On the False Analogy Between Iraq and South Korea

Bush is now talking about a "South Korea" model for Iraq. He likely got this nonsense from John Gaddis at Yale, who I heard talking it last November at the Chicago Humanities Fair.

So what confuses me is the terms of the comparison. Who is playing the role of the Communists and of North Korea? Is it the Sunni Arabs of Iraq? But they are divided into Iraqi/Arab nationalists and Salafi Sunni revivalists. (The secular Arab nationalists are the vast majority according to recent polling). So they are not a united force. They are fighting with one another in al-Anbar. And, the Arab nationalists and the religious Sunnis cannot both play the role of the Communists. Some Arab nationalists are allied with the United States (Egypt, Tunisia, etc.) Others are not (Syria). Some religious Sunnis are allied with the US (Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan). Others are not. So where is the analogy to International Communism? Who is China and who is the Soviet Union? Is it Syria and Iran? But both are ruled by Shiites, not Sunnis!

But let us say that the Sunni Arabs are North Korea. Who is South Korea? Is it the Shiites of Iraq? But they are allied with Iran (isn't it playing the role of China?) And the vast majority of them don't want US troops in Iraq according to polls. There is zero chance that the Shiites of Iraq will put up with a long term presence of US bases in their areas of Iraq. The British base in Basra takes heavy fire all the time.

The only place in Iraq that looks at all like South Korea is maybe Kurdistan. But it is also allied with Iran behind the scenes, and it is in a troubling way giving asylum to Turkish-Kurdish terror groups that are infliction harm on the US's NATO ally, Turkey.

Even as we speak, in Iraq's north, Turkish military forces and now 20 tanks are massing on the Iraqi border, apparently poised for "hot pursuit" of Kurdish guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), who have safe harbor in Iraqi Kurdistan but go over to Turkey and blow things up. There is some danger that the US will be in the middle of all this, though it is allied with both the Kurds and the Turks. Last week US fighter jets based in Iraq made an unauthorized incursion into Turkish air space that the Turks are protesting.

Do we really want to be in the middle of that?

(But see the next, translated, item, below).

So, no, Iraq isn't like Korea in any obvious way, and in fact the analogy strikes me as frankly ridiculous.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari suspects that the Mahdi Army was behind the kidnapping of 5 Britons from the Ministry of Finance on Tuesday. British troops have been skirmishing with and capturing Mahdi Army forces in Basra, so this could be payback or an attempt to trade prisoners.

There were mortar attacks, bombings and firefights around Iraq on Wednesday. Ten died in a firefight in Khalis between Iraqi government troops and local Sunni Arab guerrillas (the city is under curfew after these heavy clashes). The US raided Sadr City looking, presumably, for those British security guards, and taking 5 men into custody.

23 bodies were found in Baghdad on Wednesday, according to McClatchy. Four uniformed policemen were kidnapped in Tikrit north of Baghdad.

Iran's foreign minister says that US-Iranian talks on security in Iraq may continue.

Iraq, Sudan, and Israel/Palestine are the most violent countries in the world, according to a new index.

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Iraqi Kurdistan Officials Deny US Bases to be Opened in Kurdistan Region

The USG Open Source Center translates the following newspaper article from Kurdish:

' Iraqi Kurdish Officials Deny US Bases To Be Opened in Kurdistan Region Unattribtued report: "Opening three US military bases and transfer of Incirlik base to Kurdistan" Hawlati Wednesday, May 30, 2007 Although it is expected that today responsibility for security will be handed over to the Kurdistan authorities, exclusive military sources have told Hawlati that the US forces intend to open three huge US military bases in the Arbil, Duhok, and Al-Sulaymaniyah areas. Meanwhile, senior peshmerga forces' officials expressed their pleasure at such a move. The three bases will be located in Qaradagh (south of Al-Sulaymaniyah), Zakho area (north of Duhok), while the third one will be based near Arbil. There is also a possibility that the Incirlik base in Turkey, opened in 1992, will be transferred to the Kurdistan Region, which is heralded as an important achievement by Kurdistan regional government military officials who said they would welcome such requests from the coalition forces. However, some officials said the issue was not mentioned and thought to be a remote possibility. Kurdistan Region Armed Forces Spokesman Maj-Gen Jabbar Yawar told Hawlati: "The coalition forces have not made such requests so far and nothing was mentioned about this in the general-command meeting of the armed forces with (Kurdistan) Region President (Mas'ud Barzani). However, we would welcome such a request because we and the US are allies. As far as I know, such a request was not made." Asked whether the US forces are unilaterally entitled to embark on such an action, the source said: "According to the memorandum signed between the coalition forces and the (Kurdistan) region president, they should inform us (of such actions). As far as I know, no such plans are in the pipeline. However, I do not know if such an action is considered for the future or if it was discussed it internally (presumably referring to the US)." The source ruled out the possibility of transferring Incirlik base to the Kurdistan Region, adding that "I do not think the US will do that since Turkey is an important country for the US and is a member of the NATO, whereas we are a region inside a federal country." The (Kurdistan) Region's minister for peshmerga affairs, Ja'far Mustafa, told Hawlati: "Such a request has not been tabled officially and I am not aware of it. If there is such a thing, the region's presidency and the government should be aware of it, especially given that responsibility for security will be handed over to the Kurdistan regional government today." Regarding the transfer of Incirlik base to the Kurdistan Region, he said: "If the US does that, we will welcome it and that would be a good and important achievement for us." A few months ago, US infantry and air force surveyed villages near Qaradagh administrative sub-district for a day, throughout which they neither allowed the locals to approach them nor allowed local officials to visit them. (Description of Source: Al-Sulaymaniyah Hawlati in Sorani Kurdish -- weekly independent newspaper)

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Guerrillas Ambush, Kill 10 US GIs
Over 100 Iraqis Killed or Found Dead
Muqtada condemns Iran for Talking to US

As best I can piece it together, Sunni Arab guerrillas in Iraq ran a sophisticated sting on US troops in Diyala province on Memorial Day, killing 8 GIs. First, they shot down a helicopter with small arms fire. Two servicemen died in the crash. The guerrillas knew that a rescue team would come out to the site. So they planted a roadside bomb that killed the rescuers. And, they knew that yet another rescue team would come out to see what happened to the first. So they planted roadside bombs and destroyed the second team, as well. Altogether 6 rescuers were blown up in this way. The guerrillas run this routine on Iraqi police and troops in the capital all the time. As US troops increasingly take on policing duties, they become vulnerable to the same operations that have wrought such mayhem on Iraqi security forces.

Also in Diyala, 21 bodies were found in the streets of Baquba, the capital of the province, according to Reuters.

Reuters reports that 2 other GIs were killed in a Baghdad roadside bombing. Two other, much bigger blasts then shook the downtown and the southwest, killing 44 persons between them:

' BAGHDAD - At least 23 people were killed and 68 others wounded when a powerful bomb in a parked bus exploded in central Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - At least 18 people were killed and 41 wounded when a car bomb exploded in a busy market of a mainly Shi'ite neighbourhood in southwestern Baghdad, police said. '

Al-Zaman says that the bombs in the Shiite neighborhood actually targeted a Shiite religious edifice (Husayniya) (in the Amil district) and so was less random than it seems on the surface.

This is the second religious building to be hit in the past two days, with the Sufi shrine of Abdul Qadir Gilani suffering damage on Monday. Every day, Iraq's landmarks are more pockmarked and less whole, as if a leprosy were eating away at its features.

Al-Zaman also sniffs that this surge business doesn't seem to be working very well if you can get all this mayhem in a single day still.

Police found thirty bodies in the streets of Baghdad on Tuesday.

Then some other shadowy group ran a sophisticated sting on some high-powered British security guards at the Ministry of Finance (that kind of kidnapping is always in part an inside job-- someone at the ministry tipped the 40 gunmen to the presence of Britons in the ministry). I guess I just can't entirely understand how 40 guerrillas drive around downtown Baghdad, surround government ministries, and kidnap people from them. The Ministry had government police and guards. It just seems to me that this kind of thing cannot happen unless the Iraqi government security forces are in on it or wink at it.

I just want to express my admiration for the thoroughness and even-handedness of this Times of London (via Australian News) article on the kidnapping of the 5 Britons from the Finance Ministry on Tuesday. It is incredible that reporters in Baghdad can still gather news at all, much less this comprehensively.

Over two hundred civilian foreigners have been kidapped in the past 4 years, and over 60 of them were killed. It is my impression that most of those who survived were often secretly ransomed by family members (something the USG discourages because the ransom is essentially a contribution to the guerrilla war effort).

Al-Hayat reports that young Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr held a meeting with the governors of the southern, Shiite provinces. He agreed with them to form joint committees made up of Mahdi Army militiamen and police and army troops to prevent clashes between them. Muqtada also rejected the talks held on Monday between the US and Iran, criticizing Tehran for this "Iranian acceptance of an American-British-Jewish Mandate" over Iraq. (He used the word 'intidab,' a reference to the colonies or Mandates established by European Powers in the Middle East after they had defeated the Ottoman Empire in WW I. The League of Nations philosophy was that the Europeans should use this opportunity to grow the Middle Easterners up so that they could establish their own governments. The Middle Easterners mostly felt that they didn't need the help.)

Muqtada said, "It is most regrettable that generally they [the Iranians] are inadvertently or deliberately forgetting, in such negotiations, to demand that the Occupier depart." He said implicit Iranian acceptance of the Anglo-American-Jewish "mandate" is "completely rejected, and there is no excuse for it at all." He said that the lack of an official Iraqi government partner in the Iran-US talks denied them "the cover of legitimacy and of Law." He said that both the people and the religious authority were unhappy with the talks.

The respected editor of the weekly "Hawadith" in Kirkuk was assassinated in that city.

Tom Engelhardt on the mammoth US embassy in Baghdad and its significance.
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Cole on "Heroes" and the Culture Wars

My column at Salon.com this week is on the television phenomenon "Heroes". [Spoiler alert: for anyone who hasn't seen the season finale, its details are discussed.] Excerpts:

Dick Cheney's least favorite TV show?

Why the worldview of "Heroes" clashes with the vice president's "1 percent doctrine" on terrorism.

May 30, 2007 | NBC's hit series "Heroes" was the most-watched new show on network television this year despite its demanding plot lines and stretches of subtitled Japanese. Its season finale, which aired May 21, dominated the 9 p.m. time slot. What explains the show's popularity, especially with younger viewers? I think it is that, like the Fox thriller "24," "Heroes" is a response to Sept. 11 and the rise of international terrorism. But while "24" skews to the right politically, "Heroes" seems like a left-wing response to those events. In fact, it functions as a thoughtful critique of Vice President Dick Cheney's doctrine on counterterrorism.

In Bush and Cheney's "war on terror," the evildoers are external and are clearly discernible. In "Heroes," each person agonizes over the evil within, a point of view more common on the political left than on the right. Each of the flawed characters is capable of both nobility and iniquity. In Bush's vision, the main threat remains rival states (Saddam's Iraq, Ahmadinejad's Iran). States are absent from "Heroes," as though irrelevant. "Heroes" makes terrorism a universal and psychological issue rather than one attached to a clash of civilizations or to a particular race.

In its commentary on terror, "Heroes" thus avoids the caffeinated Islamophobia of "24." And at a time when "24," a favorite of older Republicans, is fading in the ratings, "Heroes" may also be a better guide to where the thinking of the young, post-Bush generation is heading when it comes to terror. It's certainly where their eyes are going. NBC's "Heroes" runs opposite Fox's "24" on Monday nights and snags a higher total of younger viewers, while the median age of "24" viewers keeps rising. . .

The plot that drives the first season has to do with a prophetic painting . . . that shows New York City being blown up. The bomb is not mechanical but is a human being, a mutant, who cannot control his powers and will ultimately explode in the midst of the city if not stopped. . .

a . . . camp of wealthy and powerful figures, clearly on the political right, decide that the explosion cannot be avoided and must therefore be exploited to instill new spine and discipline into the soft American public. This clique, led by a Las Vegas mobster named Linderman (Malcolm McDowell), includes Angela Petrelli, the mother of Nathan and Peter Petrelli, both mutants. The Linderman faction strives to put Nathan Petrelli into office as a New York congressman by rigging the election, convinced that he will be in a position to lead America as a strong man after Gotham's immolation.

Some bloggers have detected overtones of Sept. 11 conspiracy theorizing in this plot element. . .

Part of my argument is that the Cheney Right (or what Anatol Lieven has called the "American nationalists") sees the war on terror as 'white hats vs. black turbans,' as a heroic, free, unblemished America facing off against Islamic fanatics and fascists. I argue that by making the "Heroes" morally ambiguous (Ali Larter's character Niki, when taken over by "Jessica," is a mass murderer), the vision of "Heroes" implies that terror derives from Self as well as from Other, that each human and each culture is capable of it.

I think this dispute, over a black-and-white American nationalism of the Cheney sort and a more nuanced recognition of our own flaws along with those of our enemies, underlies the culture wars now being fought in the US. The latter is exemplified by Mahmoud Mamdani's thesis about Washington's strategic use of 'good Muslims, bad Muslims'.

That continental rift is the reason for the great interest in Republican Presidential Candidate Ron Paul's argument with his rival Rudi Guiliani. Paul said in the recent debate that the US was attacked on 9/11 in part because of its prior involvement in Iraq.

Rudi Guiliani interrupted him, claimed he had never heard of that, and misrepresented Paul as justifying the attack.

But Paul was factually correct. In his 1996 fatwa declaring war on the United States, Bin Laden had said " . . .the civil and the military infrastructures of Iraq were savagely destroyed showing the depth of the Zionist-Crusaders' hatred to the Muslims and their children . . ."

Paul was saying that terror has a context, that the post-Gulf War US sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s that allegedly caused the deaths of 500,000 children helped produce hatred for this country in the Middle East.

In his reply to Guiliani's demand for a retraction, Paul said,

' “I believe the CIA is correct when it warns us about blowback. We overthrew the Iranian government in 1953 and their taking the hostages was the reaction. This dynamic persists and we ignore it at our risk. They’re not attacking us because we’re rich and free, they’re attacking us because we’re over there.” '

Likewise, comedian Rosie O’Donnell engaged in a shouting match with conservative View co-host Elizabeth Hasselback when the latter declined to defend O’Donnell from rightwing charges of treason. The previous week the two had discussed the meaning of terrorism and O’Donnell observed, "655,000 Iraqi civilians are dead. Who are the terrorists?” (O'Donnell was accused by the Right of calling US troops 'terrorists', which is not what she said, and she was upset with co-host Elizabeth Hasselback for not being willing to admit that the charge was propagandistic).

Both Paul and O’Donnell (a Libertarian and a liberal, respectively) were pushing back against the uncomplicated nationalism of the militaristic right in the US, maintaining that the menace of terrorism comes both from self and from other, both from small groups and from large states.

It seems to me that this is the continental rift in the contemporary culture wars, between those with a nationalist, black and white view of geopolitics, and those who can see past US actions as sometimes unfortunate (backing Islamic fanatics against the Soviets in Afghanistan) and as producing "blowback" [in Ron Paul's term] or boomeranging on us.

I am not saying that “Heroes” takes sides on such political issues, but I am saying that its moral vision would give little aid and comfort to the American nationalists. In "Heroes," a lot of characters are driven to do things they regret and to harm the people around them without fully intending to. Terror is not something produced by other people, with brown skins and different rituals, but is a danger within each human being, even within WASPs.


Thanks to Dennis Perrin for getting it!

Read the whole essay (which doesn't bring up Paul or O'Donnell) in Salon.
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First Formal US-Iran Talks since 1980

The US has dealt differently with Iran than with any other of its major enemies. Then President Ronald Reagan spoke directly with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev even though the USSR had thousands of nuclear missiles aimed at the US. The US talks to North Korea. It talks to Venezuela. It doesn't talk to Cuba, but then Cuba is a small weak country of 11 million. Iran is an oil state with a population of some 70 million.

Do the United States and Iran have things to talk about? Yes. They have several common interests, which could be stressed and developed fruitfully.

1. Shiite Iran is a deadly enemy of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, which the US is also fighting. Instead of making up silly charges against Iran, the US could explore avenues of cooperation against these enemies.

2. Shiite Iran is a deadly enemy of the Iraqi Baath Party and of the radical Salafi Jihadis who are responsible for most of the violence in Iraq and for most of the killings of US troops. There are ways in which the US and Iran could cooperate in defeating these forces, which are inimical to both Washington and Tehran.

3. Shiite Iran is happy with the Shiite led government of Iraq and wants to see Iraq's territorial integrity maintained. Supporting the al-Maliki government and keeping Iraq together are also goals of the United States.

It is not true, as Robert Kagan once alleged to me on the radio, that if something is in Iran's interest, it will do it anyway, so that talks are useless. It is often the case that countries, like individuals, cut off their noses to spite their faces. Effective diplomacy can often lead a country to see the advantages of cooperation on some issues, so that its leaders stop sulking and actually turn to accomplishing something.

The way in which fighting the Salafi Jihadis and al-Qaeda can unite otherwise contentious forces is visible in Lebanon, where Nasrallah's [Shiite] Hizbullah supported the Seniora government's fight against [the radical Sunni] Fatah al-Islam. The leader of the latter had been close to the notorious Shiite-killer, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Iran is not foredoomed to be a rejectionist state. It offered to initiate talks that could have led to a comprehensive peace with the US and Israel in early 2003. The US tossed away that opportunity, which won't come back as long as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is president (at least until 2009).

So let us hope it won't toss away more opportunities, and that Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani can reign in the hardliners around Ahmadinejad enough to reduce tensions.

Howard LaFranchi at the Christian Science Monitor reports on Monday's historic talks between the US and Iran in Baghdad.

I am quoted:

' "The talks would not be taking place unless Bush backed them and ... Khamenei backed them," says Juan Cole, an expert on Iraq and Shiite movements at the University of Michigan. "[President Bush] is to the point where he will try anything," he adds, but "it also points to the increased influence of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" and the administration's new Iraq team: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and his man in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and Crocker, who recently arrived from Pakistan. '

and here:

' "The US-Iran talks are deeply unpopular among some elements in Washington and Tehran," says Mr. Cole. "The Cheney camp is reported to be opposed to them, and the arrests [in Iran] of Iranian-American academics in recent days may well be an attempt by some in the camp of [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad to sabotage these talks." '

I wasn't so much referring to the case of Haleh Esfandiari, which goes back to December, though she was only recently put in Evin Prison, but of sociologist Kian Tajbakhsh. Patrick Seale lays out all the reasons for pessimism about the progress these bilateral US/Iran talks on Iraqi security will make.
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24 Killed,90 wounded;
Qadiriya Shrine Damaged in Blast

Reuters reports that 33 bodies were found in the streets of Baghdad on Monday. Karrada took mortar fire, which left 8 dead and 35 wounded. McClatchy reports that on Sunday night, guerrillas had taken 40 persons hostage in Salahuddin Province, in a bid to counter the operation of a new anti-Salafi tribal council. There were other bombings, shootings and assorted mayhem in Baghdad, Mosul and some other places.

But one above all took the cake. Guerrillas detonated a huge bomb in front of the shrine of Abdul Qadir al-Gilani (Jilani, Kilani) in central Baghdad on Monday, killing (according to Reuters, above) some 24 persons and wounding 90 according to late reports. The bombing damaged the dome and the base of the minaret of the mosque attached to the shrine.

Shaikh Abdul Qadir al-Gilani (d. 1166 A.D.) was a great mystic who founded the vast Qadiriya Sufi order.

An Ottoman mystic, Shaikh Muzaffer Ozak Efendi, later wrote of him,

' "The venerable 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani passed on to the Realm of Divine Beauty in A.H. 561/ 1166 C.E., and his blessed mausoleum in Baghdaad is still a place of pious visitation. He is noted for his extraordinary spiritual experiences and exploits, as well as his memorable sayings and wise teachings. It is rightly said of him that 'he was born in love, grew in perfection, and met his Lord in the perfection of love.' May the All-Glorious Lord bring us in contact with his lofty spiritual influence!" '

The Qadiri Sufi order is very important in Iraq, Nigeria, Senegal, Morocco, Turkey, Pakistan and India, among other places.

The shrine was likely attacked by radical Sunni Salafis, with several objects in mind. First, Salafis hate Sufi shrines (see below). Second, the Salafi Jihadis in Iraq are trying to mobilize all Iraqi Sunnis behind them, and do not want rivals from among the Sufi orders and tribal shaikhs. Third, the Salafi Jihadis want to throw Iraq into ever greater chaos, such that they strike at all national symbols. Fourth, they are probably hoping that at least some Sunni Arabs will blame Shiite militiamen for the attack, or will blame the Shiite government for not preventing it, so that the bombing has the effect of heightening sectarian tensions further. The guerrilla attack on the Shiite Askariya Shrine in Samarra in February, 2006, set off an orgy of sectarian violence, and was the most successful single act of terrorism the guerrillas have ever carried out.

One saving grace is that Sufis are oriented toward symbolic meaning, and physical places are therefore not central to their worship. One famous medieval Sufi, al-Hallaj, famously thought that it was better to visit God in your heart truly than to undertake a perfunctory pilgrimage to Mecca. (The orthodox were outraged.) It is a little unlikely, therefore, that there will be a backlash from this bombing in Nigeria or Senegal or India. For Iraqi Sunnis, likewise, it seems a little unlikely to produce further violence, since the imam himself blamed the radical Salafis (takfiris), themselves Sunni.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Muhammad al-Isawi, the prayer leader and preacher at the mosque attached to the shrine, said, "I send condolences not only to myself but to all Iraqis for what befell this mosque for everyone, for Sunni and Shiite, for Turkmen and Kurd. Who venefits from blowing it up? We must be patient and resigned and deny any opportunity to the enemies, the Takfiri terrorists." [Takfiris are radical Salafis who declare Sufis and other non-Salafis to be non-Muslims and deserving of death.] He added, "They have idled the charitable works in the mosque, which provides food to widows, orphans and the needy; it also contains a library, to which seekers after knowledge resort. It was, truly, a cowardly act."


There are lots of strands of Sunni Islam. Many of them are better thought of as tendencies than as sects in their own right. If we make an analogy to Christianity, so there are scriptural literalists (fundamentalists), and there are mystics seeking union with God, and there is everything in between.

The mystics organized into orders or brotherhoods (tariqa) are called Sufis. (The etymology of 'Sufi' is disputed. Some say it refers to the early mystics' preference for woollen (suf) cloaks. Others say it is derived from the Greek Sophia or wisdom.) The mystics typically get together on a Thursday night (or other occasion) at the mosque and sit in a circle and chant spiritual verses and listen to the teachings of their spiritual master or shaikh (in Persian, pir). Some Sufi meetings, with their chanting and rhythmic dancing, resemble Pentacostal services in Christianity. When the shaikh died, often a shrine grew up around his tomb, which was thought a center of blessings and people would come there to touch it and be cured of infertility and other woes.

Sufism was so successful as an organized movement from about the 1100s that it took over Islam, and there were very few Muslims who were not in some sense Sufis in the period 1200 through about 1850. From the mid-1700s, Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab in Arabia began attacking Sufism. The attacks were taken up and refined by the Salafis (revivalists) of the late 19th and early 20th century. It began being argued, under Wahhabi and Salafi influence, that it was wrong to attend at shrines, wrong to seek the intercession of saints, wrong to chant and to dance for God. Modern Wahhabism (mostly a Saudi Arabian phenomenon) and Salafism (much more widespread) have a "Protestant" character to them, emphasizing puritanism and the casting down of all images (iconoclasm) and saints' shrines.

Sufism has rapidly declined in much of the Muslim world. The Sufi orders still have a central place in society and even politics in Senegal. The Sufis of Morocco are not inconsiderable. But they no longer are in the mainstream in Egypt and are minor affairs in Palestine, Syria and Jordan. The Sufis of the Hijaz in western Arabia are said to be having a bit of a revival, but Wahhabism has reduced them to a shadow of their former selves. Aside from Morocco, Iraq may have been the Arab country with the biggest Sufi presence, both among Sunni Arabs and among Kurds (a lot of Kurds in Iraq, Iran and Turkey are Sufis and some are Qadiris).

Some of the Sufi orders, including branches of the Qadiriya, have at one time or another joined the Sunni Arab insurgency (a major guerrilla leader at Falluja was a Qadiri shaikh). Other branches of the Qadiriya have, however, been quietists and avoided politics (the shrine keeper is in that category, another reason that the shrine may have been hit).

There is a whole web site on al-Gilani and his order by an adherent.
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Embassy Memo Flap and the Decline of the Right Blogosphere

Glenn Greenwald and Iraqslogger on that memo about food shortages at the US embassy in Baghdad (which have ended for the moment).

