Bush Will Speed Turn-over of Security Responsibilities
Maliki Skipped Weds. Banquet, Snubs Bush over Memo

Bush will speed the transfer of security responsibilities to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, it was announced at their summit in Amman. Al-Maliki has been pressing Washington for some time to give him the authority to order much bigger battle units into action without securing permission first from the US military. The PM has been frustrated that he isn't allowed to set security policy but then is blamed for not achieving security. He also assured Bush that he can handle the Sadr Movement and the Mahdi Army militia. The Sadrists in parliament suspended their membership in protest against al-Maliki's meeting with Bush. In an ordinary parliamntary system, al-Maliki would be considered a minority PM and might well lose a vote of no confidence. But Iraq actually seems to be run as an oligarchy, and too many of the major politicians now live in London to permit ordinary politics to play out.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki actually blew off US President George W. Bush and Jordanian King Abdullah II on Wednesday, declining to show up at a scheduled formal banquet! Talks between him and Bush have been postponed until today.

Bush talked to Abdullah II on a bilateral basis on Wednesday, and will meet one on one with Maliki today.

The no-show was presumably Maliki's protest against the highly critical memo of US National Security Council adviser Stephen Hadley about Maliki, leaked to the New York Times and published on Wednesday. Maliki needn't have bothered. Informed experts find the memo mediocre at best and wholly impractical at worst. I have to say I was shocked at Hadley's lack of understanding of the parliamentary system in which Maliki works, such that his government could easily fall.

Some have also speculated that Maliki minded discussing bilateral US-Iraqi affairs with King Abdullah II of Jordan in the room, and was annoyed at the Jordanian monarch's attempt to insert the Israeli-Palestinian issue into the talks.

Maliki may also have intended to show he was his own man, in the face of heavy criticism from the Sadr Movement members of parliament and of his own cabinet. Some 32 members of parliament loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr suspended their membership in the legislature at 6 pm on Wednesday, and the 5 Sadrist cabinet members also resigned contingently.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that Shiite cleric and leader of the largest bloc in parliament, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, also met Wednesday with King Abdullah II. But after the meeting, al-Hakim, head of the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was quoted as having said that if Iraq went to all-out sectarian civil war, the Sunni Arabs would be the losers. This belligerant threat provoked consternation among observers, presumably because it had been hoped that al-Hakim's meeting with a neighboring Sunni monarch was aimed at improving relations with Sunni Arabs.

Al-Zaman also notes that Iyad Allawi has flown to Amman [from London, where he now mostly resides along with many other Iraqi politicians]. The head of the Iraqi National List and formerly an appointed prime minister, a Shiite with a Baathist past, Allawi has been marginalized in Iraqi politics but still has patrons in Washington.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Health Ministry Attacked
Khamenei Calls for US Withdrawal

Iraq's Shiite-run Health Ministry was attacked again Weds. morning, presumably by Sunni Arab guerrillas.

Thomas Ricks and Robin Wright at WaPo examine the increasing tendency of the American political class to blame the Iraqis for the political turmoil there.

I see. The US invaded their country, abolished their army, gutted their civil service, occupied their cities, and now it is the Iraqis' fault.

Iran's Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei said in talks with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani that the US must withdraw from Iraq for there to be peace.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

King Abdullah II: It's Palestine, Stupid
US Troops may Leave al-Anbar

A surprise for Americans: The most urgent and destabilizing crisis in the Middle East is not Iraq. It is, according to King Abdullah II of Jordan (who will meet Bush today), the Israel-Palestine conflict, which is a major engine driving the radicalization of Muslims in the Middle East and in Europe. It seldom makes the front page any more, but the Israelis are keeping the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank in Bantustan penitentiaries and bombing the ones in Gaza relentlessly, often killing signficant numbers of innocent civilians. Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Michael Rubin, David Wurmser and other Likudniks who had managed to get influential perches in the US government once argued that the road to peace in Jerusalem lay through Baghdad. It never did, and they were wrong about that the way they were wrong about everything else.

In fact, September 11 was significantly about the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem, and as long as the Israelis continue their actual creeping colonialization of Palestinian land while they pretend to engage in a (non-existent) "peace process," radicalism in the region will only grow. Polls taken in the last few years have shown that 64 percent of Egyptians expressed satisfaction with the Mubarak government, but only 2 percent had a favorable view of US foreign policy (i.e. knee-jerk pro-Likud policy) in the Middle East. That is, the argument that authoritarian government breeds radicalism is either untrue or only partial. It is the daily perception of a great historical wrong done to a Middle Eastern people, the Palestinians, that radicalizes people in the region (and not just Muslims).

Back to Iraq. The US military is considering withdrawing from Anbar province! I think this is all that they can do. As I said Monday, there is not a military mission that can obviously be achieved by keeping our troops there any longer. The argument could be made that the attempt to subdue al-Anbar province has been a major radicalizing factor for not only the province itself but for Sunni Arab Iraq in general. The destruction of Fallujah, which is nevertheless still not secure, was a negative turning point in the guerrilla war. The Iraqi troops of the Nuri al-Maliki government will have to keep order or learn to compromise with al-Anbar, one or the other.
Money quote:

' "If we are not going to do a better job doing what we are doing out [in al-Anbar], what's the point of having them out there?" said a senior military official. '

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is offering to host a United Nations-sponsored conference of Iraqi parties and their neighbors. The idea is modeled on the relatively successful 2001 Bonn conference on Afghanistan. This is the most help the UN has offered in a long time. It is a long shot, but the offer should certainly be accepted.

Sunni Arab guerrillas killed three Fort Hood soldiers.

Two contract service providers to the US military, one a driver and the other a security man, were killed by guerrillas in Iraq.

US troops took fire from guerrillas in Ramadi, then attacked their safe house, which appears to have actually been a family domicile. They may have winged a guerrilla, but they mainly killed 5 girls and women and an unidentified man. It is said that this sort of firefight happens almost daily in Ramadi. I guess we only get a report on casualties where an attempt is being made to head off a public relations disaster.

Police found 50 torture victims of the Iraqi civil war in Baghdad and Baquba.

Reuters reports other civil war violence on Tuesday, including a mortar attack on the Sunni Arab district of Baghdad, Ghazaliyah that wounded two dozen persons.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Hizb and Mahdi: Do they or Don't they?

The NYT was told by somebody in Washington that Hizbullah has trained between 1,000 and 2,000 Mahdi Army militiamen. I don't know if I believe it, and I am not sure it is significant if true. There are thousands of Mahdi Army militiamen, and some have much more direct war experience, fighting the Marines in 2004, than does Hizbullah. Their popularity has anyway more to do with their charitable work, as WaPo pointed out Monday, than with their military prowess, such as it is.

The logistics are suspicious here. To get from southern Iraq to Lebanon you have to go through Iraqi Sunni Arab territory, which would get most Shiites killed. And, why take the militiamen for training all the way to Lebanon when Iran is right next door and easy to get to via Kermanshah or Basra?

Nor can the effect of the training be seen on the ground. Hizbullah's signature tactic is setting shaped charges, which is rare for the Mahdi Army but is often engaged in by the Sunni Arab guerrillas, who are not to say the least being helped by Iran or Hizbullah. And, it is being alleged that Mahdi Army is being trained to kidnap and torture. That needs training?

There is a real possibility that this report is disinformation "leaked" by the Cheney/Wurmser axis in order to forestall a move to negotiation with Iran and Syria over Iraq, which the Baker-Hamilton Commission will likely recommend.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Will Bush Rehabilitate the Baathists?

Al-Zaman [in Arabic] is under the impression that Bush's talks with al-Maliki in Amman will aim in part at politically rehabilitating members of the Baath Party. The "Debaathification Commission" of Ahmad Chalabi (who anyway lives in London) will be abolished, it says. Discussions will be held with the neo-Baathist leadership (grouped politically as the al-`Awdah or Return Party) of the armed resistance. The resistance cells will be offered amnesty if they come in from the cold. Their enemies, the Mahdi Army and the Badr Corps, among the Shiites will be dissolved. And Sheikh Harith al-Dhari, in Amman, will be deployed to make these contacts and concessions, along with reaching out presumably to the Salafi Sunni revivalists, as well.

I am paraphasing the article even though I don't think it sounds plausible. Al-Dhari, a wanted man, is calling on the Arab League to turn against the al-Maliki government. Though Jordanian King Abdullah II is said by al-Hayat to be conducting a furious round of meetings with expatriate Iraqis in Jordan, including al-Dhari, in preparation for Bush's summit on Wednesday. [Link below in Arabic].

And Nuri al-Maliki, head of the al-Da`wa al-Islamiyah Party (Islamic Call [Shiite]) will make all those concessions to the Baathists over his own dead body. (Remember he is already being stoned when he goes to Sadr City; what do you think the Shiite masses will do to him if he kisses and makes up with the remnants of the Baath officer corps?)

On the other hand, I have long argued that the neo-Baathist and Baathist-cum-Salafi guerrilla movements are the central political actors in Sunni Iraq, and something like the process described by al-Zaman will have sooner or later to be attempted.

This political negotiation with the Sunni Arab guerrillas would be one point of involving Syria, since elements of the Syrian Baath might still have credibility with the `Awdah Party, which is reportedly strong along the Syrian border.

Likewise, President Jalal Talabani's discussions in Tehran may be aimed at convincing them to help convince the Shiite militias to lay down their arms. Since the major Shiite militia is the Sadr Movement's Mahdi Army, though, and since a lot of Sadrists don't like or trust Iran, I'm not sure that is going to work. And, Time magazine is reporting that VP Richard Bruce Cheney and NSC adviser Stephen Hadley oppose greater Iranian involvement, according to al-Hayat (I'm traveling and don't have time to look up the English.)

This process sounds so muddled because Washington is flailing around without the slightest idea of what could be done, practically speaking, in Iraq, according to Time: "Several officials who are in touch with commission members said that with violence appearing to spiral out of control in Iraq, the group has been flummoxed about finding a solution. "There's complete bewilderment as to what to do," one official said. "They're very frustrated. They can't come up with anything. For the last couple months, they've been thrashing around, calling people, trying to find ideas."

The real reason for the muddle is, as I said yesterday, that the Bush administration has not defined a realistic and achievable set of military goals in Iraq. Its original political goal of establishing a unified Iraq with a pro-US government that would let oil contracts on a favorable basis for Houston, would ally with Israel, and would form a springboard for further US pressure on Iran and Syria, is completely unrealistic. Cheney's inability to let go of those objectives is the biggest problem we have in Iraq. Move on.

More from Reuters on Monday's death toll in Iraq (excerpts):

' FALLUJA - A U.S. F16 warplane crashed northwest of Baghdad with one pilot on board, the U.S. military said. A spokeswoman said she had no information on the fate of the pilot or the cause of the crash. Residents said they saw the pilot eject but that he was killed, and television footage filmed by a local journalist appeared to show the pilot dead near the crash site. . .

BAGHDAD - Baghdad police retrieved 39 bodies in the 24 hours to Monday evening, most apparently victims of death squads and kidnap gangs, an Interior Ministry source said . . .

BAGHDAD - An Interior Ministry source said five people were killed and at least eight wounded during a U.S. raid in Husainiya, a mainly Shi'ite area on the northern outskirts of Baghdad. . .

BAGHDAD - Three mortar rounds landed on a residential district, killing three people and wounding 15 in Baghdad's southeastern Diyala Bridge area, an Interior Ministry source said.

TAL AFAR - Clashes erupted between gunmen and police during the night, killing three policemen and one gunman in Tal Afar, about 420 km (260 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. . .

'

For the implications of the crash and some challenging comments on the situation in Iraq, see EBW's posting at Wampum.

Then there is this item: "BASRA - France's Defence Ministry said a French intelligence officer was killed by a local militia during an inspection at a checkpoint in Basra on Nov. 21." What is that all about?

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pledged Monday to help with Iraq's security problems:

'"The Iranian nation and government will definitely stand beside their brother, Iraq, and any help the government and nation of Iran can give to strengthen security in Iraq will be given . . . We have no limitation for cooperation in any field . . . '

On the other hand, ISNA reports that his cooperation is premised on a US withdrawal:

' "You said you wanted to bring forth freedom but from the moment you got to Iraq, over 150 thousand people were killed and you are stuck in a quagmire where can never get out of it by any means. Iran is ready to help and save you on the condition that you resume behaving in a just manner and avoid bullying and invading. Return to your own country and stop the occupying, because in the persistence of such methods lies nothing but loss and misery for you," declared Ahmadinejad.

"Today the nations of the world have become awake and there is no point in isolating and deterring countries from their path of progress. Such attempts no longer have a way in the world. Come and be friends of the nations. You came here under the pretext of confronting Saddam and weapons of mass destruction, but in truth you had come here to take over the oil of the region," he concluded. '

I suspect that the hardliners in Iran are signalling that the price of their help in dissolving the Shiite militias will be a US pledge to withdraw militarily from Iraq. That would in my view be a pretty good bargain assuming the Iranians could deliver. Personally, I doubt that they could. Washington's tendency to code the Iraqi Shiites as cat's paws of the Iranians does injustice to the strong strain of Iraqi Arab nationalism in its Shiism.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

The End of Academic Freedom and the Israel Lobby

Terri Ginsberg and Rima Abdelkader survey the wreckage of a once proud tradition of American academic integrity.

This is what I wrote last week on the subject:

' Academics at Risk
Please Donate to MESA

A report on the Iraqi professors' panel at the Middle East Studies Association meeting that just wrapped up in Boston. Their stories of everyday life on Baghdad campuses are heartbreaking.

There is also a McCarthyite and frankly racist campaign being waged by far rightwing Zionist groups in the United States to corrupt the academic hiring and tenuring process. Yellowbellied or corrupt academic administrators who bow to it should be thrown out by their outraged faculties.

To help the Middle East Studies Association defend academic freedom and keep blogs like this one going, donate to the Committee on Academic Freedom. The cart works in $10 increments, so if you change the "1" in the "quantity" box to "3" (e.g.), you would be donating $30.

Pennsylvania's legislature was conned by the Neocon master of Disinformation and the Big Lie, David Horowitz, into wasting taxpayer money to investigate if professors mistreat their students because of the latter's politics. The commission found that such instances are "rare" and that nothing further need be done. D'oh. There is not any way to know how students vote, and why would you bring that in to grading their paper on Moliere's plays? Pennsylvania voters should consider whether Rep. Gibson C. Armstrong, R-Lancaster, deserves to sit in their legislature if he is going to waste their hard-earned money on these silly wild goose chases. Isn't there a Pennsylvania (or better, Lancaster) bloggers' network that can bring Armstrong's record in this regard before the public? [Ooops, see the comments. The good people of Pennsylvania have already dumped him in favor of someone who can think straight!].

Mark Lynch discusses issues in academic blogging (the rightwing reaction to which has often threatened academic careers and freedom of speech), in the course of commenting on a blogging panel at the Middle East Studies Association this weekend in Boston. Participants included Lynch, Josh Landis of Syria Comment, and Helena Cobban of Just World News, as well as As'ad AbuKhalil, Leila Hudson (no longer blogging?) and myself.

The general tone of the participants' comments suggested that academic blogging has severe drawbacks and, with regard to Middle East bloggers, has not produced a 'second generation' after the crop of 2002. One reason in my view is that academics who blog on the Middle East are relentlessly harassed and cyberstalked by Likudnik crazies and other sorts of wingnut. You have to have very thick skin and, I think, you have to just not care about the career ladder or social climbing of other sorts to risk it. In my case, I think it helped to have been an army brat. You're always being transferred to another base and you can't count on friendships lasting very long, so you just become self-reliant. And, of course, the ethos of the army encourages you to stand up to bullies. But I take Mark Lynch's point that it isn't everyone's cup of tea.

There is something wrong with our society if simply sharing one's expertise for free is actually punished. We should do something about that. Please give money to MESA's Committee on Academic Freedom (scroll down). '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

What is the Mission? Or, Russian Roulette

Reuters reports::

' BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said three of its soldiers were killed and two others wounded by insurgents in Baghdad on Sunday.

RAMADI - U.S. forces killed two suspected insurgents on Sunday after observing them loading weapons from a cache into a vehicle in the insurgent stronghold city of Ramadi, 110 km (70 miles) west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. . .

RAMADI - The U.S. military said four Iraqi civilians were wounded, including three boys aged 6, 13 and 16, when mortar bombs fired by U.S. forces against insurgents hit them. The wounds were not life-threatening, a statement said. '

Well, something clearly was going on in Ramadi on Sunday, though it isn't clear from these staccato and desultory items what exactly it was. As I understand it, there are daily battles between US forces and local ones in Ramadi and its environs. This Sunni Arab city of 400,000 west of Baghdad is under continual siege. I want to ask a question here. Why? When and under what conditions will it be lifted?

What are we to think when we see an item like this one, which says that the elected Iraqi PM, Nuri al-Maliki, was pelted by stones by his own constituency in Shiite Sadr City; that 21 villagers were captured by guerrillas in Diyala; or that 25 bodies (7 of them little girls) were found in Baquba, the capital of that province; or that (as al-Zaman reports in Arabic) Sunni Arab guerrillas fought a pitched battle with police in the city of Buhriz near Baquba, defeated them, chased them out of the HQ and set it on fire, and completely took over the city? What about the reports in al-Zaman of car bombings in al-Huswah and in al-Hilla, killing a dozen? When you hear these things, ask yourself 'What is the mission? When and how could it reasonably be expected to be accomplished?'

