Long (Hail Mary Pass?) projecting another 5-10 years to stablize the country.
5-10 years that neither we nor the Iraqis have.
They've bracketed the bad news with implausible altenatives in order to steer a safe dowmestic course. Yet hasn't that been our proboem all along? The US has made one ungodly mess precisely because war policy has been set to fit domestic political memes rather to the real war going on in Iraq.
Going Long is really a sentence to the impossible labor of choosing sides in the civil war.
From the Post report the Pentagon study seems to have be front loaded to a predetermined outcome staying a safe political course.
Having been burned from the get-go, they're not sugar coating the time to Go Long (Hail Mary Pass?) projecting another 5-10 years to stablize the country.
5-10 years that neither we nor the Iraqis have.
They've bracketed the bad news with implausible altenatives in order to steer a safe dowmestic course. Yet hasn't that been our proboem all along? The US has made one ungodly mess precisely because war policy has been set to fit domestic political memes rather to the real war going on in Iraq.
Going Long is really a sentence to the impossible labor of choosing sides in the civil war . 5-10 years of "the next six months are critical" isn't a sound strategy. It is Pentagon politics
So we can't bomb Cambodia to win in Iraq? Henry sure has let us down.
Prof. Cole
A generic comment on the media prompted by your "no newspaper or wire service" and indeed the Blair "disaster" statement.
It is starting to happen if you watch Al-Jazeera in English (available in Europe at least on the Sky offering, as well as on the Web) which I recommend to all your non-Arabic readers, though somewhat tamer than the Arabic version and still needing to find its feet it is certainly a breath of fresh air in the news media panorama.
Even a man like David Frost who was "definitely" subdued as a BBC presenter (Sunday with Frost) seems to have found new energy while presenting too the "other side" to the same story. Same for other journalists coming from different media outlets including Sky. Though they were already visibly uncomfortable whilst doing their reportage with their previous employers, this prompt nonetheless the famous question ... are journalists really an objective voice or just their master voice ?
This notwithstanding and despite it just started broadcasting (15 November) I noticed already that it started to actually set the agenda – e.g. the first to carry along with an interview the Sudanese Govt. denial of its announced in principle agreement for a U.N. force. CNN carried the same news with an interview (a Sudanese Official – a first !?) yesterday, a good 24 hours later.
Best
P.S. and no star weddings, bank robberies or car chase so far. May it last !
The Bilateral Hawks Won in a Landslide
It appears that, contrary to the common wisdom, the hawks won the Nov. 7 elections, at least judging from the appearances Sun. on "Face the Nation," which you didn't mention.
Sen. Grab'em of SC wants to go in big for a short period (he seems to suggest a year as adequate) to reduce the level of violence and allow time for democracy to take hold and Iraqi police and troops to be trained to take over the fight.
Rep. "call 'em up, call 'em all up" Wrangle of NY wants to introduce a universal draft. Anyone not needed for the military (he thinks the military would declare anyone excess?) could do civilian national service, obviously not having any better use for his or her time.
Why anyone thinks that more US military forces in Iraq would do any good in the long term is unclear. They still do not speak Arabic in large numbers nor understand the situation there in any useful way.
Al Qaeda in Iraq reportedly has only about 1,200-1,600 followers in Iraq, but the US military, able to go anywhere it wants, has not managed to reduce this number. In fact the number is nearly as large as the size of Al Qaeda worldwide at the time of 9/11. AQ is an alien, often unliked presence in Iraq, and US forces have not gotten a handle on it or prevented its introduction and growth. They were not there under Saddam, so we are worse off than before in this regard. But AQ is a marginal force in Iraq.
The US has also been unable to reduce the size of the Sunni insurgency, which maintains 12-20,000 effectives, and is able to regenerate them as needed. Rather than a Tet-style offensive last month as the MSM would have it, the Sunnis seem to be husbanding their strength for a long-term struggle, one probably lasting years, if not generations. They probably are receiving support from Jordan and Saudi Arabia, not Syria and Iran. These seem to be the major source of US casualties.
As if these foes were not enough, many US voices keep seeking to take on Shiite militias, the supporters of key elements in the Iraqi government, thus ranging nearly everyone in Iraq against us. Rather than concentrating on one enemy at a time, this view seems to want to pre-emptively surrender to the Sunnis and get the Shiites to sign on to this "strategy." Confused? D'oh.
The US forces seem similarly incompetent at the latest fad, suppressing inter-sectarian violence in Baghdad, despite a publicized surge effort over the past several months. Of course, many Iraqis believe that the US or US-backed forces are responsible for much of the atrocity-style violence. Being on the spot, why should we believe them? Just because increased presence of US forces led to increased violence of this type, why should one be causing the other; maybe it's just a random correlation of events, not causational. Or maybe the people there have some clue.
Politicians want us to forget the past and go on from where we are now in Iraq, but that's not possible in this world. Where we are at does involve the past inseparably. The current administration and congress are not capable of doing any of the large number of things that might imaginably ameliorate the situation in Iraq. So long as W. is in office, the only sane course is to demand a rapid withdrawal of all US forces within a few months at most.