The right blogosphere went crazy about this little memo and its authenticity. Uh, guys, I like State Department folks fine (certainly better than you do), but even they would admit that there are bigger issues than what choices they get at the cafeteria. Like for instance the mortar fire landing in the Green Zone or the bombing of the Abdul Qadir al-Jilani Sufi shrine on Monday that might well set off sectarian violence. The memo was not a big deal one way or another.

And as for the invocation of Dan Rather, why don't they look into Doug Feith's Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon if they want to look into fraudulent documents.

There was a guy named Curveball, who was far more important than Dan Rather because he helped get us into this quagmire of a war. Then there was the Niger forgery. So many rightwing forgeries, so little investigation by those with little green feet and balls.

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Memorial Day, 2007

A couple of months ago I was at Detroit Metro and two very young soldiers timidly approached me. They were changing planes there, but the airport deeply confused them. When and where was their flight? Their brows knitted beneath extreme crewcuts (they were the victims of an overenthusiastic army barber of a sort I well recollect). Did they have to pick up their luggage and get it on the new flight? I asked one to show me his ticket, then took him over to the screen at the terminal and showed him how to read it. They had about 20 minutes, though their gate was a good distance away.

I found the luggage sticker on the back of the ticket and showed the young man (my son's age) that it was marked with his final destination-- it had been checked through. They both seemed enormously relieved, and the anxiety drained away. They stood a little straighter in their khakis. I figured it was their first time flying a civilian airliner with a plane change.

They thanked me and shook my hand. I said, no, thank you for your service.

One looked up. "It's just a job, sir," he observed before heading off.

It is just a job. But it isn't. It is about the nation in a way that most jobs are not. It is about life and death in a way that most jobs are not. It is a heavy responsibility both for the "employee" and for the "employer" (i.e. for you and me).

There are lots of stories of heroism and tragedy to be told on this Memorial Day. You have to read the local newspapers, usually, to hear about them.

AP reported on May 27, on the funeral held on a gray, rainy day in Tipton, Iowa for Specialist David Behrle, age 20. An Iraqi guerrilla detonated a roadside bomb under his vehicle on May 19:

' The body of Behrle, who was 20, arrived in his hometown yesterday morning. Hundreds of supporters stood at attention despite heavy rains. Patriot Guard members accompanied the hearse, which was equipped with an Army seal on the side, to Fry Funeral Home in Tipton.

More than 300 American flags were donated by local businesses. They were distributed to the crowd before the hearse arrived.'

And there was this, closer to home for me, from Mike Wilkinson of the Detroit News. Casey Zylman was 23, from the small town of Coleman, Michigan, about 120 miles northeast of Detroit. He briefly went to Northwood University in Midland, but perhaps dropped out for lack of funds. His football coach, Joe Albaugh, said he thought Casey was planning to use the GI bill to pay for his college when he got out. He wanted to be an accountant. Wilkinson writes:

' COLEMAN, Mich. -- Casey Zylman was the kind of student others looked up to, a leader and athlete who cared about his fellow students. For his teammates, he was a motivator. "He wouldn't let you quit," said Joe Albaugh, the football coach at Coleman High School, where Casey graduated in 2003. He was an all-conference offensive lineman his senior year. . .

Zylman also played baseball at Coleman High, where he graduated with fewer than 100 others. He held a position on the executive committee of the student council. Mary Pitchford, who was principal at Coleman Middle School when he was a student, remembers Zylman. "He was just kind, caring, polite," she told The Detroit News on Friday.
. . "Coleman is a very small community," Pitchford said. "I'm sure there is great sadness, especially for Casey's family." '

It isn't about politics, today. They served our country, they gave us everything; they had nothing left to give after that. The press makes no mention of their girlfriends, their brothers and sisters, the people now less whole than they were. There was a downpour at David Behrle's funeral. Three hundred American flags were passed out in the rain. People stood at attention, dripping wet. He was 20. Casey Zylman, 23 was a motivator. He wouldn't let his team mates on the gridiron quit. He wanted to go to college, to be an accountant, but maybe needed money for tuition and so joined the military. His audits would have been thorough, upright. They did their job.

Our job as the citizens of a democratic Republic is to ensure that we only ask them to risk everything (everything) when our Republic is genuinely in danger. Not for any other reason. They did their jobs. "It's just a job, sir." Have we done ours?
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

10 US GIs Killed
44 Bodies in Baghdad
Al-Shamari Informs on Sadrists, Flees to US

Iraq had another bloody Sunday yesterday, with the US military announcing the killing of 10 US GIs.

Since last Memorial Day, nearly 1,000 US troops have died in Iraq.

Reuters reports that 44 bodies were discovered in the streets of Baghdad on Sunday, the highest number I can remember since the surge began. Reuters reports other civil war violence, including a grenade attack by guerrillas on Shorja Market in central Baghdad, which killed 2 persons and wounded 9 others. That is the market that John McCain visited with such great fanfare not so long ago. Other violence:

' BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed two people and wounded eight in the Bab al-Muadham area of central Baghdad, police said. . .

JURF AL-SAKHAR - A car bomb targeting an Iraqi army checkpoint killed two soldiers and wounded three near Jurf al-Sakhar, 85 km (53 miles) south of Baghdad. . .

NAHRAWAN - Gunmen killed two farmers and wounded nine others in a drive-by shooting in Nahrawan, 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. . .

BASRA - British forces killed three militants during a raid in Basra against those behind a complex attack involving roadside bombs . . .'

McClatchy adds that "In a marketplace in Ramadi a car bomb Sunday killed seven and injured 12."

Also, in Mosul, "Sunday morning, a car bomb explosion killed one person and injured five others in the Al-Dhubat neighborhood."

US troops in Diyala found and freed 41 captives of Salafi Jihadi radicals.

Al-Zaman makes the explosive [and uncorroborated] charge that former minister of health Ali al-Shamari, a member of the Sadr Movement, has successfully sought asylum in the United States in return for providing extensive intelligence on the Mahdi Army. He is said to have gotten on an American plane and flown to this country. Al-Zaman alleges that he provided the US military with details of Iranian funding of the Mahdi Army, of its links to the Revolutionary Guards, with the identities of many heretofore undercover commanders, and with the locations of the safe houses its commanders use for meetings. (Note that al-Shamari had broken with Sadr and wanted to go to the US, so that it is difficult to know how seriously to take his allegations; he may have said what he thought Washington wanted to hear).

The US began cracking down on the Sadrist-dominated Health Ministry last February, at a time when it was alleged that Sadr was running death squads out of it.

Young Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr held a meeting with major figures in his political party on Sunday to plan out a major change in the organization and "public face" of his movement. Its reputation has been besmirched by allegations that its paramilitary, the Mahdi Army, has engaged in death squad killings of Sunni Arabs.

Al-Zaman also says that the National Iraqi List of Iyad Allawi has decided against withdrawing from the al-Maliki national unity government for now.

It also reports that the Sadrists are claiming that some death squad activity against Sunnis in Baghdad is actually carried out by the Badr Corps of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, and then falsely attributed to the Sadrists.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

8 US GIs Killed
US Bombs Sadr City

The US military announced the killing of 8 US GIs on Saturday. The Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, visited al-Anbar Province in the company of US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus, to highlight the increased security in the province since Sunni Arab tribal chieftains begain allying against extremist Salafis. Gen. Petraeus, always a straight shooter, underlined that al-Anbar is still "not paradise." [And right he is. Falluja is very dangerous and there is violence all over the province, and the Sunni Arab tribal sheikhs say that they are getting the radical Salafis out of the way so as to get a clearer shot at the al-Maliki government.)

The problems the US faces in standing up the Iraqi army are underlined by the arrest of Gen. Shakir Halil al-Kaabi, the commander of the 5th Division in Diyala Province. He is charged with being careless of prisoners from the Shiite militias, or of actively collaborating with them.

The US military raided Sadr City on Saturday and arrested a Mahdi Army commander whom they accused of being involved with smuggling weapons from Iran. The arrest provoked clashes, and the army called in air strikes on JAM positions, killing 5 persons. Bombing a city you militarily occupy is probably illegal in international law.

Reuters reports that police found about 20 bodies in Baghdad on Saturday. Other major civil war violence:

' BAGHDAD - At least five people were killed and 37 were wounded when a car bomb and several mortar rounds exploded in a crowded market of Baghdad's Shi'ite Bayaa district, police said. . .

DIWANIYA - Gunmen killed three off-duty Iraqi soldiers in the southern Iraqi city of Diwaniya on Friday, police said. . .

KUT - Iraqi and Polish forces killed four Mehdi Army militiamen and detained 20 others in the small town of Jihad, 80 km (50 miles) west of Kut, police said. . .

Also, a car bomber blew up an Iraqi army checkpoint in Ghazaliya, Baghdad, killing 2 soldiers and injuring 11 others.

Guerrillas sprayed a police checkpoint in al-Ria, southwestern Baghdad, with machine gun fire, killing 3 policemen and wounding 6.

The National Iraqi List had its party conference the past few days in Amman. Led by former appointed prime minister, Iyad Allawi, this list has 25 seats in parliament and most of its members are secular middle class Shiites, though it has some Sunni Arabs, as well. The list had been attempting to put together a new parliamentary bloc grouping the Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila: Shiite fundamentalist), the Iraqi Accord Front (Sunni fundamentalist), and the National Dialogue Front (Sunni secular). Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the effort has been postponed because Iraqi National List members objected to joining forces with Adnan Dulaimi, Mishaan Juburi, and Salih Mutlak, three Sunni Arab leaders. Judge Abdul Latif al-Waili is quoted as saying that the list has not yet decided whether to leave the national unity government of PM Nuri al-Maliki.

The National Iraqi List's failure so far to form a new coalition is good news for al-Maliki, who has looked increasingly vulnerable to being unseated in a vote of no confidence. The Iraqi constitution specifies that the largest bloc in parliament is asked first to form a government by the president. A coalition of Allawi's list with Virtue and the Sunnis would have had 98 members, more than the United Iraqi Alliance could claim if the Sadr Movement (32 members) declined to support al-Maliki (the movement has already pulled out of the national unity government). As it is, the National Iraqi list apparently has little hope of getting along with the Sunni Arabs. And, the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance is attempting to entice the Virtue Party back in, having unseated it in Basra Province just to show that there are disadvantages to bucking the big coalition.

Iran wants to develop joint oil fields with Iraq.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Logic Lessons on Iraq and Terror for Bush and McCain

The Palm Beach Post editorial on Bush's illogic does what newspapers are supposed to do. It questions the logicality of a politician's assertion. Last week Bush gave a news conference in which he was asked why Bin Laden hadn't been caught. He said, "because he is hiding." No one in the vaunted White House press corps replied to him, "Mr. President, that is a tautology."

So here is the logic lesson from Palm Beach:

'See if you can follow this argument: The United States has to be in Iraq to fight the terrorists who are in Iraq because the United States is in Iraq. '

Hear, hear.

Meanwhile, John McCain thinks Bin Laden will follow us home from Iraq if the US withdraws its forces from that country. Note to the senator: Bin Laden is not in Iraq and is unlikely even to be in much contact with it.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Basra Battle between Mahdi Army and British

In apparent retaliation for the killing of their commander, Mahdi Army militiamen launched a fierce 2 and a half-hour assault on a British base in the southern Shiite city of Basra. The British military must have been alarmed by the assault, since they called in an air strike on the militiamen. Basra crowds said that the airstrike killed 8 innocent civilians and held a public funeral procession for them.

You have the sense that both politically and militarily, the British are hanging on in Basra by their fingernails.

Only 17% of Britons approve of the Iraq War.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

6 US GIs Killed
Sunnis Reject Petroleum Bill

Reuters reports guerrilla violence on Friday. The killing of 6 US GIs was announced. Iraqi security forces in Basra supported by British troops tried to arrest a Mahdi Army commander as he was coming out of a mosque, and killed him and two of his bodyguards. Guerrillas in Baghdad damaged another important bridge.

McClatchy reports that 20 bodies were found in Baghdad on Friday. In addition, "2 civilians were killed and 7 were injured when a mortar shell hit Al Mail neighborhood south west Baghdad . . ." and "1 civilian was killed and 8 wounded when a mortar shell hit Abo Disheer neighborhood south Baghdad . . ." A car bomb in Muqdadiya east of Baquba in Diyala injured 4 policemen and 6 civilians.

Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that member of parliament Husain al-Falluji of the Iraqi Accord Front [Sunni fundamentalist] said Friday that the IAF would never approve the new petroleum law until the constitution is first amended. He said that the party has made a firm decision in this regard.

The Friday prayers sermons, both Shiite and Sunni, complained that the Iraqi government still has no handle on security. Sayyid Husayn al-Safi of Karbala complained that this inability "derives from the [government] not enjoying wide prerogatives in its security missions." [That is, he is blaming the Americans for not letting al-Maliki do what needs to be done.]

Shaikh Husayn Tu`ayma of the Khalisiya Seminary demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops and their replacement by international forces.

Shaikh Mahmud al-Sumaidaie [Sunni] urged the government to throw its weight behind establishing security, since lack of stability will undermine the government and throw the entire region into turmoil. He said that the government had had difficulty moving forward on this issue because the prerogatives of the American military trumped those of the Iraqi.

Abdullah Gul, the Turkish Foreign Minister, attempted to pull Turkey back from the brink on Friday. After a great deal of saber rattling this week by the prime minister, Tayyip Recep Erdogan and by Turkish generals, Gul said that the government had not asked parliament to authorize a strike into Iraqi Kurdistan. The latter is harboring some 5,000 guerrillas of the violent PPK [Kurdish Workers' Party], who occasionally blow up things in Turkey [and are suspected in a bombing of downtown Ankara this week). Turkish leaders have increasingly said that they will engage in hot pursuit of Kurdish extremists, over the border into Iraq, if they think it necessary.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

US Public Skeptical of "Surge,"
72% Disapprove of Bush's Handling of Iraq

It isn't amazing that 61% of Americans think the US should never have invaded Iraq. [- Courtesy NYT/CBS.]

What is amazing is that 35% still think it was a good idea.

It isn't amazing that 76% (including 51% of Republicans) of Americans say that the increased US troop levels in Iraq have had no impact or are making things worse.

What is amazing is that 20% think that things have gotten significantly better.

It isn't amazing that 63% of Americans support a timetable for US withdrawal ending in 2008. What is amazing is that so many do not.

It isn't amazing that 13% want to cut off money for the Iraq War immediately, or that 69% want further funding to be tied to the meeting of specific benchmarks.

What is amazing is that %15 want the war funded with no conditions at all.

(By the way, that only 13% want to cut off all funding immediately goes a long way toward explaining the vote on the supplemental in Congress).

It isn't amazing that 72 percent of Americans disapprove of Bush's handling of Iraq.

What is amazing is that 23 percent approve. (Are these the horror movie fans in the Republican base?)

It isn't amazing that 65 percent disapprove of Bush's management of foreign policy.

What is amazing is that 25 percent approves. (They should be asked specifically of what they approve. The rest of us want to know.)

I won't say anything mean about the fall to a 38% favorability rating for the Republican Party. If I were a Republican, I'd want to impeach Cheney before it goes on down to zero. Given that a third of evangelicals voted Democrat in the last election, it is not impossible that the GOP will end up a minority taste for years to come.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Cheney Conniving at Iran War
Says Bush Cannot be Trusted

Shorter Steve Clemons:

Cheney and his staff are colluding with the Neoconservatives at the American Enterprise Institute and with Israeli hawks to sideline Condi Rice's negotiations with Iran by getting up an Israeli cruise missile strike on Iranian civilian nuclear research facilities at Natanz, in hopes that this move will push the US into a war posture with Iran.

Clemons is very well connected in Washington and assures me he has multiple-sourced this story. It seems entirely plausible to me.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Muqtada Renews call for US Departure

Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shiite nationalist cleric, preached openly at Kufa before about 1,000 worshippers for the first time in many months on Friday, AFP reports in Arabic at Sawt al-Iraq He preached in his kafan, or burial shroud, a sign of defiance and willingness to be martyred. See the picture, here].

He said, "I renew my demand that the Occupation depart or set a timetable for withdrawal."

He added, "I demand that the government not extend the Occupation even one day, since it has no authority to do so, especially after the signatures that were gathered from members of parliament and the million-man demonstration that came out to demand that [departure]."

On May 10, a majority of members of the Iraqi parliament signed a petition demanding a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops and presented it to speaker of the house, Mahmud al-Mashhadani.

At the end of his sermon, Muqtada chanted "No, no to evil! No, no to America! No, no to Israel! No, no to Satan! No, no to colonialism!" and his congregation shouted the slogans with him.

Muqtada appears to have reemerged in public on assurances that he would not be arrested (or killed) by the US military if he did so.

He also condemned fighting between his Mahdi Army and Iraqi government security forces, saying that such clashes were deliberately set up as a trap by the United States. This charge is probably his way of trying to rein in the more extreme commanders in the Mahdi Army.

He comes back in public at a pregnant moment in Iraq, with his main rival, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, undergoing chemotherapy in Iran. Muqtada may see an opportunity to have his Sadr Movement displace al-Hakim's SIIC. Al-Hakim visited the White House on Dec. 4, 2006, and called for US troops to remain in Iraq. Sadr's demand for a timetable for withdrawal is much closer to Iraqi public opinion (and that of the public in the US, as well).

The al-Maliki government is also very weak and in danger of collapsing, and some think Muqtada is maneuvering to have the Sadrists form the next government.

Greater Sadrist political influence, which is Iraqi nationalist and even nativist, would put pressure on the Bush administration to set a timetable for withdrawal of troops.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Democratic Party Divided on Iraq Supplemental

Although everyone is syaing that September is now the potential turning point in congressional support for the Iraq War, I don't see how things will change much then. Supporters of the "surge" will be able to find some evidence of "progress" even if it is "slow." Unless there are mass defections to the anti-war side among the Republicans, there is no prospect of the Dems overturning a Bush veto. Thursday night's vote did not put a resolution of the Iraq quagmire off for only a few months. It put it off until a new president is inaugurated in January of 2009. Bush seems unlikely to significantly withdraw while still president, and the Dems can't make him if the Republicans won't turn on their own party's leader.

Iraq will be the central issue of the 2008 presidential campaign.

The congressional vote on the spending supplemental for Iraq tells us how divided the Democratic Party is on the issue of Iraq. I'd say that the Dems voted in three classes: in accordance with the likely reaction in their congressional disctrict if in congress, in their entire state if senators, and in Iowa and New Hampshire if running for president. The major exception here was Joe Biden of Delaware, who is running on his foreign policy experience-- a platform where you would not expect him to acquiesce in popular sentiment on issues he knows well.

The positions of the Washington State representatives and senators as described by the Seattle PI blog. Washington's six Democratic representatives split down the middle, with three for and three against. But the two senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both voted for it. Cantwell in particular was elected with a very thin margin [the first time, which will have affected her view of tightwire politics]. Clearly, a lot of these Democrats feared that their Republican opponents in the next election might effectively paint them as unpatriotic, troop-hating cut-and-runners if they had voted against the funding supplemental.

Those of us not running for office think that they are being way too cautious, and that the Iraq civil war is so unpopular as a pastime that no significant part of the electorate will punish them for demanding an end to US involvement in it. But then we don't have to run against a well-heeled opponent with lots of money for television spots with which to rip off our faces in only a year.

Of the four sitting senators who are running for president as Democrats, three voted against the measure-- Hillary Clinton,Christopher Dodd and Barack Obama. Joe Biden voted for the bill because, he said, although it is flawed, it would be irresponsible to deny our troops support as long as they are there. Outside the senate, Dennis Kucinich also voted against the bill, in the House. And it was vocally opposed by John Edwards and Bill Richardson. In fact, Edwards argued against presenting the bill in this form at all.

Politicians are in some important part about getting reelected. Sometimes they will take a big risk for a matter of principle, but most of the time their principles and the interests of their constituencies overlap a fair degree (which is typically how they got elected in the first place). The Democratic senators who voted for the bill think their constituencies will not punish them for doing so, but might punish them if they had not. In the case of, e.g., Washington state, this calculation may well be correct.

But the presidential hopefuls do not have their eyes on local districts or state-wide races. They are focused on the primaries. Primaries are dominated by the most committed of the party's base. Democratic primaries are skewed to the left of the Democratic Party, and Republican primaries are way to the right of that party.

Traditionally, doing well in the first two is key to surviving long enough to win. That means making the Democratic base in Iowa and New Hampshire happy. Hillary's staff is already, notoriously, not happy with her place in the polls in Iowa, where voters have apparently not forgiven her for having voted for the Iraq War in the first place. A vote for the Iraq supplemental might well have sunk her in both of the first two primaries.

On the other hand, that South Carolina and Florida will come so closely on the heels of the two northern primaries this time may alter the dynamics. A more centrist or conservative Democrat who can hold on until South Carolina and Florida might get a second wind. Both Clinton and Biden must be banking on this sort of thing.

Meanwhile, the Senate select committee on intelligence will share with the public on Monday passages from secret CIA intelligence analysis warning of sectarian violence and guerrilla resistance if the US went to war in Iraq.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Sadr and Shiite Politics

Sawt al-Iraq carries a report that Muqtada al-Sadr is back in Najaf after travels in Lebanon and Iran.

The US military is cautiously reporting the same information, though with less certainty. It is thought possible that Muqtada will preach in Kufa on Friday.

Meanwhile, the US military announced on Friday morning that Iraqi guerrillas had killed 6 US GIs.

Reuters reports civil war violence in Iraq for Thursday. Major incidents:

FALLUJA - A suicide car bomb targeting mourners at a funeral killed at least 27 people and wounded more than 30 others in Falluja, 50 km (35 miles) west of Baghdad. . .

HDAD - Gunmen stopped a minibus at a fake checkpoint in a Shi'ite district on Baghdad's northern outskirts on Thursday and killed all 11 passengers, police said. A bomb hidden among the bodies then exploded, killing two civilians and wounding four people, including two policemen. . .

McClatchy details other attacks and notes that police found 22 bodies in the streets of Baghdad on Thursday.

A leader in the Sadr Movement, Sheikh Adnan al-Silawi, called on Britain Thursday to withdraw its troops from Basra.

Some analysts warn that if the British withdraw from the southern, largely Shiite port city of Basra, "The Mehdi Army and rival Shiite militias will attempt a coup to seize control of the entire official military and security establishments in Basra and other southern Iraqi cities."

A more proximate threat to Basra stability is the prospect of a strike by the Petroleum Workers' Union. They are threatening a work stoppage if the Petroleum Bill is not revised to be less of a give-away to Western oil majors. Almost all of the 1.6 million barrels a day of that Iraq exports goes through Basra.

Al-Khalij reports in Arabic that the head of the Council for the Salvation of al-Anbar, Hamid al-Hayyis said that a delegation from the Council met with the leadership of the Sadr Movement. They then ment with two cabinet members, the minister of state for national security affairs and the minister for national dialogue affairs. The Council delivered to the government a letter asking that it hasten national reconciliation and stop making sectarian speeches. Al-Hayyis said that this was the first major meeting of the two principal sects in Iraq, where national essentials were agreed upon and shedding Iraqi blood was prohibited.

al-Sharq al-Awsat reports in Arabic that MP Rida Jawad Taqi of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance is saying that his bloc, the largest in parliament, realizes that it is being targeted. He said that the UIA (which groups the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the Da'wa Party and several other religious Shiite parties) is negotiating with the Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila) in an attempt to bring it back into the coalition. Virtue left with its 15 members of parliament some months ago. He said that for the first time there are reports that Virtue wants to come back in. Jawad insisted that despite their withdrawal from the cabinet of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the Sadrists had not altogether left the United Iraqi Alliance inside parliament.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Guerrillas Kill 9 US GIs
Over 100 Dead in New Wave of Violence
Sectarian Killings at forefront Again

Sunni Arab guerrillas killed 9 US GIs in five separate attacks on Wednesday, bringing the death toll for May so far to 80. A tenth soldier was found floating in the Euphrates on Wednesday. He was one of three who had been captured the previous week.

Remember the Bush administration briefings in Iraq that touted a fall in "one type" of violence in Baghdad, sectarian killings? Alas, the bad news is that sectarian death squad attacks, which produce bodies in the street every morning, have crept back up. Sudarsan Raghavan of WaPo discovered that more people have been killed that way so far in May than had been in all of January, before the new security plan (the "surge") was implemented.

As if to underline Raghavan's point,
Reuters reports that on Wednesday, police found 30 bodies in Baghdad. Other major violence:

' MANDALI - A bomber wearing a suicide vest killed 20 people and wounded 30 in a cafe in Mandali, a predominantly Kurdish Shi'ite town about 100 km (60 miles) northeast of Baghdad, police said.

SAMARRA - A roadside bomb killed five policemen on patrol in central Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. . .

BAGHDAD - Mortar bombs killed three people and wounded 14 in Karrada district in central Baghdad, police said. . .

RAMADI - The bodies of five people were found shot and tortured in different districts of the city of Ramadi, 110 km (70 miles) west of Baghdad, police said. . .