The Iraq Study Group or Baker-Hamilton Commission will urge intensive diplomacy with Syria and Iran to help deal with the Iraqi civil conflict but will not urge a phased pull-out of US troops.

If they don't, they should specify the mission. What is the mission of the US military in Ramadi? I hope my readers will press their representatives in Congress and the executive branch to answer this question. What is the mission? When will it be accomplished?

At what point will the people of Ramadi wake up in the morning and say, 'We've changed our minds. We like the new government dominated by Shiite ayatollahs and Kurdish warlords. We're happy to host Western Occupation troops on our soil. We don't care if those troops are allied with the Israeli military, which is daily bombing our brethren in Gaza and killing them and keeping them down. We're changed persons. We're not going to bother to set any IEDs tonight and we've put away our sniping rifles.'

(You could substitute Tikrit, Samarra', Baquba, and other Sunni Arab cities for Ramadi).

It is not going to happen. In fall, 2003, 14 percent of Sunni Arabs thought it was legitimate to attack US personnel in Iraq. Now over 70 percent do. Isn't it going toward 100 percent? How would more or less keeping the people of Ramadi in a cage help things in that regard, especially if they perceive us to be doing it on behalf of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (founded by Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran) and the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Israeli army?

(Despite the denials of Bush administration officials such as Condi Rice, the Arab and Islamic opposition to US presence in Iraq has at least something to do with local perceptions that the US invaded Iraq on behalf of Israel, and Iraqis often refer to US troops as "al-Yahud," "the Jews." This is conspiracy theory thinking and wrong-headed, but it is the reality on the ground. Even the notorious attack on the four mercenaries in Falluja was done in the name of the murdered Palestinian leader Sheikh Yassin. The deeply unpopular US support for Israel's depredations against the Palestinians was one of the things that foredoomed a US military occupation of a major Arab country.)

The idea that al-Anbar tribal forces will pull the US fat from the fire is a non-starter. Some of the tribes are openly agitating on behalf of Saddam Hussein. Any who are fighting the Salafis or Muslim fundamentalists are doing it as a grudge match. Tribes are notoriously factionalized among themselves and seldom unite for very long. The rural tribes just aren't a big center of power in Iraq any more-- it is largely urban and the power centers are urban political parties and their paramilitaries. Those urban forces have vast hinterlands of practical and monetary support in the region-- Iran for the Shiites, the Oil Gulf and small-town Jordan and Syria for the Sunni Arabs. They are not going to decline in importance.

Syria and Iran are not responsible for the resistance in Ramadi or Baquba and probably can't do anything about it. Therefore negotiating with them is not a silver bullet, though it might be useful in its own right.

What is the military mission? I can't see a practical one. And if there is not a military mission that can reasonably be accomplished in a specified period of time, then keeping US troops in al-Anbar is a sort of murder. Because you know when they go out on patrol, a few of them each week are going to get blown up or shot down. Reliably. Each week. Steadily. It is monstrous to force them to play Russian roulette every day unless there is a clear mission that could thereby be accomplished. There is not.

Senator Chuck Hagel's argument for withdrawal is powerful, but it focuses on the botched character of the American enterprise in Iraq and the monetary expense and cost to our military force structure. Those are important arguments, but could be countered by the White House as insufficiently urgent to require a withdrawal.

That is why I think it is important to keep the focus on the question of the US purpose in occupying the Sunni Arab regions of Iraq. Every time you hear someone say that we have to keep the troops in Iraq, press that person to explain what the mission is exactly and how and when it will be accomplished.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Tribal/Fundamentalist Violence
Guerrillas Economically self-sustaining

That a tribal group and Sunni fundamentalists clashed in al-Anbar is believeable. That the tribe lost 9 and "al-Qaeda" lost 55 is not, unless it was a sneak attack.

The NYT says that oil smuggling, antiquities smuggling, kidnapping for ransom, and fraud raise as much as $200 million a year for the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement. I suspect money comes in from the Oil Gulf, as well. There has been no success in cutting the funding off.

John Tirman on regionalizing Iraq: "Few if any peace processes can succeed without the neighbors' active consent."
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Dozens of Bodies Found
Firefight at Taji
Dhari Urges Arabs to turn on Maliki

Police found 17 bodies in Baghdad on Saturday. They found 21 bodies of Shiites in Balad Ruz, a small Sunni city near Baquba northeast of the capital. US forces said they killed 22 Iraqis at Taji in a fight with guerrillas.

As for a fear of civil war, that cow has been out of the barn for some time.

Harith al-Dhari, Secretary-General of the Association of Muslim Scholars said in Cairo that the Arab League and the United Nations should withdraw their support from the Shiite-dominated government of PM Nuri al-Maliki.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Peshmerga to Guard MPs: Mashhadani

The USG Open Source Center translates this item from the Kurdistan press:

'Iraqi Parliament To Entrust Kurdish Peshmerga With Guarding MPs
Unattributed report: "Al-Mashhadani recommends the peshmerga to guard Council of Representatives' members"

Patriotic Union of Kurdistan WWW-Text
Saturday, November 25, 2006 T20:56:20Z

Iraqi Speaker Mahmud al-Mashhadani recommended entrusting peshmargas with guarding members of the Iraqi Council of Representatives. Al-Mashhadani made his recommendation during the council's in camera session that discussed the members' safety, today 23 November 06. Al-Mashhadani's proposal comes following an unsuccessful assassination attempt against him in which his convoy was targeted by explosive devises.

Iraqi Council of Representatives' Member Azad Chalak told PUKmedia that Al-Mashhadani made the recommendation to entrust peshmargas with guarding council members during today's session. He added that nobody had voted against the proposal. Chalak added that the council decided to vote on a bill for preventing the guards of the council members from entering the parliament carrying guns.
On Al-Mashhadani's proposal, Minister of Region for Peshmerga Affairs Shaykh Ja'far Shaykh Mustafa told the PUKmedia that guarding council members was a patriotic mission; we were ready to discuss it.

(Description of Source: (Internet) Patriotic Union of Kurdistan WWW-Text in Sorani Kurdish -- Patriotic Union of Kurdistan media website) '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Sunnis Set Afire, Mosques Attacked
Nearly 100 Killed in Reprisals
Muqtada Challenges Dhari

The death toll in Thursday's massive assault on Sadr City by Sunni Arab guerrillas has risen above 200. Trains of bodies have been delivered to the Valley of Peace cemetery outside Najaf, which is said to contain 2 million graves.

Friday morning, Shiite militiamen in Sadr City largely ignored clerical calls for restraint and continued to target Sunni Arab neighborhoods with mortar fire.

The Scotsman reports that then the Mahdi Army invaded the mixed Hurriyah district of the capital:

' Shiite gunmen took their revenge. One group stormed the Sunni-dominated Hurriya district of Baghdad, burning four mosques and several homes. A police source said 30 people had been killed and 48 wounded. Rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns were used as the militants rampaged through the area.

Imad al-Din al-Hashemi said 14 people had died when the mosque in Hurriya where he had been praying was attacked. He said he had heard of ten deaths in another mosque. "They attacked four mosques with rocket-propelled grenades and machinegun fire," the university academic said. Six of those killed were grabbed as they left Friday prayers, doused with kerosene and burnt alive near an Iraqi army post. The soldiers did not intervene, according to police. '

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that at one point the Mahdi Army rounded up Sunni youths in the District of al-Jamilah and took them to a square and publicly executed them. The Sunni quarter of Adhamiyah took a constant rain of katyusha rockets.

The US military went into Sadr City to contain the Shiite guerrillas. At one point a US aircraft took out a mortar emplacement that was hitting a nearby Sunni quarter. Al-Zaman says that they killed three persons.

Ed Wong of the NYT reports that at the same time, there were heavy sectarian clashes in the city of Baquba, northeast of Baghdad. The US military raided Sadr's offices in that city. Soon thereafter Sunni Arab guerrillas blew the offices up. The LA Times says that in response Shiite guerrillas blew up a Sunni mosque.

A Sunni mosque in the northern mixed city of Kirkuk was also damaged by a bomb.

The LA Times adds:

' In the southern port city of Basra, rocket-propelled grenades damaged a mosque, the headquarters of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and an apartment complex, injuring 15 people.

In Fallouja, a restive Sunni city in western Al Anbar province, a car bomb exploded at an Iraqi army checkpoint, killing at least six soldiers. '

In the northern city of Mosul, 3 bodies were found, according to Al-Zaman.

AP says that 31 bodies were found in Baghdad on Friday, most showing signs of torture.

Young Shiite nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr gave a sermon in Kufa on Friday before a congregation of thousands in which he demanded [Ar.] that Sunni cleric Harith al-Dhari issue fatwas to the following effect:

1. Sunnis must avoid killing Shiites
2. Sunnis must not join al-Qaeda
3. Sunnis must rebuild the Askariyah Shrine at Samarra, destroyed last February. It is dedicated to the Twelfth Imam of the Shiites.

(Aljazeera is running a clip of this part of the sermon, which I've seen.)

The government of Nuri al-Maliki has issued a warrant for al-Dhari, the Secretary-General of the Association of Muslim Scholars [Sunni]. Muqtada said he would oppose that warrant if al-Dhari issued these fatwas. Al-Dhari has in the past condemned attacks on Shiites.

Muqtada also renewed his demand that the United States set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

Members of Muqtada's bloc in Parliament, such as Faleh Hasan Shanshal, have threatened to pull out of the al-Maliki government if the prime minister follows through with his plans to meet US President George W. Bush in Amman on Wednesday. Bush's spokesman say that the meeting would be held nevertheless. Why US news services feel the need to report the rest of what the spokesman said, especially fairly high up in the article, is beyond me. Nonsense such as that Iraq is not in a civil war or that the violence will be "high on the agenda" at the Amman meeting is only worthy of being ignored or derided. If Bush was able to do anything about the violence in Iraq, he wouldn't have to meet al-Maliki in the neighboring country of . . . Jordan. I think the Pentagon has concluded that Baghdad is just too dangerous and unpredictable to allow Bush to go there anymore.

Ahmad al-Safi of Karbala, a key agent of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, said in his Friday prayers sermon that any cabinet minister in the al-Maliki government who cannot stop the violence should resign [Ar.]. He said that Iraqis could no longer accept excuses from the ministers of defense and the interior in particular.

In Najaf at the Husayniyah Fatimiyah, Sayyid Sadr al-Din al-Qubanji of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) preached a sermon in which he pointed out that guerrillas have killed 7,000 Iraqis in the past two months but in four years have only killed 2876 foreign troops. "Is this a resistance or a slaughter of the Iraqi people?" he asked. He demanded that neighboring countries expel remnants of the former regime and cease instigating in their media. He also called on Shiites to avoid any "undisciplined" reprisals for the Thursday bombings. [You have to wonder if he thinks the "disciplined" reprisals will be quite enough. SCIRI has a feared paramilitary, the Badr Corps.)

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports in Arabic that in the northern Turkman city of Tal Afar, guerrillas detonated a car bomb and a belt bomb that killed 22 persons and wounded 24. The Sunni Turkmen who form the majority of the population of Tal Afar are complaining that the Iraqi police barged into a Sunni mosque Thursday evening and mistreated the worshippers, even beating some of them. The police are said to be mostly Shiites. The US military invested Tal Afar in August of 2005 in an attempt to stop Sunni Turkmen guerrilla actions there. The US at that time used Kurdish Peshmerga troops as allies and employed Shiite Turkmen as spies and informants. The city of 350,000 is increasingly riven by sectarian and ethnic tensions.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

233 Dead in Civil War Carnage
Health Ministry Besieged
3,000 Widows Created Each Month

So as Thursday began, Sunni Arab guerrillas surrounded and attacked the Ministry of Health, which is dominated by followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The guerrillas trapped 2,000 employees in the compound and threatened to kill any who came outside. They also subjected the building to mortar fire. The ministry guards, who are probably Mahdi Army, kept them at bay but lost 7 men doing it. It took US and Iraqi forces 2 hours to respond, and the guerrillas were only finally dispersed by helicopter gunships. The siege probably came in revenge for the Mahdi Army attack on the Sunni-run Ministry of Higher Education two weeks ago.

Then US troops searching for a kidnapped US soldier in Sadr City were a approached by van traveling at a high speed, which did not slow as they instructed it. They shot up the van, killing 4 civilians and creating some unhappy families in Sadr City; then this incident was overshadowed by several big attacks.

Steven R. Hurst of the Associated Press reported that the death toll in the string of car bombings targetting Sadr City and other Shiite neighborhoods on Thursday has risen to 161, with 257 wounded. Altogether, he says, "Counting those killed in Sadr City, at least 233 people died or were found dead across Iraq on Thursday." Oh, my. Since Iraq is 11 times smaller in population than the US, that would be like the deaths of 2,563 Americans. On September 11, on the order of 2,783 Americans were killed, and several hundred of other nationalities.*

Armed Shiites came into the streets amid the charred and bloody corpses, says al-Hayat, cursing Sunni Muslims and firing their automatic weapons in the air in frustration and rage. They were taking mortar fire. The footage from Sadr City on Aljazeera looked like the seventh level of hell, with vehicles burning, the air thick with smoke, and mortar shells and small arms fire boiling in the background.

KarbalaNews.net reports in Arabic that after the car bombs were detonated in Sadr City, the Sunni Arab guerrillas set up checkpoints and attacked ambulences and rescue crews, stopping further ambulances from getting through. The Sunni Arab guerrillas also surrounded hospitals near to Sadr City and prevented cars bearing the wounded from getting through, firing on them.

The Iraqi government imposed a curfew on Baghdad and closed the Baghdad and Basra airports, cutting the country off from the outside worlds. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Basra ports were also closed "until further notice."

How bad the situation is in Iraq is suggested by this email I just got from a professional who used to be in Iraq but now is in a nearby country:

' It is desperate in Iraq, worse then ever and there is no end in sight. I had lunch with [a former high ranking medical educator in Iraq] two days ago. [He]noted that Iraq no longer has neuro-surgeons, no cardiac surgeons, few pediatric doctors - they are all gone, killed or fled to neighboring countries like him. He was given seven days to get out or be killed. He is one of the lucky ones. He and his family have an opportunity for a new life in the US. But what about all the others. Where are they to go?

Another friend, a Sunni sheikh of the Shammar tribe noted to me that thousands of former officers are prepared to assault the G[reen] Z[one]. It is no longer a matter of can they do it, they are only mulling over the timing. The breach of the Green Zone security the other day was a test of their ability to get in, and not a real attempt at a coup, though it is reported as such. Every Iraqi I talk to says unambiguously that the resistance attached to the former regime would take out the Shiite militias with barely a fight, but that the resistance will not commit wholesale revenge against the Shiite population. They just want to get rid of the "carpet baggers" from Iran. '

Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shiite nationalist cleric, is said to be afraid that he cannot constrain his Mahdi Army militiamen from taking revenge on the Sunni Arab community for Thursday's mass slaugher.

AP reports:

' In a TV statement read by an aide, al-Sadr urged unity among his followers to end the U.S. ``occupation'' that he said is causing Iraq's strife. Al-Sadr said the attacks coincided with the seventh anniversary of the assassination of his father, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, a revered Shia religious leader. The anniversary reckoning was by the Islamic calendar. ``Had the late al-Sadr been among you he would have said preserve your unity,'' the statement said. ``Don't carry out any act before you ask the Hawza (Shia seminary in Najaf). Be the ones who are unjustly treated and not the ones who treat others unjustly.''

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the pre-eminent Shia religious figure in Iraq, condemned the bombings and issued condolences to family members of those who were killed. He called for self-control among his followers. '

In fact, Shiite guerrillas went ahead and took some revenge on Thursday, lobbing mortar shells at the HQ of the hardline Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars as well as at the mosque and shrine of Imam Abu Hanifa, which they damaged. Most Turks, Pakistanis, Indian Muslims, and many Lebanese and Syrian and Iraqi Sunnis follow the Hanafi legal rite founded by Abu Hanifa. His is an important shrine, an attack on which will inevitably produce a Sunni backlash of some severity.

Harith al-Dhari, a leader of the Association of Muslim Scholars [Sunni revivalist clerics], told al-Sharq al-Awsat that he had not sought out Arab states as mediators between himself and the Iraqi government. Baghdad issued a warrant last week for his interrogation on suspicion of instigating terrorism. The Arab League has intervened on his behalf. He is visiting Egypt for a conference but resides in Jordan and has not been taken into custody. In Thursday's interview, al-Dhari insisted that he would travel back to Iraq at a time of his choosing, undeterred by the warrant. He said that those who have taken up arms against the American occupier would not relinquish them for the sake of entering the political process. He expressed pessimism that the establishment of diplomatic relations with Syria would change the situation in Iraq.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat says that Raja' al-Khuza'i, a secular Shiite woman physician and the head of the National Council for Iraqi women, announced Thursday that Iraqi women are subjected to increasing violence and that 3,000 become widows each month. Al-Khuza'i served on the Interim Governing Council during the tenure of US proconsul Paul Bremer and had fought against the imposition of religious law on Iraq's women. Speaking in Vienna, al-Khuza'i said that a large number of female activists had been assassinated, along with large numbers of school teachers, female physicians, and woman police officers. She said the 100 new widows every day were often left with no means of supporting themselves and their children.

