Regional Conference Prepared
Iraqi Military to Assume control within a year
Gates Confirmed
The US now has a secretary of defense who knows that we are not winning in Iraq, who wants to do something about it, and who doesn't think nuking Iran is just a dandy idea. Although his involvement in Iran-Contra dogged Robert Gates in the build-up to the confirmation hearings, it did not emerge as a big issue. It may be that by now having a SecDef who once was involved in selling US weapons to Khomeini and who therefore has a potential back channel to leaders in Tehran, is not seen as such a bad thing. Let's see if Gates can finally redeem university presidents who enter high federal office, after Woodrow Wilson gave them a bad name.
The Arab League called Tuesday for a regional conference within 4 months to attempt to resolve Iraq's crisis. Its members also called on the Iraqi government to dissolve all militias, and to curb Iranian interference in the country.
In the aftermath, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki climbed down from his previous reticence on the idea of a regional conference. He had recently rejected a similar proposal by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He sent envoys to neighboring countries to begin preparing for it. He thus appeared to be over-ruling political allies such as Shiite cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and (Kurdish) Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, both of whom have said that Iraq can resolve its own problems.
Western reporting on the new support for the regional conference in Baghdad tended not to link it to the Arab League decisions, though they seem to me to be central to the about-face.
AP reports that the US military in Iraq says that by next fall, Iraqi troops will be responsible for all 18 provinces in the country and control of all 10 Iraqi army divisions will be in the hands of the Iraqi government. This accelerated timetable came as a result of al-Maliki's discussions with Bush in Amman last week.
Reuters reports civil war violence in Iraq on Tuesday. Major incidents:
' BAGHDAD - Three car bombs near a fuel station killed 16 people and wounded 25 in the southwestern Bayaa district of Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD - Gunmen ambushed a bus carrying employees for the Shi'ite Endowment, a religious body that oversees Shi'ite mosques, in northern Baghdad, killing 14 people and wounding four, the organisation said. An Interior Ministry source said 15 were killed and seven wounded in the attack in Qahira district.
BAGHDAD - Insurgents attacked a U.S. patrol on Monday, killing one U.S. soldier and wounding five others in northeastern Baghdad, the U.S. military said. '
There were several other attacks in the capital. In Ramadi, dozens are said to have died in clashes between Iraqi security forces and local Sunni Arab guerrillas. The Iraqi police chief claimed that 68 guerrillas were killed but mentioned no casualties among the security forces, which is not plausible.
A spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry expressed concern on Tuesday that jihadis who fight in Iraq and recruit Saudi young men for the battle are coming back to Saudi Arabia and becoming a threat to the country's security.
Al-Hayat reports that its sources in Washington are saying that Iraqi Shiite cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim brought with him a letter from the government of Iran for Bush, when he met with the president on Monday.
posted by Juan Cole @ 12/06/2006 12:36:00 AM
|
Facebook
15 Comments:
US Can Withdraw From Iraq and Still Support Democracy
For those who are fixated that the US military in Iraq is somehow supporting democracy, and that redeployment/withdrawal is somehow shortchanging the ideal of democracy, there are now alternatives: US forces can be sent to Thailand and Fiji to restore the democratically elected governments recently ousted by coups.
If the ideal is worth fighting for, here are two relatively clear-cut cases where the US could be supportive of real elected governments.
Taking out these militaries and restoring elected governments could support democratic ideal in two countries with a combined population of more than twice that of Iraq, and thus off-set the putative loss of "supporting democracy" in Iraq, a somewhat less clear-cut case.
Let's go for value here. It shouldn't take long in either case, and the environment is better in most every regard.
I am very dissappointed in your ready acceptance and lack of criticizm of Robert Gates as the new U.S. Secretary of Defense. Is he above reproach because he is a university president? His Iran Contra involvement and politicizing intelligence with the CIA is nothing short of criminal.
- Rick Happ
So, "by next fall, Iraqi troops will be responsible for all 18 provinces in the country and control of all 10 Iraqi army divisions will be in the hands of the Iraqi government." Why not test some divisions immediately? Why the perpetually floating 12 month buffer? Does it really have anything to do with the material preparedness of the divisions? Or is it really an ongoing gamble that the central government will eventually be able to command an army's allegiance? At present, when we read of a clash between Iraqi security forces and insurgents, are the Iraqi units ever stand-alone and multi-sect? Do the encounters originate as an ambush by the insurgents or do the official forces ever take the initiative?
There is a detailed account in Al-Quds al-Arabi this morning on the connection between the Hakim-Bush talks and the Talabani visit to Tehran last week, suggesting a breakthrough in US-Iran relations. There is a summary here
how on earth does someone who sells weapons to terrorists and then uses the money to fund more terrorism and then lie about it to congress end up as a university president?
and then move on to Sec of Defense?
this country of mine (USA) is obscenely evil.
Even this great academic Juan Cole is very much mistaken when he concurs with others in the establishment that we need to have a slow, phased withdrawal. This is not the case though, Juan.
Here's an article explaining how American troops create violence, and are an inherently destabilizing force:
http://tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=145524
And Juan also needs to realize (as Helen Cobban rightly does) that the real reason we're not withdrawing from Iraq is Bush's ego. He needs to be able to continue claiming that we're pursuing victory; the rhetoric that we see as manipulation is his very political essence. The point being, Juan, you need to talk to Helen Cobban and you need to be a prominent voice advocating a speedy, not phased, withdrawal from Iraq. As in, within months not years.