McClatchy adds, "This morning gunmen wearing the ministry of interior forces uniforms raided the famous Sinak market (not far away from the Green Zone) and tried to kidnap the shops owners. The gunmen clashed with the gunmen and later with U.S. and Iraqi troops, eye witnesses said helicopters attacked the attackers and burned two cars. The gunmen fled and 5 citizens were killed and 17 were injured, ministry of interior officers said."

This newspaper estimates that over 100 Iraqis were killed on Wednesday in a new wave of violence.

MoveOn.org is urging US voters to pressure Congress with regard to withdrawing troops from Iraq.

Iraqi rice farmers in the south are beginning to plant opium poppies as a cash crop. The Bush administration is turning Iraq into Afghanistan.

One of the problems for the Bush administration with regard to the history of their fiasco in Iraq is that they invited in so many eyewitnesses from among "the willing." Gradually they will start to talk. Col. Mike Kelly of Australia, for instance, has started spilling the beans about former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He says that he urged Rummy to stop the looting in April of 2003, and that Donald over-ruled him. He calls Rumsfeld "criminally negligent."
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

The Bushies Just Make it Up: Iraq & al-Qaeda

Bush was out there again on Wednesday trying to link Iraq to al-Qaeda and maintaining that the US was mainly fighting it in that country. In fact, No Mahdi Army Shiites are al-Qaeda. Almost all Sunni Arab guerrilla cells are Baathist or Salafi rather than al-Qaeda. Probably of 100,000 guerrillas fighting in Iraq, perhaps 2% could be categorized in some vague way as "al-Qaeda" if you take that term as referring to a franchise. They are mainly foreign fighters and if the US left Iraq, the local Sunni Arabs would slit their throats. Some slitting is going on even now, and the Bushies celebrate that while not seeming to recognize the implication that "al-Qaeda" doesn't amount to anything as an Iraqi political force.

But this making up things out of thin air is typical of W.'s Propaganda Presidency, or what Chris Floyd calls the "powerful odor of mendacity."

And all along the Bushies have invoked al-Qaeda with regard to Iraq. It doesn't matter what the real situation in Iraq is. Is it ruled by secular Sunni Arab nationalist Baathists who are afraid of al-Qaeda according to documents Bush himself captured and released? Nevertheless, Bushies find al-Qaeda in Iraq. Is Iraq dominated by Shiites allied to Iran? Bushies find an alliance with al-Qaeda. Like tax cuts, it is the answer to every problem.

On 25 July 2002, Doug Feith's Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (OUSDP) issued a statement linking al-Qaeda to Saddam Hussein through a Dutch company named Vlemmo NV.

This sort of allegation was typical of Feith, who had been asked in January of 2002 to come up with material on the [imaginary] relationship of Bin Laden and Iraq by his superior (who had hired him apparently for this sort of purpose), Paul Wolfowitz.

Feith had been investigated by the FBI earlier in his career as a possible Israeli intelligence asset and was raised in a fringe, far-rightwing Zionist family. His father was a member of Betar, the organization devoted to teachings of fascist Zionist thinker Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky and to "Greater Israel" expansionism. Persons in this tradition often believe that Israel extends into Iraq itself.

Now it turns out that Feith just made up the Netherlands firm. According to the Netherlands Foreign Minister, it does not exist. . Just like virtually none of the things Feith peddled to us has has any reality. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz put Feith in a position to lie our troops into harm's way, as the number three man in the Pentagon. Feith bears responsibility for his lies and fabrications. His superiors are even more culpable.

See Think Progress for more of the context here.

Update: Bob Harris discovers that Vlemmo existed, but was Belgian. That it was an operational link between Saddam and Bin Laden and that it was Netherlands were the two big fantasies.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Starving the Americans Out

Someone in the Green Zone leaked the following memo, which shows that US personnel are now actually facing difficulties in getting food by convoy up from Kuwait. They avoid local food in the Baghdad region because of the danger guerrillas will poison it.

'Due to a theater-wide delay in food delivery, menu selections will be limited for the near future. While every effort will be made to provide balanced meals, it may not be possible to offer the dishes you are used to seeing at each meal. Fresh fruits and salad bar items will also be severely limited or unavailable.'

The informant adds his own comment:

The bottom line is that our troops depend on a ground supply line that runs from Kuwait to the various bases in Iraq. When I was in Iraq last year at the U.S. base in Balad I had the chance to eat four meals a day--breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midnight rations (midrats). If you like late nights the midrats were great--steak, eggs, pancakes. Pretty good food. Well, based on this memo, it looks like those were the good old days. We don't have enough convoys to give our troops three hot meals a day. '

See also Pat Lang's comments.

The veracity of the memo has been challenged at some rightwing sites, but whatever the justice of their complaints about the logo (which may not be original and may have been in fact put there to disguise the source of the leak), the US Embassy memo has been confirmed in the Washington Post.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Dems Blink on Timetable;
New Iraq Plan on the Ground

The Democratic leadership in the House and Senate blinked on a troop withdrawal timetable today. The Warner plan, which substitutes 19 benchmarks to be achieved by the Iraqi government for the exact departure dates of US troops, puts some reporting restrictions on Bush but essentially gives him free rein to continue to prosecute the Iraq War as he pleases. Despite now being technically in the minority, Warner in some ways is still leading the Senate on Iraq War policy. Since he says he does want the US out of Iraq eventually, this is not as bad a piece of news as it could be. But those who want a quick US departure, like Russ Feingold, are deeply disappointed.

Apparently the spending supplemental bill will be split into Iraq and non-Iraq items, and the two parts will be voted on separately. Many Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are saying they will vote against their own bill. But the Republicans probably have enough Democratic allies to pass it in both bodies.

It turns out that if the American public really wanted out of Iraq in short order, it needed to elect about 11 more Democrats [or Hagel- Paul Republicans] to the Senate than it did. It is a little unlikely that Americans will, as John Edwards proposed, use Memorial Day as an occasiont to launch large numbers of massive demonstrations against the war. Edwards insists that only an American withdrawal can hope to force Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites to seek reconciliation with one another.

In the meantime, the Americans leading the Iraq mission on the ground have some ideas for how to bridge to the ultimate withdrawal, which has now been delayed.

Hamza Hendawi and Qassim Abdul Zahra of AP report that the Sadr Movement is positioning itself to take over Iraq if the al-Maliki government falls. The Sadrists would have to put together a pan-Islamic Sunni-Shiite alliance to form a government. They have 32, and might be able to get the 24 Da'wa delegates to join with them. The Sunni Arabs have 58, which would make 114 if the Sadrists could pull it off. They would have to be joined by 24 other Shiites, whether independents or Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. Since the Mahdi Army harbors a lot of death squad murderers of Sunnis, the notion seems a bit far-fetched to me. But Sadrists and fundamentalist Sunnis do agree on a lot: 1) US troops out now, 2) Islamic canon law (shariah) as the law of the land, 3) strong central government rather than regional confederacies. And, I'm told that the Sunni delegates in parliament are mostly on good terms with Muqtada al-Sadr.

The Sadrists demand a US withdrawal from Iraq on a short timetable.

WaPo was leaked to on the subject of the new Crocker-Petraeus plan for Iraq. Key elements:

1. Back Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki rather than trying to organize a new government.

2. Expand and build up the Iraqi Army, which is less purely sectarian than some other security forces in Iraq.

3. And then implementation of 3 points:

a. Protect the local population from the insurgents so as to allow them to become independent actors in civil society.

b. Increase capacity and efficiency of government ministries and their integraton with provincial administrations.

c. Purge Iraq's government and security forces of "sectarian abusers," replacing them with "Iraqi nationalists."

Crocker and Petraeus are among the more capable US leaders ever to be involved in the Iraq misadventure, and they have excellent instincts about what needs to be done. Better, they have experience and information, and know how to analyze it.

But I think we have to be realistic about the possibilities here. The US is getting out of Iraq, if not in 2008, then surely in the period after the inauguration of the next president; and if not altogether, then very largely. As one officer quoted in the WaPo piece noted, there is going to be a "giant sucking sound" when the withdrawal occurs.

So by 2009 it is desirable that there be a functioning civil government and a much strengthened Iraqi army. (An unlikely outcome, admittedly, but people making practical policy in Baghdad have to at least try.) In essence, I don't see the Crocker-Petraeus plan as necessarily a bid to stay militarily in Iraq but as possibly a way of transitioning out of the occupation and toward an Iraq that can stand on its own two feet.

As a set of ideals, I don't find anything to criticize in the plan as presented. I can think of a lot of practical obstacles to its success.

I am not sure that Nuri al-Maliki is capable of leading the whole country in an even-handed manner. He was a key member of the De-Baathification Commission and finds it difficult to accept the need to seek reconciliation with ex-Baathists. It isn't just a matter of his character. Any old-time Islamic Da'wa Party apparatchik would feel pretty much the same. Al-Maliki has a blind spot when it comes to the Mahdi Army, moreover, seeing it as a kind of Shiite neighborhood protection committee and necessary to protect Shiite neighborhoods from [Sunni] Baathi and Salafi bombings.

Moreover, al-Maliki is very much a minority prime minister. He has lost the support of the Islamic Virtue Party (15 MPs of 275) and for the most part of the Sadrists (32 MPs). The Sunni Arab parties are still talking about withdrawing from the "national unity" government. I'd say on some issues his majority in parliament is probably razor thin by now, no more than 143 (you need 138 for a simple majority). Any 50 MPs can introduce a vote of no confidence against the PM, and the Sadrists are now threatening to do this. I agree with Crocker and Petraeus that since al-Maliki is the elected prime minister, the world is stuck with him. I'm just wondering if he can bear the burden the plan places on him.

I just wonder if there are any genuine Iraqi nationalists left who have any real political power or significant constituencies. Getting the really dirty death squad leaders out of the Ministry of Interior would be all to the good, if it can be done. But the abusers are likely Badr Corps, and Badr is supported by the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which is the leading party in the Shiite south and has a leadership position in parliament and in several ministries. So a US purge of Badr is pretty difficult to pull off at this point. Badr even has members in parliament to push for their interests in the legislature.

Moreover, the Kurdish leaders seem to me not really committed to Iraq, with the possible exception of Talabani, and do not behave as "Iraqi nationalists." They are a net plus with regard to security and the economy, but they continually burrow away to weaken the central government and deny it prerogatives.

I also wonder if the goals of strengthening the Iraqi civil bureaucracy and army, and the implicit goal of a continued alliance between the US and the Kurds, are really compatible.

Probably the US leaders are coding Sadrists as abusive sectarians. But if you just marginalize the Sadrists, you are creating a world of trouble in Baghdad and the south. Playing good Sadrists and bad Sadrists will be very difficult, in part because it won't be easy to tell which is which. And, as we saw above, the Sadrists are a power to be reckoned with. If there are provincial elections, as the US calls for, they could do very well in the southern provinces now, assuming there isn't voting fraud by SIIC, their Shiite rival.

Some of the Sunni Arab parliamentarians and ministers, moreover, are linked to guerrilla groups such as the 1920 Revolution Brigades.

In addition, the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement is in a position to sabotage a lot of the progress that could be made by implementing this plan.

Toby Dodge is quoted in the WaPo article. He gave another recent interview in which he seemed pretty pessimistic about current plans working out. Replying to a question about the moment when the US embassy personnel will need to be evacuated by helicopter from Baghdad, he advised that the architects of the US embassy give it "a large roof." I fear that may indicate what odds he gives the new plan of succeeding.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Effort to Amend Constitution Founders Again

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Iraqi parliamentarians proved unable to agree on key constitutional compromises. The sticking points included the establishment of further provincial confederacies, De-Baathification, the disposition of the oil city of Kirkuk, and the distribution of national wealth [this is where that would be done, not in the equally stalled petroleum legislation]. The parliamentary committee is asking for more time.

Al-Hayat discusses and then rejects the truth of rumors that Iyad Allawi is bieng groomed for a constitutional coup, in which he would put together the largest parliamentary block. This possibility is viewed as improbable by leading Iraqi politicians. The paper also reports the visit by anti-al-Qaeda Sunni tribal leaders from al-Anbar to see Sadrist leaders in New York

They also discuss the visit of the Sunni tribal leaders to the Sadrists in South

Reuters reports civil war violence in Iraq on Tuesday. Major incidents, not counting roadside bombs that killed or wounded Iraqi security forces and civilians, included:

' BAGHDAD - At least 25 people were killed and 60 wounded when a car bomb exploded near a popular market in Amil district in southwestern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - At least four college students were killed and 25 wounded in a mortar attack at Ibn al-Haitham college in Adhamiya district in northern Baghdad, police said . . .

NEAR GARMA - U.S. forces killed nine insurgents in a ground and air attack and freed 12 hostages held near the town of Garma, about 50 km (35 miles) west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. . . [What is that about?]

McClatchy adds that a whopping 33 bodies were discovered on the streets of Baghdad on Tuesday. It adds:

' 9 students were killed including 2 female students and 2 injured (students in the Islamic education college) when gunmen attacked their mini bus in Tounis neighborhood east Baghdad around 2,30. '

The USG Open Source Center paraphrases Iraq newspaper articles for May 22.

' Dar al-Salam runs on the front page a 500-word report on the statement issued by the Iraqi Al-Tawafuq Front demanding the cancellation of the Interior Ministry's recent decision to reinstate former security officers. . .

Dar al-Salam publishes on page 2 a 400-word report citing Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi confirming that the Iraqi Al-Tawafuq Front has not cancelled its plans to withdraw from the government. Al-Hashimi explained that the withdrawal plans have been suspended and that the final decision will depend on the results of the current talks with the government regarding the previous agreements between political blocs. . .

Al-Sabah al-Jadid carries on page 5 a 300-word report entitled "Al-Bayyati: Constitutional Amendment Committee Refers Issues of Wealth Distribution, Federal Blocs' Authority, Article 140 to Bloc Leaders. . .

Al-Bayan carries on page 2 a 400-word report on the statement issued by 36 tribal chiefs from Karbala offering to defend the governorate. . .

Al-Mashriq carries on page 2 a 1,000-word interview with Salih al-Mutlaq, who says that Al-Maliki's government is legal, and that the Iraqi Islamic Party is responsible for amending the Constitution, because it urged Sunnis to vote in the general elections. . .

Al-Mada carries on page 3 a 150-word report citing [Sunni Arab] Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi announcing that a US-Iran dialogue harms Iraqi sovereignty. . .

Al-Mada carries on page 2 a 250-word report stating that the De-B'athification Committee considers the Interior Ministry's call for dissolved security services to return to work as a violation of the Constitution. . . .

Al-Bayyinah al-Jadidah carries on the front page a 270-word report citing a well-informed political source saying that Abd-al-Aziz al-Hakim has managed to "put out Iraq's fire" by calming the situation between the United States and Iran. . .

Al-Muwatin carries on the front page a 650-word report citing senior sources saying that the upcoming US-Iranian talks will achieve fruitful results to end violence in Iraq. The report adds that Al-Anbar's tribes are planning to form political coalitions as an alternative for the Iraqi Al-Tawafuq Front if it withdraws from the government. . .

Al-Muwatin carries on page 3 a 180-word report cites Aqil al-Fariji, member of the Basra Governorate Council, denying that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has issued a decision to dismiss Basra Governor Muhammad Musbih al-Wa'ili. . .

Al-Bayyinah carries on page 4 a 750-word report on the Islamic Conference for Iraqi Tribes that was held in Al-Najaf on 20 May. . .

Al-Sabah carries on page 8 a 130-word report confirming plans to recruit 150 women police officers in Karbala Governorate.

Al-Mashriq carries on the front page a 400-word report on fierce clashes between Al-Mahdi Army and British forces near the governorate office in Basra . . .

Al-Mashriq carries on the front page a 350-word report citing the Ministry of Defense announcing that Baghdad plans to buy new weapons worth $5.1 billion. . .

Al-Mada runs on page 3 a 150-word report stating that tribes of Al-Obeydat and Al-Masu'd have driven out Al-Qa'ida terrorists after clashing and chasing them in the Mowaylha area in northern Babil Province. . .

Al-Mada carries on page 2 a 1,500-word report stating that 4,000 US Marines carried out a huge military operation in Al-Anbar Province. . .

Al-Muwatin carries on page 2 a 240-word report cites the Baghdad Governorate Council Chairman Mu'in al-Kazimi saying that 5,000 land tracts will be distributed to the former regime's victims. . .

Al-Muwatin carries on page 3 a 90-word report citing an Al-Muwatin's correspondent in Abu Ghurayb saying that clashes have erupted between Harith al-Dari's terrorists on the one hand and Al-Muthanna Brigade and citizens on the other. . .

Al-Muwatin carries on page 3 a 300-word report citing Basra citizens expressing satisfaction about the British decision not to send Prince Harry to serve in the governorate. . .

Al-Zaman publishes on page 5 a 320-word report entitled "Press Freedom Watch Denounces US Army for Breaking into Al-Da'wah Newspaper Headquarters." . .

Al-Mashriq carries on page 5 a 20-word report cited the governor of the Central Bank saying that hard currency reserves reached $21 billion. . .

Al-Mashriq carries on page 5 a 120-word report on the development of three oil fields in Maysan. . .

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

USG Defends Haleh

After many days of silence, the US government finally spoke out on Tuesday against the absurd charges lodged by the Iranian government against imprisoned Iranian-American academic Haleh Esfandiari.

Robin Wright has more, noting that Haleh is considered the "gold standard" with regard to academic scholarship.

The Ibn Khaldun Center for Human Rights of Cairo and a Kuwaiti organization have contributed to a Free Haleh website.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Chart of Enemy Attacks in Iraq

Here is a chart of guerrilla attacks in Iraq since 2003 through April 2007. It is from a GAO document on Iraq, "GAO-07-677 Iraq Electricity and Oil," p. 34. The original is in .pdf format here. I think it says it all. Note that all the activity related to the "surge" seems to have gotten the mayhem nearly back down to what it was in . . . July 2006, that veritable paradise of communal harmony.




See below for Tuesday's blog postings.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Cole interview of Ali Allawi in Chronicle

My interview with Ali Allawi, author of The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace is temporarily available at the Chronicle of Higher Education at this special site for non-subscribers.

Excerpt:

' Cole: Is the Iraqi government as it is now constituted really viable? Can it be expected to assert itself any time soon, given that it is internally deeply divided and has a weak, inexperienced, and often reluctant military and a police force wracked with corruption and absenteeism? Is there any chance that an international peacekeeping and reconstruction force could help shore it up in a way that the U.S. has not been able to?

Allawi: The Iraqi government relies on its continuity in power on deals made by its principal components, the Shia United Iraqi Alliance, the Kurdistan Front, the secular Iraqiya list [associated with the former interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi], and the Sunni Tawafuq bloc, which were brokered by the U.S. Embassy. So far this uneasy coalition, misleadingly called the "national unity" government, has remained mostly intact despite defections from the UIA and some rumblings inside the Tawafuq. A great deal depends on the position of the U.S., which has huge influence on the Kurds, the Sunni-led groups inside the governing coalition, and elements of the UIA.

So far the U.S. has continued to support the Maliki government, even though it is extremely uncomfortable generally about Shia Islamists in power. The risks of jettisoning the Maliki government at this stage are simply too high. That might change, however, and political rivals to Maliki are hovering around trying to fashion a new governing parliamentary majority if the security situation is not stabilized or more defections from the UIA take place. In spite of all the risks ahead, I believe the Maliki government will continue in power as a weak and divided government simply because of the absence of a credible alternative from within the current parliamentary majority. '

Read the whole thing .

Allawi put forward a peace plan for Iraq last winter.

Allawi served as minister of Trade and of defense in the appointed government of the Interim Governing Council 2003-2004.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Parliament Building Shelled
Iraqi Military Makes Plans for If the US Suddenly Decamps
Gulf States Fear Iraqi Violence

Guerrilla mortar shells hit the Iraqi parliament building on Monday. The air in the chamber filled with dust, but there were no casualties.

Reuters reports large numbers of bombings and attacks around the country, which on Monday tended to wound more people than they killed outright. About ten persons were killed, mostly police or Iraqi army, but including a British soldier in Basra.

Police found 24 bodies in the streets of Baghdad on Monday. McClatchy reports other Civil War news and ins't afraid to say so.

The Iraqi military is making plans for how to keep security if the US suddenly withdraws. Apparently the minister of defense (who is himself under fire from Sunni Arab parliamentarians) believes that Bush may abandon the Iraqi government this September.

AP adds,

' Senior Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman confirmed that U.S. pressure was mounting, especially on the oil bill, which was endorsed by the Iraqi Cabinet three months ago but has yet to come to the floor of parliament.

"The Americans are pressuring us to accept the oil law. Their pressure is very strong. They want to show Congress that they have done something so they want the law to be adopted this month. This interference is negative and will have consequences," Othman told AP. '

I have a friendly disagreement with Steve Walt and John Mearsheimer over petroleum as an impetus for the Iraq War. I think it was huge. And, that this petroleum law is what the Bushies really care about is obvious. At a time when the country is in flames, nearly 4 million people have been forced from their homes, unemployment is 60%, the Iraqi government and army are dysfunctional, etc., is a bill on foreign investments really the most important thing?

Another Bush "benchmark" for the Iraqis is amending the constitution to make it slightly more palatable to the Sunni Arabs. So far nothing has been done on that. Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that parliament has extended the deadline for the constitution revision committee to complete its work. The real problem is that politics in Iraq is consensus politics, and you can't get a consensus on most things nowadays because of the civil war. In the absence of consensus, people are reluctant to try to go forward. That is why the Iraqi parliament looks to us as though it is paralyzed. Moving ahead on an issue in the absence of consensus would be an affront to those who dissent, and might well start a feud and fuel violence.

The same report in al-Zaman says that US spokesmen in Baghdad admit that the US has been conducting back channel negotiations with the Sunni Arab guerrillas. One demand the guerrillas are making is that Washington must pressure Iran to cease so strongly supporting the Shiite militias with money and arms.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports in Arabic that Ammar al-Hakim, the son of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, maintains that his father's health is stable and that Abdul Aziz can exercise his leadership role even as he is receiving medical treatment for cancer in Tehran. He said that there is also a 15-man SIIC politburo that meets daily and has a leadership role. I would have been far more reassured if Ammar had announced that in his father's absence, Adil Abdul Mahdi or some other respected figure in SIIC would take over for the time being.

The Sadr Movement in parliament has threatened Prm Nuri al-Maliki with a vote of no confidence if he renews the term of the Multi-National Forces in Iraq.

The Oil Gulf governments are worried to death about Iraq-inspired militancy spreading among youths of their countries, according to Reuters. The conservative and cautious Saudi Minister of the Interior, Prince Nayef, said:

' "The security situation in Iraq is deteriorating and terrorism is growing there. Iraq has become fertile ground for creating a new generation of terrorists learning and practising all forms of murder and destruction," he said. "The lax security situation in Iraq bears great dangers for our region and stability ... in our countries." '

Saudi officialdom usually doesn't say much publicly, and often is sphinx-like. If they are talking like this publicly, I infer that they are panicked and frightened nearly to death.

I suppose I have to link to this silly article by poor Simon Tisdall in of all places, The Guardian, whom someone is using to push a sinister agenda. Yes, its sources are looney in positing a coming offensive jointly sponsored by Iran, the Mahdi Army and al-Qaeda. Anyone who reads IC regularly will see immediately holes in this story. At a time when Sunni Arab guerrillas are said to be opposing "al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia" for its indiscriminate violence against Iraqis, including Shiites, we are now expected to believe that Shiite Iran is allying with it. And, it claims that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are shelling the Green Zone. The parliament building that was hit to day by such shelling is dominated by the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and its paramilitary, the Badr Organization. Who trained Badr? The Iranian Revolutionary Guards. And they are trying to hit their own guys . . . why? By the way, the US has 16,000 suspected insurgents in custody. Tisdall should ask how many of them are Iranian. (Hint: close to none. What, do they just run faster than the others?) The article even traffics in the ridiculous assertion that Iran is backing hyper-Sunni, Shiite-killing Taliban in Afghanistan. Why not just cut to the quick and openly say that Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei is in reality . . . Satan! It really is discouraging that Tisdall didn't report instead on what crazy things the US military spokesmen in Iraq told him. US military spokesmen have been trying to push implausible articles about Shiite Iran supporting Sunni insurgents for a couple of years now, and with virtually the sole exception of the New York Times, no one in the journalistic community has taken these wild charges seriously. But The Guardian?
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Esfandiari charged with Serious Crime

The Iranian government has now charged detained Iranian-American academic Haleh Esfandiari with trying to overthrow the current regime, according to the Washington Post's Robin Wright. This AP article calls it a "soft revolution."

How was she going to do this? By academic interchanges and conferences!

I think I speak for all college teachers in saying that we are all just kicking ourselves. We had never realized that we could get rid of a whole government that way. I mean, having interchanges and holding conferences is practically all we do. We'd never even been aware of affecting, in that way, who the department chairs were in our own institutions! We all have a list of regimes we'd like to see gone, so I guess we should plan out that fall colloquium on Spencer's Faerie Queen right away!