Ed Wong reports on sophisticated training camps in Diyala for Sunni Arab guerrillas of a Salafi or Sunni revivalist bent (they are not actually Wahhabis for the most part, i.e.-- Wahhabis predominate in Saudi Arabia). The guerrillas were able to stand and fight US troops in a pitched battle, deploying platoon-sized units.

Aljazeera reports that ex-Baathist Sunni fighters of the Awda [Return] Party have asserted control in the region near the Syrian border, driving Salafi Sunni revivalists out. Awda's paramilitary is called the Army of Muhammad even though it is secular.

---
*Corrected text; thanks to a kind reader-- see comments.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Breaking News: Mass Slaugher in Baghdad

A string of car bombings in Sadr City and Kadhimiya (Shiite neighborhoods) wrought vast slaughter and destruction, leaving a death toll creeping toward 150 and over 200 wounded. Shiite guerrillas fired mortars at Sunni neighborhoods in response.

I just saw the news conference of President Jalal Talabani, Vice President Tariq Hashimi, and Shiite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim on Aljazeera. They called for an end to this violence and a new vision. Hashimi, a Sunni, called on the Resistance to join the political process. They all looked dejected and bowed, reminding me more of prisoners on death row than vigorous leaders of a country. Hashimi was the least bowed.

You have to ask yourself, where is the US military? Where is the Iraqi Army? Where is the Iraqi police?
It is as though nobody was home except the Sunni Arab guerrillas, who seem to be closing in on a takeover of the Green Zone.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

36 Killed in Iraqi Civil War
Britain may Leave Iraq

British troops could withdraw from Basra by this spring. It is widely felt that the 7200 remaining troops are trapped in the south and probably cannot expect to achieve a great deal more in the way of providing security to the area. Late this coming spring, Prime Minister Tony Blair will step down in favor of his successor, Gordon Brown, who will face the Tories in 2009. Brown will not want the Iraq albatross around his neck.

The Iraqi government will talk to leaders of the Sunni Arab guerrilla movements next week, according to the London Times.

Vice President Dick Cheney will stop in Saudi Arabia Saturday for talks. In conjunction with Bush's planned meeting with PM Nuri al-Maliki next Thursday in Amman, these movements suggest building momentum for a new direction in Iraq, the contours of which are still unknown.

Guerrillas killed 3 Marines in al-Anbar Province on Wednesday.

Reuters reports that it could identify another 33 of the persons killed in political violence in Iraq on Wednesday. Major incidents:

' MOSUL - Police said they recovered 14 bodies, including three women in different areas of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad. (A mostly Sunni Arab area with Kurds and Turkmen in the north). . .

NEAR RAMADI - Police found the bodies of three people near Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad, police said. . .

BAGHDAD - Two roadside bombs exploded in quick succession, wounding two policemen when they went to retrieve the bodies of three people in Haifa street in central Baghdad, police said.

NEAR MUQDADIYA - A car bomb near an Iraqi army checkpoint and an attack by gunmen killed four people . . and wounded three civilians, near the town of Muqdadiya . . .

ISKANDARIYA - A roadside bomb planted near members of the Facility Protection Services (FPS) killed seven and wounded another on Tuesday in Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. . .

BAQUBA - Gunmen attacked a police patrol and killed three policemen in the religiously mixed city of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.'

Al-Sharq al-Awsat / Reuters report that Sheikh Harith al-Dhari, leader of the [Sunni] Association of Muslim Scholars, has said that the current Iraqi government is a plot aiming at partition of the country and the purging of the opposition. The ealier summons to al-Dhari for an investigation of his views by an Iraqi court has apparently lapsed in the wake of international outrage.

Iraqi Vice President Tariq Hashimi met Wednesday in Baghdad with Iranian ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi. Hashimi: "Tareq al-Hashemi said Iran plays a valuable security role in the region, so we must strengthen our ties with Tehran in all fields." He also called for closer ties between Iran and Iraq.

Hashimi is a fundamentalist Sunni, and generally his party is suspicious of Iran and Shiite Islam, which predominates in that country. So this lovefest is unexpected. I suspect it is a sign that the Americans do plan to negotiate with Iran about Iraq. Such a plan would require the approval of at least some Sunni Arabs. Hashimi was invited to Iran and says he will go.

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish Sunni, will go to Tehran on November 25 for bilateral talks.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Revolutionary Guards Head: 'US Forces in Middle East 'Extremely' Vulnerable

The USG Open Source Center translates the following piece from Persian:

'Iranian Guards Chief: US Forces in Middle East 'Extremely' Vulnerable

Fars News Agency (Internet Version-WWW)

Tuesday, November 21, 2006 T19:35:28Z

The commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps has said: If America attacks Iran, its 200,000 troops and 33 bases in the region will be extremely vulnerable, and both American politicians and military commanders are aware of it.

The defense correspondent of Fars new agency reports that, addressing the students of Sharif Industrial University at the invitation of basijis students, Maj-Gen Rahim Safavi talked about the geopolitical importance of Iran in the region, and added: From a global and regional point of view, we live in a sensitive and transitory period of uncertainty and mistrust which is also fateful and complex.
Stating that Iran has an important and sensitive geopolitical position in the region and beyond, Safavi said: Iran can be instrumental in the establishment of organizations in the region and affect their performance, and their political progression.

Stressing that the unique geographical position of Iran and its proximity to the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz are its wining cards in terms of foreign policy, the IRGC commander said: Iran can control at will the Strait of Hormuz through which 17 million barrels of oil are transported (as published).

Talking about the effects of the (1979) Islamic revolution on Muslims and the freedom-loving people of the world, the general stated: Muslims have learnt from Iran that Islam is a complete way of running a country and we are witnessing the effects of this understanding in Iraq, Lebanon and other countries.

At the end of his talk, asked about the aim of the latest US military maneuver, Safavi said: America has fallen into the quagmire of Iraq and Afghanistan and it can neither make headway nor retreat, and if it attacks Iran, it 200,000 troops and 33 bases in the region will be extremely vulnerable and both American politicians and military commanders are aware of it.

Safavi went on: Americans can start a war, but its ending will not be in their hands, taking into account that we have not yet asked the people of Iraq to take any action (as published).

The general's words were met with enthusiasm by the students, and continuing with his talk, he added: After the military exercises, one of the American generals in Kuwait said the same way that the combatants of Hezbollah and their missiles took us by surprise, so did Iran's missile capability.
In reply to another question about the defeat of the American plan for the Greater Middle East, the IRGC commander stressed: They have tried hard and so far have spent 400bn dollars in Iraq, but we are the beneficiaries. Moreover, two of our major adversaries, Saddam and the Taliban, are no longer there and our influence in the region has increased to the extent that we are the strategic winner in the Middle East.

Finally talking about the film clips of an American aircraft carrier (shown in Iran) Safavi said the aircraft that filmed the ship was built by Iranian students (like you), and we have full intelligence about extra-territorial forces in the region.

(Description of Source: Tehran Fars News Agency (Internet Version-WWW) in Persian -- (Khabargozari-ye Fars) is a privately-owned news agency. It began operating in mid November 2002. Its managing editor is Mehdi Faza'eli, the editor in chief of the Javan daily and a member of the managerial board of the Association of Muslim Journalists. The other members of the board of directors of the news agency, are Alizera Shemirani, of Farda newspaper, Abdollah Moqaddam and Akbar Nabavi of Resalat newspaper, the former director of Farabi Foundation Hasan Eslami-Mehr, and university professor Abolhoseyn Ruholamin.) '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Bush's Cedar Revolution Collapses in Yet Another Policy Failure

The assassination of Lebanese cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel on Tuesday has thrown that country further into yet more turmoil.

The crisis is a further testament to the bankruptcy of George W. Bush's Middle East policy. Under the dishonest rhetoric of 'democratization,' what Bush has really been about is creating pro-American winners and anti-American losers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. Bush's vision is not democratic because he always installs a tyranny of the majority. The vanquished are to be crushed and ridiculed, the victors to exult in their triumph. It is like a Leni Riefenstahl film.

The problem is that when you crush the Pushtuns of Afghanistan, who traditionally ruled the country, they have means of hitting back (ask the Canadian troops in Qandahar). When you crush the Sunni Arabs of Iraq, who had traditionally ruled Iraq, they have ways of organizing a guerrilla movement and acting as spoilers of Bush's new Kurdish-Shiite axis in Baghdad. When you crush Hamas even after they won the elections in early 2006, they have means of continuing to struggle.

In Lebanon, Bush egged on the pro-Hariri movement against the Syrians and their allies. Then he egged on Israel to bomb the Shiites of southern Lebanon (and, mysteriously, the rest of Lebanon, too). So he tried to create the March 14th alliance around Hariri as the winners who take all in Lebanon.

So obviously there will be trouble about this. Everything Bush touches turns to ashes, bombings, assassinations. He doesn't know how to compromise and he doesn't know how to influence his neo-colonial possessions so that they can compromise.

Lebanon for the past two years has been caught between several outside forces. The Hariris represent Saudi interests. Hizbullah and Amal, the Shiite parties, are aligned with Syria. The Gemayels have an old, longstanding behind the scenes alliance with Israel and the United States.

As I read the record, Syria provoked the initial crisis in fall, 2004, by overplaying its hand and making the Lebanese accept its choice for president, Gen. Emile Lahoud, for a further 3-year term. PM Rafiq al-Hariri resigned over this heavy-handed interference and looked set to challenge Damascus in the spring, 2005 elections. He was then assassinated in February, 2005. The assassin was himself a Sunni fundamentalist, but the operation may have been encouraged by Syrian or pro-Syrian actors.

The assassination of Hariri touched off a mass protest demanding that Syrian troops finally leave Lebanon (a peacekeeping force came in in 1976 with a US green light, during the civil war). The Syrians were supported by the Shiite Hizbullah, which staged demonstrations nearly as big as those of the pro-Hariri forces. Hariri was a Sunni, but the coalition put together after his death included Christians and Druze, as well.

Syria did withdraw. At that point, Lebanese politics became less polarized, and elections produced a national unity government that Hizbullah also joined.

But then in summer of 2006, Israel launched its long-planned war on little Lebanon, wreaking vast destruction on south Lebanon and on the southern slums of Beirut where Hizbullah was based. Israeli policy was in part to attempt to divide and conquer the Lebanese by making the reform government of Fuad Seniora attempt to disarm Hizbullah, which maintains a small paramilitary force of 3,000 to 5,000. The Lebanese government is too weak to take on Hizbullah, but members of the March 14th reform movement did lay the blame for the war at its feet.

As a result, Hizbullah has pulled out of the government. With Gemayel's assassination, the government will fall if it loses even one more cabinet minister. Worse, the society has now been economically devastated by Israeli bombing raids and is increasingly polarized. The Olmert government's plan for the second Lebanese civil war seems increasingly plausible. Syria has stupidly played into Israel's hands in this regard. The Lebanese themselves are in danger of once again allowing themselves to be used as proxies by people like Bush and Asad and Olmert. The positive achievements of the national unity government of summer-fall 2005 have been undone. Lebanon is on the brink.

Can the Middle East withstand another unconventional war, alongside those in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan, without unravelling altogether? And if it unravels, will it still produce petroleum for US automobiles? Will Israel be held harmless?

Stay tuned.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Car Bomb in Green Zone
Parliamentarians Trade Accusations

The intrepid Edward Wong of the New York Times reports that a car bomb targetting the Iraqi speaker of parliament, Mahmud Mashhadani [Sunni], was detonated inside the Green Zone on Tuesday. The Green Zone is a 4 square mile area of downtown Baghdad behind concrete walls, with a heavy US military guard. It houses the main political institutions of the new Iraq, and many parliamentarians live there. Likewise the US embassy and other Coalition institutions are based there. This is the most serious incident inside the Green Zone for some time.

The United Nations counts 3700 Iraqi civilian deaths in October.

MP Jalal al-Din Saghir of the [Shiite] Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq got into a shouting match on the floor of parliament with Adnan Dulaimi, a Sunni fundamentalist. Saghir condemned Sunni attacks on Shiites in two districts of Baghdad and said that they were encouraging Shiites to turn to militias. Dulaimi angrily retorted that Sunni Arabs were the ones being targeted by Shiite militias, and were being treated like "Jews and Iranians" in Iraq.

The Iraqi government is paralyzed, argues Borzou Daragahi of the LA Times, by the system of government by consensus imposed by the United States. Thus, the US forced a "national unity government" on the country last spring, which involved giving cabinet ministries to the parties that joined the government. But then if they are incompetent or corrupt or dangerous, the ministers cannot be fired because that would cause his or her party to withdraw from the government.

The real problem is that politics has been arranged on a sectarian basis. If al-Maliki, the elected prime minister, attempted to rule with a heavy hand, it would be rejected by the Kurds, Turkmen and Sunni Arabs, because his Shiite coalition does not represent them. There is no party that is truly a national party.

Tom Hayden tries to piece together what he sees as a secret set of US negotiations with Sunni Arab guerrilla groups that might position Washington for a withdrawal from Iraq. It is a valuable piece. But it does not reckon with the weight of the Shiites and the Kurds, who would not put up with talking to violent Baathists.

The sick, the old, women and children are suffering most from the breakdown in Iraqi society. They are disproportionately likely to be forced out of their homes, and, once displaced, to be left destitute and even hungry.

I am glad to report that Senator Barack Obama has adopted a position on a phased withdrawal from Iraq that is very similar to the one that I hold. He has it absolutely right. Pressure the government and pressure the factions to compromise by getting our guys out of the line of fire among them.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Academics at Risk
Please Donate to MESA

A report on the Iraqi professors' panel at the Middle East Studies Association meeting that just wrapped up in Boston. Their stories of everyday life on Baghdad campuses are heartbreaking.

There is also a McCarthyite and frankly racist campaign being waged by far rightwing Zionist groups in the United States to corrupt the academic hiring and tenuring process. Yellowbellied or corrupt academic administrators who bow to it should be thrown out by their outraged faculties.

To help the Middle East Studies Association defend academic freedom and keep blogs like this one going, Please donate here to the Committee on Academic Freedom. The cart works in $10 increments, so if you change the "1" in the "quantity" box to "3" (e.g.), you would be donating $30.

Pennsylvania's legislature was conned by the Neocon master of Disinformation and the Big Lie, David Horowitz, into wasting taxpayer money to investigate if professors mistreat their students because of the latter's politics. The commission found that such instances are "rare" and that nothing further need be done. D'oh. There is not any way to know how students vote, and why would you bring that in to grading their paper on Moliere's plays? Pennsylvania voters should consider whether Rep. Gibson C. Armstrong, R-Lancaster, deserves to sit in their legislature if he is going to waste their hard-earned money on these silly wild goose chases. Isn't there a Pennsylvania (or better, Lancaster) bloggers' network that can bring Armstrong's record in this regard before the public? [Ooops, see the comments. The good people of Pennsylvania have already dumped him in favor of someone who can think straight!].

Mark Lynch discusses issues in academic blogging (the rightwing reaction to which has often threatened academic careers and freedom of speech), in the course of commenting on a blogging panel at the Middle East Studies Association this weekend in Boston. Participants included Lynch, Josh Landis of Syria Comment, and Helena Cobban of Just World News, as well as As'ad AbuKhalil, Leila Hudson (no longer blogging?) and myself.

The general tone of the participants' comments suggested that academic blogging has severe drawbacks and, with regard to Middle East bloggers, has not produced a 'second generation' after the crop of 2002. One reason in my view is that academics who blog on the Middle East are relentlessly harassed and cyberstalked by Likudnik crazies and other sorts of wingnut. You have to have very thick skin and, I think, you have to just not care about the career ladder or social climbing of other sorts to risk it. In my case, I think it helped to have been an army brat. You're always being transferred to another base and you can't count on friendships lasting very long, so you just become self-reliant. And, of course, the ethos of the army encourages you to stand up to bullies. But I take Mark Lynch's point that it isn't everyone's cup of tea.

There is something wrong with our society if simply sharing one's expertise for free is actually punished. We should do something about that. Please give money to MESA's Committee on Academic Freedom (scroll down).
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Street Battles in Baghdad;
75 Bodies Found;
Diplomatic Ties with Syria Bruited

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that on Monday running street battles erupted in several districts of Baghdad between guerrillas and Iraqi police. In Salikh, the Bank district, Sumer, and Tujjar, residents were forced to flee their homes lest they be exposed to kidnapping or caught in the cross-fire. The fighting, mainly with small arms fire, began when guerrillas attacked a police checkpoint. Police attempted to close off the affected neighborhoods. They also closed Salikh Bridge, which is among the main point of access to Baghdad from northern provinces such as Diyala, Kirkuk and Sulaymaniyah. The closing created traffic jams and forced drivers to use an alternative route into the city.

The toll of killed and injured from this fighting was not known when reporters put al-Zaman to bed.

Reuters reports political and sectarian violence in Iraq for Monday.

Iraq and Syria agreed to reestablish diplomatic relations, for the first time since 1982. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was for a long time the Da'wa Party's bureau head in Damascus, in the 1980s and 1990s. Many Iraqi Shiites see the Syrian regime as Baathists and they will not forgive them for that. But al-Maliki's experience of being given refuge from Saddam by the Baathists in Damascus gives him a different point of view. My suspicion is that al-Maliki has been working on this rapprochement behind the scenes since he was elected to office. It is probably happening now because it coincides with the Baker commission recommendation that the Americans talk to Syria about stabilizing Iraq.