If some other international force can be found to assist the Iraqi government, and that government wishes such help, fine. Otherwise, they should rely on the support of the Iraqi people themselves, who elected them, and face their bright future bravely and resolutely. By themselves, they might be victorious. With US "help," that is patently impossible.
Contractors and careerists can always scare up another war.
Wondered if you had seen this.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6164798.stm
Cairo Blogger arrested by Egyptian authorities for online criticism.
Ok I have been a do not go into Iraq until Palestinian question is resolved and now get out of Iraq, BUT the exit strategy has to have a very clear message. We are in Iraq, we are addicted to Oil and in spite of US stupidity it would be crazy to leave the US built bases. If US pulls back to the bases and allows the thing to blow up then we cover out bets. We then say we will leave Iraq as the US institutes an energy policy that levels the playing field for the rest of the world which means a total infrastructure rebuilding for the US. We are going to continue to have to have Oil, no other way and I would rather be on the spigot than Iran, China, USSR or India. We need to take our lumps at home, but now that Bush has us in it, it would be stupid to leave. If the Iraqis stabilize and start to bomb our outlying bases instead playing civil war then it would be prudent to go.
Let's leave aside the argument that Islam is a religion of violence. I simply couldn't say, even if I had to--though I think the fact that most Muslims in the world seem not to be disposed to violence pretty much answers the question.
What, then, explains the sheer bloodthirstiness--the obvious lust for violence--of the people who perpetrate these atrocities against their own neighbors and countrymen? Pulling strangers out of cars and shooting them, blowing up marketplaces, torturing people with power drills; this is a level of violence and bloodlust that makes one think of Rwanda, Guatemala, the Soviet purges, and the Nazi Holocaust. The madness has taken over, giving full allowance to the 5 or 10 percent of the population to whom the screams of the victims either mean nothing or create some sort of psychosexual release.
Some people would say it's there in all of us, but I really doubt that. I don't feel it in myself, and I doubt most readers of this blog do, either. I think it shows that we're not capable yet, as a species, of being without government, without control, not over the mass of people, who tend to be live-and-let-live types. But over that small percentage who apparently need murder and violence in order to fully identify themselves. Hideous.
Iran invites Iraqi, Syrian presidents to Tehran
Tehran would do well to invite Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan also to move itself to the center of the construction of the post-US order. If Tehran could get representatives of the Sunnis to come, even to a conference endorsed by Iran but held in Syria, then that would be a major coup because the Kurds and Shiites are sure to accept invitations.
The US voters have already said they do not want to be there. They will punish US political leaders from now on if the leaders refuse to leave Iraq. So while the US has a big, ostentatious imperial military presence, that presence is temporary and the US is really not a long term factor in the outcome in Iraq.
Tehran, along with Iraq's other neighbors and Iraq's internal groups should do what the US is too proud (and frankly too stupid) to do - hold a conference that starts with the proposition that the US will not be around for long and goes to answer the question of what they can agree about on the post-US order.
A long term presence of 60,000 troops provokes the Iraqis, inflames the situation and gives the United States leverage over Iraqi policy - contrary to the wishes of most Iraqis.
If the United States were to decide that reducing provocations and calming rather than inflaming the situation were more important than maintaining anti-democratic leverage over Iraqi policy then the would announce a withdrawal on short order.
Unfortunately, the United States has not and will not decide that.
Maybe the next US president will be able to negotiate a post-Hussein Middle East order that includes an Iraq outside of the US sphere of influence and an ascendent Iran. There is no long term way to prevent that, and it is better to accomplish it quickly through negotiation rather than slowly and painfully through a war of attrition.
I think what people are ignoring is the "We lost" option. Staying with current troops is not going to work. Adding troops is not possible without a draft that Americans will never support. Phased withdrawal will never work, as any area that has troops pull out will quickly be overrun by insurgents. Immediate withdrawal is not so much an option as an inevitability. I think that they should at least attempt a phased withdrawal, but my guess is that we will just need to pull out our troops and let things play out. Anyone calling for more troops should be getting their butts over to the Recruiting office or support Rangel's call for a draft.
I saw the exit from Saigon (on TV like everyone else--TV could report things then) I saw them kicking the Vietnamise off the heliocopters as the last Americans were getting their A's out of there, as the NVA was entering the city.
If those guys don't get there A's out of Iraq PDQ, it could be one of the most spectacular (and tragic) fiascos in all of America's history, including the battle of the Little Bighorn.
Well I don't know anything but it seems to me...
When you think about it, it is quite remarkable that anyone in Vietnam still has benign feelings towards the USA. It is a pity that Bush did not visit the American War Museum in Saigon, which shows many horrifically graphic images, artefacts and other proof of US atrocities during the Vietnam War (the Vitenamese call it the "American War", which is probably more fitting). Some of the images from the museum which will stay in my memory include young US soldiers grinning stupidly at the camera while holding up bleeding scalps, while decapitated bodies lie around them.
As Ron Suskind pointed out, Bush loves being closely involved with the macho decision-making, but never has to confront the stark consequences of his decisions.
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