She is also accused of taking money from George Soros's Open Society Institute. I thought only Fox Cable News minded a thing like that! We now discover that the Iranian "Ministry of Intelligence" is an oxymoron.

I hear that David Horowitz and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are planning jointly to propose an Academic Bill of Rights that makes sure those nasty academic conferences don't end up having any effect on the real world, the running of which should be left to . . . David Horowitz and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Gary Sick, a political scientist at Columbia University and head of Gulf2000, reacted this way to the bizarre Iranian claims:

' Needless to say, any institution that was conducting exchanges with Iranians would have "invited Iranians to attend conferences, offered them research projects, scholarships ... and tried to lure influential elements and link them to decision-making centers in America" (as alleged by the "charges" broadcast today).

That is exactly what the [Institue for Policy and International Studies] (IPIS, the "think tank" of the Iranian foreign ministry) does with Americans. It invites them to Iran to attend conferences, it solicits research and writing that it then publishes, and it tries to attract the most engaged and influential Americans, with the very clear purpose of getting them to know Iran better and to give Iranians a perspective into American thinking.

That is what exchanges are about. It does not in any way imply that IPIS is trying to overthrow the US government; and the suggestion that the Wilson Center, by organizing conferences and providing a forum where leading Iranian scholars and thinkers could be heard by a US audience, was trying to overthrow the government of Iran is simply absurd.

The effort by Iran's security services to transform serious and legitimate scholars into spies is so transparently ludicrous that one is forced to ask what their real motives are in persecuting innocent people, and why the senior leadership of Iran, who know these charges to be false, do not assert themselves in this matter.'

Amnesty International has a convenient form for sending protest emails to the Iranian government.

Haleh's former students in particular are invited to sign for her at this Wilson Center site.

Also on Monday, the American Association of University Professors issued a protest letter.

May 21, 2007

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Pasteur Ave
Tehran 13168-43311
Iran

Dear President Ahmadinejad:

The American Association of University Professors, which for more than ninety years has been the foremost organization in the United States defending principles of academic freedom, is alarmed by reports that Dr. Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, was arrested in Tehran on May 8 on grounds that she is being investigated for “crimes against national security.” Dr. Esfandiari is a dual citizen of the United States and Iran and a frequent visitor to Iran. Her arrest was reportedly preceded by her being questioned at length over several months by Iranian intelligence officials about the activities and programs of the Wilson Center’s Middle East programs.

This Association cannot but view Dr. Esfandiari’s arrest as inimical to internationally accepted principles of the free pursuit of knowledge. We reject the premise that displeasure with what scholars write about government policies or with scholarly projects with which they are associated are appropriate bases for their being detained, questioned, and arrested by government authorities.

We urge that Dr. Esfandiari be released from prison immediately and that she be allowed to return to her academic work in the United States, consistent with the traditional freedom of the Iranian academic community and with principles of academic freedom that are essential to independent scholarly endeavors around the world.

Sincerely,



Ernst Benjamin
Executive Director


cc: Lee H. Hamilton, Director, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Professor Zachary Lockman, President, Middle East Studies Association

====

Here is another letter of protest signed by academics, many of them experts in Iranian or Middle East Studies, and many of whom have taken lumps for opposing the Neocon plan to destroy the country:

' Statement by Scholars of Iran and the Middle East Protesting the Detention of Dr. Haleh Esfandiari by the Iranian Government
(Released on May 21, 2007)

The arbitrary detention and confinement of Dr. Haleh Esfandiari, a prominent Iranian-American scholar and the director of the Middle East program at the nonpartisan Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., is the latest distressing episode in an ongoing crackdown by the Islamic Republic against those who, directly or indirectly, strive to bolster the foundations of civil society and promote human rights in Iran. Over the past year-and-a-half, this onslaught has targeted prominent women’s rights activists, leaders of non-governmental organizations, student and teacher associations, and labor unions. In recent weeks, scores of women’s rights activists have been harassed, physically attacked and detained for no greater a crime than peaceful demonstrations and circulating petitions calling for the elimination of discriminatory laws and practices. University students across the country have faced expulsion, arrest, and imprisonment for peacefully protesting the erosion of the administrative and academic independence of their universities.

It is in this context that the months-long harassment, extra judicial arrest and incarceration of Dr. Esfandiari—which was admitted belatedly by the Iranian Government on May 13, 2007 (New York Times, May 14, 2007)—exemplify the relentless campaign by the leaders of the Islamic Republic against the most basic principles of human rights. We find Dr. Esfandiari’s case particularly disturbing because it is tinged with invidious anti-Semitic rhetoric and conspiratorial worldviews. The egregious charges leveled against her by the semi-official daily Kayhan, make Dr. Esfandiari the latest victim in the Iranian government’s repeated and escalating attempts to intimidate and silence human rights activists and promoters of civil society, as well as those who advocate the path of dialogue and moderation in Iran’s foreign policy. In her capacity as the director of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center, Dr. Esfandiari has been a staunch advocate of peaceful dialogue between Tehran and Washington in resolving their disputes.

We believe that, despite certain internal disagreements among members of its ruling elite, the Islamic Republic of Iran—as any other member of the United Nations—should be held fully accountable for its actions. Only through a clear and united stand against the many breaches of human rights and civil liberties in Iran can one hope to encourage those elements within the Islamic Republic who recognize the importance of human rights for Iran’s standing within the international community.

We call upon all international organizations, academic and professional associations, and other groups and individuals devoted to the promotion and defense of human rights to strongly protest and condemn the arbitrary detention of Dr. Esfandiari, to call for her immediate and unconditional release, and to urge the officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran to respect, guarantee and implement the provisions and principles of human rights as specified in international conventions and treaties to which Iran has long been a signatory. '

List of Signatories of the Statement in Support of Dr. Haleh Esfandiari
(May 21, 2007)

Ervand Abrahamian, City University of New York
Janet Afary, Purdue University
Gholam Reza Afkhami, Foundation for Iranian Studies
Mahnaz Afkhami, Women’s Learning Partnership
Reza Afshari, Pace University
Shahrough Akhavi, University of South Carolina
Kazem Alamdari, California State University
Abbas Amanat, Yale University
Hooshang Amirahmadi, Rutgers University
Jahangir Amuzegar, Independent Scholar
Ahmad Ashraf, Columbia University
Muriel Atkin, George Washington University
Bahman Baktiari, University of Maine
Kathryn Babayan, University of Michigan
Ali Banuazizi, Boston College
Sohrab Behdad, Denison University
Nasser Behnegar, Boston College
Maziar Behrooz, San Francisco State University
Sheila Blair, Boston College and Virginia Commonwealth University
Jonathan Bloom, Boston College and Virginia Commonwealth University
Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Syracuse University
Laurie A. Brand, University of Southern California
L. Carl Brown, Princeton University
Nathan Brown, George Washington University
Charles E. Butterworth, University of Maryland
Houchang-Esfandiar Chehabi, Boston University
Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Shahram Chubin, Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Juan R. Cole, University of Michigan
Miriam Cooke, Duke University
Natalie Z. Davis, University of Toronto
Kamran Dadkhah, Northeastern University
John L. Esposito, Georgetown University
Farideh Farhi, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Ali Ferdowsi, Nortre Dame de Namur University
Willem Floor, Independent Scholar
Amir Hossein Gandjbakhche, National Institutes of Health
Mark Gasiorowski, Louisiana State University
M. R. Ghanoonparvar, The University of Texas at Austin
Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, Harvard University
Sondra Hale, University of California, Los Angeles
Hormoz Hekmat, Editor, Iran-Nameh
Kashi Javaherian, Harvard University
Suad Joseph, University of California, Davis
Mehran Kamrava, California State University, Northridge
Mehrangiz Kar, Harvard University
Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, University of Maryland
Farhad Kazemi, New York University
Nikki Keddie, University of California, Los Angeles
Laleh Khalili, SOAS, University of London
Mohammad Mehdi Khorrami, New York University
Dina Rizk Khoury, George Washington University
Azadeh Kian, University of Paris
Stephen N. Lambden, Ohio University
Zachary Lockman, New York University
Ali Akbar Mahdi, Ohio Wesleyan University
Lenore G. Martin, Emmanuel College and Harvard University
Rudi Matthee, University of Delaware
Ann Elizabeth Mayer, The Wharton School
Abbas Milani, Stanford University
Farzaneh Milani, University of Virginia
Ziba Mir-Hosseini, SOAS, University of London
Valentine Moghadam, Purdue University
Haideh Moghissi, York University
Azar Nafisi, Johns Hopkins University-SAIS
Rasool Nafisi, Strayer University
Vali Nasr, Naval Postgraduate School
Farhad Nomani, The American University of Paris
Augustus Richard Norton, Boston University
Saeed Paivandi, University of Paris (VI)
Misagh Parsa, Dartmouth College
Samantha Power, Harvard University
William B. Quandt, University of Virginia
Sholeh A. Quinn, Ohio University
Nasrin Rahimieh, University of California, Irvine
Ali Rahnema, The American University of Paris
Saeed Rahnema, York University
Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Elizabeth Rubin, The New York Times Magazine
Sharon Stanton Russell, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Robert M. Russell, Tufts University
Ahmad Sadri, Lake Forest College
Mahmoud Sadri, Texas Woman’s University
Tagi Sagafi-nejad, Texas A & M International University
Ali Schirazi, The Free University of Berlin
May Seikaly, Wayne State University
Sussan Siavoshi, Trinity University
Stephen Spector, Stony Brook University
Ray Takeyh, Council on Foreign Relations
Kamran Talattof, University of Arizona
Richard Tapper, SOAS, University of London
Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, University of Toronto
Majid Tehranian, Toda Institute for Global Peace
Mark Tessler, University of Michigan
Mary Ann Tetreault, Trinity University, San Antonio
Nathan Thrall, The Jerusalem Post
Chris Toensing, Editor, Middle East Report
Nayereh Tohidi, California State University, Northridge
A. L Udovitch, Princeton University
Farzin Vahdat, Vassar College
Lucette Valensi, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris
Stephen M. Walt, Harvard University
John Waterbury, American University of Beirut
Lawrence Weschler, New York University
Jenny White, Boston University
Judith S. Yaphe, George Washington University
Said Yousef, The University of Chicago
Hossein Ziai, University of California, Los Angeles
Marvin Zonis, The University of Chicago

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Lebanon Crisis

Veteran reporter Nicholas Blanford explains what is happening in Lebanon.

1. Fath al-Islam is a splinter guerrilla group established last December that has links to the international Salafi Jihadi movement (which some call "al-Qaeda" as shorthand). Its leader has ties to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It is tiny, with at most 300 fighters, and not all of them may be Palestinian. It is opposed by all the major Palestinian political groups, including Hamas and the PLO. It is, according to CNN, extremely well armed. It appears to have an international network. One of the Fath al-Islam guerrillas killed on Sunday had engaged in a terror attack on Germany. It is a little unlikely that this group has any significant relationship to the secular Alawi Baath government of Syria, despite what the Lebanese politicians allege.

2. The group, which robbed a bank and functions as a small local Mafia, has used the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp (pop. 30,000) in north Lebanon as a base. There are thousands of Palestinian refugees in the camp, displaced there from their homes in Galilee by Zionist forces in 1948. Once Israel was formed, these refugees from the fighting were locked out of their former home by Israeli PM David Ben Gurion. Because Lebanon has a Christian political elite, Beirut did not give the Palestinians citizenship, since they are 85% Sunni and it would have upset the demographic balance of the country. Also, the Palestinians of Lebanon generally insist that they will some day go home to Palestine (Israel) and fiercely reject "tawtin" or naturalization as "Lebanese." Their stateless condition has left the Palestinian population of Lebanon poverty-stricken and barred from certain occupations, including medicine! If you think about it a little bit, you see the analogy between their condition and that of 19th century Jews in some parts of Europe, confined to ghettoes and forbidden from certain occupations.

A clickable map of the refugee camps in Lebanon with information about each can be found here. For an anthropologist's exploration of the culture of the camps, see Julie Peteet's article in the Journal of the International Institute at the U of Michigan. Here is her piece with some history of the situation. See also Professor Peteet's recent book. Also

3. A 1969 accord prevents Lebanese military forces from going into the camps. Anyway, hand to hand fighting in them would produce a high death toll. Firing on a camp full of civilians by the Lebanese government is deeply troubling. Note that the Tripoli Sunni Muslim townspeople appear, however, to approve of the attack on Fath al-Islam. The camps are locally seen as nests of criminality and breeding grounds of terror.

4. Although it is usually said that there are 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, a country of 3.8 million, Palestinian demographer Khalil Shikakli has argued that there are actually only a couple hundred thousand left there. Many have been given temporary visas of various sorts by Germany, Scandinavian countries, etc., and have emigrated to a precarious perch in Europe, where they seldom have a permit to work and so remain in limbo (the Palestinians have now become the symbol of vulnerable statelessness; in the contemporary world, not having a state is the closest thing to slavery.) Their statelessness makes the Palestinians in their camps open to exploitation by mafias and terrorists who thrive where states cannot operate with transparency. The camps are thus analogous to the wilderness of Sinai or the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Until there is a comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian refugee problem, this sort of trouble will go on in the Middle East. And all that time, the Zionist Right will blame the Palestinians for being dispossessed.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

The Incredible Vanishing Iraqi Political Leadership:
Al-Hakim to Iran, Talabani to US

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim has chosen to seek chemotherapy for his lung cancer in Iran rather than in the US. His condition was confirmed during a visit to a hospital in Houston this weekend. He is likely to be absent from Iraq in Iran for several months, and says he is going there so as to be closer to his family than he would be in the US.

Al-Hakim leads the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), the most powerful Shiite party in Iraq, which controls Baghdad province and 8 other provinces (Iraq has 18 provinces). The party also has some 30 seats in parliament, but that is not as important as al-Hakim's leading role in the United Iraqi Alliance, the leading Shiite coalition in parliament, which has formed both federal governments in the past 3 years.

Despite its elected government, Iraq is actually run by a small handful of movers and shakers. These include the two Kurdish leaders, Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani. Then on the Shiite side you have al-Hakim and Da'wa Party leader Nuri al-Maliki. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and Sunni Arab vice president Tariq al-Hashimi are on the margins of the top Shiite/Kurdish club.

So of the central club, al-Hakim is now absent. And, Jalal Talabani is flying to the US to spend three weeks, allegedly in a bid to lose weight. I'm tempted to speculate that something is in the works such that someone thinks it desirable that Talabani be out of country, since the idea that Mam Jalal suddenly decided he needed to go to a fat farm in Minnesota strikes me as far-fetched. But I will control myself; speculation in the absence of information is not very useful.

US VP Dick Cheney went to Iraq recently to impress on the Iraqi politicians the need for them to stay at their desks and pass four benchmark laws in parliament, rather than going on summer vacation. But here you have the president and the leader of the largest bloc out of country. Not to mention that another important figure, Muqtada al-Sadr is in hiding in the Kufa area of Iraq, apparently afraid that the US "surge" will include another attempt to assassinate him, such as, Patrick Cockburn reports, the US military undertook but failed in August, 2004.

Nothing is likely to get done in their absence. Even under the best of circumstances, getting Talabani, Barzani, al-Hakim, al-Maliki and al-Hashimi all on the same page is nearly a miracle. But for the next few weeks it won't be possible at all.

By the way, Talabani and al-Hakim were among the closest allies of the US Neoconservatives, who Sarah Baxter says are in their twilight.

Will al-Maliki take advantage of this vacuum to grab more powers for the office of prime minister? So far he has not shown that kind of political savvy. But his predecessor, Ibrahim Jaafari, did try to make Talabani a merely ceremonial president. And, the weaker Da'wa Party may want to try to come up in the world now that the SIIC leadership is weakened.

Meanwhile, the civil war continued, catching up US troops in the middle. Guerrillas killed 7 with roadside bombs on Sunday. The weekend death toll among US GIs since Friday has been 15.

Police found 24 bodies in the streets of Baghdad on Sunday. 9 bodies were found in Falluja. There were clashes between the Mahdi Army and Iraqi security forces & US troops at Kut in the Shiite south. There was a chlorine gas truck bombing in Ramadi, which killed 1 and wounded 11.

There were also clashes between British troops and the Mahdi Army in the southern port city of Basra.

Among the dead Sunday was a young editor and journalist at al-Zaman (the Times of Baghdad. Ali Khalil's assassination
Reports reach me that large parts of Baghdad and other cities are still without electricity much of the day.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Al-Qaeda as an Anti-Muslim Movement
Still Dangerous to US

Al-Qaeda, at least as a vague franchise, still exists, and remains a major threat to the US. That is, however, mostly because opportunistic forces on the American Right would use any further attacks on the US to abrogate more of our constitutional rights. At the moment, al-Qaeda's biggest targets are other Muslims.

Al-Qaeda might well have faded away after Tora Bora. It did not, despite having its command and control deeply disrupted and the capture of many top commanders and hundreds of operatives.

Why?

The US occupation of Iraq is one big reason (see below). It has galvanized Gulf millionaires to begin giving money to al-Qaeda again, and Iraq generates both trained operatives and small amounts of cash for the central al-Qaeda organization, which operates in the badlands on the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier.

Another thing that kept al-Qaeda alive was the internet. Wonderful as the latter is, it is just a communications medium and can be used for good or evil. Jihadi radicals have used it for recruitment and for spreading around knowledge of how to make explosives, etc.

Another important impetus to al-Qaeda's survival is that it has taken the place of the Communist Party as radical response to the status quo. Al-Qaeda's top leadership is rich, not poor, and it is a movement of the Right, not the Left. But it is a radical, populist Right that can attract the dispossessed.

Although al-Qaeda has struck with brutal inventiveness at Western countries, currently its biggest target is other Muslims, whom its leaders consider to be "collaborators" with the United States and Western Europe, or other status quo powers.

Friday's bombing of a mosque in Hyderabad, India, which killed a dozen and provoked riots in which there was further loss of life, appears to have been an operation by the Harakat ul-Jihad ul-Islami or HUJI of Bangladesh. The sim cards used in the phones that set off the blast point to a Bengali network. Some of the sim cards used had expired, saving dozens, perhaps hundres of lives.

So why would radical Muslims blow up a historic mosque and kill worshippers? They may have hoped that the bombing would be blamed on Hindus and would promote civil strife. They certainly were hoping to radicalize Muslims and drive them to join HUJI. Attacking Muslims is seen by the radicals as a way of radicalizing Muslims. They grossly misjudged their public in this case, since Muslims in Hyderabad tend to vote Congress, the ruling party of India.

Sunday's market bombing in Afghanistan, which killed 14 and wounded 30, was a similar tactic. The Neo-Taliban in Afghanisan (3,000 to 5,000 fighters) certainly make an attempt to associate themselves with dispossessed farmers in Helmand, whose poppie crops were burned by the government in an anti-drug campaign.

A mixture of criminality, turf wars, and grinding poverty also underpins the Fath Islam movement of Lebanon, which has come into deadly conflict with the Lebanese army.

Greg Miller of the LA Times reports that al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia is able to funnel a few tens of thousands of dollars to al-Qaeda in Waziristan (a tribal area of Pakistan), easing a money cruch that had left Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri broke in 2005.

Given the millions of dollars in oil and antiquities smuggling sloshing around Iraq, not to mention the kidnapping and ransom money, it doesn't sound to me like the al-Qaeda fund transfers are more than peanuts. The money is enough, apparently, to convince Ayman al-Zawahiri to go along with the Iraqi jihadis' preference for hitting Iraqi Shiites as a way of mobilizing Sunni Arabs in Iraq.

More worrisome is that some jihadis who have gained experience fighting the US military in Iraq have fled to Pakistan and gotten in touch with Taliban remnants, passing over to them key operational knowledge. Miller says that the CIA put an extra 50 operatives into the field in Pakistan to attempt to track down Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, but without success.

One of the major reasons for the US to get out of Iraq is that its attempt to occupy a major Arab Muslim country is generating terrorism and support for terrorism at a pace much faster than US security agencies can fight it.

The longer we stay in Iraq, the more likely it is that it will produce another attack on the US mainland. Since important elements of the US political, military and corporate elite are apparently not actually much interested in democracy, another such attack might provide the heavies with a pretext to do away with it in practice (the Putin model), whatever trimmings they retain. Former CENTCOM commander Tommy Franks once suggested as much.

So getting out of Iraq might be the only way to save the Republic.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Haleh Watch

Don't forget imprisoned scholar Haleh Esfandiari, in Iran. The link is to an article just out in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

See also Andrew Sullivan.

Amnesty International has a convenient form for sending protest emails to the Iranian government.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

The Beginning of the End of Anglo-American Iraq

Incoming British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will remove all British troops from Iraq within two years (before the next election) as a way of gaining back the trust of Labour voters, according to The Scotsman.

Since petroleum supply trucks come up from Kuwait and Basra to Baghdad and points north for the US troops, it is desirable that some Multinational Forces remain in Basra as long as large numbers of US soldiers and Marines are in the country. Tanks don't do you much good if they are out of gas. Basra would be an unfamiliar and dangerous environment for US troops, and where to get and extra 10,000 soldiers? Without them, the US mission in Iraq could collapse unexpectedly from the south. (See yesterday's posting for what a mess Basra is with regard to security.)

Brown will be abandoning the policies of Tony Blair, and the leak comes only a day after Blair promised the contrary in Baghdad (with mortar shells landing just before he arrived in the Green Zone). Blair's muscular foreign policy and perceived subservience to Bush are widely viewed as disasters among his own party's rank and file. Jimmy Carter blasted Tony Blair on Saturday for an "abominable" loyalty to George W. Bush. He said that if Blair had opposed the Iraq War, it would have made it harder for Bush to uphold it for so long. He also pointed out that Bush had departed from past American values by advocating preemptive wars of choice even when US security was not threatened.

AFP reports that senior US officials had briefed Bush that he should expect Blair's successor, Gordon Brown, to desert him on Iraq. The US officials see Brown as weaker than Blair.

The article alleges that sources close to Brown deny that he will abandon Washington, insisting that he is a strong Atlanticist.

I think these issues are mixed up by the spokesmen and sources. Brown will get out of Iraq, for several defensible reasons that have nothing to do with weak character or a lack of commitment to Atlanticism. Most important, keeping such a large force in Basra is hard on the British military, especially since it has expanded responsibilities in Afghanistan at the same time. The British officer corps is skating close to insubordination in its opposition to the Iraq mission.

Second, British public opinion is turning decisively against the war, and Brown will have to face the electorate in 2010 at the latest (Bush and Cheney face no further elections). In a February poll, 63 percent of Britons said entering the war had been an error, and only 56 percent supported keeping troops in Iraq. The first number is likely to rise and the second to fall over the period leading up to the next elections. The controversy over the decision not to send Prince Harry to Iraq (and not to let him go clubbing, either) will have put the British political elite in a bind. It is hard to justify sending British youth to be blown up in Basra if it is openly admitted that it is too dangerous for a member of the royal family to serve there. Not to mention that the political and security situation in Basra is not promising and a reduced British garrison will be increasingly vulnerable.

The Scotsman has a more nuanced view of the differences between Brown and Blair. Very important for the future is that last para, which suggests that Brown will be more interested in engaging Iran than attacking it.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

8 US GIs Killed
16 Shiite Kurds Massacred
Suhail: Iraq has 3 million widows

*8 US troops were announced killed in Iraq on Saturday.

British forces on Saturday arrested Sheikh Aws al-Khafaji as he was trying to leave Iraq via Basra airport. He had been for some months the Sadrist Friday prayer leader in Basra, appointed by Muqtada al-Sadr.

Sudarsan Raghavan of WaPo reports that Muqtada al-Sadr has made a major political shift. He is said to be purging from the leadership ranks of his Sadr II Bloc any extremists who target Sunni Arabs in general as opposed to "al-Qaeda." He is reaching out for a political alliance with Sunni Arabs of a nationalist sort, and deserting the ineffective al-Maliki government. He may well be maneuvering to have a Sadrist PM succeed al-Maliki if the latter's government falls, though sources close to him say any such Sadrist government is a ways off.

KarbalaNews.net reports in Arabic that the Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila), Shiite rival to the Sadrists, has also been negotiating with the Iraqi Accord Front (Sunni fundamentalist) in hopes of forming a new pan-Islamic political block.

Sunni Arab guerrillas came into a small village in Diyala province and pulled out 16 Fayli Kurds (Shiites) and killed them. Most Kurds are Sunnis (but not Arabs since they don't speak Arabic as their mother tongue). There is a small Shiite Kurdish minority, the Faylis, tens of thousands strong. Many fled to Iran during the Saddam period, but have come back since the fall of Saddam.

Reuters reports clashes on Saturday in Diwaniyah and Musayyab.. Bodies were found in Hillah.