Although Washington is always accusing Syria of letting jihadis into Iraq, I'm unconvinced it is deliberately doing so. The Baath regime in Damascus is dominated by Shiite Alawis, a kind of local folk Shiism that doesn't have ayatollahs and accepts a sort of mythological way of thinking. The Baath regime's biggest enemy is Sunni fundamentalism. So the idea that Bashar al-Asad is deliberately building up a fundamentalist Sunni statelet right next door just strikes me as unlikely. The border is 800 miles long, and probably can't be controlled. If relations warm between Baghdad and Damascus, Syria may try even harder to round up the Sunni jihadis.

President Jalal Talibani will go to Tehran soon to consult with Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

Canada.com / AP report that:

' In all. 25 Iraqis were killed Monday in a series of attacks in Baghdad. Ramadi and Baqouba. police said. The bodies of 75 Iraqis who had been kidnapped and tortured also were found on the streets of the capital. in Dujail to the north of Baghdad and in the Tigris River in southern Iraq. '

I was also sad to read that guerrillas shot and killed Fulayeh al-Ghurabi, a Shiite professor at Babil University.

At the Middle East Studies Association meeting in Boston, several Iraqi professors spoke on the horrible situation at the universities.

My Salon.com article, 'White Collar Crime,' on the rash of sectarian kidnappings in Iraq, is on the web.

Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award-winning journalist, asks 'Who's Running the White House Now?'.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

The joint letter of the Middle East Studies Association and the American Association of University Professors on the killing of Iraqi academics:

'November 10, 2006

Honorable Nouri Kamal al-Maliki
Prime Minister of the Republic of Iraq
c/o The Embassy of Iraq
1801 P Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036 USA
Fax: (202) 462-5066

Dear Prime Minister al-Maliki:

We write to you on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) and the American Association of University (AAUP) to express our grave concern over the killing of two of Iraq’s most prominent academics: Isam al-Rawi, a professor in the Department of Geology at the University of Baghdad and president of the Union of University Professors, and Jassim al-Asadi, Dean of the University of Baghdad's School of Administration and Economics.

Professor al-Rawi was killed by unknown gunmen on October 30, 2006, on his way to work. Then, on November 2, 2006, in an act which many observers see as revenge for the earlier killing, unknown gunmen murdered Professor al-Asadi, his wife and son as they passed by car through the neighborhood of al-Adhamiyya.

Their murder highlights the startling fact that over 180 university professionals in Iraq have been killed since the 2003 US-led occupation and thousands of academics, teachers, clinicians, writers and artists have fled your country. We note that entire academic departments at Baghdad University and on other campuses have been forced to close down and are no longer able to fulfill their educational and research missions.

As we have previously noted, the present Government of Iraq has done little to ensure the safety of academics since it took office. A significant portion of the current violence against academics has been perpetrated by sectarian militias affiliated with the ruling political coalitions. Professors have been threatened, harmed, kidnapped and assassinated because of their actual or alleged political affiliations, or because they failed to respond resolutely to demands of students for special treatment. Communities of students are becoming politicized in a way that threatens the institutionalization of tolerance and the protection of intellectual diversity.

We ask your Excellency to recognize that the destruction of Iraq’s intellectual and academic class through murder and mass exodus is a profound challenge to the future of Iraq and that you take immediate action to:

1) Secure the campuses in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq;
2) Affirm the independence of Iraq’s system of higher education,
immunize it against sectarian politics as far as possible and provide
for it a budget that is institutionally protected from partisan or sectarian
pressures; and
3) Identify the murderers of Professors al-Rawi and al-Asadi and bring
them to justice.

Please know that we remain ready to take steps, together and with sister organizations, to promote programs and policies in Iraq and on behalf of the international community of scholars and researchers that will resolutely address this disturbing situation.

Sincerely,

Juan R.I. Cole
MESA President

Roger W. Bowen
AAUP General Secretary

cc: Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie
The Embassy of Iraq
1801 P Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036 USA
Fax: (202) 462-5066 '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

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.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

18 Dead in Baquba Battle;
Rice Urges Iraq to be more like Vietnam (???!!)

AP says that Secretary of State Condi Rice asserted Saturday that Iraqis only have a future if they stay within a single state. She pointed to Vietnam's success in reforming its economy and making up with the United States and held it out as a model to Iraq.

Whaaat?

Rice surely knows that the way in which Vietnam achieved national unity was . . . for the radical forces to drive out the Americans, overthrow pro-American elements, and conquer the whole country. They only went in for this capitalism thing fairly recently. Rice, a Ph.D. and former Provost of Stanford University, shouldn't be saying silly things like that Iraq should emulate Vietnam. I guess if you hang around with W. long enough, you catch whatever it is that he has.

Speaking of which, UK PM Tony Blair admitted to David Frost on Aljazeera's English channel that Iraq has been a disaster:

' Mr Blair was challenged by Sir David over the violence in Iraq, saying it had "so far been pretty much of a disaster".

The prime minister replied: "It has, but you see what I say to people is why is it difficult in Iraq? " '

His office now says he was just acknowledging the question. Sure.

AP reports that US and Iraqi Army forces fought Sunni Arab guerrillas for many hours in the streets of Baquba on Saturday. Rocket propelled grenades and light arms fire caromed through the city, leaving 18 persons dead and 19 wounded. It was unclear how many of the casualties were guerrillas.

The long-violent mixed Sunni-Shiite city of Baquba in equally mixed Diyala province has been the scene of continued sectarian warfare that has worsened in recent weeks.

US troops also searched two sections the Shiite slum of Sadr City (East Baghdad) for the hostages taken last Tuesday from the ministry of higher education building.

Reuters reports that the Ministry claims that 66 hostages are still unaccounted for. Several released hostages say they had been tortured, and had seen other captives killed.

Big car bombs wounded scores in Tikrit and Mosul, Reuters reports, among other political violence in Iraq, including the discovery of 20 bodies in Baghdad and more bodies elsewhere. Wire services were able to identify 53 persons killed out of the many more that must have been.

Guerrillas assassinated a Shiite politican and his wife on Saturday. Ali al-Adhadh had been a high official in the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the neo-Baathist guerrilla group, the Army of Islam, has threatened to continue in attempts to hit the Iraqi government.

Al-Hayat also says that the arrest warrant issued for Sunni cleric Harith al-Dhari, now in Amman, continued to stir controversy. Al-Dhari, a leader of the Association of Muslim Scholars, stands accused of stirring sectarian passions. The Sunni fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front demanded that the warrant be withdrawn. The National Iraqi List of Iyad Allawi also criticized it. Mahmud al-Mashhadani, speaker of the Iraqi parliament, expressed his anger and disgust with the warrant.

On the other hand, Abdul Sattar Abu Rishah, a prominent member of the Tribal Grouping of al-Anbar, said he was suing al-Dhari for calling his organization "a pack of thieves and highway robbers."
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Dhari Controversy;
security Guards Killed

Traveling and I am posting via my Treo so no hyperlinks.

14 Bodies found in Baghdad, 2 near Fallujah.

3 more private security guards attacked Friday in south. 5 kidnapped Thursday unaccounted for -- WaPo.

[Reuters reports scattered political violence in Iraq on Friday, with 14 bodies found in Baghdad showing signs of torture, and two near Fallujah.

Of the five private security guards kidnapped in the south on Thursday, apparently none has been released or is known to have been killed. The governor of Basra, Muhammad al-Wa'ili of the Fadhila or Virtue Party (Shiite fundamentalist) mistakenly announced that two had been released and one killed. He was confusing that situation with an incident on Friday:

WaPo reports that

' On Friday afternoon, in the incident that Basra's governor apparently confused with the Crescent kidnapping, a shootout erupted between security contractors and Iraqi police in Zubair. A foreign security contractor was killed and a British contractor was wounded, the British military said in a statement.

Capt. Tane Dunlop, a spokesman for British forces, said British troops conducted a raid on Safwan early Friday morning to root out "individuals suspected of being involved in terrorist acts." As the troops moved on the group, they were fired upon by gunmen in a building. A firefight followed in which two gunmen were killed.

Zubair is a largely Sunni Arab town in the most Shiite south.]

Al-Zaman says some Iraqi Shiites, such as Ayatollah Baghdadi and Mahmud Hussaini Sarkhi are defending Harith al-Dhari as an Iraqi patriot. The Kurds seem not to have known about or to have approved his arrest warrant. He is a leader of the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars. The Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq condemned him. He is accused of inciiting to terrorism.

Bush went to Vietnam and boasted about how we would have won if we had not quit. This was, he said, the lesson for Iraq of the Vietnam War. He managed to be wrong about two wars at once and to anger both his hosts (how churlish!) and the Iraqi public. The American Right never admitted that they lost in Vietnam, thus the Rambo movies and, Melani McAllister argues, the US admiration for Entebbe. Iraq was their chance, they thought, to get it right. Bush had also said insulting things to the Philiippines about how wonderful it was thst we had colonized them (and killed 400,000).

Colonialism is over with. When will they get that through their heads?

And actually we can't win in Iraq by just staying. Just like when you are sinking in quicksand, staying put is not a virtue.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Arrest Warrant for Harith al-Dhari of AMS;
Higher Education Abductees Tortured;
Militias Capture 14 Western Security Guards


Militiamen in southern, largely Shiite Iraq took 14 private security guards captive, employees of the Crescent Security Group. Four of these civilians were thought to be Americans.

Four US troops were announced killed on Thursday, three of them in Diyala Province. Reuters also reports other political violence, including bombings in the capital and the spraying of bakery workers and customers with machine gun fire.

The Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Thursday issued an arrest warrant for Shaikh Harith al-Dhari, the leader of the Association of Muslim Scholars and a major Sunni Arab clerical figure. Al-Dhari in opinion polling is among the most popular Sunni figures in the country. The AMS, which he heads, has been accused of having strong links to the guerrilla groups, including the 1920 Revolution Brigades. This arrest warrant, coming after the attack by Interior Ministry Special Police Commandos on the Sunni-led Ministry of Higher Education and recent kidnappings by the Sunni Arab guerrilla groups of Shiites-- all this activity points to a war among Iraq's major parties, many of whom have parts of the government under their control.

I was sent a copy of an Arabic fatwa by the Association of Muslim Scholars that said that since so many Sunni families had been forced out of Shiite neighborhoods into "our" neighborhoods, and since there was no way to house them, these Sunni Arab refugees should be put up in the homes of Shiite families who had fled Sunni neighborhoods. I guess the implication might have been to encourage an ethnic cleansing of Shiites in largely Sunni neighborhoods, so as to free up housing for internall displaced Sunnis.

Minister of Higher Education Abd Dhiyab al-Ujayli said Thursday that he had heard reports that torture and the breaking of limbs had been inflicted on the some 70 hostages still being held from Tuesday's kidnapping of 140 persons from the ministry building in Karrada, Baghdad. The government of PM Nuri al-Maliki maintains that 40 were kidnapped and only 5 remained hostages.

The comparison that leapt into my mind at this prospect of a cabinet minister so at odds with his own prime minister was to Kabul in 1995. Then, the prime minister, Gulbuddin Hikmatyar, fought a destructive battle for control of the Afghan capital against the forces of the president, Burhanuddin Rabbani. Much of the city was destroyed and an estimated 60,000 were killed. The Sunni-Shiite battle within the government (and without)is wreaking destruction on a similar scale, though the buildings in Baghdad have not been hit so hard because the opposing militias cannot fight set piece battles as long as the US military is there.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that a Sunni Arab leader of the Iraqi Accord Front, Adnan Dulaimi, asked the Sunni world for help in stopping Iranian interference in Iraq, "lest Baghdad become a capital for the Safavids." He spoke at a commemoration in Amman of the centenary of the birth of Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Dulaimi's party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, part of the IAF coalition, is a direct descendant of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which established a branch in Mosul in the 1930s. The Safavids were the Iranian Shiite dynasty that pushed Iranians to convert to Shiisma from 1501 forward. The Safavids actually did rule Baghdad 1508-1534 and again in the late 1500s and early 1600s under Shah Abbas. They were succeeded by the Sunni Ottoman Empire, which favored the Sunni Arab population and so made it an elite, something George W. Bush tried to undo. The Sunnis are not going quietly. When the Ottomans took back over from Shah Abbas in the 1600s, they mounted investigations and persecutions of the Iraqi Arab Shiites, whom they coded as "acem" or Qizilbash, i.e. as Safavid Iranians. That is, Dulaimi's rhetoric in Amman has a pedigree going back at least to the Ottoman Empire in the 1500s and 1600s. But it is important to note that in the 20th century, Sunni-Shiite violence in Iraq was rare, and Iraqi national identity grew in strength.

CIA Director Michael Hayden gave testimony that strikes me as refreshingly frank on Thursday. In fact, it is ironic that the supposedly public and straightforward politicians and cabinet members, such as Cheney and Rice, mostly retail fairy tales to the US public. But the chief of the country's clandestine intelligence agency? He's telling it like it is. He revealed that daily attacks in Iraq are up from 70 in January to 100 last spring after the Samarra bombing, and then to 180 a day last month. He also said that there were only 1300 foreign al-Qaeda volunteers fighting in Iraq, whereas the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement was "in the low tens of thousands" strong. If there are 40,000 guerrillas, then "al-Qaeda" is only 3.25 percent of the "insurgency." That is why Dick Cheney's and other's Chicken Little talk about al-Qaeda taking over Sunni Arab Iraq is overblown, at least at the moment. Most Iraqi fundamentalists are Salafis, which is a different sort of movement than al-Qaeda. And the Baathists and ex-military and tribal cells cannot be disregarded by any means.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Abizaid Opposes Withdrawal, Increase in Troop Levels;
Nearly 100 Killed, including 6 GIs
Hayden: Almost Satannic Terror

Reuters was able to find out about and report nearly 100 killings in the ongoing Iraqi civil war on Wednesday. Police discovered 55 bodies in Baghdad alone, and there were car bombings, firefights and assassinations. The deaths of 6 US troops were announced.

Here's how I interpret the contretemps Wednesday between Gen. John Abizaid and Republican Senator John McCain.. McCain wants to send another division, about 20,000 US troops, to Iraq.

Abizaid told him:

1) that would produce only a temporary improvement since the US doesn't have a spare division to send to Iraq for the long term and

2) Increased US troop levels are counterproductive because they remove the incentive for the Iraqi government and army to get their acts together and fight the guerrillas and militias effectively and

3) If Iraq is going to come back to better days, it will have to be primarily with Iraqi troops and

4) Iraqi troops are not now doing the job, so if more US troops are sent to Iraq it should be as trainers and units available for joint patrols, not as independent combat troops.

I'd just like to point out that most of Abizaid's arguments could also be deployed for a phased withdrawal, which he opposed. My senator, Carl Levin supports the phased withdrawal idea, and so do I. What if it isn't just an increased US presence that would remove the incentive for Iraqi leaders to compromise and/or fight effectively? What if *present* troop levels do that? I say, let's take out a division ASAP (20,000 men) and make it clear that we're never putting a division back in to replace it. Then let the Iraqis try to fill the resulting vacuum themselves. Give them armored vehicles, tanks, helicopter gunships, and a nice wood-panelled room where they can negotiate with one another.

And then after a couple of months I would pull out another US division.

Such a phased withdrawal is not guaranteed to succeed. It has a better chance of succeeding than the current policy.

Matthew Stannard at the SF Chronicle on the Ministry of Higher Education kidnappings.

Nir Rosen's anatomy of a civil war.

Here's what Director of Central Intelligence Michael Hayden really thinks of the Iraq situation:

' MICHAEL HAYDEN: In Iraq today there is criminality and lawlessness on a broad scale. In Iraq today there are rival militias competing for power.

Any Iraqi leader, no matter how skilful, is going to be hard-pressed to reconcile the divergent perspectives that I've mentioned. Divergent perspectives that Shi'a and Sunnis and Kurds bring to the table and also unfortunately very often bring to the streets.

And to deal with that, against a backdrop of an intentional al-Qaeda campaign of almost satanic terror.'

Here's what Bush makes him say:

' MICHAEL ROWLAND: The CIA chief believes progress is being made in Iraq, but the gains are very slow. '

You can't see it because this is not video, but I am doing one of those Jon Stewart double takes at the juxtaposition of these two assertions.

Louise Roug of the LA Times reports that Iraq's health system is very ill.

The 'I hate to say I told you so' Department: French Foreign Minister Dominique Villepin let Washington have it on Wednesday, complaining that the US-induced civil war has made Western policy success in the Middle East far more difficult. I guess we'll have to go back to calling them French Fries, even if the French never knew what we were talking about in the first place in that regard. They just call them 'fried potatoes' and I think they think they are American in origin.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Dozens Kidnapped at Higher Ed Ministry;
Other Killings leave 117 Dead

Western news organizations were able to identify 117 killings in Iraq's civil war on Monday, though one suspects they only scratched the surface. Reuters surveys the carnage.

' BAGHDAD - A car bomb ripped through a crowded market area in Rasheed Street in central Baghdad, killing 10 people and wounding 25, police said. . .

BAGHDAD - Mortars killed four people and wounded six in al-Zuhur, in Baghdad's northern outskirts.There was a significant battle in Ramadi between Marines and guerrillas that left 11 guerrillas dead and perhaps twice that many civilians.

