Maliki: Don't Use Iraq as a Base to settle Scores
US Pressures Bagdad to stop visit of Iranian President
Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has pledged not to allow Iraq to become a base for regional or international powers to settle scores. (This announcement seems to me to be an attempt to forewarn the Bush administration that it may not use Iraq as a base for an attack on Iran).
The British have begun to move 500 troops from the Palace in downtown Basra out to the airport. They will turn over all policing in Basra proper to the Iraqi police. Henceforward the British troops out by the airport will only come into town at the request of the Iraqi government.
Behind the scenes, says Gulf News, the Bush administration is putting pressure on PM Nuri al-Maliki to cancel the proposed visit of Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad to Baghdad. The Bahraini newspaper's Iraq sources told it that the Iraqi government is split on the visit. If you attend closely to the subsequent comments, you can clearly see that the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim favors the visit (SIIC is also Bush's best friend in Iraq), and the Sunni Arab bloc, the Iraqi Accord Front, has the most severe reservations.
The LA Times reports a spike in the number of children recruited by the Sunni Arab guerrillas to carry out terror attacks. Money graf:
"Stone said the children make effective fighters because they are easily influenced, don’t experience fear in the same way as adults and don’t draw as much scrutiny from U.S. forces. Stone said some children have told interrogators that their parents encouraged them to do the militants’ dirty work because the extremists have deep pockets."
Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that the Iraqi Parliament will begin its sessions again on Tuesday, and is expected to take up debaathification and the oil and gas law. Despite much discussion of both, the controversial character of these issues has so far forestalled the passage of actual legislation.
Iraq is seeking one to two billion dollars in investment from abroad in upgrading petrochemical facilities in Basra.
But the lack of laws protecting and regulating such investments has hampered economic development in Iraq.
Nermeen Mufti explains why Iraqis are pessimistic on both the security and political front.
The Iraqi parliament has ruled out holding a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, at least for now, according to VP Adil Abdul Mahdi. (Abdul Mahdi is one of al-Maliki's primary rivals for the post).
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 9/03/2007 12:30:00 AM
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The law governing refineries and distribution is seperate from extraction. The former has been approved by the Iraqi parliament.
The problem is not the laws. Iraq is extremely unatractive for any investment other than retailing for the following reasons:
1) Unbelievable corruption.
2) The flight of skilled workers.
3) Work ethics of those left.
4) Laws being reversed later.
5) No ability to enforce laws
6) Non-existent security
7) Risk of country disintegration
Concerning the oil law, Iraq Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi (SIIC), said: "Iraq's new investment law will facilitate investment for both Iraqi and non-Iraqi businesses by providing a secure investment environment. Business people know the capacities and resources of Iraq. These delegates are the experts brought together at this conference to present opportunities for investments across a wide range of industries. Iraq is not only oil and gas but also agriculture, infrastructure and tourism, both historic and religious."
Link: http://www.iraqupdates.com/p_articles.php/article/21337
ref : “Night of the Living Dead in IRAQ”
Here i believe the professor is evoking an image of IRAQ under American Occupation as a dystopia: a lawless, Mad Max nihilist landscape?
I submit that lessons learned from the American film, Apocalypse Now may be even more apt.
it's an occupation, after all ~ not a War, really: All the Iraqi people have to do to "win", is survive. Though 3,000+ of them are killed every month, and 10x that number wounded ~ they "can lose every battle," so to speak ~ yet so long as they remain there, existentially, they will win, eventually.
otoh, for the Americans it's an occupation = The Mission, really ~ not a War ~ something you don't "win" or "lose" ~ rather, occupying them is something you either choose to do or don't do to IRAQ.
Lesson 1: When you can't tell 'Who is the enemy?' amongst all these civilians, then YOU are the enemy. YOU are the foreign fighter, not some group somehow living among them, or all of them, though that surely is what it seems like, after awhile, n'est-ce pas?
They see the enemy quite clearly; all you can do is search for "your enemy" until he chooses the time and place to hurt you, after which you can either withdraw or destroy every one and every thing around where "your enemy" hurt you.
There is no end to this, this is the way being a hostile occupier is. And the hell of it is: no matter how many of "your enemy" you kill, wound, or capture ~ every time you go out on patrol, "your enemy" = somebody keeps trying to kill, wound, or capture YOU.
That's what "crazy" Colonel Kurtz realized, in Apocalypse Now. That's the message that he told the American Officer Corps, that they didn't want to hear: if you don't have the will to entirely vanquish "your enemy," as the people being occupied do, then you shouldn't invade & occupy them in the first place.
That's why "The Horror... the Horror" was the Colonel's uttered realization, finding the only EXIT path to "victory" was to entirely vanquish all his enemies, which he scrawled boldly at the end of his notebook:
DROP THE BOMB - KILL THEM ALL
Curious that you didn't comment on the Iraq children fighters story. Did you post it as an ironic flourish or do you buy it -- if only in part?
On beginning to read it, I felt that customary dread over being asked to accept a story for which the military is the sole source. Certainly, if there is an increase in children fighting in Iraq, this is horrifying. Certainly, the content of the LA Times story is sure to have resonance for many Americans by bringing to mind the stories of African child soldiers. But as it stands, this story is far from convincing and instead offers much to unpack and question. That more children in custody means more were involved in violent acts is to accord to much efficacy to the US arrest and interrogation process in Iraq. Then there is the weaving in of the foreign-fighters-in-Iraq line which raises red flags. Before the curtain was rained down on Abu Musab Zarqawi (June 2006), the US military and administration told us constantly that foreign fighters were present in large numbers and periodically that they were the cause of much or even most of the mayhem in Iraq. Needless to say, it failed to prove these assertions. Stone's mention of foreign fighers may actually only be in there as a set up to complement the US military on its success in keeping foreign would-be insurgents out.
So, the (presumed) increase in child soldiers is due to the (presumed) effectiveness of the build up of troops in keeping out foreign fighters who (presumably) were once pouring into Iraq in large numbers.
The bit about families being paid for their children brings to mind earlier attempts to humiliate Iraqi Sunnis and Arabs in general, the message being that they are ready to sell their children.
In the several African countries where child soldiers were a horrifying phenomenon during the last decade, wasn't the incidence of orphans much higher and weren't the conditions of daily life even more chaotic than in Iraq, thereby facilitating the forcing of children into becoming soldiers? (I defer to Africa experts on these questions because I'm truly guessing about the conditions.)
Regarding the posts speculating about US intentions toward Iran, I can't shake the feeling that Washington's saber-rattling may not be directed primarily at Tehran. Maybe the goal of all the drum beating is not actually to scare the pants off Iran, but to frighten Arab countries into helping the US on Iraq, including pledging troops.
Launching a third war in the region seems to crazy even for the current US administration.
We know that brinkmanship didn't work with Saddam, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hasn't given any signs that he would duck out in a game of chicken. I think administration figures and those around them must have seen that the Iranian president won't be cowed. The additional chaos in the region and the tax burden at home would also seem to mitigate against a third war. My guess may be wrong, but I just can't believe that the US would embark on another war so I look for other possible explanations behind the periodic escalation of the war of words between the US and Iran, highlighted by the US media.
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