Police found 20 bodies in Baghdad on Saturday. McClatchy reports numerous assassinations and bombings in Baghdad and Kirkuk. I found the following entry absolutely chilling:

' A police source in Basra city said that police patrols found 15 bodies in different neighborhoods yesterday evening and today morning. The source said that torture was obvious on the bodies. '

The phenomenon of nighttime death squad killings and the dumping of bodies in the street has spread to Basra. Basra has only a small Sunni population. It is possible that these bodies result from Shiite on Shiite violence, as rival militias engage in turf wars. What security there is in Basra had been provided by the British, who are now leaving (see below). There is effectively no government in the province of Basra at the moment, since the governor lost a vote of no confidence on the provincial council. Basra, a city of 1.5 million, is Iraq's primary port and window on the outside world, through which its petroleum is exported. If it goes up in flames, so does the whole country.

Hamza Hendawi reports on the ways in which the Iraqi parliament is falling apart. The antics of the speaker of the house, Mahmud al-Mashhadani, contribute to this perception of lack of seriousness (he has slapped another parliamentarian, and has applauded the guerrillas who kill US troops). But the real problem is not clowning around so much as it is a hung parliament in which there is no real majority and in which none of the parties has that much in common with any of the others. (The closest is the Shiite religious parties' general alliance with the Kurds.)


Two ABC journalists of Iraqi extraction were killed by guerrillas. Their bodies showed up Friday in the Baghdad morgue. The Iraq War has been especially hard on journalists, and this further atrocity has sent shock waves through the news gatherers in Baghdad. Personally, I have enormous respect for and gratitude to all those risking their lives in Iraq to get the story. If it weren't for them, we'd only know what official spokesmen told us. I fear that may be how things end up, since Iraqi journalists and other professionals are emigrating in droves.

Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that Prince Turki al-Faysal, the former Saudi ambassador to the United States, speaking at the Davos conference in Jordan, called on the United Nations Security Council to make a straightforward commitment to forbid the partition of Iraq.

Iraqi parliamentarian Safiya al-Suhail said Saturday that Iraq has 3 million widows and that the lives of women are rapidly deteriorating. She blamed the number of widows on the wars of Saddam, as well as the guerrilla war after the fall of Saddam. She urges that 1% of Iraq's oil income be put into a fund dedicated to improving the lives of widows and children who had lost a parent or two. There are only about 13 million female Iraqis, and even with teenaged marriage common in rural areas, I shouldn't have thought that there were more than 6 million or so of marriageable age. Suhail's statistic would suggest that half of such Iraqi women have lost a husband to violence.

Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that the Iraqi Ministry of Labor announced Saturday that since April 2003, over a million Iraqis in Baghdad had registered as unemployed, while 200,000 of them found jobs. So 800,000 are unemployed. Only 9% of the unemployed were women. I would have thought that the adult male workforce in a city of 6 million with a high population growth rate would be only about 1 million. The only way I make sense of these figures is that teenagers are being counted in the employment statistics and at least 70 percent of Baghdadi workers are unemployed.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Wright: Boycott Threat Puts Pressure on Iran

Robin Wright at the Washington Post has a piece online today on the growing pressure among US academics to boycott conferences and intellectual contact with Iran as long as Dr. Haleh Esfandiari is detained by Tehran.

Wright quotes a statement from Noam Chomsky on Haleh's imprisonment:

' "Now is a time for diplomacy, negotiations and relaxation of tensions, in accordance with the will of the overwhelming majority of Americans and Iranians, as recent polls reveal," he said. "The intolerable treatment of this highly respected scholar and human rights activist severely undermines the efforts of those who are seeking peace, justice and freedom in the region and the world." '

She also quotes my entry, "Haleh in Prison," from Friday's IC.

She notes that 16 women in Congress have spoken out jointly on this issue, including Hillary Clinton.

It is great to have this coverage in a major US newspaper. But I still haven't been contacted by any organizations with capacity to do a demonstration in front of, e.g., the Iranian Embassy in London. Make it Friday, June 1, and I could help lead it.

Paris, Madrid, Rome and Tokyo would also be good places for a demonstration, and it is good if some prominent academics can take the lead.

Links:

Moroccan-American author Leila Lalami has spoken out on the issue.

Also Karen Tumulty at Time's blog, where she notes that Sam Brownback has spoken out on Haleh's imprisonment.

Amnesty International has a convenient form for sending protest emails to the Iranian government.

The Lehrer News Hour discussion of the imprisonment.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Al-Hakim in US for Cancer Treatment
Sistani Aide: US not Serious on Terror
Militia Rule in Basra

Robin Wright reports that Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), is in the US for treatment for lung cancer. Apparently arranging for al-Hakim to see US military physicians was part of what Dick Cheney was doing in Iraq recently. Al-Hakim is the last major leader in his family in his generation. He says that Saddam killed 64 of his relatives. His older brother Muhammad Baqir, a more dynamic figure, was assassinated by a huge truck bomb at Najaf on Aug. 29, 2003. Although al-Hakim's elder son, Ammar, is eloquent and has been helping his father, it is not clear that he is old enough or experienced enough to head SIIC effectively. Despite his closeness to Iran, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim has been a major ally of Bush in Iraq and in December he called for US troops to remain in the country.

Abdul Mahdi al-Karbala'i, the preacher who represents Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, said Thursday that the United States is not serious [Ar.] about fighting terrorism in Iraq. Al-Karbala'i's sermons are held to reflect the thinking of Sistani.

AFP reports that "Five US soldiers were killed and 10 more were wounded in three separate attacks in and around Baghdad, the US military said on Friday." Reuters rounds up violence on Thursday. So does McClatchy, more extensively, reporting that 25 bodies were found in Baghdad on Thursday. Some 15 bodies turned up in Baquba to the northeast.

Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that the inflation rate there has reached 70% and rising. As a result, the state payscale for employees is increasingly inadequeate, and government workers are protesting their shrinking purchasing power. The government is the largest employer in Iraq, where the unemployment rate is estimated to be as high as 60 percent.

That the American invasion of Iraq liberated Iraqi women has been a constant talking point of the Bush administration. To anyone who actually knows the score, the claim provokes as many tears as guffaws. Nadje al-Ali of Exeter University explains the actual history here and looks at the deterioration in women's lives under American rule. Her book, Iraqi Women: Untold Stories is just out in paperback.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports in Arabic that Basra is still without a governor, given the political split on the governing council. It says violence spiked during the past month, though the past week as been calmer with regard to street battles. The action has shifted to assassinations. In one set of killings, 9 government figures were mown down. The city remains "heaven for oil smugglers."

Ghaith Abdul Ahad, writing in the Guardian, is convincing on the dominance of Basra by Shiite militias. I don't think his evidence for his allegation that Iran is deeply influential is nearly as good. Like many Iraqis, he tends to code all Shiite Iraqis as pawns of Iran. In fact, I don't think the Fadhila Party, or most of the Sadrists, or most of the tribal militias, much care for Iran. A lot of Basrawis don't have good memories of the Iran-Iraq War. Some more extreme Sadrists even burned the Iranian consulate at Basra. The most important ally of Iran is the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, to which he devotes little space.

But militia rule, that sounds about right.

Nearly 1,000 civilian contractors have now been killed in Iraq. The Iraq War has been an enormous boondoggle for elements of the private sector, but when civilians go to war, they get killed just as the soldiers do.

Peter Moore at Salon.com on the Coalition Provisional Authority documents that his 8 year old son recovered through Windows' "track changes" function. They show that the CPA really didn't have a clue when it came to understanding the Sunni Arab guerrilla war.

a career State Department official at an embassy abroad who spoke out about the large number of political appointees among US ambassadors, was abruptly transferred to Iraq. He had complained that inexperienced political appointees are constantly making gaffes that the professional diplomats had to run around trying to fix. The ambassador under whom he was serving in Helsinki was herself such a political appointee. He has now retired from the foreign service.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Haleh in Prison

I copied here last Saturday our MESA letter of protest about the Iranian government's imprisonment of Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari [also spelled Esfandiary].

Everyone should be outraged about this story. Her arrest should be an issue for everyone who believes in human rights, in academic freedom, and in women's rights.

I know Haleh and have enormous respect for her, and cannot say how anguished I am at the thought of her in that horrible Evin Prison, Iran's Abu Ghraib. I include below some more links on her case. But I'm not satisfied with just online petitions. Can't we get up some (legal, calm) protests in front of Iranian embassies in Europe and elsewhere?

Everybody does some things well and some things poorly. I have been pretty successful in various kinds of writing. But I'm not an organization person and don't have the slightest clue how to get up a successful protest in front of the Iranian embassy in London and Paris and Tokyo. Iran does a lot of trade with Western Europe and Japan, and the case of Haleh should be brought up every time they seek a new contract. We have to get her out of there, folks. Can anyone help? Can we set up a wiki project page and try to coordinate?

I had been planning to go to a conference in Iran in July, hosted by some French scholars, but I have cancelled in protest against this detention of my friend. I don't see how normal intellectual life can go on when a scholar at the Wilson Center can't safely visit Iran.

Scholars at Risk.

Danny Postel has written about this case at the Guardian.

Her husband, Shaul Bakhash has refuted the frankly looney tunes accusations against Haleh.

Amnesty International has issued a special alert about the issue.

Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel Laureate, has condemned the arbitrary imprisonment of Haleh.

Rasool Nafisi discusses the reasons for which the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have imprisoned Haleh Esfandiari in the notorious Evin Prison.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Annual Blogads Survey

Many thanks to readers willing to take the blogads survey. I'm told it isn't time-consuming. Although I would be blogging anyway, I think there is a lot of important web content that is supported this way. Henry Copeland has been a pioneer in setting up his software so that bloggers get a chance to turn down ads they don't approve of (not true of google adsense or Yahoo, I'm discovering), and seeing that the ads can be fairly priced (not in pennies).

So, taking the survey is a public service if we are to work toward a business model for the blogosphere that can sustain it beyond hobbyism.

Please take my Blog Reader Project survey.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Oil Sabotage is "As Bad as Ever": Shahristani
60 Dead in violence

In an interview with Patrick Cockburn of the Independent, Iraq's Oil Minister, Hussein Shahristani said that the sabotage of petroleum pipelines has interfered with the Iraqi economy and is "as bad as it has ever been." He also revealed that Iraq exports only 1.6 million barrels a day of petroleum of 2.2 mn. b/d produced. The pipeline from Kirkuk to Turkey is blown up faster than it can be repaired.

And, Shahristani recently flew to Kurdistan to read Kurdish leaders like Massoud Barzani the riot act. The Kurds have been making independent contracts with a Norwegian firm without going through Baghdad. The Independent writes:

' Four contracts for oil exploration signed in Kurdistan before the fall of Saddam will be honoured though they may be amended. Dr Shahristani says he told Kurdish leaders that any other contracts "are illegal and I will be writing to any company that signs a contract with the KRG... that Iraq will not deal with them in future." '

Iraqi guerrillas killed 3 US GIs and wounded a fourth with a roadside bomb on Thursday.

Police found about 30 unidentified corpses in the streets of Iraq, according to McClatchy. It also gives details of some other attacks, including:

' 3 civilians were killed when a mortar shell hit Jamila neighborhood east Baghdad around 6,30 pm.

- 2 policemen were killed and 1 was wounded when gunmen opened fire targeting their patrol in Bob Al Sham district north east Baghdad around 6,40 pm . . .

WaPo says that 60 Iraqis were killed or found dead in the civil war violence on Thursday. This estimate is low, since when WaPo was put to bed only 13 bodies had been found in Baghdad; as we saw, the toll rose.

Sawt al-Iraq says in Arabic that a curfew has been reimposed on Mosul and that police have rounded up 300 persons there on suspicion of involvement with terrorism.

Police found 9 bodies in Diyala Province, and another 9 were killed in violence in the Sunni Arab provinces.


The foreign ministers of Muslim-majority countries called Thursday for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq.

The USG Open Source Center paraphrases Iraqi news reports for May 17:

' Al-Bayyinah al-Jadidah carries on the front page a 130-word report citing Zaynab Karim, parliament member from Al-Sadr Bloc, saying that Muqtada al-Sadr insists that the ministers who will assume the bloc's posts be technocrats regardless of the proportional power-sharing system . . .

Al-Sabah al-Jadid publishes on page 4 a 450-word report on Al-Najaf Governor As'ad Abu-Kulal's meeting with the Al-Najaf Advisory Council's Energy Committee to discuss ways to resolve the frequent electricity outages in the governorate . . .

Tariq al-Sha'b publishes on page 2 a 1,000-word report on the sit-in organized by Iraqi workers in Baghdad and other governorates demanding their inclusion in the new salary scale. . .

Al-Manarah on 16 May carries on page 4 a 600-word report citing the Maysan Governor Adil Mahudar Radi saying that he has agreed with Iran to construct a housing complex in the governorate comprising of 1,000 housing units. . .

Al-Bayyinah al-Jadidah carries on the front page a 60-word report saying that demonstrations were staged in Basra protesting the electricity outage for three days. . .

Al-Sabah carries on page 4 a 260-word report saying that Wasit University conducted a symposium to discuss the reasons behind the emigration of scientists, doctors, and university professors. . .

Al-Sabah carries on page 4 a 220-word report citing the Oil Ministry Spokesman Asim Jihad denying a US report that $15 million is stolen per day from Iraq's crude oil. . .

Tariq al-Sha'b publishes on page 3 a 1,000-word article by Muhammad Ali Muhiyi al-Din saying that US forces have succeeded in neutralizing a person, who used to instigate people for jihad in Baghdad, by awarding him a contract for the cleaning of his district. . .

Al-Zaman publishes on page 6 a 500-word article by Sabah al-Khazraji saying that according to the Interior Ministry, between 5,000 and 6,000 Iraqi citizens are applying for passports daily. The writer says that this indicates the lack of security in the country. . . '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Chatham House Study on Iraq Fragmentation

Gareth Stansfield of Exeter University has written a position paper for Chatham House in the UK, spelling out how dire the situation is in Iraq and making some suggestions. He slams Frederick Kagan's sunny optimism about the effect of the "surge." This is the press release. The piece is available in pdf format.

'Iraq: fragmentation and civil wars - new paper

Thursday 17 May 2007


There is not 'one' civil war, nor 'one' insurgency, but several civil wars and insurgencies between different communities in today's Iraq. Within this warring society, the Iraqi government is only one among many 'state-like' actors, and is largely irrelevant in terms of ordering social, economic, and political life. It is now possible to argue that Iraq is on the verge of being a failed state which faces the distinct possibility of collapse and fragmentation. These are some of the key findings of Accepting Realities in Iraq a new Briefing Paper written by Dr Gareth Stansfield and published today by Chatham House.


The paper also assesses Al-Qaeda activity within Iraq, especially in the major cities in the centre and north of the country. Dr Stansfield argues that, although Al-Qaeda is challenged by local groups, there is momentum behind its activity. Iraq's neighbors too have a greater capacity to affect the situation on the ground than either the UK or the US. Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey all have different reasons for seeing the instability in Iraq continue, and each uses different methods to influence developments.


Dr Stansfield argues that with the myriad conflicts in Iraq following societal, religious and political divides and often involving state actors, the multinational forces are finding it exceptionally difficult to promote security normalization. The recent US 'surge' in Baghdad looks likely to have simply pushed insurgent activity to neighboring cities and cannot deliver the required political accommodation. A political solution will require Sunni Arab representatives’ participation in government, the recognition of Moqtada al-Sadr as a legitimate political partner, and a positive response to Kurdish concerns. Further, it would be a mistake to believe that the political forces in Iraq are weak and can be reorganized by the US or the international community, there must be ‘buy-in’ from the key Iraqi political actors.


Dr Stansfield says: ‘The coming year will be pivotal for Iraq. The internecine fighting and continual struggle for power threatens the nation’s very existence in its current form. An acceptance of the realities on the ground in Iraq and a fundamental rethinking of strategy by coalition powers are vital if there is to be any chance of future political stability in the country.’

Note to editors:

Accepting Realities in Iraq, is a new Briefing Paper written by Dr Gareth Stansfield and published on Thursday 16 May by Chatham House.

Gareth Stansfield is an Associate Fellow of the Middle East Programme at Chatham House, and Associate Professor in Middle East Politics at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. He has recently published Iraq: People, History, Politics (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007), and is co-editor (with Reidar Visser) of An Iraq of its Regions: Cornerstone of a Federal Democracy? (London and New York: Hurst & Co. and Columbia University Press, forthcoming, September 2007).

Interview bids:
Sam Hardy
+44 (0) 20 7957 5739
+44 (0) 7946 642 205
shardy@chathamhouse.org.uk


Gareth Stansfield
+44 (0) 776 449 9727

ENDS '

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Ding, Dong, the Witz has Fled

The reaction among World Bank employees at the news that Paul Wolfowitz, their president, will resign on June 30:

' "Everyone ran into the hallways and were clapping and hugging each other," one employee, who declined to be named, said. '

Bush earlier today complained about journalists dancing on Tony Blair's political grave. He didn't know the half of it.

Those who missed this earlier posting will be interested in my Salon column this week on "Wolfowitz's Fatal Flaw."
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Bush Admits to Destroying Blair's Career

I just caught some of the Bush/Blair news conference on the adult version of CNN at noon.

At one point, a reporter asked Bush point blank if he was the cause of Tony Blair having to step down as prime minister.

Now, when you get a question like that as a politician, surely you have a lot of options for answering. You could reply with a self-deprecating joke. Or you could insist that Blair is a statesman in his own right whose record stands on its own. Or something.

What you wouldn't want to do is to grant the premise of the reporter's question.

Bush, with his deer in the headlight gaze, actually answered the question.

In the affirmative.

BBC says:

' Appearing at a joint press conference at the White House, Mr Bush was asked if he was responsible for the end of Mr Blair's premiership.

He said: "I could be" '

Bush later became angry that a reporter was, as he put it, "dancing on Blair's political grave," insisting that he would work with Blair until he stepped down. I.e. until mid June!

Why he was so angry with the reporter for jumping the gun a few weeks when he had just admitted that he may well have been the one who sent Blair to his political grave is not clear.

Blair deserved the whole sorry circus. He went on about the need to spread democracy and Western values among the benighted Middle Easterners. If he thinks that is what has happened in Iraq, he really is hopeless.

Blair always went on about how it would have been horrible if the UK had broken with Washington over Iraq. But France and Germany did, and nothing bad happened to them. Except that Paul Wolfowitz promised that they would pay.

As for Wolfowitz, Bush declined to support him as World Bank president any further and said he was sorry "it has come to this."

And, I think Bush's admission today would be reason enough for any future PMs of the UK to think twice before signing on to Washington's foreign boondoggles.

So, anyway, since Bush admits he may have derailed the career of the longest serving Labour prime minister in decades, let's ask him something else.

Are you responsible, Mr. President, for sending the Middle East up in flames?
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Template

I give up. The new templates I tried just weren't working for large numbers of readers. In particular, webtv and palm users complained.

For those who liked the new settings, and there were apparently many, I'd just like to point out that if you use Firefox you can set the font, size, etc. easily on your end.

Thanks to all who wrote with helpful suggestions.
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200 Guerrillas Attack Mosul Police
Truck Bombing Kills 45 (Chlorine?}
Zebari rejects Pakistani Troops

I don't know if it was all hell, but a good deal of hell, a generous dollop of hell, broke loose in Iraq on Wednesday.

Police found thirty bodies in the streets of Baghdad yesterday. I think we would all be alarmed and frantic if just one corpse was found in the street in front of our house even once a year. Thirty every day, that is something.

This item is heartbreaking:

'ABU SAYDA - A truck bomb laden with chlorine gas exploded in a market area in the mostly Shi'ite town of Abu Sayda, north of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing 45 people and wounding 60, police said on Wednesday.'

45 people is a lot of people.

Also, down south, there was Shiite on Shiite violence:

' NASIRIYA - Clashes between militias loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and Iraqi government forces killed eight people and wounded 40 in the southern city of Nasiriya, 375 km southeast of Baghdad, hospital and police sources said.' [similar fighting in nearby al-Shatra killed 4.]

Al-Bawaba reports that: "At 6 p.m. Wednesday, some 10 gunmen hijacked a bus in Baqouba . . . The attackers . . . left with 23 male passengers as hostages . . .

and also:

"An apparently co-ordinated attack by five suicide car bombers and [as many as 200] gunmen backed by mortars and bombs killed four policemen in the northern Iraqi city Mosul on Wednesday night and injured 30 other people, including 14 police officers, police said."

Hmm. 200 men is a large company. You just don't get a guerrilla company operating openly that often. It is even rare that they fight during daytime in platoons (say 20 men).

This was in part a bid to release more prisoners. Mosul is a city of 1.5 million or so in the north, 80% Sunni Arab, and a lot of US soldiers have been withdrawn from it for the surge in Baghdad.

Two suicide bombers also hit a bridge north of Mosul.

Then, Reuters reports, guerrillas fired mortar shells into the Green Zone again, as they do often, but this time managed to kill 2 persons and wound 10 others. The Green Zone was supposed to be the safe part of Iraq. But areas just around it are ruled by the Baathis or the Islamic State of Iraq.

State Department employees in Baghdad leaked to McClatchy their fear and anger at the lack of protection they have in the Green Zone. Their trailers are sitting ducks for the mortar shells, and a thousand of them have been Shanghaied by Cheney and Bush for the world's largest embassy. Some are saying that the number of personnel there should be cut back.

That's a remarkable record of death and destruction for one day, from Mosul in the north to Nasiriya in the south. It doesn't seem to be about just 4 provinces, either.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki called on Iranian companies to build 4 oil refineries in southern Iraq. He gave the Iranian firms precedence.

Al-Zaman also says that there has been a marked deterioration of security in Diwaniya, Nasiriya and Basra in the Shiite south.



Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq's Kurdish foreign minister, rejected Gen. Pervez Musharraf's proposal that Muslim troops come to Iraq under the banner of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (Muslim Foreign Ministers). Malaysia and Indonesia had also shown an interest in such a mission.

I presume that the joint Kurdish/ Shiite government in Baghdad views such proposals as an incursion of foreign, Sunni power into Iraq. Pakistan, for instance is strongly allied with Saudi Arabia (see below). Musharraf also has excellent relations with the secular generals of Turkey, where he in part grew up as the son of a diplomat. His Saudi and Turkish connections would raise Kurdish and Shiite alarums about him.

But why would the OIC even want the job? For their part, non-Arab Muslim nations such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan may see potential economic benefits from getting involved with Iraq. Pakistan has an added impetus, of not wanting to see the general region destabilized, and wanting a toehold in the Oil Gulf as part of its competition with India.

A US diplomatic source is alleged to have told an Egyptian newspaper that the Saudis are contemplating direct intervention in Iraq on behalf of the Sunni Arabs and in fear of a spread of Iranian influence. This is a contingency plan for if the US suddenly pulls out its troops. The article says that Cheney's visit to Saudi Arabia came in part in response to this threat.
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A Brief History of the Islamic State of Iraq

The USG Open Source Center translates a history of the Islamic State of Iraq posted to a jihadi internet site.