MOSUL - Police found 11 bodies with gunshot wounds on Tuesday in the city of Mosul, north of Baghdad, police said. . .

BAQUBA - Iraqi police, backed by U.S. forces, discovered the bodies of 10 kidnap victims, bound, blindfolded and with gunshot wounds, inside a house in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad . . .'

Sudarsan Raghavan of WaPo reports that a highly organized band of 80 guerrillas dressed as policemen invaded the Ministry of Higher Education building in Karrada and kidnapped dozens of people inside-- from janitors to Ph.D.s, and of all religious backgrounds. Iraqi government spokesmen variously estimated the number of kidnapped at from 50 to 150. I saw on Aljazeera that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said when he heard about the episode he got on the phone to the ministers of defense and interior and had them intervene. Iraqi government spokesmen first claimed that everyone had been released, but that turned out to be mere spin. Then they said they got 30 released, but that is not clear either.

There was a lot of speculation as to who did this and why. The minister of higher education is a Sunni from the fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front. But the people kidnapped included all sorts, and Karrada is in a Shiite area. Some reports are blaming Shiites, saying it is a reprisal for the kidnapping of Shiites. But the operation does not fit the reprisal modus operandi.

Abed Dhiyab al-Ujaili, the Minister of Higher Education, initially threatened to suspend university classes as a result of the attack. Apparently in Baghdad, at least, nobody has been showing up for class for weeks, anyway. But then he backtracked and told Al-Sharq al-Awsat in Arabic that he would never close down the universities.

The facades of a normal society are gradually dropping in Iraq. It isn't a place where you can go to the book bazaar and buy a book anymore. It isn't a place where you can go to college like a normal student or professor. It is a dark, despairing, violent arena. People go about their lives, of course. But they never know when, abruptly, the Grim Reaper will grasp them as they shop for eggplants or fill up their tanks with gasoline or drop the kids off at school. And because they never know, the scope of these daily activities is curtailed more each day.

A big operation like this can only happen if the police are crooked or incredibly lazy. They couldn't notice all those careening cars with 80 commandos in them going for miles? 5 police commanders were arrested on suspicion of collaboration.

And this is another problem with Maliki's reaction, which was after the fact. If you have ministries in Iraq that are outside the Green Zone, wouldn't you give them security details from the new army? Did the minister asked for more than 17 guards? (The guards were kidnapped!) Didn't it occur to Maliki (it would to me)?

Iraq's health minister talks about the disaster that has struck his country in part because of American mistakes.

Gary Kamiya at Salon.com suggests that funeral services for Neoconservatism are premature.

The 'What did we ever do to them?' column: Haaretz reports that the United States has plummeted in the estimation of the Lebanese public as a result of Bush's encouragement to Israel to go on hitting the poor little thing during the war this summer. That was just mean, and the Lebanese recognize mean when they see it.

Al-Qaeda famously hates Shiites and kills them on sight. Iran's leaders hate al-Qaeda. So when Con Coughlin writes silliness about Iran rearing the next generation of al-Qaeda leaders, you have to ask yourself why he is saying these crazy things? Either he has what he thinks is an inside source, but which is really feeding him disinformation. Or. . . Well, I don't know what else. Something that would explain why someone writes things that are ridiculous on the face of it. Coughlin was also a big cheerleader for the Iraq War, of which he has repented. Like the Neoconservatives, all this penitence about how bad Iraq went is just a way to try to wipe the slate clean so that they can recover some credibility and get up the next war, this time against Iran.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

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.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

3 GIs, 4 British Killed
Guerrillas Slay over 100
al-Maliki shuffles Cabinet

The Democratic Congress will pass a resolution in January asking that troops start coming home by mid-2007 in a phased withdrawal.

Three US troops were announced killed in Iraq on Sunday, some dying of wounds incurred earlier.

Shiite guerrillas, most likely, used an improvised explosive device (IED) placed along the Shatt al-Arab waterway to attack a British ship patrolling those waters. They killed 4 and seriously wounded 3. The attack was especially poignant, coming on Remembrance Day, as the UK public memorialized their war dead.

AP reports well over 100 deaths in Iraq on Sunday from political violence. The worst single incident came when two suicide bombers detonated their bomb belts in the midst of a crowd of police recruits, killing 35 and wounding dozens. Another 25 bodies were found in Baghdad, victims of the sectarian civil war. In Baquba, some 40 bodies that had accumulated at the morgue in recent weeks were buried. Inhabitants in Baquba reported that a large number of bodies, up to 50, were strewn behind an electricity plant, but police could only find 5. Well, I shouldn't say only. I think the two distinct reports got conflated somehow.

AP says of the big bombing:

' n Sunday morning's bombing targeting police recruits, two men detonated explosives strapped to their bodies simultaneously, police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razaq said. The attack, killing 35 men outside the police station near western Baghdad's Nissur Square, was one of several blasts in the capital.' '

Dozens of other assassinations and bombings are reported by Reuters, including the discovery of 12 bodies in Mosul.

AP also reports that Prime Minister Nuri al-Malik addressed a closed session of parliament on Sunday in which he pledged a shake-up of his cabinet and pressed his plan to have US troops withdraw to garrisons to be called on only in emergencies. He wants to deploy Iraqi troops more actively instead. His defense minister, Abdul-Qadir al-Obaidi, however, demurred that Iraqi troops are not sufficiently well trained to take a more active role yet. Note to al-Obaidi: You commit your troops to battle and you'd be surprised how fast they get "trained."

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that al-Maliki also criticized parliamentarians whose parties have gun-toting paramilitaries, as well as those who have threatened to resign from parliament if they don't get their way, calling both "irresponsible".

His reference to threats to resign concerned the Sunni religious party, the Iraqi Accord Front, one of the spokesmen for which threatened to resign last Wednesday if it were not given more of a say in how Iraq is run.

Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naef said Sunday that Iraq has become a major base for terrorism. He expressed concern about Saudi young men being seduced to go fight there [i.e. against Americans and Shiites].
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Sunnis Kill 10, Kidnap 50 Shiites;
GIs face Sniper Fire

CBS News and the Associated Press report that on Saturday:

'(CBS/AP) Sunni gunmen ambushed a convoy of minibuses at a fake checkpoint on the dangerous highway south of Baghdad, killing 10 Shiite passengers and kidnapping about 50. Across the country at least 52 other people were killed in violence or were found dead, five of them decapitated Iraqi soldiers. Police said the mass kidnapping and killing was near the volatile town of Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad in the so-called Triangle of Death.'

Aljazeera adds:

' In Baghdad, eight people died and at last 38 were wounded when two bombs hidden under parked cars exploded among midday shoppers in downtown Baghdad's Hafidh al-Qadhi square. Police and medical workers said at least 38 others were injured . . . Thayer Mahmud, a police lieutenant, said his men found 25 corpses dumped in several parts of the capital in the 24 hours than began at 6 pm on Friday.'

In Samarra, police report that the bodies of beheaded 5 Iraqi soldiers were brought to the morgue.

A US government office in the Shiite city of Hilla south of Baghdad took mortar fire on Saturday.

The US military in Iraq says that the troops are increasingly targetted by sniper fire from trained Sunni Arab guerrillas. Funny thing, when CNN reported this story, using videotape produced by the guerrillas, Lynn Cheney accused them of lack of patriotism. But here we have the US officer corps admitting the story is entirely true and quite important. So is Lynn Cheney on the side of democracy, or of its enemies? Or maybe she thinks the officer corps is full of traitors?

The Democrats are going to restore the bureau that monitors waste and fraud in Iraq contracting. It was generating too much bad news and bothering the rich corrupt friends of the Republican-dominated Congress, so they had recently just abolished it. Fire the watchdog, and you never hear any bad news about burglaries. There are actually more burglaries under this situation; but you never hear about them.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that 8 small political parties in the southern port city of Basra have announced that they will merge into a single coalition list. Most of the parties seem to be secular-minded, including the Arab Socialist Movement. A surprise: Ayatollah Muhammad Yaqubi, the spiritual leader of the Fadhila or Virtue Party, endorsed the new coalition. Will Virtue join it, leaving the United Iraqi Alliance?

The Telegraph reports on the "Shiite Zarqawi," Abu Deraa, a shadowy figure who commands death squads operating against Sunnis in Baghdad.

Jim Zogby urges a reconsideration of the Hagel/Kerry plan for Iraq put forward last year.

Iraq's private sector will use an Iranian port in accordance with an agreement between the two countries.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Sistani Aide: Americans Bomb both Sides
4 US GIs killed on Friday

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that Ahmad al-Safi, a representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, preached a Friday prayers sermon in the mosque attached to the shrine of Imam Husayn, the revered martyred grandson of the Prophet. He said he hoped Saddam Hussein would be hanged in the Shiite holy city of Karbala. He also implied that the Sunni Arab neighborhood of Adhamiya and the Shiite neighborhood of Kathimiya in northern Baghdad were both taking incoming mortar fire not from one another, but from the United States military. (I am sorry to see a representative of Sistani fall into this kind of conspiracy theory. Sunni and Shiite forces are obviously lobbing mortar shells at one another. It isn't the US military doing it.)

If Sistani thinks like al-Safi, the US is in even more trouble in Iraq than I had feared. And that is saying something.

In Kufa, Shaikh Jabir al-Khafaji, a representative of young Shiite nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr, preached the Friday prayers sermon. He demanded that Saddam be executed swiftly. He said he hoped other countries would not attempt to impose their law on Iraq in hopes of protecting Saddam. (He is referring to European countries that oppose the death penalty). The congregation chanted, "Execution, execution, is the least punishment of Saddam!"

Sadr al-Din Al-Qubanji of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq preached at the Great Fatimah Mosque in Najaf. Of the threat of Sunni Arab blocs in parliament to resign and withdraw from politics if they continue to be shut out of the political process, he urged them to be more mature. He also slammed Harith al-Dari of the Association of Muslim Scholars, a hard line Sunni grouping. He said al-Dhari had declined to sign the Mecca Pact that forbade Sunnis to shed Shiite blood and vice versa.

Reuters reports political violence in Iraq on Friday; highlights:

BAGHDAD - Four American troops were killed in two separate incidents in Iraq, the military said on Friday.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen abducted a police lieutenant colonel in northern Baghdad, interior ministry sources said.

YUSUFIYA - Gunmen in four cars broke into two houses in Kwerisha village, near the town of Yusufiya 15 km (9 miles) south of Baghdad overnight, and abducted and killed 14 people, police said. The bodies were found dumped in a field.

TAL AFAR - A suicide car bomber hit an army checkpoint, killing a colonel and four soldiers, and wounding 17 people including 10 soldiers in Tal Afar, about 240 km (260 miles) northwest of Baghdad, police said.'

If 20% of Iraqi police recruits quit every year and 40% don't show up to work, that leaves only 40% at their precinct houses or on the streets. If they supposedly have 177,000 trained police, they actually only have 70,000 or so. As for that "trained" part, I wouldn't exactly take it to the bank.

Trita Parsi argues that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld led the charge to reject Iran's 2003 offer to cooperate with Washington and also sought to use the terrorist group, MEK, against Iran. Now, the US needs Iranian help in Iraq, and Parsi thinks the new SecDef, Robert Gates, has the experience and savvy to seek it. The only problem I see is that it may not be easy to just go back to the status quo ante of 2003. Iran has changed presidents and the relative influence of the militants in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and in the Basij and the Quds Brigade is therefore now greater. Rumsfeld may have cause us to miss an epochal chance, and because he ensured that reformers like former President Khatami were kept in the cold, he may have helped push Iran to the Right.

Louise Roug reports that Iraq's decrepit hospital system is causing more citizens to die:

' Thousands of Iraqis are believed to have died from shortages of medicine, vital equipment and qualified doctors, despite an infusion of nearly half a billion dollars from U.S. coffers into this country's healthcare system, Iraqi officials and American observers say. Raging sectarian violence as well as theft, corruption and mismanagement have drained health resources and made deliveries of supplies difficult. Exacerbating the crisis, hundreds of doctors have been killed, and thousands have fled Iraq. The child mortality rate, a key indicator of a nation's health, has worsened since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to Iraqi government figures. '

In addition, she says, Sunni Arabs allege that the Shiite-controlled Health Ministry systematically denies them drugs and treatment.

Italians have the opportunity on their tax forms to pay a little extra in taxes to support culture if they like. Silvio Berlusconi's kleptocracy secretly usurped that money to pay for Italy's part in the Iraq War!

Meditations on Veteran's Day in a time of war, over at Tomdispatch.com.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Democratic Senate Ponders Iraq
Massive Bombings Shake Shiite districts in Baghdad

Since the Democrats now have a majority in the Senate, Barbara Slavin writes, they are poised to have a major role in Iraq policy. She says some analysts doubt that such a partnership is likely, given that the new Congress intends to investigate Bush Administration crimes.

Sunni Arab guerrillas detonated massive car bombs in two largely Shiite markets on Thursday, killing 16 persons and wounding dozens. Wire services put the death total at 45 yesterday, but of course this is a fraction of the true number.

A wave of other bombings shook the capital and left scores dead and wounded. Guerrilla violence as returned to Tal Afar in a big way, with several police killed by a bombing. People got killed in Baquba, as well.

The Minister of Health said Thursday that the Sunni Arab guerrillas have killed 150,000 Iraqis since the war began in March, 2003. Note that he specified that these were victims of the "insurgents." The recent Lancet study said that one-third of excess deaths over normal pre-2003 mortality rates were reported by relatives of the deceased as having been caused by the US military. That would put the number of dead at 200,000. Then some number have been killed by Shiite militiamen, which this minister is not counting since he is a follower of young Shiite nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. So he is really leaking a number of dead mounting to well over 200,000. The Lancet study suggested that the most likely lower figure for Iraqis killed in the war is 420,000. Since the Health Ministry cannot easily gather statistics from the most turbulent provinces, e.g. al-Anbar and Diyala, it would not be at all surprising if their figures are half the real number.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned Thursday about executing Saddam Hussein, saying, "Carrying out this verdict will explode violence like waterfalls in Iraq . . . " adding that his execution "will transform (Iraq) into pools of blood and lead to a deepening of the sectarian and ethnic conflicts." Mubarak joined the anti-Saddam coalition of George H.W. Bush during the Gulf War in 1990-1991 and his troops were the first to enter liberated Kuwait.

AP did a story on the conference I just attended at Emory on Iraq.
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Prosterman Guest Editorial: Where is Ike?

WHAT THIS COUNTRY NEEDS IS A PRESIDENT WITH IKE’S INTEGRITY AND COURAGE

SUEZ & BUDAPEST – 50 YEARS LATER

H. Scott Prosterman

Last week marked the 50th Anniversary of the aborted Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Coincidently, it also marks the 50th Anniversary of the failed tripartite invasion of the Suez Canal by a joint Israeli-British-French force. This timing of these two events represents one of the most chilling confluences of history. It also illuminates the great integrity of President Dwight David Eisenhower, who made bold diplomatic moves in the Middle East, in the weeks leading up to the 1956 U.S. Presidential Election, despite the risk of losing Jewish votes. (A related event was the USSR-Hungary aquatic bloodbath known as the Olympic Water Polo match of the 1956 Olympics. One of the participants in that ugly event was former U.S. Olympic and Michigan Swim Coach, Jon Urbancek.)

Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula on October 29, 1956, three days after the USSR had invaded Hungary. The preface to this invasion was a complex series of events prompted by the Cold War, Western commercial concerns, and the best and worst of nationalism. Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser had nationalized the Suez Canal three months earlier on July 26, 1956. Nassser’s power play was mitigated by his intention to compensate the Canal shareholders, who were to lose their interests to nationalization. But Nassar’s insistence of maintaining Egyptian control made the Western European powers uneasy, in view of his growing relationship with the USSR and Czechoslovakia the previous year. In particular, American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, would not accept Nassar’s agenda of neutrality in the Cold War atmosphere.

During the height of the Red Scare in America, neutrality was not an option. You were either with us or against us, and Nasser and Dulles were diplomatic irritants to one another during this period. Nasser had approached the U.S. about assistance for improving the Aswan High Dam for commercial development and greater military assistance. Dulles’ refusal of Nasser’s request for aid for the Aswan Dam, was prompted by pressure from the American cotton industry, which was already nervous about the increased shares of Egyptian cotton on the global market. Dulles did the bidding for American cotton farmers’ interests, by pressuring Britain and the World Bank to also withdraw support for the Aswan Dam project. Nasser’s final request to the U.S. was met by a less than generous gift, so Nasser expressed his gratitude by taking that money ($2 million by some accounts) and building a useless tower on Gizera Island in Cairo. Egyptians called it “Dulles’ Folly.” Meanwhile, Nasser continued his agenda of trying to modernize Egypt’s economy by improving the Aswan Dam, and his military, so he sought and received the aid from Czechoslovakia and the USSR that the US had refused.

Angered by the dismissal and condescension from the West, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal on July 26. British PM Eden wanted to invade the canal immediately, but was told that his military was not prepared for such a venture. Instead he initiated an arms embargo against Egypt on July 30, and informed Nasser that Egyptian control of the canal was not acceptable. Nasser further alarmed the Western powers by enlisting Soviet support to help run the canal, leading to an attempt on the part of the US, Britain and France to impose a “user agreement” on the Canal, and effectively take it over from Egypt on September 12. Three days later, Nasser had Soviet ship pilots running all the traffic through the Canal..