And I don't think I've seen a single suggestion in your blog of forming a conference through the UN to resolve many of the Sunni-Shia and Iraqi disputes. Surely the Americans can't settle these disputes for shit, and someone who can is needed.
http://justworldnews.org/archives/002220.html#plan
http://justworldnews.org/
I cannot believe that the US is hanging it's hopes for a pro-US government in Iraq on a "new Iraqi Army". How can anyone expect centuries old religious loyalties to be replaced with loyalty to an occupation force created military? An occupation force, by the way, that has committed countless atrocities and violated multiple international conventions with respect to occupying powers. The desire for vengeance must be tremendous.
The US government is truly deluded. They are trapped in their own point of view and refuse to look at the problem through Arab eyes. To continue this folly will only cause more death and destruction to Iraqis and Americans.
Study Group Report -- Anondyne and Discouraging
The Report reads like a short summary from Informed Comment press reviews, damnably pathetic when viewed in light of the extensive "consultations" listed in the Appendix. Didn't all these people have any fresh insights or facts?
The laundry list of Recommendations meanders from the anondyne to the improbable to the ludicrous.
Some lowlights:
Diplomatic:
--Saudi support for insurgents in Iraq is attributed to "private individuals." Isn't this where we came in with Al Qaeda? If W. were at all concerned with ideologized terrorisim, he would have had heavy units moving on Wahhabi centers years ago.
--Would the Iraq International Support Group as outlined be a herdable group of cats? If not, why convene it?
--What has been the payoff to date to Syria and Iran for their cooperation and offers of further cooperation?
--Would Syrian cooperation with investigations of assassinations in Lebanon be balanced by international investigation of other assassinations in the region?
--In discussion of Afghanistan, there is no mention of Pakistan! Why this continued insistence on maintaining sanctuaries for terrorist groups to operate from, other than sheer desire to maintain the aweful record to date.
Military:
--If there are no large scale combat operations, why are large US combat units in Iraq? Why is the mere physical presence in Iraq cause for "significant strain?"
--About 10 different types of US troops are supposed to remain in Iraq. How many units could actually be withdrawn tomorrow instead of "eventually?" Why not do that now?
--Do we really want/need 20,000 trainers embedded with 125,000 Iraqi troops? Especially if only half of the Iraqis show up? Couldn't we just skip the Iraqis?
--The military has done a rotten job so far of training Iraqis. Why should they also take on training two major portions of the Iraqi police? If our military is that good at police work, how come we aren't grabbing terrorist leaders instead of bombing the houses they are reported to be in?
--With 20,000 of our "most highly qualified" military personnel embedded with Iraqi units, what happens to their unit cohesion, and that of the units they leave? How many fluent (two years' study minimum) Arabic speakers does the US military now have, either in Iraq, or outside Iraq but assigned to working on Iraq? Or on other Arabic-speaking countries? How can you advise if you can't be understood? Yell louder?
"Milestones List":
--This reads like the standard wish list for Eastern European countries in the 1990s just after they left Soviet tutelage, and is just as unlikely to be fulfilled in one or two decades, much less the months so blithely assigned.
--The economic points are invitations to political suicide, however much we may believe they would lead to rapid progress. We'll never know in this world. If we need excuses to leave, there are easier ones to find.
--Expand the FBI counter-terrorism presence; Why? The FBI is clueless at home, as we just found out, if we weren't already convinced by the copious evidence. And they mostly want to buy the Iraqis cars and radios.
Oil:
--The kind of basic suggestions imply that corruption rules, and therefore any outsider can forget voluntary changes. Never mind that this suggestion comes from the hyper-power of corruption, the "government" that doesn't know where the billions it has spent or sent have gone.
Summary conclusion:
--The report is neither "blunt" nor "bleak" enough, but designed to jolly people along for another year or two.
Those wishing to save lives, resources, and US interests should be looking in other directions for the most part.
Let's see if Gates can finally redeem university presidents who enter high federal office, after Woodrow Wilson gave them a bad name.
Hey, you forgot Eisenhower, one of your favorite guys on the middle east. He was president of Columbia.
Who gave Woody Wilson a bad name? Seems to me much of what he tried to do, frustrated by a Repugnican Congers, was ultimately enacted at the end of the Big Deuce (WWII). I was pleasantly surprised at a recent visit to Prague, to find that the Czechs named their airport after him. Somebody obviously likes him.
Dancewater, you left out that Gates was in favor of the Iraq invasion. So his 26 years of experience in intelligence and national security didn't help his judgement much.
But being in favor of the invasion probably helped him get his new job. I don't think Bush could tolerate an "I told you so".
Even if the commission's recommendations on troup withdrawal are carried out to the letter, there will still be a large red, white, and blue elephant in the Iraqi livingroom. The commission recommends that air support and special forces remain to help out the Iraqi army and root out terrorism. No timetable for these troups to leave.
A force like that can create a lot of mayhem, especially in nearbye countries like Syria and Iran. Its a cake and eat it situation. The airpower and special forces can keep a low profile with low casualties while at the same time be prepared to bomb and infiltrate annywhere in the Middle East.
I think Dwight Eisenhower pretty well rehabilitated university presidents from whatever damage Woodrow Wilson did to their collective reputations.
I think Dwight Eisenhower has already pretty well rehabilitated university presidents from whatever bad reputation they inherited from Woodrow Wilson.
surprise surprise the arab league calls for the shias to dissolve their neighbourhood watch committees, set up to protect the civilians where the pitiful iraqi army couldnt.
No mention of dissolving the sectarian insurgents then, eh guys?
there can be no regional conference with the arabs involved until they drop their ancient prejudices and realise that the shia will never go back to being oppressed.
The Militias are staying. if the sunnis wanna be alive to see in 2009, they'd better get used to it, and find a way to get along with the majority of their fellow countrymen, as opposed to bombing women and children in market places.
Post a Comment
<< Home