' Forum Participant Posts Analysis, History, Objectives of Islamic State of Iraq Jihadist Websites -- OSC Summary Tuesday, May 15, 2007 Terrorism: Forum Participant Posts Analysis, History, Objectives of Islamic State of Iraq On 14 May, a forum participant posted to a jihadist website a statement titled "Examining the Components of the Islamic State of Iraq, its Future and Repercussions in the Region," which reviews the stages of Al-Qa'ida's transformation from "revolution to state." The statement cites President Bush in his press conference, October 2006, as saying that "America's presence in Iraq is precisely to thwart the establishment of "a strong Islamic state, caliphate," which will "endanger Western interests and threaten America at home." The author also says that 70 percent of the Sunni tribes support the Islamic State of Iraq. A summary of the statement follows: The announcement about the establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq, Shehadeh wrote, did not warrant any comments from Arab, Muslim or foreign leaders except from the President Bush, who stated that he "will not allow" the establishment of an Islamic state in Iraq. The announcement, however, he added, represents a "deadly assault" on US policies in Iraq and the region, and a "devastating failure" for Bush, who seems to be in "no position" to accept or reject it as it represents a failure for US policies toward Palestine, the Arab and Islamic world and the world at large. The first stage of the establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) began a day after the 15 December 2005 formation of the "Mujahidin Shura Council," which aimed at uniting all the mujahidin's efforts and to direct those against the American occupation and its allies, so as to become the "nucleus" of the Islamic state. Besides the Al-Qa'ida Organization in the Land of the Two Rivers, the Shura Council at the time included such groups as The Victorious Sect, Ahl al-Sunna wa-al-Jama'ah, Ansar al-Tawhid Brigades, Al-Jihad al-Islami and Al-Murabitun Brigades, and others. The council was headed by Shaykh Abdallah Bin Rashid al-Baghdadi. The Shura Council took charge of the military operations, and coordinated between the other Iraqi resistance groups, Islamists, and nationalists. The second stage started on 12 October 2006 with a pact between the Shura Council and Al-Fatihin Army, Jund al-Sahabah, and Ansar al-Tawhid Brigades, together with many of the tribes' shaykhs. The last stage was the video announcement of the establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq on 13 October 2006, and the appointment of Al-Shaykh Abu-Umar al-Baghdadi al-Hashimi Al-Hasani as the amir of the state. Al-Baghdadi, then, established a Shura Council composed of three individuals from each group, regardless of the number of fighters in the group or the number of their operations. The council was also joined by a representative from each of the big tribes or families in addition to experts and specialized persons. A separate five-member council was established "to discuss and decide important issues when needed and when time demands it." The American occupation of Iraq created a "new geo-political reality" based on sectarianism, partition as represented by the Kurdish state in the north, and Shite state in the center and south, which left the Sunnis in an "unenviable situation," and thus no role to play in the Iraqi political equation. The Islamic State of Iraq comprises most of the Sunni areas, such as a large section of Baghdad, Al-Anbar, Diyala, Kirkuk, Ninawa, Salah-al-Din, parts of the Provinces of Babil and Wasit, and more than 70 percent of the Sunni tribal shaykhs, who pledged their allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq. Furthermore, the Islamic State issued a call to former high-ranking Iraqi officers to draw them into its ranks and benefit from their knowledge and expertise. Such officers have to meet two conditions: "Study three parts of the noble Koran; and pass a test in shari'a thought to verify the officer's renunciation of Ba'th ideology."& nbsp; In return, the Islamic State guarantees everyone that passes those conditions a "proper salary that promises him a decent livelihood, housing, and a car," just like all the other mujahidin. Each province of the state has an amir, a religious court, a few offices to raise funds, and a military commission that represents the fighters and the military leaders, who are chosen according to their qualifications. The most important tasks and duties of the Islamic State of Iraq according to Uthman Abd al-Rahman, the official in charge of the Shari'a Commission, the statement reads, is to "spread monotheism on earth, to cleanse it of polytheism, to govern according to the law of God, to repulse the aggressors, to provide for the martyrs and prisoners families and for those who are in need, and to support the fighters" among other duties. In the area of media and information, the ISI considers the Al-Furqan Establishment for Media Production and Al-Fajr Media as the "only two such parties" authorized to release any and all ISI media, audio, video communications or otherwise. Also, the most important reasons for the establishment of ISI, the statement says, is to "fill the political vacuum" created by the apparent political, military and security failure of the US and its Iraqi allies, and to "preempt" other opportunistic organizations from reaping the fruits of the mujahidin's military successes. ISI takes into account three groups in Iraq and deals with them accordingly: the apostates, the misguided, and the resistance. The first two are to be fought against, and the third, it supports and guides and seeks to have them "join" the state. The statement quotes President Bush in his press conference on 11 October 2006 as calling on the American people to support him in Iraq to prevent the creation in Iraq of an Islamic state. The objectives of ISI, the statement says, are to "protect our people and honor," fight and defeat the apostates, "kill the wounded giant Crusader," unite the mujahidin and strengthen the ISI. The author closes by suggesting that the resistance shift from revolution to state may still face serious "risks" and may even fail as it did in Chechnya and Afghanistan; if it were to happen, however, it will not "necessarily mean a defeat" of the jihadi ideology. On the contrary, it may call for a "return to the revolutionary stage, and the adoption of fiercer strategy to defeat the occupation and its ally government." '

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New Template

Whenever I have changed my template it has been traumatic for some readers, and I deeply apologize.

Some are complaining about the font size being too small. I will try to fix that. But, in this day and age you don't need me to fix it for you. In I.E. go to "view" and go to "text size" and choose "largest." It is not completely satisfactory but should work. However, even better is to get the Firefox browser. You can set the font size in tools/ options/ content. I have mine on 22. And, by just pressing "control" and the plus sign, you can ratchet up the size easily and quickly.

Some are also complaining that when they click on "comment" they get the 'make-a-comment' box rather than the comments. Maximize the page and scroll up to see the comments. (Press the little square box in the upper right hand corner to maximize). Or just click on "link" and scroll down.

If any readers who are blogger programmers want to check the site and the code and make suggestions for improvements, I would love to have them.
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Mahdi Army, Police Fight in Nasiriyah
Fallon said to Oppose Iran Strike

Serious fighting broke out Wednesday morning in the southern Shiite city of Nasiriyah, between local police and the miltiamen of Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. Most local police forces are heavily infiltrated by the Badr Corps of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, so that such struggles are actually for control of the city between al-Sadr and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the SIIC leader. Early reports speak of gunfire throughout the city and burned cars, as well as of many persons killed. Sawt al-Iraq writes in Arabic that the fighting was set off when local authorities incarcerated a Mahdi Army militiaman at the village of Ghuraf.

Gareth Porter reports that sources close to CENTCOM commander Adm. William Fallon maintain that he scotched plans by the civilians in the Bush administration to send a third aircraft carrier to the Gulf. He said there was no military need for it. That is, he resisted being put in a position where there might be sufficient US naval force in the Gulf to attack Iran from air and sea.

You know that the smart, capable US officer corps must have been mad enough to spit for the past 3 years as Cheney and his cronies screwed up Iraq and put enormous strains on the US military. We have already seen Gen. John Abizaid denounce the "surge", last November. And now a further demurral, this time from Fallon, if Porter is right. More power to'em.

Al-Sabah reports in Arabic that the clan elders of Sadr City (east Baghdad) are planning to form an association to support the Sadr Movement. Their goal will be to educate the Iraq population on the issue of the presence in Iraq of American troops. Sadr City's clans have settled there from rural Shiite areas to the south, and often tribal and village ties are still reflected in the composition of the neighborhoods. Many clan elders in South Iraq have swung behind the Sadr Movement and its demand that the Multinational Forces withdraw from Iraq.

Ali al-Adib, the official spokesman of the [Shiite] Da'wa (Islamic Call) Party, denied on Tuesday the reports that he and former Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari were bolting the party and planning to establish a new one. Jaafari was unseated in a recent vote as leader of Da'wa in favor of the sitting PM, Nuri al-Maliki. Al-Adib said he and Jaafari were remaining in the party.

McClatchy reports civil war violence in Iraq for Tuesday. Police found 15 bodies in Baghdad. The head of a state industry was kidnapped. Mortars fell on the Green Zone. Other major incidents:

' Around 6:30 p.m. suicide car bomb exploded in Abu Saida town [Diyala Province] in the market killing 12 and injuring 22 civilians. . .

Around 3:00 p.m. Two bombs exploded in central Baghdad, AL Tayaran sq. The blast killed 5 civilians and injured 15.

- Around 3 p.m. a mortar shell landed in UR neighborhood killing 4 and injuring 4 civilians. . .

Reuters reports further such violence in Iraq:

' MOSUL - Four Iraqi soldiers were wounded in an attack by a suicide car bomber on their checkpoint near Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, an Iraqi army spokesman said.

ISKANDARIYA - An Iraqi soldier was killed and four others, including two civilians, were wounded when gunmen attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint on Monday night in Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. '

Isn't Iskandariya in the same area where 4,000 troops are searching for 3 captured US soldiers?
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Wolfie Soprano

Paul Wolfowitz pleaded his case before the executive board of the World Bank on Tuesday.

The Bush administration continued to try to keep him in office. Why? Why try so hard? It is clear that Wolfowitz does not have the confidence of his staff, and could not possibly hope to be an effective leader at this point. Indeed, you have to wonder why Bush put Wolfowitz into a job for which he had no credentials whatsoever.

So here is maybe a clue.

Richard Adams writes in The Guardian:

'Under fire for the lavish package given to Shaha Riza, a World Bank employee and Mr Wolfowitz's girlfriend when he became president, an official investigation into the controversy has found that Mr Wolfowitz broke bank rules and violated his own contract – setting off a struggle between US and European governments over Mr Wolfowitz's future.

Sounding more like a cast member of the Sopranos than an international leader . . .

According to Mr Coll's notes: "At the end of the conversation Mr Wolfowitz became increasingly agitated and said that he was 'tired of people ... attacking him' and 'you should get your friends to stop it'. Mr Wolfowitz said, 'If they f*ck me or Shaha, I have enough on them to f*ck them too'," naming several senior bank staff he felt were vulnerable. '

Wolfowitz seems to make his way in the world by threatening and blackmailing the people around him. Just makes you wonder.

And also, you wonder what his sources of damning information are.
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Jordanian Dailies on Cheney Visit
Condemn Iran "Madness"

The USG Open Source Center paraphrases the Jordanian newspapers on Cheney's visit to Amman and talks with King Abdullah II. Note the insistence that the Arabs don't want a conflict with Iran, contrary to what the American Right keeps suggesting.

' Jordan: Dailies on Cheney-King Talks, Jordan's Rejection of Strike Against Iran Jordan -- OSC Summary Tuesday, May 15, 2007 Jordanian Arabic dailies were observed on 15 May to report and comment on the recent visit made by US Vice President Dick Cheney to Jordan, talks with King Abdallah II on regional issues, and his tour in the Middle East. The newspapers give front-page prominence to the reports, publishing them under the following banner headlines: Amman Al-Ra'y in Arabic --Jordanian daily of widest circulation; partially owned by government . . : "His Majesty Meets Cheney and Reiterates Support for the Efforts Made To Consolidate Security in Iraq; King: There is Still a Chance To Achieve Peace; A Jordanian Official Emphasizes The Kingdom's Rejection of Participating in Any Plan To Launch a Strike Against Iran." Amman Al-Dustur in Arabic--Major Jordanian daily of wide circulation; partially owned by government . . : "King: The Security of Iraq is in Jordan's Interest; During His Talks With Cheney, the King Highlighted the Importance of the US Role in the Settlement of the Palestinian Cause." Amman Al-Ghadd in Arabic--Independent Jordanian daily . . : The King Meets Cheney and Calls for Activating the Stalled Peace Process; Jordan Declares its Rejection of Any Military Strike Against Iran." Amman Al-Arab al-Yawm in Arabic--Independent newspaper often critical of government policies . . : His Majesty Holds Talks With Cheney on the Situation in Iraq and Palestine; The King Emphasizes the Need for a Peaceful Solution for the Iranian Nuclear Crisis." Amman Al-Sabil in Arabic -- Independent weekly echoing Islamic Action Front views; strongly opposed to government domestic and foreign policies and peace with Israel . . : "The Iranians Are Getting Ready for a US Strike from Kazakhstan; Cheney Threatens To Launch Strike Against Iran From Aircraft Carrier in the Gulf." Editorials and Articles: Amman Al-Ra'y in Arabic publishes on page 46 a 400-word editorial titled: "Clear Jordanian Stances in Favor of Peace, the Culture of Dialogue, and Negotiations." The editorial notes that the talks held between the king and Cheney reflected the nature of the Jordanian positions, and its "commitment" to supporting Arab causes, and exerting its utmost efforts to achieve peace, security, and stability in the region. It also praises the king's "keenness" to draw the attention of the top US official to that Jordan supports the efforts made to achieve national reconciliation in Iraq, involving all the components of the Iraqi people in the political process. It adds that "the declared and the unwavering Jordanian position on consolidating security and stability in Iraq is in Jordan's interest as much as it is in Iraq's interest." On the Palestinian cause, the editorial notes that the United States "should shoulder its political, ethical, and legal responsibilities" to seize the chance and set a timetable to achieve tangible results on the ground. On the Iranian file, the editorial says that the king called for a peaceful solution for the Iranian nuclear crisis "to spare the region more tensions," proving Jordan's "adherence" to peace and the culture of dialogue. Columnist Muhammad Naji Amayirah writes . . . [an] article titled "Intersecting or Converging Roles?" Amayirah notes that the tour of Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinezhad in the gulf "coincides" with Cheney's tour in the Middle East and Washington-Tehran announcement on their intention to hold talks on Iraq. "Undoubtedly, Iran like the United States is interested in Iraq, and its role in Iraq, the Gulf, and the region is crucial and effective." However, such a role is "cautiously" welcomed and sometimes questioned because Iran takes part in controlling Iraq, occupies UAE islands, and threatens to use the "sectarian card" to pressure Gulf governments. Similarly, the US role is met with "reservations and rejection" by the people, accepted by some governments, criticized by others. Eventually, it is "unwelcome" since it is imposed by the use of the force and the new world order, he maintains. He wonders if the tour of the Iranian official "counteracts" with Cheney's or "parallels with it. He also speculates the results of the two tours and whether Washington wants to "mobilize" its allies to face up to the "Iranian expansion" on the one hand, and block the way before Ahmadinezhad in his attempts to assure the Gulf States that Iran will not target them, on the other. Amman Al-Dustur in Arabic publishes . . . an . . . editorial highlighting the meeting between King Abdallah II and Cheney and the latter's tour in the Middle East, in addition to the king's contacts to re-launch the peace process. The editorial notes that the two sides had "clear analyses" on the nature of the current developments in the region in Iraq, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and their regional repercussions. The editorial notes that based on US-Jordanian friendship, such frank talks were held in view of the Jordanian "positive role" played in ending the conflicts through dialogue and peaceful negotiations, including the US-Iranian dispute. Moreover, it stresses the "importance" of the Al-Aqabah talks and the high level political analyses presented by King Abdallah to Cheney, who came to the region to convey the "concerns" of President Bush's administration and explain his "problems with the Democrats" at the Congress pertaining to the military presence in a country "exhausted by religious and ethnic wars and regional interferences." The editorial also commends the king's warning against the dismemberment of Iraq, the exclusion of Sunnis from the political process, in addition to noting that the US security strategy "will not succeed without achieving national reconciliation among the components of the Iraqi forces." The talks with Cheney constituted "a comprehensive review" that can be benefited from in the near future and "an assessment of the situation in the Palestinian territories and the political crisis with Israel." The support the king requested from the US Administration for the efforts he is exerting "is essential if everyone understands the meaning of the last chance the king has been warning against wasting," the editorial adds. Husayn al-Rawashidah writes . . . [an] article in which he argues that Bush has one option, namely "to escape [into] a new war" and that the mission of Cheney in the region "is to pave the way for a new war decision against Iran." Al-Rawashidah notes that the statements of the US Administration, Cheney's tour, and the diplomatic moves witnessed by the region affirm that there is a "surprise" or "an adventure" being prepared for. He adds that "exit doors have already been opened for a new war against Iran" and that Washington and Israel will accomplish the mission exactly as they did in Iraq at the beginning of the 1990s. Amman Al-Ghadd in Arabic publishes on page 36 a 300-word article by Ibrahim al-Zu'bi, who praises the "civilized, dynamic, and proficient Jordanian diplomacy, its interaction with the events and national aspirations, and harmony with regional, national, international, and continental issues." The article adds that Amman appears as "a cornerstone in the multi-dimensional multi-purpose equation" as iIt declares its stances and continues to glimmer and attract the attention as "an active partner at the international level." The Jordanian diplomacy "succeeded in winning the confidence of the world, giving Jordan the right rank on the map of international events," he adds. Iran in Arabic letters written to resemble USA in Engish Amman Al-Arab al-Yawm in Arabic: Columnist Fahd Khitan writes on page 3 a 350-word article entitled: "Cheney: A Disappointing Tour in the Region": Khitan says that the vice president left the region yesterday after a "disappointing" tour in four Washington-allied Arab countries. He adds that the meeting between the King and Cheney included "a comprehensive review and assessment" of the situation in the region; however the two sides "seemed to be addressing different interests and agendas." He notes that Jordan's king informed Cheney that Jordan opposes any military action against Iran, declines to take part in or support such an offensive, and that it holds on to finding peaceful solutions for the crisis. Khitan notes that Cheney's tour in the region "has failed to gain Arab support, since nobody is willing to take part in the Bush Administration's failure in Iraq or its madness towards Iran." Amman Al-Sabil in Arabic: In his 400-word article on page 24, columnist Amjad al-Absi notes that Cheney began his visit to the region by "voicing concerns" over Iran to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Jordan. He adds that Cheney warned Al-Maliki that Washington's patience is "running out," giving assurances to the "Arab Quartet" on Iraq in light of Al-Maliki's "failure" to achieve national reconciliation, in addition to keeping the Palestinian file in Riyadh, thus bringing the Arab diplomacy to a "to a stand still." He adds that Bush earlier noted that Cheney's visit to the regions aims "to reinforce the front" against Iran and that Cheney will confirm to Washington's allies that the United States is aware of the consequences if Iran succeeds in possessing a nuclear weapon. The article notes that Cheney was welcomed in Iraq by the "resistance with a barrage of shells fired at the Green Zone." "On board of the same aircraft carrier he visited in 2002 seeking regional cover to invade Iraq, Cheney called on the Gulf states to join the US plan to confront Iran." He also noted that his country will not allow Iran to control the region, he adds. '

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Lawrence Wright's Play
"My Trip to Al-Qaeda"

Don't Miss the Special Engagement of Pulitzer Prize-Winner Lawrence Wright's My Trip To Al-Qaeda

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- May 10, 2007

MY TRIP TO AL-QAEDA ENCORE

Following a sold-out seven-week run at our Mercer Street theater and the recent announcement of Mr. Wright's Pulitzer Prize for The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, Culture Project presents an encore special engagement of My Trip To Al-Qaeda.

Lawrence Wright - arguably the man who knows more about Al-Qaeda than any other American - uses facts, figures, and PowerPoint to bring his universally acclaimed, Pulitzer-Prize winning The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (a national best seller and one of the The New York Times Book Review's "Top 10 Books of 2006") to the stage in My Trip to Al-Qaeda.

LIMITED ENGAGEMENT, JUNE 5 and 6 ONLY at Town Hall (123 West 43rd Street)

Ticketmaster.com - 212 307 4100 For premium, patron, and VIP seats, call 212 925 1806 or write willow a t cultureproject.org

Smarttix patrons, use code:

JSMART

$35 Orchestra Tickets & $25 Balcony Tickets Regular tickets are $40 - These seats will not last! Good for the two performances of My Trip to Al Qaeda (June 5th and 6th) No cut off date for purchase!

Mr. Wright is an author, screenwriter, and staff writer for The New Yorker. He co-wrote The Siege, starring Denzel Washington, Bruce Willis, and Annette Bening, and wrote the Noreiga: God's Favorite , among others. Mr. Wright is currently working on a script about John O'Neill, the former head of the FBI's office of counter-terrorism in New York, who died on 9/11. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

In addition to the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, The Looming Tower has also garnered Mr. Wright The Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History and The J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize.

Critical acclaim for My Trip To Al-Qaeda:

"An engaging theatrical seminar on the rise of Islamic terrorism... his firsthand testimony will be hard to shake from the memory." -- The New York Times

"An intensely engaging presentation with an enormously knowledgeable authority on Al-Qaeda." -- The New York Sun

"Wright has a compelling perspective on an important issue of our time and shows how America's policy of torture is self-defeating, shocking, immoral, and plays into the hands of the people we're fighting. Worthwhile for anybody with a political conscience." -- Theatermania.com

"A master class that raises fundamental questions: What is Islam, and what is America?" -- NPR

How To Order On Line: Ticketmaster By Phone: 212-307-4100 Use Code: JSMART Venue Information

Town Hall 123 West 43rd St New York, NY 10036

Terms and Limitations: This offer is valid for new purchases only and is subject to availability. This offer may be revoked at any time and may not be combined with other offers. Limit 8 tickets per order and normal service charges apply.

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Abdullah II to Cheney:
Israeli-Palestinian Problem Linked to Iraq
5 US GIs Killed
Massive Manhunt for 3 Captured GIs

Sunni Arab guerrillas killed 5 US soldiers on Monday, and Shiite militiamen in the south killed a Danish soldier and wounded 5 others with a roadside bomb.

Steve Clemons meditates on the death of Lt. Andrew J. Bacevich, son of Boston University Professor Andrew J. Bacevich-- a thoughtful critic of Bush's War. (Indeed, if Alaska was "Seward's Icebox," surely Iraq is "Bush's Inferno.") Those of us who have a son or daughter of that age can imagine at least a fraction of the anguish Professor Bacevich is going through at this moment.

The fabled Tigris of the Fertile Crescent, said by some to have watered the Garden of Eden, has become the Styx, a river of death and corpses, with Bush and Cheney playing Charon. Some of the 14,000 Iraqis who disappear without a trace no doubt make the journey, not to the other side, but straight to the bottom.

Bacevich, no less than Walt Whitman, is our courage-teacher, reminding us of a lost America of vitality and backbone:

[Allen Ginsberg, "A Supermarket in California,":

"Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?"

If Iraq is menaced by the river of death, America is threatened by the river of oblivion. How many Americans feel the reality of the carnage in Iraq, the sorrow of Lt. Bacevich's being taken from his parents? As Ginsberg saw, it is the opulent supermarket that preoccupies us, not the epic vision of a Whitman. The oblivion is being helped along by an Iraqi Interior Ministry that is reportedly forbidding photo journalists to take pictures of the aftermath of bombings, and by a US military that seems intent on severing public access to the online blogs of soldiers. I'm told my own site is no longer available to the US military in Iraq.

The Islamic State of Iraq, a Salafi Jihadi organization mainly made up of Iraqi Sunni religious nationalists, said they had captured the 3 missing US soldiers and that the current US sweep in the Mahmudiya area would endanger their lives.

Some 52 Iraqis were killed in political violence or found dead in Iraq on Monday, mostly in Baghdad itself. Reuters gives details. 17 bodies were found in Baghdad and 5 in Mosul. Those were the ones that hadn't been thrown into the Tigris. McClatchy reports the violence in the provinces, including Salahuddin and Basra.

The deployment of 4,000 US troops to search for 3 captured GIs, however honorable and necessary, underscores the increasing futility of the US military presence in Iraq. If they were truly doing essential counter-insurgency, then there shouldn't be a spare 4,000 troops for a search mission. The guerrillas are not resting on their mortar shells, after all. And, that the main mission of the 4,000 should be to find their captured colleagues is tragic. The guerrillas can tie down an entire brigade or two any time they like by grabbing some exposed GIs? What kind of a military mission does that imply? As for the idea apparently prevalent among some US military personnel that the good people of the Triangle of Death will like the Americans more if only they see them searching through their underthings in their dresser drawers looking for bomb parts, surely you jest.

McClatchy wire service on how Iraqi ethno-religious political feuding has derailed Bush's 4 benchmarks.

Al-Zaman writing in Arabic makes similar points, saying that disputes over the status of Kirkuk, over whether there will be further provincial confederacies, and whether the De-Baathification laws will be revised and made less harsh, have all delayed work on revising the Iraqi constitution. (As it now stands, the constitution gives away Kirkuk to the Kurdistan Regional Government in a referendum this year; recognizes the right of provinces to pull together into confederacies, and prescribes De-Baathification).

VP Dick Cheney was pressed by his Arab allies, including King Abdullah II of Jordan, to ensure that the Sunni Arabs in Iraq get a better deal.

They also pointed out to him yet again that the US will never amount to anything in the Arab world as long as it goes on coddling the Israeli Right and stonewalling a just settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (in which so far the Israelis have been playing the game of what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine). Guerrillas and demagogues in Iraq will always be able to whip up anti-US sentiment by pointing to Washington's complicity in crushing the Palestinians and starving their children, and such issues have gotten our troops killed. It is not entirely clear why we should martyr American soldiers to the frankly fascist ideas of Vladimir Jabotinsky.

Deputy National Security Council adviser Elliott Abrams, a convicted perjurer who should not be holding high office, let slip recently that the Bush administration is not actually doing anything on the Arab-Israeli peace process, and any appearance that it is is just for show, to mollify the outraged Europeans and Middle Easterners (i.e. everyone in the world outside rightwing Zionists, whether Jewish or Christian). See also the evidence of US maneuvering to sink the elected Hamas government.

In case you missed it, I posted some passages showing what the Jordanian newspapers really thought of Cheney's visit here.

For a trip down memory lane, see my posting on Cheney's similar Middle East trip of April, 2002.

President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt warned Cheney against an Iraq War and said that it would produce a hundred Bin Ladens! Abdullah II spoke of the "apocalyptic" consequences and worried that the region would go up in flames. So were these leaders of the region right in 2002, or was smarty pants CIA-operative-betrayer Cheney? He'll be hunting quail in Texas in a year and a half, and Abdullah II will have to deal with a million extra residents in his country-- displaced Iraqis. Jordan only has 5.2 million citizens. And, Cheney won't be helping Jordan deal with the burden on services or with feeding the Iraqi refugees he helped create. It will just be Abdullah II and a volatile situation that could explode, just as did the Palestinian refugee problem created by Israeli expulsions and land expropriation in 1948 and 1967.
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Cole on L'Affaire Wolfowitz

My column, "Wolfowitz's Fatal Flaw," is available at Salon.com.