Israel’s invasion of the Sinai on October 29 had been pre-arranged with Britain and France, who followed up with air support on November 5. This happened to be Election Day in the U.S., and occurred, despite a UN brokered cease-fire that was issued on November 2. In 1950, the US, Britain and France formed their own tripartite agreement “to assist the victim of any aggression in the Mideast." Ike was furious that his closest allies had violated the spirit of that agreement AND kept him in the dark about their plans for invasion.

Though Britain and France did not lend air support until the actual Election Day, their involvement in the Suez campaign was visible throughout the Summer and Fall of 1956. Ike’s problem was that he was trying to pressure the Soviets to quit Hungary. Condoning the aggression by his allies in Egypt would have severely weakened his hand. So, Ike “ordered” Israel, Britain and France to pull back. In essence, “How can I tell the Soviets to quit Hungary and stay out of the Middle East, when you guys are invading Egypt? And by the way, I’m trying to get re-elected next week, so don’t give me another headache.” (Paraphrasing mine).

While Eisenhower was no more a fan of Nasser than his counterparts in Britain and France, he recognized that Nasser had established a good track record at running the Canal and keeping it open. He also recognized that Egypt was being victimized by aggression on the part of his allies, who had neither consulted nor informed him. Eden had not told Eisenhower of the planned invasion on his Election Day, creating a huge rift of hard feelings. Despite the great political risk of alienating Jewish votes in the weeks before the election, Eisenhower stood firm in his resolve to pressure the three countries to withdraw from Egypt, in the weeks before the election. Two days later, on November 7, the UN honored Eisenhower’s leadership, and voted 65-1 that the invading powers had to quit Egypt.

It may be argued that this was the greatest display of integrity by an American President in history, with all due respect to Lyndon Johnson placing his weight behind the Voting Rights Act 1964. Indeed, when he was reminded about the great political risk of alienating Jewish voters by being even-handed towards all parties in the Middle East, he said, "I don't care in the slightest whether I am re-elected or not. I feel we must make good on our word.” (1) Eisenhower’s political bravery reminds us of the integrity that once defined the American Presidency, and the deficiencies of our current and recent leaders.

(1) Donald Neff, Warriors at Suez.


H. Scott Prosterman
Berkeley

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Al-Zaman: Good Riddance to Rumsfeld
Osman: Abu Ghraib scandal should have required his Resignation

The Times of Baghdad [al-Zaman] editorializes in the third person on the resignation of US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday thusly:

' The political editor of Al-Zaman welcomes the resignation of the American Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He said in his commentary today that the departure of Rumsfeld is unlamented, and might be a small source of pleasure to the wounded Iraqi people who suffered from Rumsfeld's policies and the crimes of his aides.

The time has come for those whom Rumsfeld installed in some positions of influence in Iraq to discover that they are victims of the same fate as their master. Everyone should read the signs of joy in Iraq after the announcement of the departure of a politician whose name is linked to the most heinous crimes, which began with the scandal of Abu Ghraib prison and ended with his unleashing of death squads and criminals to disrupt the security of Iraq. His crimes also included dissolving one of the oldest armies in the region, for the most part made up of brave patriots, as a preparation for the partition and tearing apart of Iraq.

Rumsfeld's fall is an announcement of the fall of those who served him on earth, whether Iraqis or others, who are dividing up the country on the chopping block of their regional ambitions, and who are shedding the blood of Iraqis, which is flowing from one of Iraq's mighty rivers to the other. '

Another article in the same newspaper speaks of Rumsfeld being fired by Bush rather than resigning.

in another article, al-Zaman covers the political reaction to Rumsfeld's departure in Iraq and the region.

Mahmud Osman, a prominent Kurdish politician, said that Rumsfeld should have resigned a long time ago, when the Abu Ghraib torture scandal broke in 2004.

Salih Mutlak, a secular Sunni politician with a Baath background who heads the National Dialogue Front (11 seats) in parliament, said that Rumsfeld's resignation is a sign of the awakening of the American conscience. He told AFP that American officials should now recognize that the political process in Iraq has failed to the same degree as Rumsfeld has failed. He added that the US administration must recognize that the politicians who head up the Iraqi government have lied to Washington, which should dump them.

The Iraqi newspaper also reports on human rights lawyers in the US who are urging that Rumsfeld be prosecuted for war crimes.

Basim Sharif of the Virtue Party (a Sadrist offshoot especially powerful in Basra), recognized that changing a cabinet secretary does not necessarily produce a change in over-all policy.

Iraqis mostly seem to hope that a new secretary of defense will find a way to stop the bombings and shootings that kill so many of their nationals every day. The Sadrists, Shiite nationalists who have long called for the departure of American troops, took heart from indications that the American people also want to see their troops come out of Iraq:

' "The vote shows the Iraqi and American people are of one mind about withdrawing U.S. troops," said Falah Hassan Shanshal, who leads the parliamentary bloc of radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

"We hope the Democrats don't forget their campaign promises. If they don't, we will deal with them in a brotherly way once the last American soldier pulls out from Iraq," he said. '

I am afraid there may be a great deal of disappointment and even more anger when the Iraqis gradually realize that Gates cannot provide security either. It is not clear, either, that the Democrats can bring the troops home any time soon. Disappointment and anger in Iraq turn into violence.

Speaking of which, Baghdad was the scene of several bloody bombings and mortar shell attacks on Wednesday.

The people of Adhamiyah pleaded [Ar.] with the Iraqi government to intervene to stop the continual mortar shell attacks against them. (Adhamiyah is a mostly Sunni Arab district of Baghdad).

Al-Zaman also reports that the collapse of state institutions and militia violence in the southern port of Basra may threaten oil exports from the city. Raad al-Khudayri, and oil analyst, asks who is going to invest in Iraq under present circumstances and warns that the gradual collapse of state institutions could endanger exports for the next few years.

Tom Engelhardt on 'Outlaw Empire meets the Wave'.

Ed Harriman argues that Iraq is now the least transparent and most corrupt regime in the world.

Iraq in Fragments.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

What does it Mean for Iraq?

The fourth popular revolution of the twenty-first century (after the Ukraine, Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan) swept America on Tuesday, as voters engaged in the moral equivalent of storming the Bastille. The United States of America has roundly repudiated the Bush Administration and Republican Party dominance of all three branches of the Federal government and its dominance of many state offices, as well. Corruption and war drove this slap in the face to the Old Regime crafted by Newt Gingrich and Traitor Rove.

The Democrats have control of the House of Representatives as I write early Wednesday morning, with a gain of perhaps as much as 30 seats. They don't appear to have lost any seats. Indeed, Democratic incumbents won in other sorts of contests, as well-- governors, state legislators, etc. The mood of the electorate was not to punish incumbents. It was to throw out the rascals.

I think the Democrats will take the Senate. CNN is calling 2 Senate races too close to call, but Webb announced that he had won in Virginia, and his margin later that night went on up to 11,000. That might be enough to forestall a recount. Montana will determine the outcome.

Bill Bennett opined that the Democrats had actually not done that well, since the party out of power often picks up 35 seats in the second midterm of a two-term president. Bennett, as usual, is being dishonest. In fact, this was not an ordinary election but rather came at the end of 14 years of low blows and dirty tricks. The Republicans had tried very hard to have a permanent majority, using ruses such as state gerrymandering (e.g. Texas) and convincing Republican House members who were thinking of retiring to serve one more term so as not to risk having the open seat go to the Dems. Tom Delay's K-Street Project even envisioned depriving the Democrats forever of big lobbying money. The impeachment of Clinton was a cynical misuse of the Republican majority aimed at permanently wounding the Democrats. The Dems did not impeach Reagan for stealing Pentagon weapons, selling them to Khomeini, and using the black money to fund death squads in Central America! The deployment of a Republican Supreme Court to gain the White House in 2000 was typical of the new end run around popular sovereignty perfected by the party hacks in Washington. Given the giant berms the Republicans had built against any Democratic rebound, and the viciousness with which raptors like Delay, Weldon, Rove and Abramoff went for the soft underbelly of the democratic system, it is an irridescent miracle that the Democrats have taken the House.

In my view the real significance of the Democratic victory is four-fold.

First, it demonstrates once again that the American public simply will not put up with a return to the age of colonialism and does not want to occupy Asian countries militarily. Do you think that Abu Ghraib and American torture-pornography, the daily grind of violence, the stupid mistakes, have passed them by so that they didn't notice? They might swallow all this reluctantly but they want light at the end of the tunnel. There is not any in Iraq, as these pictures strongly suggest. They want it over with. It isn't. [Here's today's Iraq update.]

Second, Bush is not going to be able to put any more Scalia types on the Federal benches or the Supreme Court.

Third, a Bush administration war on Iran now seems highly unlikely. A major initiative of that sort would need funding, and I don't think Congress will grant it. The Democrats don't want an Iran with a nuclear weapon any more than the Republicans do. But they are more likely to recognize that there is no good evidence that Iran even has a nuclear weapons program, and have been chastened by Iraq enough to distrust purely military solutions to such crises.

Fourth, there will now finally be accountability. It is obvious to me that the Bush administration has been engaged in large-scale crimes and corruption, and has gotten away with it because the Republican heads of the relevant committees have refused to investigate these crimes. Democratic committee heads with subpoena power will finally be able to force the Pentagon and other institutions to fork over the smoking gun documents, and then will be in a position to prosecute.

Here is the sort of corruption, exemplified by Curt Weldon, that was going on in the Old Regime:

' Weldon himself was a key promoter of Finmeccanica for the Marine One contract, which has been widely reported as a payoff for Italy's support of Bush's Iraq policy. Italy provided what have now been proved to be forged documents that ostensibly showed Saddam Hussein attempted to acquire uranium ore from Niger -- a claim that President Bush leaned upon in his 2003 State of the Union address preparing for pre-emptive war. Italian defense groups have since become partners with the United States in the sale of American warfare technology to sensitive and controversial countries such as Israel, Libya, Iran and republics of the former Eastern Bloc.

During the months leading up to Finmeccanica's surprising capture of the Marine One contract, consulting money flowed to Cecelia "Cece" Grimes, Weldon's real estate agent who calls herself "a longtime family friend." According to disclosure records, Rep. Weldon's chief of staff made a $14,400 trip to Rome, Bari, Genoa and Milan with his wife. This and an $8,200 Italian trip by another Weldon staffer were covered by Fincantieri, an Italian ship maker fully owned by Finmeccanica. '

Note to John Dingell: Weldon's nexus of the Niger forgeries, Italian military intelligence, a sweet contract for the Italian military-industrial complex, and sinister contacts with shadowy figures from the Iran-contra scandal with a view toward getting up a war on Iran-- this deserves investigation as much as anything Bush and his cabinet have done.

The Democratic victory has enormous implications for US domestic politics. There will likely be an increase in the minimum wage, e.g. And the creeping tyranny of the evangelical far right has been slowed; even a lot of evangelicals seem uncomfortable with where that was going, and a lot of them deserted the Republicans in this election.

What are its implications for Iraq policy? Those are fewer, just because the executive makes foreign policy. Congress can only intervene decisively by cutting off money for foreign military adventures, which the Democrats have already pledged not to do. Moreover, the Iraq morass is a hopeless case and even if the legislature had more to say about policy there, it is not as if there are any good options.

One downside is that some Democrats campaigned on a platform of dividing Iraq into three ethnic provinces under a weak federal government, an idea they got from Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. I don't think they will be in a position to follow through on this (as if the US could dictate Iraq's future!), but one wouldn't want them to implement their rash promises in this regard.

What we can say is that the electoral outcome is a bellwether for the future of American involvement in Iraq. It will now gradually come to an end, barring a dramatic disaster, such as a guerrilla push to deprive our troops of fuel and then to surround and besiege them. More likely, the steady grind of bad news and further senseless death will force Bush's successor, whoever it, is, to get out of that country. One cannot imagine us staying in Afghanistan for the long haul, either. Bush's question in 2003 was, can we go back to the early 20th century and have a sort of Philippines-like colony with a major military investment? The answer is, "no." Iraqis are too politically and socially mobilized to be easily dominated in the way the old empires dominated isolated, illiterate peasants. The outcome of the Israel-Hizbullah war this summer further signalled that the peasants now have sharper staves that even penetrate state of the art tanks. The US can still easily win any wars it needs to win. It cannot any longer win long military occupations. The man who knew this most surely in the Bush administration, Donald Rumsfeld, most egregiously gave in to the occupation route, and will end up the fall guy as the public mood turns increasingly ugly in both countries.
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Is Bush Unhinged?
Calling Hannah Arendt

Journalist Bill Gallagher of Detroit's Channel 2 News joins Andrew Sullivan in asking the increasingly unavoidable question: Is George W. Bush Criminally Insane? Gallagher writes:

' Bush's fantasies are even disturbing his fans. In a sit-down with wire-service reporters, Bush assured them that Rumsfeld, the most incompetent man on earth, would keep his job for two more years. Maybe in the last days of the Republican-dominated Congress, Bush can get him declared Defense Secretary for Life, sort of an American Raul Castro.

Gushing over Rummy and Dick Cheney, the two principal thugs who lied to get us into Iraq and designed the disaster, Bush claimed they "are doing a fantastic job and I strongly support them."

The remark prompted conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan to raise the question of Bush's mental fitness. Sullivan told CNN Bush is so delusional, "this is not an election anymore, it's an intervention."

Sullivan, long a cheerleader for the war in Iraq, said Bush is "so in denial" he simply can't come to grips with his failure: "It's unhinged. It suggests this man has lost his mind. No one objectively could look at the way this war has been conducted, whether you were for it, as I was, or against it, and say that is has been done well. It's a disaster."

Sullivan added, "For him to say it's a fantastic job suggests the president has lost it. I'm sorry, there is no other way to say it."

The president's nanny corps -- his mother, his wife, State Department hands Condoleezza Rice and Karen Hughes -- know he's unhinged, but are too loyal to share that disturbing truth with the world. Republican House Majority Leader John Boehner tried to shift responsibility for the Iraq disaster away from Rumsfeld. Boehner quickly filled the disgraced Tom DeLay's shoes as the most loathsome member of Congress.

Boehner told CNN, "Let's not blame what's happening in Iraq on Rumsfeld. But the fact is, the generals on the ground are in charge, and he works closely with them and the president." '

My own answer: Bush is not insane, he is just not very good at putting policy into effect. That is, he is a mediocre leader who has to cover up his horrible mistakes with optimistic slogans because his lack of leadership skills leaves him with no practical alternative. Give me an example of any positive and successful accomplishment of his presidency, unmarred by substantial failures. Afghanistan? Israel-Palestine? Lebanon? Iraq? Al-Qaeda? Domestically, he has, by cutting taxes on billionaires, run up the national debt by trillions, and boasts in that insane yet just mediocre way of his that the deficit is "coming down." He put the expense of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars off-budget, and somehow the business page journalists haven't managed to notice that the deficit is not actually less than $300 billion if you count the wars. Nor is adding even $290 billion a year to the national debt a positive accomplishment. We pay interest on that debt, folks.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Baquba Police Kill 20 Pro-Saddam Demonstrators;
Khalilzad to Depart

Someone, [presumably, Shiite militiamen] fired mortar rounds into the Sunni Arab Adhamiya district of Baghdad on Monday, wounding 7. Al-Zaman (Arabic) says that this is the fourth day in the row that this quarter has been attacked this way.

Al-Zaman also reports that the death toll of demonstrators killed by Iraqi police in Baquba has risen to 20 dead and 23 wounded. The newspaper says that the protesters were unarmed, and were carrying posters of Saddam. They also raised banners criticizing the al-Maliki government. Al-Zaman is calling this brutal repression a "massacre."

It also reports street clashes in Haditha between Sunni Arab residents and US marines.

A helicopter crash killed two US GIs on Monday in Saddam's province of birth, Salahuddin. The US military says that there isn't evidence of an attack. But me, I don't believe in coincidences.

US ambassador in Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad seems set to leave this winter. It is not clear why he is departing. Khalilzad has been the most knowledgeable civilian US official to serve in high office in Iraq, and many of his instincts and projects were promising. He tried to reach out to the Sunni Arabs and involve them in civil politics, e.g. But that he is himself a Sunni from Afghanistan made this move suspicious to the Iraqi Shiites, who bestowed on him the nickname, Abu Omar. (Omar was the second caliph of the Sunnis and not a big favorite of Shiites).

I think Khalilzad also recognized the dangers of the plans for creating ethnic confederacies in Iraq, but in the end was unable to convince enough Iraqi interlocutors of it. My own view is that the State Department inherited from Rumsfeld a SNAFU, and it is not always possible to unfoul a fouled situation.

80 percent of US casualties in Iraq are inflicted by Sunni Arab guerrillas. This is my point about the "four-war" analysis some have put forward. There really is just one big war, of the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement versus each of the other players in turn-- the Shiites, the Kurds, the US. The struggles in the south among Shiite militias are a problem. They aren't The War.

Saddam Hussein's defense team is preparing his appeal, as the death verdict on him further divides Iraqis. AFP writes:

' In Hawijah, a Sunni town in northern Iraq, hundreds of school children and women gathered and linked their arms bearing portraits of Saddam and placards demanding their former leader’s release. Here -- as elsewhere in Sunni regions of Iraq -- the threat of violence was not far from the surface. ‘The Americans and the Iraqis who are with them will see black days ahead of them in Iraq,’ warned Abdullah Zamar Hassan, a 49-year-old shopkeeper. '

But, not to worry. It isn't as if European terrorist groups are mobilizing against the US on this issue or anything.