Excerpt:

' The small morality play unfolding at the World Bank tells us something significant about how the United States became bogged down in the Iraq quagmire when Wolfowitz was highly influential at the Department of Defense. The simple fact is that Wolfowitz has throughout his entire career demonstrated a penchant for cronyism and for smearing and marginalizing perceived rivals as tactics for getting his way. He has been arrogant and highhanded in dismissing the views of wiser and more informed experts, exhibiting a narcissism that is also apparent in his personal life. Indeed, these tactics are typical of what might be called the "neoconservative style." '

Read the whole thing.

See also Patrick Cockburn, "America's Long Iraq Nightmare."

Note that since Salon is giving away a book with the subscription, it is virtually free, and it wasn't that much to begin with (like 5 cups of Starbucks.)
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

137 Killed by Guerrillas
US to Talk to Iran

In a tidal wave of violence, 137 persons were killed or found dead in Iraq on Sunday.

Thousands of US troops searched south of Baghdad for 3 captured GIs. The Islamic State of Iraq (a guerrilla group) claimed to have been behind the ambush of two humvees full of US soldiers, which killed 5 of them and a translator. Three troops remain unaccounted for. US military personnel are systematically searching houses in Mahmudiya and elsewhere, which will have the unfortunate effect of further alienating the local population.

Sunni Arab guerrillas set off a massive bomb in front of the HQ of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in the small town of Makhmur southeast of Mosul. The KDP was holding a security conference at the time, and police and judicial officials were among the 67 dead and 70 wounded (Al-Hayat in Arabic]. The town falls in Ninevah Province, on the border with Iraqi Kurdistan. Some nationalistic Kurds have made a map that shows Kurdistan annexing parts of provinces where there are substantial Kurdish populations, including parts of Ninevah. Moreover, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters have been deployed for security purposes by provincial authorities. So it seems likely that the Sunni Arab attack had several goals. It stopped the security conference, it struck at Kurdish Peshmerga helping with the imposition of security and fighting the guerrillas, and it marked Ninevah as an Arab province where Kurds are imperilled. The guerrillas probably hope that Kurdish families will desert Makhmur and move to Irbil, thus forestalling the plans of Kurdish nationalists to annex parts of Ninevah.

In Baghdad, Sunni Arab guerrillas set off a bomb at the Sadriya Market in a largely Shiite area, killing 17 and wounding 48.

Another bomb killed 4 and wounded 17 in Baghdad. There was also violence at Mahmudiya and in Kirkuk.

Liz Sly of the Chicago Tribune examines the lack of progress toward Bush's 4 benchmarks in the Iraqi parliament. She finds that it is capable of being decisive in defending Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani from Aljazeera and in forbidding US troops to approach the Kadhimiya shrine of the 7th Imam. But benchmarks? Not so much.

Bush will allow the US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, to talk directly to the Iranians about Iraq security, and the Iranians have agreed to open this channel. But former ambassador James Dobbins points out that Crocker as ambassador is not really a policy maker, so that the contact is fairly low-level. He thinks this problem points to a likely dispute within the Bush administration about how and if to proceed with talks with Iran. If they had made up their minds, then Secretary of State Condi Rice would be talking directly to Tehran.

Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki pledged to send more Iraqi troops to troubled Diyala Province, the site of daily carnage. But al-Maliki sent troops last fall, and they were mostly Shiite troops, and Diyala is 60% Sunni Arab. Because Sunni Arabs boycotted the January 2005 provincial elections, Diyala is run by the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a Shiite party. A lot of the police are Badr Corps, the SIIC paramilitary. So Shiites trying to run a majority Sunni province is already one of the big problems. Sending Shiite troops loyal to al-Maliki is unlikely to settle things down.

Sawt al-Iraq, writing in Arabic, reports that the Da'wa Party Conference elected Nuri al-Maliki to be the secretary general of the Party as well as prime minister. His opponent for the post was the former prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari, who appears to have withdrawn from the fray late in the process.

The same reports ays that the Fadhila Party (Virtue) is putting forward suggestions for political reform. They want early elections, and a change to the electoral law to allow "open" lists.

Eminent historian Avi Shlaim on Blair's illegal Iraq War.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Cheney in Saudi Arabia
5 US Troops Killed, 3 Missing
Iraqi Parliament Decries Walls

Cheney is trying to convince King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia not to write off the al-Maliki government or the US military surge strategy. He also tried to smooth over US/Saudi conflicts. King Abdullah is said to have concluded that Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki is an Iranian puppet and a weak leader unwilling or unable to reconcile with Iraq's Sunni Arabs. Saudi Arabia champions Sunni interests.

Sunni Arab guerrillas attacked a small US convoy 20 km south of Baghdad, killing 5 GIs and a translator. Three US soldiers are missing and a search is on for them. The unit was apparently out there all by itself, 45 minutes away from reinforcements. This sort of incident underlines how little the US military controls much of Iraq.

Police found 17 bodies in Baghdad on Saturday. McClatchy adds, "Around 9 a.m., a roadside bomb exploded in the Amiriya neighborhood, targeting civilians. Among the injured civilians was the son of Iraqi vice president Tariq al-Hashimi."

The Iraqi Parliament on Saturday passed by 138 to 88 a resolution demanding an end to the building of security walls around Baghdad neighborhoods. The walls were interpreted by many Iraqis as an American attempt to divide and rule them.

Along the same lines, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim on Saturday called for a Status of Forces agreement to be concluded between the Iraqi government and the US military. To date, there has been no such SOFA and therefore the status of many of the actions of the US military in Iraq is ambiguous.

Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that the Basra provincial council is still awaiting the commission that the federal parliament promised to send out to try to resolve the crisis in Basra's provincial government. The governor of Basra, Muhammad Misbah al-Wa'ili, lost a vote of confidence on the council two weeks ago, but contests the legitimacy of the vote. No new governor has been chosen. This article says that the provincial council is plagued by absenteeism. It alleges that some members from the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council are in Iran, while other members have fled to Kuwait. Basra is Iraq's main petroleum exporting area nowadays, and for it to function very long without a government seems unlikely. And if Basra falls apart, so does Iraq.

Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic on the reorganization of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. It notes that one of the planks of the party is to oppose any reinstatement of Baathists.

Making the debaathification regulations and procedures less harsh for the purposes of national reconciliation (most high Baathists had been Sunni Arabs) is one of the 4 benchmarks laid down by Bush in January for the al-Maliki government. I wouldn't count on it.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Jordanian Dailies on Cheney's Middle East Trip

The USG Open Source Center paraphrases reports in the Jordanian press on US Vice President Dick Cheney's current round of diplomacy in the Middle East.

Jordanian Dailies Comment on Cheney's Middle East Tour, Objectives Jordan -- OSC Summary Friday, May 11, 2007 Jordanian newspapers published on 10 May are observed to carry the following commentaries on the recent tour by US Vice President Dick Cheney to the Middle East, particularly to Iraq. In a 300-word article on page 28 of Amman Al-Ra'y in Arabic, Jordanian daily of widest circulation; partially owned by government; Internet version also available at [al-Ra'i], columnist Fahd al-Fanik commenting on Dick Cheney's tour of the Middle East under the headline "What Does Cheney Want?" says: "The US Administration under Bush and his Vice President Cheney has lost credibility and Cheney in particular is no longer taken seriously even in his country. Now he hopes to be taken seriously in the Middle East where he has committed the biggest mistake of attacking Iraq and destroying an independent country that had nothing to do with terrorism." The article adds: "If Cheney wants to instigate the Arab countries against Iran, his mission will backfire because he will be serving Iran by portraying it as a counter force of the United States. The Arab countries fear Iran for Arab and not US reasons unless Cheney's task is to mobilize the Arab people against the regime of the Mullas in Tehran." The article adds: "If Cheney seeks the Arab countries cooperation, he must employ his influence in Israel to seek a just and comprehensive solution for the Palestinian cause in accordance with the Arab initiative and the road map because the Israeli threat is concrete and is embodied in the never-ending occupation of the Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese territories while the Iranian threat is just a possibility that calls for alertness but has no priority." The article says: "Cheney cannot expect the Arabs to give up their priorities and replace them with the US priorities, for we know that the United States is courting Iran and wishes to conclude a deal with it at the expense of Iraq and the Arab world." As for Amman Al-Arab al-Yawm in Arabic, independent newspaper often critical of government policies; [ Internet version is also available . . .], it carries an article by Muhammad Ka'wash on the same issue under the headline " The Old Hawk and The Impotent Politician" saying that Dick Cheney landed in Baghdad in the midst of stringent security measures and wearing a bulletproof vest "to prove to the Americans that Iraq is secure and that the Iraqis bask under Bush's good deeds and enjoy freedom, democracy, and reconstruction. Cheney might lie to some segments of the US people who are not aware of what is actually taking place in Iraq" and the "old hawk can lie to the old impotent politician Al-Maliki but cannot lie to the Iraqis because they are aware of the truth and know the objectives the occupation armies have come to achieve." The article concludes: "Cheney has the right to repeat what he wants, deceive, and maneuver to cover up for the defeat of his party, army, and administration, conceal the objectives of the occupation, and defend the behavior and crimes of his forces, but what is surprising is that his acolytes in the green zone agree with him and support his lies and defend the virtues of the occupation, and consider Iraq as an independent and free country." Al-Arab al-Yawm, carrying another article by Columnist Tahir al-Udwan on page 16 under the headline "Salvation Course" says: "We do not know so far if Vice President Dick Cheney's mission in the region takes place under the title of "changing course in Iraq" or the insistence on Bush's slogan "until the mission is completed" that is part of the failed security plan in Baghdad called the road map." The article says that press reports mention that Cheney's visit to Iraq seeks to pressure the Iraqi parliament into ratifying the oil law "to have the US companies put their hands on Iraq's resources." After affirming that all the US plans in Iraq will fail, the article says: "The adoption of the current draft oil bill will not contribute to national reconciliation and all indications show that it will nurture the ongoing violence, division, and resistance and Cheney needs more than one tour of the region to learn the unavoidable lesson. This lesson is that he has to withdraw the forces of his country and leave Iraqi oil and the question of national reconciliation to the Iraqis, the Arab countries, and the Arab League. This is the road to salvation, the irreplaceable new road." Amman Al-Ghadd in Arabic, independent Jordanian daily; [Internet version is also available . . .] carries an article by Ayman al-Safadi on page 32 under the headline "Cheney on Salvation Mission" saying: "US Vice President Dick Cheney visits the region to seek a solution for the dilemma that his administration is encountering. His visit has one objective. He wants to blame the neighbor countries for the failure of the US policy that he engineered for Iraq" believing that "holding the neighbor countries largely responsible for the deterioration in Iraq will provide the Bush administration with a scapegoat that it can use to lessen the anger of the US people against it." After affirming that Cheney will not discuss the Palestinian cause or any other issue in the region except the Iraqi issue, the article says: "Cheney is in the region on a salvation mission because he knows that the anger against the US policies in Iraq primarily is against him for he was behind the decision to go to war, he was the one to lead his country into failure, and he was the one who has shown more arrogance and vanity than he has shown wisdom and political acumen. The result was this unending deterioration in Iraq." The article says: "The neighbor countries, with the exception of a few countries that have their own designs and interests, are eager to establish stability in Iraq. They realize that the perpetuation of the conflict there will endanger them and destabilize them. This is why they want a genuine tackling of the Iraqi crisis that will save Iraq from the chaos that is killing people and not a plastic surgery operation with which Cheney wants to embellish the ugly picture that his policies and decisions have created."

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SCIRI Adopts Sistani, emphasizes Iraqiness
Bombings kill 26, wound 60

The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq held its annual party convention on Thursday and Friday and, according to Mariam Karouny of Reuters has decided to make some significant changes. They will drop the part of their party platform where they say that they take guidance from Iran's Supreme Jurisprudent, Ali Khamenei. Instead, they say they will be guided by the fatwas of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf, the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shiites.

This change has ideological consequences. Allegiance to Khamenei implies acceptance of the Khomeinist doctrine of Vilayat-i Faqih or the Guardianship of the Jurisprudent. It holds that political power should be held by a top theocrat. SCIRI's links to Khamenei also implied that the Jurisprudent's authority is transnational, reaching from Iran to Shiites in other countries, such as Iraq. But most Iraqi Shiites reject the Guardianship of the Jurisprudent, and even those who accept some version of it for the most part reject the idea that Khamenei has authority outside Iran.

Sistani rejects the Guardianship of the Jurisprudent in politics and government, but accepts it with regard to what he calls "the structure of society." That is why he intervened on matters such as whether Iraq would have one person, one vote elections, who would write its constitution, and whether the constitution would uphold Islamic law. But unlike Khamenei, Sistani has not the slightest interest in holding an official government position, much less ultimately being in charge of trash collection.

SCIRI will also change their name to the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, dropping the "revolution" element, they say, because that was a reference to their struggle against Saddam.

The changes clearly are aimed at Iraqizing the party, which was formed in 1982 at the suggestion of Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran. It has all along been very close to the ayatollahs in Tehran, and is viewed by nativist Iraqi Shiite parties such as the Sadrists and the Da'wa as having a strong Iranian tinge.

It should be remembered that the American public went wild with enthusiasm when the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq more or less won the January, 2005, parliamentary elections and 9 of 11 provinces where there are substantial Shiite populations-- including Baghdad. I just never could understand why the American Republican Party was so happy about a party loyal to Khamenei taking over Iraq. And they were snippy about it, too.

Al-Zaman adds its own analysis. Ahmad al-Musawi says that his sources in SCIRI told him that the changes made at the party convention look forward toward the next election. The United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of 17 Shiite religious parties that is led by SCIRI, has been falling apart. The Islamic Virtue Party or Fadhila pulled out its 15 MPs, and the Sadrists (32 seats) keep going in and out. It is also possible that SCIRI's remaining ally, the Da'wa Party, led by PM Nuri al-Maliki, will fall out with them.

The implication is that in the next elections, the Supreme Council may run as a list rather than under the rubric of the United Iraqi Alliance. There are two important elections on the horizon. One is the provincial elections, which were never held again after January 2005 (the Sunni Arabs did not participate in that round). The other is the next elections for the federal parliament, in fall of 2009 (not that far away). In fact, the US will probably be getting out of Iraq in 2009, and SCIRI may be positioning itself to take over decisively.

The party convention also confirmed Shiite cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim as party leader, and added 50 new members to the party politburo (Shura), replacing those who retired or had died.

Their party platform will henceforth make reference to principles such as democracy and elections. (Initially, SCIRI had been a clerical vanguard party closer to Leninism than Jeffersonian democracy).

In other news, Reuters reports that

' Suicide truck bombers struck Iraqi police checkpoints on two bridges in a Shi'ite area south of Baghdad, killing [26] people and badly damaging one of the bridges. Police said 60 people were wounded.

* TAIJI - A truck bomb hit a bridge near the town of Taji on the main highway connecting the capital with cities in the north, an Iraqi army source said, adding the attack was followed by a car bomb that killed four Iraqi army soldiers there. '

Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that 7 bodies were found in Falluja.

Extensive petroleum smuggling may be depriving the Iraqi government of revenues and providing them to insurgents.

The southern city of Basra is at the meeting place of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, but its inhabitants have to line up to buy unsanitary water and to transport it in plastic bottles to their homes.

Patrick Cockburn at Tomdispatch.com on "Iraq Dismantled."

Some Dems in Congress are concerned that the Iraq supplemental does not recognize Iraq's sovereignty over its own petroleum.

I don't think these Dems understand why W. is in Iraq.
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Protest over Detention of Haleh Esfandiari

The Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association helped craft MESA's letter protesting the detention by the Iranian government of prominent Iranian-American academic Haleh Esfandiari. [Help MESA defend Academic Freedom.]

May 11, 2007 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Pasteur Ave Tehran 13168-43311 Iran Your Excellency, I am writing on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to express our dismay over the harassment and subsequent detention of Dr. Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Dr. Esfandiari was in Iran to visit her aging mother in December but was prevented from leaving the country and subsequently threatened, pressured, and repeatedly questioned by security authorities. Most recently, on May 8, 2007, she was arrested without charges and taken to Evin Prison. The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 2700 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere. The confiscation of Dr. Esfandiari's travel documents and her subsequent harassment contravenes Iranian laws and Iran's international commitments which guarantee the right of entry and exit to Iranians and other nationals. Further, her detention violates the constitution of Iran, which explicitly protects the rights of individuals to freedom of thought, opinion, and speech (Article 23). The constitution also explicitly prohibits the exercise of punitive measures against individuals for the exercise of these guaranteed rights (Articles 2, 3). Further, your government's actions are in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Articles 18, 19, 21), to which the Islamic Republic of Iran is also a state party. Harassment and detention of scholars is always cause for grave concern, but in this case it should be noted that the scholar in question is widely respected both for her knowledge and ability to provide clear and dispassionate analysis. Her treatment sends a chilling message to scholars throughout the world. We feel it is urgent that you take steps immediately to explain the reasons for her sudden detention, grant her access to legal counsel and family members, and allow her to return to her family in the United States as quickly as possible. Respectfully, Zachary Lockman President cc: H.E. Dr. Mohammad Javad Zarif, Ambassador of Iran to the United Nations Embassy of Pakistan, Interests Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

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Congress Passes Short-Leash Bill for Bush
9 Iraqi captives executed

Congress passed an appropriations bill that only funded the Iraq War for about three months on Thursday. Bush has said that he will veto it. Senate Dems are working to find 12 moderate Republicans who also want toe war to end.

WaPo confirms the report that a majority of Iraqi parliamentarians have signed a petition asking that a timetable for withdrawal of US troops be established.

Thursday's session of parliament had to be cut short when a rancorous debate broke out. The initial issue was Shiites displaced from Diyala province to the holy city of Karbala. Speaker Muhammad al-Mashhadani was accused of smiling at a time when grief was more appropriate. He was then upbraided by a fellow Sunni from a different party. He slapped the MP before pounding his gavel and closing the session.

The falsely named 'Islamic State in Iraq' released a video Thursday of its murder of 9 Iraqi security officers. I think if they checked, they'd find that Islam forbids murder.

Oil workers in Basra postponed a planned strike. They oppose possible plans to privatize the oil industry.

Police found 20 corpses in the streets of Baghdad on Thursday. McClatchy also reports, "Around 3 am, American planes had raided Sadr City, killing 3 civilians and injuring 12 with huge damage to three houses and three cars." I suspect that in aerially bombing a city that it itself occupies, and inflicting death and injury on civilians, the US is committing a war crime.

Reuters reports other political violence on Thursday:

' FALLUJA - A U.S. marine was killed in combat in Anbar province on Wednesday, the U.S. military said . . . [WaPo says two US soldiers were killed by gunfire on Thursday.]

MOSUL - A hospital received the bodies of three people, two women and a man, from one family in the northern city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. . .The bodies of two police officers were found in Mosul, police said. '

The USG Open Source Center paraphrases Iraqi news reports for May 10

Al-Istiqamah on 9 May carries . . . a . . . report regarding Al-Najaf [SCIRI leader] Sadr al-Din al-Qubbanchi's visit to Karbala and his meeting with [Shiite] Diyala refugees who organized a sit-in in the city demanding the government to eliminate Takfiris [Sunnis who excommunicate Shiites] from the governorate. . . Tariq al-Sha'b runs on the front page a 450-word report on the demonstration staged by Basra residents living near the British Consulate yesterday, 9 May, demanding the transfer of the consulate to another place to avoid the continuous random shelling in their district. . . Ishraqat al-Sadr on 8 May carries on the front page a 250-word editorial by Chief Editor Fattah al-Shaykh praising Al-Sadr Trend for receiving and defending Sunni families that were displaced from their sensitive areas in Al-Karkh. . . Al-Sabah al-Jadid publishes on page 3 a 200-word report citing Al-Najaf Advisory Council member Ali al-Isawi confirming that the local government has decided to only allow the movement of cars carrying security badges in the old Al-Najaf City. . . Al-Bayyinah al-Jadidah runs on page 2 a 650-word report on the deteriorating security situation in Samarra. . . Al-Bayyinah carries on page 8 a 300-word report citing eyewitnesses saying that dozen of Wahabist takfiris (those who declare other Muslims as infidels) attacked government departments in Samarra. . . Al-Mashriq carries on page 3 a 1,000-word report saying that the people of Samarra are afraid of joining security or police forces. Al-Bayyinah carries on the front page a 550-word exclusive report citing sources at the Interior Ministry saying that Saudi terrorists have begun displacing Christians from Al-Durah and closing their churches. Al-Bayyinah carries on the front page a 320-word report citing a US democrat accusing Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt of involvement in armed operations and sectarian violence in Iraq. . . Tariq al-Sha'b publishes on the front page a 300-word report on the annual report issued by the US Save Children Organization on 8 May confirming that the mortality rate among children has increased by 150 percent in Iraq since 1990. . .

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Radical Poem on Sharm el Sheikh

The USG Open Source center has paraphrased an ironic poem by a Muslim militant about the Sharm el Sheikh conference on Iraq. The frankly racist remarks about US Secretary of State Condi Rice and the implication that any male Middle Eastern politician who cooperated with her was effeminate and dominated by a woman, underline the reactionary character of this 'radicalism.'

Kuwaiti Cleric Hamid al-Ali Publishes Poem on Sharm al-Shaykh Conference Jihadist Websites -- OSC Summary Friday, May 11, 2007 Terrorism: Kuwaiti Cleric Hamid al-Ali Publishes Poem on Sharm al-Shaykh Conference On 6 May, a forum participant posted to a jihadist website a poem written by Kuwaiti cleric Hamid al-Ali entitled "Does Sharm al-Shaykh Teach Us Lessons," in which Al-Ali mocks the conference of Iraq's neighbors, the Sharm al-Shaykh Conference, and writes it off as a humiliating experience in which the Arab leaders were simply following the orders of the US Administration. A summary of the poem follows: In his poem, Al-Ali describes the Arab leaders who have participated in the Sharm al-Shaykh Conference as men who are carrying out the orders of the American Administration headed by Mr. Bush and throwing themselves at the feet of the Christians like many before them. He adds that with this attitude, the Arab leaders "promised the infidels that the (Land of) The Two Rivers would be entirely theirs." He mocks them for taking orders from "the old woman with the flat nose (REFERENCE to Condoleezza Rice)." He wonders what happened to the men whom history remembers as brave lions who were accustomed to war and to victory. He goes on to describe the victories that were realized by the Muslims over the centuries in their confrontations with the Romans and the Persians and asks, "Does the Sharm al-Shaykh (Conference) teach us lessons? No, by God, we will turn it into ruins. With the edge of the sword, we shall teach the enemies a lesson."

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Those who Live in Glass Houses
Were Mitt Romney's Remarks Anti-Muslim Bigotry?

Mitt Romney has attacked Al Sharpton's remark about his being defeated by those who 'really do believe in God' as a piece of religious bigotry.

But first of all the remark came in the context of Sharpton's debate with Christopher Hitchens concerning belief in God, and Sharpton maintains that he was just saying that it wasn't the Hitchens types who would defeat Romney, but the believers. So it isn't clear that Sharpton intended to say that Mormons don't really believe in God.

But Romney is maybe not the most credible person when it comes to decrying religious bigotry. He is himself guilty of conflating Muslim movements in a way that does injustice to them. Last week during the debate, he said:

' "We'll move everything to get him [Bin Laden]. But I don't want to buy into the Democratic pitch, that this is all about one person, Osama bin Laden. Because after we get him, there's going to be another and another. This is about Shi'a and Sunni. This is about Hezbollah and Hamas and al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is the worldwide jihadist effort to try and cause the collapse of all moderate Islamic governments and replace them with a caliphate. They also probably want to bring down the United States of America. This is a global effort we're going to have to lead to overcome this jihadist effort. It's more than Osama bin Laden. But he is going to pay, and he will die." '

What does he mean, "this is about Sunni and Shia?" Is he saying that all Muslims of both major branches are his targets, and that he associates them with al-Qaeda?

The inclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood in this list of jihadi groups willing to use violence does a grave injustice to the many members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood who eschewed violence to participate in civil politics. The Muslim Brotherhood has 88 seats in the Egyptian parliament, and Egypt is a non-NATO ally of the United States. Did Romney just declare war on them? Isn't this lumping together of disparate Muslim parties a form of Islamophobia, i.e. religious bigotry?

By the way, Tariq al-Hashimi, the Vice President of Iraq who met with US VP Dick Cheney on Wednesday, is a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, which is the Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood, founded at Mosul in 1938. Paul Bremer appointed an IIP leader to his Interim Governing Council, so the party has for long been a cornerstone of what policy toward the Iraqi religious Sunnis the Bush administration has had. Is Mitt Romney at war with al-Hashimi?

(For more about the Muslim Brotherhood, see this article from Foreign Affairs.)