Veteran Foreign Affairs correspondent Helena Cobban has substantial experience with post-conflict trials and commissions. Her views of the trial of Saddam Hussein are therefore must reading.

Check out this new Middle East blog.

William S. Lind warns, correctly, that if Cheney expands the war to Iran, we could lose our army in Iraq.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Iran, Iraqi Shiites Celebrate
Mosul, Baquba, West Baghdad Demonstrate

The US military announced that guerrillas had killed 3 US GIs in Iraq over Saturday and Sunday.

Only 8 percent of Americans are satisfied with 'stay the course' in Iraq.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that clashes broke out in Baghdad Sunday between joyous anti-Saddam and angry pro-Saddam demonstrators in the districts of Dora, Adhamiyah, al-Fadl and Haifa Street.

Wire services say that Sunni Arab guerrillas also lobbed mortar shells into the Green Zone, where Iraqi government offices and the foreign embassies are located.

In Iraq's second-largest city, in the north, of Mosul, demonstrations were held Sunday night to criticize the Saddam verdict. The demonstrations were held throughout al-`Amil, Tal al-Ramlah, and New Mosul districts on the right side of the city, and the district of Quds (Jerusalem) on the left.

The Iraqi security forces violently suppressed hundreds of pro-Saddam demonstrators in Baquba, northeast of the capital, killing 2 and wounding 6.
Reuters reports:

'In Baquba, a violent city with a mixed population just northeast of Baghdad, police put the final casualty toll at two dead and six wounded among pro-Saddam demonstrators when police and Iraqi troops opened fire on them after Sunday's ruling. '

In Tikrit north of the capital, thousands of demonstrators marched despite a curfew, apparently abetted by the Iraqi police :

' A police patrol rolled down the main street in Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, 80 miles north of the capital. Instead of enforcing a curfew, it led a mob of thousands of demonstrators waving photos of Hussein and shooting AK-47 rifles into the air.

"This is an unfair verdict, and if Saddam is executed or not ... he will remain a symbol and no one can delete it - neither the Iraqi government nor the Americans," said Muhssin Ali Mohammed.

Within hours of the verdict, unknown assailants attacked an Iraqi military convoy in downtown Tikrit and a gunfight erupted. Huddled in her home nearby, Amira Khalid, 60, pondered life without her former leader.

"We used to have special treatment under Saddam's regime. Where is the security now? Can any woman walk in the street at night? Of course not," she cried. "I ask the government, can you restore the security of Saddam?" '

The Sun details some of the responses of Sunni Arabs:

'But in Sunni-dominated areas, the strongholds of Saddam's Baath Party, the mood was very different. In Tikrit, Saddam's home town, a thousand-strong crowd carried pictures of the dictator and shouted: "We will revenge you."

In Ramadi, teacher Qasim al-Dulaimi, 45, said: "The sentence against president Saddam was unjust, it was merely to satisfy the American government."

And in Mosul one man who would only give his first name, Bahjat, said: "They have sentenced Saddam to death for the killings that happened when he was a president. Who is going to sentence the leaders now for the killings that are happening every day?" '

The leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad `Akif, complained that although it was true that Saddam Hussein was all his life a great tyrant, his crimes were less than those committed by "the American occupation in Iraq."

In Nablus, several thousand Palestinians demonstrated against the verdict, carrying placards with Saddam's picture on it. Hamas said that Israeli leaders should have been tried before Saddam.

Iraq closed its border with Jordan in the wake of the verdict, as a security measure.

Iran, which fought an 8-year-long war to fend off Saddam Hussein's armies [Ar.], expressed delight at the death sentence handed down Sunday against him. "Hanging is the least he deserved," said one Iranian official. The Tehran Times gives more on the jubilant Iran reaction.

Al-Hayat also reports that Sadr Movement spokesman Sahib al-Aameri expressed that hope that Saddam could be hanged in Najaf near the tombs of Ayatollahs Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr [d. 1980] and Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr (d. 1999], both of whom he had killed. (Some say he killed Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr with his own hands.] The first of these ayatollahs was a major theorist of the al-Dawa (Islamic Call) Party, to which Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki belongs. The second founded the Sadr movement and was the father of young Shiite clerical nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr.

Riverbend weighs in.

Iran is considering holding talks with the US about Iraq security.

The Iraqi government closes two television stations.

Turkey's foreign minister warned against the partition of Iraq on Sunday.

Elizabeth Dole, who used to be a nice person, accused Democrats of wanting to lose in Iraq on Meet the Press. I'd reply that in the real world that isn't as bad as actually losing, which the Bush administration has done.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Saddam to Hang;
Shiites, Kurds Celebrate
Some Sunnis Protest

The Daily Telegraph reports that the death verdict against Saddam Hussein announced Sunday has sharpened further Iraq's already parlous ethnic tensions. Shiites in Sadr City, once viciously repressed by Saddam, erupted in celebrations of joy, including celebratory fire. NBC news is reporting some protests by Sunnis in the capital.

Al-Zaman/Reuters reports that when the verdict was read in court, Saddam shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is great!) and "Long live the Muslim nation!" (`Ashat al-ummah!) As a secular Arab nationalist, Saddam at one point kept out of the Iraqi constitution any mention of Islam, but since the Gulf War he has mugged for the camera with such slogans. They may have some resonances in Sunni Arab regions, though, as well as in the Muslim world more generally.

Saddam's defense team said that the court was constituted under an American military occupation and therefore could not be impartial, and that the verdict made a mockery of justice.

They also said, according to NBC, that the verdict was timed by the Bush administration in a desperate attempt to influence the US midterm elections. AP reports that Islamist activists around the world are critical of the verdict and also say it was timed cynically.

In other Sunni Arab areas, the Telegraph says, many rejected the legitimacy of the verdict:

' “The hanging of the former Iraqi president is part of an American scheme. He was a symbol of liberation in Iraq,” declared Dr Muzahim Allawi, a university professor, in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit.

The theme of foreign interference in the verdict was a constant one, with many accusing the United States and its remaining 150,000 troops in Iraq of persecuting the former strongman for its own ends.

“The sentence is pre-prepared in Washington and Tel Aviv,” spat civil servant Qusay Addai, bitterly.

Student Qasim Nayif agreed: “The Americans are responsible for the judgement which certainly pleased (US President George W.) Bush and (former Israeli premier Ariel) Sharon.” '

Qasim Nayif isn't up on the latest Israeli political news, obviously.

Paul Reynolds of the BBC reviews the pros and cons of the way the trial was conducted. An Amnesty International official said:

' He listed his group's concerns about the trials.

"The independence and impartiality of the court was impugned. There was political interference. The first judge resigned, the second was barred for being a former member of the Baath party, the only political entity at the time, and the third judge had relatives who were killed in Halabje [where Kurds were gassed by Saddam Hussein's forces].

"The security of the court was also impossible to keep. Three defence lawyers were murdered. Saddam himself had no access to legal advice for a year. There were also problems with the defence's ability to function." '

My op-ed, , "Breaking Iraq Apart, is in the Mercury News Perspectives section on Sunday. Excerpt:

' The vagueness and, frankly, incoherence of some of the comments made about splitting up Iraq by politicians on the stump suggests that they are using the idea merely as an election-season mantra. They are putting it forward as an exit strategy. Divide the place up and get out, they say, hoping that if the Iraqis could not live with one another peacefully inside one country, they will be able to do so once they are separated.

Historically, partition has not always brought peace. The partition of Germany by the United States and the Soviet Union after World War II provoked a nuclear standoff and nail-biting tensions for 40 years. The British Empire in its waning days agreed in 1947 to partition colonial India into the nations of India and Pakistan, which went on to fight several wars and now brandish nuclear weapons at one another. The partition of Palestine in 1948 set the stage for six Arab-Israeli wars.

The purely American context of these deliberations about the fate of a whole Middle Eastern nation seems somewhat detached from reality. In Iraq itself, the major proponent of new regional confederacies is Shiite cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the largest bloc in parliament. He and his allies wish to see eight or nine largely Shiite provinces join together in a super-province or regional confederacy.

Tehran's support

Hakim is widely seen as close to Iran, and it is believed that Iran supports the idea of a Shiite regional government. Hakim recently rammed through parliament a law specifying the legal mechanisms for establishing such a confederacy. The Sunni Arab bloc boycotted the vote. Should not Americans be suspicious of a plan so warmly supported by Tehran?'

Read the whole thing.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Iraq Jittery over Saddam Verdict
Dozens of Sunnis killed by Police Commandos

Special Police Commandoes killed 53 al-Qaeda fighters in Iraq on Saturday, according to Iraqi officials. Or you could say that Shiite death squads infiltrated into the special police commandos killed 53 Sunni Arab guerrillas.

Just to make sure everyone is unhappy all at once, the Shiites of Sadr City faced a bombing and a US raid on a Mahdi Army office. Al-Hayat [Life] [Ar.] reports that 20 other Iraqis, at least, were killed on Saturday.

Guerrillas struck at the bodyguards of Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani on Friday night. When the president isn't safe, no one is.

Major Sunni Arab cities have been put under curfew in expectation of social violence when it is announced Sunday that Saddam Hussein will be executed.


Ahmed Amr on Bush's surrender to the Iraqi death squads.

Pentagon War Games in 1999 concluded that at least 400,000 US troops would be needed to secure Iraq in the event of an invasion, and that even that number might not be enough. D'oh.

The normative foundations of the Pakistani military regime's cooperation with the US in the 'war on terror' were laid bare by the Pakistani foreign minister. He admitted that if Pakistan had not turned its back on the Taliban, and if it had defied the US in the war on terror, than what happened to Iraq would have happened to Pakistan.

Seniors have turned against Bush on Iraq and many who voted Republican in 2004 are saying they will vote Democrat this year. They actually vote, so this will make a difference.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Top Ten Ways we know We have Lost in Iraq

Top Ten Ways you can tell we have have lost in Iraq:

10. When your daily news frequently includes an item like this: Reuters reports that

'Police found 56 bodies and a severed head in different parts of Baghdad over the last 24 hours, an Interior Ministry source said. The bodies showed signs of torture and bullet wounds.

Then you know you have lost in Iraq.

9. When 7 US GIs are announced dead on an ordinary day in Iraq, then you know you are not exactly winning.

8. When the Shiites, the primary beneficiaries of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, think the US is too pro-Sunni, you know you have lost in Iraq.

7. When the US military is so clueless that it planned to send a notorious Abu Ghraib figure, Sgt. Santo Cardona back to Iraq to train police then you know that you have lost in Iraq.

6. When 3,000 Iraqis a day are fleeing to Syria and Jordan and United Nations High Commission on Refugees is being overwhelmed, then you know we have lost Iraq. (That is a million a year! Iraq's population is 27 million).

5. When you start having teach-ins in Ann Arbor (shades of 1965) then you know it is all over with.

4. When even cities the US has destroyed like Fallujah are again becoming centers of insurgency, then you know you have lost in Iraq.

3. When finding Saddam guilty is so controversial that it may provoke waves of violence among Sunni Arabs, you know you have lost in Iraq.

2. When the Neoconservatives are suddenly against having invaded Iraq, then you know the Iraq War is lost. Talk about rats and a sinking ship! [Vanity Fair link here.]

1. When the Bush administration freely gives out to terrorists Iraq's old 1980s blueprints for building an atomic bomb, then you know we are just screwed as long as these people are in power. And they say they are better at protecting our security!
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Chirac Calls for Withdrawal Timetable
5 GIs die in Iraq
Bombings, killings continued apace.

The US military announced the deaths of 5 US GIs by Iraqi guerrillas on Thursday. Guerrillas in east Baghdad killed three US soldiers with a roadside bomb. In al-Anbar province, a US marine died from earlier injuries inflicted by the enemy. An accident killed a fifth, on Wednesday, in north Baghdad.

AP reports that Thursday was another bloody day in Iraq, with a big bombing in a Shiite market and an overall death toll that AP estimated at 49. It says that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is planning a cabinet shuffle to improve the image of his government.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat [The Middle East] charges [Ar.] that last winter and spring after the Sadr Movement joined the political process, the government of then PM Ibrahim Jaafari allowed elements of the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr to infiltrate the Ministry of the Interior and other security agencies. This access to the levers of power allowed the Mahdi Army to become more sophisticated and gain better training and organization. The London daily further charges that the 278,000 missing weapons that had been provided to Iraqi security forces by the Americans were distributed to the militias.

If all this is true, the US has unwittingly been supporting and arming the very militias it hoped to undermine and combat.

French President Jacques Chirac said Thursday while meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. Regarding the international troop's presence in Iraq, "he (President Chirac) said that in the eyes of France, it is important to fix a prospect of withdrawal. . ." Talabani replied that he felt it important that US troops remain for another 3 years.

Al-Hayat reports that [Ar.] Sunni Arab guerrilla groups such as the Army of Islam and the 1920 Revolution Brigades have been meeting with tribal sheikhs and each other in an attempt to form a leadership council. They intend for it to continue the intensive negotiations with the Americans that had already begun in Amman.

Al-Hayat maintains that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a fundamentalist Shiite, is disgusted that the Americans are talking to these Sunni guerrilla groups (who are blowing up Shiites). It suggests that al-Maliki's recent order that the US military lift its blockade of Karrada and Sadr City (Shiite areas) was a sort of payback for those talks. (I don't find these charges plausible, since the evidence is that the Maliki government is also talking to the guerrillas. See the translated piece that follows below.) [See also the comment appended below of an informed critic of this posting; makes a good point but there is actually evidence of the Iraqi government talking to the "insurgents." Maybe they don't want the US doing so as a parallel track.]*

Reuters reports political violence on Thursday. Excerpts:

'BAGHDAD - A motorcycle bomb killed seven people and wounded 45 others in a crowded market in Baghdad's Shi'ite Sadr City district . . .

BAGHDAD - Gunmen attacked a police patrol and killed three policemen and wounded another in central Baghdad . . .

BAQUBA - Gunmen attacked a police patrol killing two policemen and wounding two others . . .

NEAR BAQUBA - Gunmen set up a fake security checkpoint and killed the drivers of two fuel trucks and kidnapped three other people near Baquba, police said.

UDHAIM - Gunmen killed five people in two fuel trucks after they set up a fake checkpoint in Udhaim, 60 km (40 miles) north of Baquba, police said.

MAHMUDIYA - The bodies of four people were found blindfolded in Mahmudiya, police said.

YUSUFIYA - Police found the bodies of three people with their hands tied in the town of Yusufiya, police said.

MOSUL - A mortar round hit a house killing two people and wounding seven others in the northern city of Mosul, police said.

RAMADI - U.S. forces conducted an air strike in the insurgent stronghold city of Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad, and killed a local al-Qaeda in Iraq leader and his driver on Wednesday, the U.S. military said on Thursday. A U.S. statement said Rafa al-Ithawi, the Emir of Shamiya, frequently harboured foreign fighters who entered Iraq illegally. '

Vice Premier Barham Salih says that Iraq's new draft petroleum law, which will govern foreign investment in the industry, should be completed before the end of this year. This is what it has all been about. The law will also specify whether the contract must be signed at the regional or national level.

People keep asking me about the US munitions depot that was blown up in October by the Sunni Arab guerrillas. Although it was a big set of explosions that shook Baghdad, it was away from barracks and seems not to have killed anyone. There are wild reports on the web that 300 Americans died in the explosions. It is not plausible. You cannot cover up US military casualties, especially on that scale. The families always know, and they would blow the whistle. That the guerrillas can blow up US munitions that way is pretty depressing and a sign of how little the US is in control. But there wasn't a secret bloodbath here.

Remember how Senator Rick Santorum and Congressman Curt Weldon insisted that documents from Iraq be posted so that rightwing bloggers could comb through them and demonstrate that Saddam had WMD and ties to al-Qaeda after all? Well, the documents showed the opposite, including a frantic APB on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi when they thought he might have entered Iraq. But worse, some of the documents might have been useful to anyone who really did want to make a nuclear weapon. They've been pulled back down.
===
* An informed reader writes:

' Juan, You have mixed up, unwittingly I am sure, two processes which have to be kept clearly separate if anyone is to understand what is going on.

One is the meetings in Amman between the Iraqi National Reconciliation committee with Iraqi political figures (many of them ex-Baath and/or ex-Army), the purpose of which was to encourage them to attend the next meeting of the National Reconciliation in Baghdad.

The other process was meetings between Iraqi resistance factions and Americans, the purpose of which, according to Al-Hayat this morning, is to prepare the ground for official negotiations, and it was for that reason that the factions are described in Al-Hayat as preparing a common-front structure, with formation of a unified "political committee".

In the Al-Rai article (last Tuesday, Oct 31, page 7) whose translation you publish, the Iraqi ambassador is quoted: He "admitted that there are contacts between US officials and Iraqi resistance factions in Amman; however, he stressed that the meetings held during the past two days at the Iraqi Embassy in Amman are not related to those contacts".

What angered Maliki was the US-Resistance negotiating process, and it is wrong and misleading for you to say that "the evidence is that the Maliki government is also talking to the guerillas."

And when, in the context of reporting on reconciliation proceedures, you describe the resistance factions as "blowing up Shiites", you sound more like a partisan than an "informed commenter". '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Iraqi Government Negotiations with Sunni Guerrillas

The US Government Open Source Center translates the following from al-Ra'y:

'Iraqi Reconciliation Conference Postponed 'To Allow For More Time for Dialogue'

Report by Faysal Malkawi in Amman: "Contacts Between US Officials and Armed Factions... ...and the Postponement of the Reconciliation Conference. The Iraqi Government Meets Representatives of the Ba'th Party and the Armed Resistance in Amman. Calls for Reconsidering the Decision To Dissolve the Army and Canceling the Deba'thification."

Al-Ra'y (Internet Version-WWW)
Tuesday, October 31, 2006 T10:36:04Z

It was announced in Amman yesterday that the Iraqi national reconciliation conference, which was scheduled to be held on 4 November 2006, has been postponed until after the middle of the same month. Falih al-Fayyad, a member of the Higher Committee for Iraqi Reconciliation, told Al-Ra'y that the postponement came to allow for more time for dialogue and consultation with the Iraqi political spectrum inside and outside Iraq. The postponement announcement came following talks the Reconciliation Committee delegation, which is supported by the Nuri al-Maliki government, held at the Iraqi Embassy in Amman with around 40 Iraqi political and tribal figures, all of whom are members of the Sunni opposition. Al-Ra'y has learned from Iraqi sources attending the talks that the committee delegation might during its stay in Amman meet Iraqi figures and leaders of Iraqi political movements living in Syria before completing its mission by meeting Iraqi figures of various political persuasions living in the UAE.

The sources also said that Iraqi Vice-President Adil Abd-al-Mahdi and Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih will visit Amman soon to meet senior Jordanian officials and leaders of Iraqi political, academic, and tribal forces living in Amman. The aim of the visit is to give further momentum to the dialogue, which aims at involving everyone in the ongoing political process in Iraq, especially the Sunni Arabs. One of the most important results of the Amman meetings is that many personalities and forces, after the dialogue sessions, expressed willingness to attend the upcoming reconciliation conference. This was unlikely before these dialogue sessions.

According to the information Al-Ra'y received, yesterday's meeting witnessed an acerbic debate between a number of participants and the committee delegation. Some of the opposition representatives stressed that the problem of Iraq "comes from inside, specifically from officials in the Iraqi Government and Parliament." They criticized the dissolution of the Iraqi Army, the practices of the now-defunct Civil Administration under Bremer, and the process of Deba'thification. These issues, as they said, contributed to inflaming the security situation in Iraq and leading it to what it is now.

At the end of yesterday's meeting, Al-Fayyad said that the meetings aimed at "paving the way for the reconciliation conference and creating the appropriate climate for rendering it successful; the aim is not to make specific decisions now, but rather to discuss various issues in a frank and open manner without putting any restrictions on introducing any problems or issues to the agenda."

He denied that the talks held over the past two days dealt with arranging a dialogue between the armed factions and the US forces occupying Iraq. He said: "These meetings are exclusively aimed at the Iraqi political forces." He added that "the conferees agreed to adopt the working paper of the Iraqi tribes, which the government endorsed last month, as a basis for the dialogue and deliberations at the conference."

The committee delegation was comprised of Falih al-Fayyad, Nasir Al-Anil, Deputy Yunadim Kanna, and Sa'd al-Matlabi, representative of the National Dialogue Ministry.

Iraqi Ambassador in Amman Sa'd al-Hayyani said that the Iraqi delegation met with Iraqi politicians representing various shades of the spectrum in the political process. He noted that the importance of the meetings in Amman stems from the fact that the members of the Iraqi community in Amman represent the elite of the Iraqi people in various fields. He added that the delegation will meet those with and against the government to urge them to participate in the political leadership conference, which is slated to be held in Baghdad in November. He admitted that there are contacts between US officials and Iraqi resistance factions in Amman; however, he stressed that the meetings held during the past two days at the Iraqi Embassy in Amman are not related to those contacts.

He explained that the Americans have their channels and tools for talks with whomever they want to talk to regarding the Iraqi situation. He noted that it is possible that "some of those who attended the meeting are from the armed resistance factions, moving under a political cover." He said that the most important idea proposed during the meeting by the forces that are not involved in the political process is to "reconsider the army dissolution decision, to not ignore the highly professional generals, and to cancel the Deba'thification Law."

At the same time, Hasan al-Bazzaz, secretary general of the Movement for the Iraqi National and Pan-Arab Forces, Huquq, which brings together Iraqi political and tribal figures, said that "most of the attendees are former Ba'thists and military leaders." He stressed that "the Ba'thists represent a main element, whether in the opposition or inside Iraq."

Dr Fawzi al-Juburi, representative of the national resistance, said that "it is the national resistance that represents Iraq, and talks should be exclusively held with it should there be a desire to overcome the tragic situation the country is going through as a result of the US occupation."

Al-Juburi revealed that the Iraqi resistance factions met a UN delegation in meetings held in Amman last year to look for a solution to the crisis in Iraq.

(Description of Source: Amman Al-Ra'y (Internet Version-WWW) in Arabic -- Jordanian daily of widest circulation, partially owned by government; URL: http://www.alrai.com/) '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

3 GIs Killed
55 Dead in Killings, Bombings
US Plans Ramadi Assault

The LA Times reports that the deaths of 3 US GIs were announced on Wednesday:

' U.S. military officials announced the deaths of two troops a day earlier in Al Anbar province in western Iraq, raising to at least 105 the number of American fatalities in October . . . Early today, the military announced the first death in November. It said a soldier was killed Wednesday when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb west of Baghdad.'

Al-Zaman reports that [Ar.] guerrillas fired mortar shells at the house of Shiite cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, wounding 3 of his bodyguards on Wednesday evening. Al-Hakim is head of the United Iraqi Alliance, the largest bloc in parliament, and leads the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which controls a number of ministries and is pushing for a Shiite super-province in the south.

US military forces, al-Zaman says, raided an office of the Iraqi National List, headed by former prime minister Iyad Allawi. They arrested 8 of his bodyguards on unspecified charges.

Baghdad residents fought off an invasion of gunmen from the east, engaging in a 2-hour gun battle before they withdrew.

WaPo reports on violence in Baghdad on Wednesday:
' The crackle of gunfire and the boom of bombs and mortars punctuated life in the capital for most of the day. In the deadliest incidents, six people were killed by a roadside bomb in the Shurjah market of central Baghdad, five were killed and seven wounded by a car bomb at Aqaba bin Nafi intersection in eastern Baghdad, and three people were killed in a car bombing Wednesday morning in the southwest Bayaa neighborhood. '

The LA Times says, "In addition, 35 bodies were recovered throughout Baghdad, all bearing signs of having been slain execution-style."

The LA Times also reports on what we are getting for the money we spent on encouraging political development in Iraq:

' For the second consecutive day, parliament was unable to convene because too few Iraqi lawmakers had showed up . . . The parliament speaker, Mahmoud Mashadani, engaged in a bitter exchange with a fellow Sunni Arab lawmaker during a news conference at which Mashadani chided his colleagues for absenteeism. When the lawmaker, Abdul-Kareem Samaraie, spoke up, Mashadani lashed out and accused him of corruption. The state-run television station abruptly ended its broadcast of the news conference.'

Al-Zaman adds that only 76 out of 275 parliamentarians showed up, and that Samaraie had said that there were enough MPs to hold the session. Mashhadani called him and his colleagues "dogs."

NYT says that the Iraqi politicians want a better deal in the next UN Security Council resolution, especially more control over their own military. But, can they muster a quorum to pass the resolution in parliament?

Al-Zaman says that one of the issues here is that the MPs are annoyed with [Deputy Prime Minister] Barham Salih for appearing to want to deal with the UNSC resolution all by himself. They insist that it must come to parliament first for discussion before Salih can announce it.

Reuters reports further incidents, including:

'BAGHDAD - Gunmen wounded Hazim al-Hemedawi, head of the little-known Iraqi National Party, after ambushing his convoy . . .'

Al-Hayat says that [Ar.] US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and US generals in Baghdad met with tribal leaders from al-Anbar province on Wednesday in preparation for an American attack on Ramadi with the intent of chasing out of it Salafi radicals who have begun styling themselves 'al-Qaeda.'

61 percent of Americans in this poll want a timetable to be set for US withdrawal from Iraq. Only 32 percent are opposed (i.e. the percentage that still listens to Bush).

Meanwhile, 58% want a new policy in Iraq, while 29% want to stay the course. Even Bush has now moved off the 'stay the course' language.

The entire Third Infantry Division, some 20,000 soldiers, seems set to return to Iraq for a third tour in 2007.

The comments in this article by Gen. Rick Lynch alleging that the guerrillas in Iraq are trying to influence the US elections strike me as inappropriate for a serving officer, insofar as they are themselves a form of intervention in the election. 90% of the US officer corps identifies in polls as Republicans, up from 40% in the 1950s.

If you wanted to inject politics into it, it would be possible to argue that Operation Forward Together or the Battle for Baghdad was launched in late July precise in hopes of making the capital quiet for the midterm elections in the United States. On this theory, what really happened is that the US military was given an impossible task, and the violence increased, and so the political scheme failed. Thus, sour grapes from Lynch.

Moreover, if the Bush administration cannot, after three and a half years of brutal military occupation, quieten things down in Baghdad for a US election, then it would not be surprising if the public punished them at the polls. They promised us garlands and democracy, and have given us burning hulks and militiamen.

A leaked classified briefing from the US Central Command in Iraq includes a chart showing Iraq steadily moving toward "chaos" since the February, 2006 bombing of the Askariyah Shrine at Samarra. Although White House spokesman Tony Snow tried to maintain that there has been a 23% improvement in the situation since the chart was produced, I fear this astonishing and wholly unbelievable assertion only proves that he is now a diplomat (defined as someone who lies for his country) as opposed to a former employee of Faux News owner Rupert Murdoch (someone who lies for Rupert).

This article argues that southern Iraq is at a tipping point. Call me a pessimist, but the likelihood that 7200 British troops, mainly in Basra, are going to establish even medium-term secure conditions by March, 2007, strikes me as vanishingly low.

Al-Hayat reports that the Turkmen Front in Kirkuk is rejecting the idea that Turkmen will accept Kurdish rule if the Kurds succeed in annexing Kirkuk to the Kurdistan Regional Government. He claimed that the Kurds are flooding their people into Kirkuk deliberately to change its demographic composition, maintaining that historically it was a Turkmen city.

On the Lebanon front, see this interview of Dick Norton, the foremost expert on the Lebanese Shiites.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

2 US Troops Killed;
42 Shiites Kidnapped;
Wedding Bombed in Baghdad;
Maliki orders US Troops out of Sadr City

Iraqi guerrillas killed two US GIs on Monday, bringing the one-month death toll for October to 103.

Sunni Arab guerrillas near Tikrit north of Baghdad set up checkpoints, stopped minivans, and asked the passengers if they were from Shiite villages such as Balad. When the answer was yes, they kidnapped 42 persons.

Patrick Cockburn suggests that such actions are not random violence, but rather are part of a Sunni Arab strategy of surrounding and cutting off Baghdad.

Cockburn is correct. The Sunni Arab guerilla movements have been attempting to cut off Baghdad for some time, and have at times successfully imposed a fuel blockade on it. So far the blockade has been stacctto and not very successful. But if they really could blockade the capital, they could deprive the Iraqi police and army of fuel for their vehicles, and then execute them. This step could only come, of course, once the US begins withdrawing. Once that process starts, the Shiites had better start negotiating with the Sunni guerrilla groups, or else it wouldn't be long before the Green Zone fell.

Prime Minister Nur al-Maliki intervened on Tuesday to order that US troops dismantle the checkpoints that had blockaded the 3 million inhabitants of largely Shiite Sadr City for the past few days, interfering with shopkeepers' customers and even getting to the hospital. The US military had been searching in Sadr City for a kidnapped US GI of Iraqi heritage, and in the end Maliki responded to popular complaints that the blockade was too much. Al-Zaman says that cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's call for a general strike in Sadr City on Tuesday [Ar.] had been largely successful, and that most shops were shuttered. WaPo says that Mahdi Army militiamen forcibly closed schools and enforced the closure of shops, helping ensure that the strike succeeded.

A general strike by Shiites may have forced al-Maliki to act, since they are his constituency. His order was issued after consultations with US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Gen. Casey, though the NYT says it seems likely he had already decided on this course, since the meeting ended at 1 pm and the order was issued at 1:20. Casey's acquiescence was key, however, since the US army and Marine corps do not actually take orders from al-Maliki.

The incident is a further sign of tension between the Bush administration and Maliki, who boasted last week that he is "not Washington's man in Baghdad." Malik also has demanded the authority to order the Iraqi Army into action without getting permission from the United States military.

Sadr City residents held rallies of celebration after the blockade was lifted.

The Sunni Arab vice president of Iraq, Tariq al-Hashimi, warned that the end of the blockade would also allow Shiite death squads that he claims were based in Sadr City to operate freely again. He claimed that there had been a lull in death squad operations when the Americans had Sadr City bottled up. In fact, lots of bodies have shown up in Baghdad in the past few days. Al-Hashimi has grown increasingly impatient with what he sees as foot dragging by the Maliki government in confronting the Shiite militias, and has even threatened to resign if nothing is done about them.

Al-Zaman is reporting on behind the scenes talks between Prime Minister al-Maliki and US National Security Council adviser Stephen Hadley. The "Times of Baghdad" says that Hadley pressed al-Maliki for a guarantee that Iraq will not be partitioned, apparently indicating the opposition of the Bush administration to the implementation of the law allowing for provincial confederacies, recently passed over Maliki's objections by the Iraqi parliament. Bush and Cheney fear that a confederacy will lead to partition, which will lead to sectarian conflict and unleash a wave of violence that will draw in other Middle Eastern nations.

Sources close to the talks in the Iraqi government told al-Zaman that Hadley also asked for an explanation of the delay in the program of national reconciliation. The plan would have to include a share for each Iraqi in the country's petroleum (the "Alaska plan") and, al-Zaman alleges, amnesty for ex-Baathists, even those who have been fighting US troops and Iraqi soldiers.

Reuter reports political violence in Iraq on Tuesday, detailing 45 of the many more killings that must have occurred. Highlights:

' BAGHDAD - A car bomb ripped through a wedding procession in the northeastern district of Ur in Baghdad, killing 15 people, including four children . . . [Ur is largely Shiite.] . . .

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed a policeman and wounded three others near the southern Doura district of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.

NEAR SUWAYRA - The bodies of five gunmen were found in an orchard which was the scene of clashes between gunmen and the police several days ago near the town of Suwayra, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

SUWAYRA - The bodies of three people were recovered from the Tigris river in Suwayra, police said.

BAQUBA - The bodies of eight people were found, bound and gagged, in Baquba, police said. All the victims were shot in the head. . .'

AP argues that the violence between the Shiite Badr Corps and the Mahdi Army, both of them paramilitaries is destabilizing the Iraqi south. They point to the recent fighting in Amara, and quote residents as saying that because of the tribal character of the population, there will likely be a series of reprisal killings and feuding. The oil port of Basra has also seen militia on militia violence.

Children victims of Iraq violence are disturbing US medics there.

Interview with a co-author of the Lancet study that found over 420,000 excess civilian deaths in Iraq because of the war.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said in a talk at Indiana U. of Iraq, "“The country gradually deteriorates to civil war [and] the US presence is more and more a part of the problem and not the solution,” he said, adding that “Democratization may lead to a radical Shi’a government.”' I think Barak's remarks reflect a general anxiety among centrist and left of center Israelis on where this Iraq thing is going and what it will mean for Israel (almost certainly not good things). There is also an increasingly obvious split between the Israeli elite and the American Neoconservatives. The Neocon doctrine over here is that the Arab Shiites would be more likely sympathetic to Israel than the Sunnis and so their taking over Iraq is a good thing. As usual, this theory of theirs is only true in the 25th dimension in the Orbit of Xubaro.
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Kaufmann: Iraq Partition Fait Accompli

Chaim Kaufmann writes

' Juan, your piece in Salon objecting to a possible partition of Iraq is factually right about virtually everything -- but addresses the wrong question: The issue is no longer whether to partition Iraq, but whether anyone can stop Iraq from partitioning itself.

In the North a /de facto/ partition is in place. In the South partition is taking shape as a result of the civil war and ethnic cleansing.

Who could prevent partition? As you point out, Iran will not. Turkey opposes a /de jure /Kurdish state, but does it care what happens in the rest of Iraq? You mention a Saudi initiative to try to generate religious authority for an end to killing in Iraq, but I cannot tell whether you think that this has a realistic chance of stopping the war.

It is true that partition will not end all motives for Sunnis and Shia to continue fighting or to resume fighting later, but the continuing separation of the populations will gradually reduce what is the most important motive driving the war now.

Incidentally, the Indo-Pakistani wars from 1948 onward were not due to British imposition of partition. There was a civil war in Punjab during partition in 1947 because the partition line took no account of Sikh interests. Partition did not, however, cause any of the Indo-Pakistani wars from 1948 onwards: the 1971 war was caused by internal repression within Pakistan, by Punjabis against Bengalis. All of the other wars (1948, 1965, 1999, the ongoing rebellion) were caused by the *failure* to include Kashmir in the 1947 partition, leaving that former princely state up for grabs.

Chaim '

Chaim Kaufmann
Associate Professor
International Relations
Lehigh University
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