As for the Lebanese Hizbullah, as a Shiite group it just isn't like the others Romney named, and it is a deadly enemy of al-Qaeda. It has seats in the Lebanese parliament and until recently had a couple cabinet ministries in the government, and is among the most reliably nationalist of the Lebanese political parties. Although it has tangled repeatedly with its neighbor, Israel (which has invaded Lebanon three times since 1978 and occupied Lebanese territory for nearly two decades), it hasn't been involved in international terrorism for a good decade. As Shiites, the members of Hizbullah do not believe in a caliphate, unlike some sectarian Sunnis. Hizbullah leader Hasan Nasrallah 'has condemned al-Qaeda for terrorist actions that target “innocents,” and he has disassociated himself from the extreme Islamic fundamentalism of the Taliban.'

Hamas likewise has local aspirations and is not part of a world-wide jihadist conspiracy to create a caliphate and destroy the United States. Its leaders have repeatedly said that they do not and will not attack US targets. If anyone has faced high-level political conspiracies and is being destroyed, it is the Palestinian people.

Will Romney apologize for "it is about Sunni and Shia," or for his grouping of the Muslim Brotherhood with al-Qaeda, or for his allegation that Shiite Hizbullah wants a caliphate?

How are these gross and inaccurate generalizations about Muslims groups different from those of Sharpton about Mormons?

Is Romney, who is so concerned about religious bigotry, willing to condemn the phrase "Islamofascism," which libels Islam by linking it to a set of European authoritarian parties?

Will he stand against groups that attempt to deny American Muslims their first amendment right to worship?

(Romney's statement was discussed extensively in the blogosphere last week, by Spencer Ackerman, by Kevin Drum, by Daniel Larison, by The Plank, and at Reasons and Opinions-- no doubt elsewhere as well, but this is what came up at the top of a google search.)
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Cheney Greeted by Mortars, Demonstrations:
Iraqi Parliament pleads for US withdrawal

Al-Hayat writes in Arabic that US Vice President Dick Cheney was greeted, on his surprise visit to Baghdad, by a rain of mortar shells on the Green Zone and by protests in several cities organized by Puritan Shiite followers of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. One could have added the bombing in Irbil, the seat of close US ally Massoud Barzani, the Kurdistan leader.

Aljazeera is alleging that high on Cheney's agenda is getting the new petroleum bill passed through parliament. That legislation is certainly one of the four benchmarks the Bush administration has pushed on the al-Maliki government, and given Cheney's background as CEO of Halliburton, it is plausible that the oil bill looms large in his visit. It is probably behind his scolding of Iraqi parliamentarians for even considering a two-month hiatus this summer.

Cheney arrived a day after a majority of Iraqi parlimentarians signed a petition in favor of the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Actually, last fall 131 signed a similar petition. By the rules of the Iraqi parliament, such petitions have no force. The sense of those deputies was communicated to a committe, which promised to report out the resolution to the entire parliament, which it apparently never did. So, Tuesday's move shows a 10% rise in commitment to the principle of withdrawal over 6 months ago, but may be no more consequential. A petition is not a vote, and is a sign of how powerless the parlimentarians feel.

Reuters reports political violence in Iraq on Wednesday, including the killing of one US soldier and wounding of 3 others by a roadside bomb in Diyala. There were several bombings in Baghdad. Two more members of the Yazidi religion were killed at Mosul.

Police found 21 bodies in Baghdad on Wednesday, and 8 in Diyala Province.

a Kurdish leader is interviewed by Ben Lando concerning Iraq's petroleum law. The link between Kurdish desire for relative autonomy and their commitment to privatizing the Iraqi petroleum industry comes out clearly in this piece.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Kurdish Offered at the University of Michigan

Pardon the narrowcasting-- this is a message primarily for University of Michigan students, who should please share it with potentially interested friends.

We have just enough applications to offer Elementary Kurdish of Iraq this summer term but we would like to get the word out to University of Michigan students who may be interested that this class is definitely being offered. Kurdish 101/102: Elementary Kurdish of Iraq will be offered in Ann Arbor during the summer term (June 27-August 17). This is an 8 credit, intensive language class. Class will meet Monday through Friday, from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm each day. It is being taught by Ernest McCarus, who also wrote the only textbooks for this language. Undergraduate students may register directly into the class via Wolverine Access. Graduate students may take the course for a program fee instead of tuition, by completing the SLI application form. Some fellowship funds are available to help defray the cost of tuition or the program fee. The application form for the Program Fee status, or to apply for a fellowship, can be downloaded from the same web site. Please submit the application before May 15 if at all possible. The text books can be purchased from the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, 1080 S. University, Suite 4660. For a complete description of the course go to this site.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Ft. Dix Plot is Milosevic's Fault:
Postcolonial Wars and Terror

The small cell that plotted to attack Ft. Dix was made up of Albanians from Kosovo, along with a Turk and a Jordanian. Note that in the 1980s most Yugoslav Muslims were deracinated and secular. Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian are really the same language, and the only way you could tell if someone was a Muslim was to check their i.d. cards (the Communists recognized Yugoslav Muslims as a national minority). [See my colleague John Fine's When Ethnicity did not Matter.]

When Communism collapsed, Yugoslav politicians cast about for new platforms. Slobodan Milosevic decided to opt for the most chauvinist form of Serbian nationalism one could imagine, setting in motion a vicious and brutal war for territory on the basis of ethnic identity. Muslims in Bosnia were targeted for mass graves. Kosovo autonomy was much reduced, affecting yet another group, the ethnic Muslims of Albanian origin, who are not Slavs and who either were also secular or tended toward Sufism and Muslim traditionalism rather than fundamentalism.

In the aftermath of the Kosovo War of 1999, half of Kosovars lived in poverty and fundamentalist charities started being active among them. Kosovars were most often secular and anti-Islamic or heterodox when religious. Milosevic monstrously attempted to use charges of al-Qaeda presence in Kosovo (unproved) as a pretext for killing Kosovars. In fact, his policies pushed some Kosovars into the arms of the Salafis.

In other words, Kosovo was not about Islam. It was another post-colonial war like many others in the post-Soviet period. If some Kosovars now turn to radical fundamentalism, it is a result of the collapse of the old Communist framework and the attacks on them of the Milosevic fascists.

John Tirman sees the US occupation of Iraq as generating Muslim fundamentalist violence against the US, in a vicious circle.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Decoding Iraq Violence
US Planes Take out Elementary School, Kill Children
Kufa Blast Kills 16: US Blamed
Irbil Bombing Kills 12

Violence in Iraq at first seems episodic and hard to decipher. It doesn't take much speculation, however, to see patterns. For instance, the bombing on Wednesday morning in Irbil, Kurdistan, which killed at least 12 and wounded 40. This strike was likely the work of Sunni Arab guerrillas along with maybe some Kurdish Salafi Jihadis. They were probably replying to the deployment of several thousand Kurdish Peshmerga troops in Baghdad as part of the surge. The Peshmerga have been fighting Sunni Arab guerrillas on behalf of the Americans and the Shiite government of Nuri al-Maliki. The bombing may also be related to competition for the oil city of Kirkuk, which the Kurds intend to claim for their provincial confederacy.

Or take the truck bombing of a market in Kufa on Tuesday. A minibus driver guided his vehicle into the midst of a market and detonated the payload. He killed at least 16 and wounded 70. So, why Kufa? Because this small city neighboring Najaf is a stronghold of young Shiite nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The bombing took place not far from the mosque where Sadr and his father preached.

There are two possibilities. This was probably, as Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sa'id al-Hakim said, a strike by Sunni Arab guerrillas at the heart of one of Muqtada's major constituencies. It is just like hitting East Baghdad. What message is is being sent? "Hey, Mahdi Army militiamen! Where are you now that the American troops are wiping the mat with militiamen? Come out and fight like men!" Nothing would please the Sunni guerrillas more than to maneuver the Mahdi Army into coming out to man checkpoints such that they come into military conflict with the US Army and Marine Corps.

But, the Sadrist crowds blamed the United States for the bombing, chanting against Washington. And, some apparently suspected the [Shiite] Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq of the bombing. There has been increased faction-fighting between its Iran-trained Badr Corps paramilitary and the Mahdi Army in recent days.

Reuters reported that in Baghdad, "Police said they recovered 30 bodies in Baghdad, including 17 in the religiously mixed southern neighbourhood of Amil in the past 24 hours."

Thirty bodies is a lot of bodies. The daily toll is creeping back up. Most of these corpses were produced by Mahdi Army death squads killing Sunni Arabs at night. Their hope is that after a while, Amil would be Shiite. One impetus for this activity is fear that guerrillas are basing themselves in Sunni Arab neighborhoods and hitting Shiites from them. If this cycle of attack and counter-attack cannot be broken, the surge will fail, no matter what else it might accomplish.

Reuters also reports, "FALLUJA - The bodies of seven people were found shot in and around Falluja, 50 km (35 miles) west of Baghdad, police said."

There are few Shiites in Falluja, a major city in largely Sunni Arab al-Anbar province. These bodies are produced by Sunni on Sunni violence. Falluja is a major exception to the general trend toward less violence in al-Anbar in recent months. Presumably these deaths are the result of in-fighting among Sunni Arab guerrillas. Some young men have been joining the Iraqi police and army and are therefore coded as collaborationists by the Salafi Jihadis, who take revenge on their families. There is also infighting within the "Resistance," with neo-Baathists fighting the Salafi Jihadis ("al-Qaeda").

Then there was this, from McClatchy: "Around 8am, Major Ibrahim A.Al-Nabi an officer of interior ministry was assassinated by gunmen on the high motor way near the ministry as he was going to his work."

So the Ministry of the Interior in Iraq is the body concerned with internal security, and its special police commandoes are drawn from the Badr Corps, the Shiite militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The police commandoes have been known to track down and kill Sunni guerrillas.

Or also from McClatchy, there is this item: "Around 10.30 am , an American helicopter opened fire on a primary school at Al-Nida ( 9 km north west of Mendli )killing 7 pupils and injuring 3 other pupils with huge damage to the school building . Eyewitnesses confirmed this report while the American side said that they opened fire on the building after being fired from it."

It could be a mistake. Or, it is entirely possible that a guerrilla positioned himself in the building and fired on the Americans from it, knowing that they would return fire and kill some little children. Sunni Arab guerrillas have been playing that game with US troops for several years, shooting at them from civilian crowds, e.g. If the guerrillas regularly do that, it makes it more likely that the US will make a mistake even when not actually fired on.



The Salafi Jihadi organization, the Islamic State of Iraq, announced Tuesday that it had captured 9 Iraqi security guards and would kill them if female Sunni Arab prisoners were not released by the Iraqi government and the US military.

Sunni vice president Tariq al-Hashimi met with PM Nuri al-Maliki about the benchmarks he had demanded. He backed off a threat to withdraw his Sunni bloc from the national unity government. He later met with President Jalal Talabani and Shiite vice president Adil Abdul Mahdi. Talabani is said by the Arabic press to be attempting to expand the prerogatives of the presidential council and to have it function as a sort of senate, overseeing al-Maliki.

Bush's evangelical supporters who wanted an Iraq War imagined Iraq as a target for missionary work. Not only have no Iraqis to speak of become Southern Baptists, but Bush's war has displaced tens of thousands of indigenous Iraqi Christians from the country.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Sunnis Threaten to Pull out of al-Maliki Government,
Demand a Unitary Iraq;
65 Killed in Civil War Violence

In an interview with Nic Robertson of CNN, Iraq's Sunni Arab vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi, has laid down an ultimatum. He said that he would pull the Iraqi Accord Front (Sunni fundamentalists) out of the al-Maliki "national unity" government if [Shiite] militias are not disarmed and revisions to the constitution aren't begun by May 15. He said he was ready to admit that he had "made the mistake of a lifetime" in agreeing to participate in the government if no progress were made by that date on these issues.

The Iraqi Accord Front has 44 seats in parliament, but altogether the Sunni Arabs have 58, and if all of them boycott al-Maliki, he would be in a difficult position. He has already lost the 32 Sadrist MPs, as well as the 15 of the Islamic Virtue Party. The remaining 85 MPs from the United Iraqi Alliance (Shiite fundamentalists) depend on the 58 deputies of the Kurdistan Alliance to form a majority of 143 in the 275-member parliament. A majority requires at least 138. If any further deputies were to desert him, it is hard to see how al-Maliki could win a vote of no confidence. (The Iraqi constitution allows 50 deputies to call a vote of no confidence; but the Iraqi government is so dysfunctional it is not clear anyone would bother to do so.)

Al-Hashimi is also demanding provisions guaranteeing the national unity of Iraq. That is, he is making a counter-strike against Shiite cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Last October, al-Hakim pushed through parliament procedures for setting up a Shiite super-province in the south, melding several existing provinces together. The model for this move is the way that Dohuk, Irbil and Sulaymaniya provinces were merged into the Kurdistan Regional Government. The Sunni Arabs mostly say that the KRG is water under the bridge and they can accept it, but thus far and no farther. In short, the major Sunni Arab political group willing to cooperate with the al-Maliki government and the US occupation is saying it is deeply afraid that the Biden/Gelb plan for Iraq's devolution into three ethnic super-provinces with a weak central government may actually be implemented. And it is deadset against it. (See the guest posting below). Sunni Arab Iraqis have demonstrated that when they are deadset against something, they can effectively act as spoilers.

It seems clear that the American public is unlikely to put up with things like political infighting within the Iraqi government very much longer. The sending of National Guardsmen and lots of equipment from Kansas to Iraq has gotten in the way of tornado relief work, just as it impeded relief work at New Orleans after Katrina.

Meanwhile, some 68 Iraqis were killed in political violence on Monday. 30 bodies were found in the streets of Baghdad, mostly in Sunni Arab areas, and Sunni leaders voiced fears that Shiite death squads are being reactivated after having lain low during the first weeks of the new security plan (the "surge.")

Two suicide bombings at Ramadi killed 25 and wounded dozens. Some are saying this violence is part of a general struggle between the Salafi Jihadis (which the press calls "al-Qaeda") and local tribal sheikhs in al-Anbar. Despite these bombings on Monday, the internal division has made al-Anbar a more permissive environment for US troops than it was a year ago. See Marc Lynch's postings on this issue (scroll down) over the past few weeks.

The problems with taking heart from a Sunni tribal alliance against the Salafis (revivalist Sunnis) include

a) that the tribes are notoriously disorganized and

b) that they are perfectly capable of turning on one another and on other Sunni Arabs, and

c) that most Iraqis are now urban and organized by political parties, not tribes; and

d) that these same Sunni tribal leaders also say they are die-hard opposed to the al-Maliki government and that they want to kill Shiites. Nic Robertson let this bombshell drop on CNN's Sunday edition of This Week at War: "the tribal leaders I talked to who are the guys behind the support right now for defeating al Qaeda, are telling me that they still expect to fight with the Shias and they expect these tribal members to be the vanguard of that part of the force."

So even if the tribes defeat "al-Qaeda" in al-Anbar, it would just be so they could kill Shiites rather than allowing the Salafi Jihadis to do it. It wouldn't end the civil war.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Petroleum Law not About Fair Distribution of Revenues

The Iraqi petroleum bill has run into heavy opposition in parliament from Kurds and other political forces. The Bush administration had made passing it by June 15 one of 4 major "benchmarks" for the progress of the al-Maliki government.

Michael Schwartz at Tomdispatch.com covers the main issues in the Iraqi petroleum issue this week.

But there is another corner of the petroleum bill that is often misreported. It has to do with the weakness of the central government and the power of the provincial confederacies or "Regions."

An informed observer of Iraq affairs with expertise in finance and law allowed me to reprint the following email message, though he wants to remain anonymous:

The reporting in the press-media about the proposed Petroleum Law omits a material fact. The proposed Law does not have a word that relates to the “fair distribution of revenues.” That phrase relates to the dispersion of gasoline stations, not to the distribution of revenues. The gasoline stations will be covered by another petroleum law not yet considered by the Council of Ministers. What is really going on relates to the Iraqi Constitution. The context is Article (113): "The federal system in the republic of Iraq is made up of the capital, regions, decentralized provinces, and local administrations." The Iraqi Constitution has a unique feature distinguishing it from the US federal structure. The provinces are the basic units of governance. But the Constitution treats regions [provincial confederacies] as more important in the federal structure. There are extensive provisions with respect to the permitted regional governing institutions. There are only two relating to provinces. The proposed Petroleum Law has provisions which deal with the ownership rights – including rights to award oil field development contracts – granted by the Constitution to “Regional Authorities.” Article 110 of the Constitution expressly gives the power, in the case of the oil industry, to the federal government and “the producing regions and provinces,” but the provinces are not included as such; they are disempowered. The way the Constitution is written permits, even requires, the substitution of the regional governments for the provincial governments. The “Regional Authorities” have the power and jurisdiction over the production segment of the oil industry. Basra should “own” the Rumayla Oil Field, but apparently does not. In the cases of many other things, the provinces will also be disenfranchised. The power and jurisdiction is established by the reservation article, just as all powers not expressly granted to the US federal government are reserved to the states. But the power is reserved not to the provinces, but to the regions: “Article (111): All that is not written in the exclusive powers of the federal authorities is in the authority of the regions. In other powers shared between the federal government and the regions, the priority will be given to the region's law in case of dispute.” I don’t know where this came from or whether the US Government had any part in devising it. Much is explained by taking this unique feature into account. It is not clear to me that it has been thought through by the US Government or the Iraqis. Note also the use of the word “granted.” The US had states. They got together and formed a federal government and gave it powers. That is not what has happened in Iraq. When Muqtada al-Sadr and others speak of a “unitary government” and a “united country,” they really mean it. The federal government is going to pass many laws which, under a federal system, should be enacted by the provinces. The problem the Iraqis have is that the Constitutional default or reserved power system calls for the regions to enact the laws, but, outside of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s territory, there are no regional governments in existence to enact the laws. This unique feature might or might not cause serious problems in the future. The Iraqis are probably developing in sophistication daily. Notwithstanding the elemental struggle going on in Basra, I have seen indications that there are at least a few sophisticated people who appear to have received outside advice in the trade unions and at least one gentleman in South Oil Company. They have a decision to make. They could form their own three-province regional government or they could go it alone. If they decide upon the latter, they will be carving new ground and will have trouble. But they also will have a lot of de facto power. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim also is breaking new ground. Does he really intend that there will be a replica of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), with a constitution, a legislature, a council of ministers, a court system and other institutions nearly all of which will be new and unprecedented? If he does not, or if the proposal is defeated in the Council of Representatives – which is a real possibility, see next paragraph – what is going to happen is that the powers of the federal government will be unlimited as a practical matter in relation to the provinces. When the Sunni leaderships look at their options, a regional government must seem to them conceptually and existentially to be a non-starter. What that means is that, with respect to voting or fighting, there are only two alternatives: live with the new system or fight. It would take a significant effort to lay out for them what Mr. al-Hakim might be, but is not necessarily, considering. That is why I have been stressing the point, because preparation should have begun yesterday. One trouble might be that the Embassy has no one who understands the problem in specific detail. They might simply be applying the embedded US model without focusing on the fact of this unique feature in the Iraqi Constitution. I am not clear that the PRTs are being appropriately staffed and have the right mission. Their first and main task after they assure that food and medical assistance is available, is or should be to get the provinces, that is the Regions, started drafting a lot of laws. At the moment, with the exception of the Investment Law, the only laws of Iraq are in decrees of the former regime or orders issued by the Coalition Provisional Authority. The Sadrists, plus the IAF and Mutlak’s Dialogue have 87 votes. (Those two, in addition to their allotted 30, that the Sadrists cleverly won are going to come in handy at some point.) They would need 51 more. Allawi would add 25, leaving a deficiency of 26. Maliki’s Da’awa has 30; the UIA independents have 23; Fadhila 15. If the Council of Representatives were to reject the proposed Petroleum Law, that would be that, short of another revolution. The agreement struck between Mr. al-Hakim and Adnan al-Dulaimi to postpone the effective date of the Regions Law until mid-2008 means that the matter might not come up again until after the Regions Law becomes effective, and Provincial elections are held after the enactment of an Elections Law. During that time, staffing and intra-government relationships will be firmly entrenching the new regime in Baghdad. The power of the federal government will be absolute. It should be noted that no reference is being made to the third source of law, the Sharia.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Can Sarkozy Uphold the Values of 1789?

Rightwing nationalist Nicolas Sarkozy, is the next president of France. He campaigned on an anti-immigrant platform that veered uncomfortably close to that of Jean-Marie LePen, though he did make a provision for affirmative action. Sarkozy will try to break the unions, and his view of the immigrants who rioted in 2005 over joblessness as "scum" bodes ill for social peace. An Arab blogger's view of Sarkozy's police tactics is eye-opening.

Sarkozy's message, that he wants to restore pride in Frenchness, wants to promote free market reforms, and worries that France has lost control of its borders all sounds Reaganesque. Just as Reaganism was a form of American ("white") nationalism, so Sarkozyism is a form of French nationalism. And just as Reagan's nationalism had a class location in the upper middle classes and the rich, so too does Sarkozy's "French" nationalism.

But the United States and France are both founded on civic nationalism (open to everyone of any race or culture), not on ethnic nationalism. While Germany's laws allowed persons of German heritage and language resident in eastern Europe and Central Asia under Communist rule to come to Germany as citizens after the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States would hardly make a law allowing English-speakers to immigrate at will. Citizenship in the US is open to all ethnicities and is about allegiance to the Constitution. The revolutionary ideal of France is similarly civic. The Republican French thought nothing of bestowing citizenship on some provinces of Senegal and actually allowing them to elect deputies to the French national assembly. French citizenship was never about race, about "Français de souche." But I worry that Sarkozy's trajectory is to privilege that kind of narrow Frenchness.

Sarkozy's French nationalism (he uses the French equivalent of "France: Love it or leave it!"-- a sentiment pioneered by LePen) will clash with the realities of French multiculturalism. France's Muslims are estimated at anywhere from 4 million on up, but I favor the 4 million figure (the population of metropolitan France is about 60 million, so this is 6.6 percent).

The Muslims are only one immigrant group. There are thought to be 14 million French of immigrant origins (over the past century?)-- including 100,000 Britons. The biggest group is the Portuguese.

Sarkozy intends to create an Orwellian "Ministry of Immigration and National Identity." He rubbed the practicing Muslims the wrong way when he came out in favor of the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, and he supported banning the headscarf for Muslim school girls.

Although it is often said that Sarkozy played a positive role in insisting that French Muslims form a Muslim Council and develop a "French Islam," it is often forgotten that the council ended up being dominated by first-generation immigrants out of touch with French Muslims (many of whom are third or fourth generation), and by conservative religious groups--the "National Federation of Muslims in France (FNMF) and the Union of Islamic Organizations in France (UOIF)." Sarkozy himself is said to have favored the UOIF, which is to say the least made up of hardliners. One suspects that he was attempting to set up religous Muslims as a force in rightwing politics in France, on the model of the practicing Roman Catholics. (About 18 percent of the French are practicing Roman Catholics; most of these congregations have tended to vote Gaullist. Some 45 percent of practicing Catholics voted in the first round for Sarkozy, with only 11 percent voting Socialist. The rest must have voted for the centrist candidate, Francois Bayrou [or as a reader reminded me, LePen, who got 10% in the first round].)

Ironically, Sarkozy may have succeeded in setting up a rightwing Muslim Council, but failed to attract its loyalty to himself, given his subsequent record of anti-immigrant rhetoric and his positions on cultural issues important to Muslims.

In the first round, only 1 percent of Muslim voters embraced Sarkozy, with 64 percent voting for Segolene Royal. That French Muslims supported a woman socialist candidate so overwhelmingly shows how few of them have a fundamentalist mindset. Most French Muslim youth are relatively remote from the culture of their grandparents and the rioting was economic in character.

In his acceptance speech, Sarkozy said he would try to be president of all the French. I hope he meant to include the workers and immigrants. If not, his tenure could be turbulent.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

8 US Troops Killed;
Major bombing at Shiite Market killes 35;
Boehner Favores Benchmarks

Sunni Arab guerrillas killed nearly 100 persons in Iraq on Sunday in an orgy of civil war violence.

The guerrillas in Iraq killed 8 US troops on Sunday, including 6 blown up by a roadside bomb along with an embedded European journalist. We are not far into May and already 28 US troops have been killed this month, 12 of them over the weekend.

The guerrillas also targeted a Shiite market in Baghdad, using a car bomb to kill 35 and wound 80.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that a new round of fighting and declared enmity between the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr and the Badr Corps of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq has has posed new dangers to security in several locales, including East Baghdad, Diwaniya, Najaf and Basra.

The battle that Reuters reported this way:

' BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said it had killed up to 10 militants and destroyed a torture room during a raid in Baghdad's Sadr City that targeted suspected members of a cell known for smuggling sophisticated bombs from Iran.'

was, according to al-Zaman, actually a fight between the Mahdi Army and the Badr Corps, in which US helicopters intervened on the side of Badr. Al-Zaman's sources maintain that the Badr Corps is systematically targetting the Mahdi Army, and incarcerating its leaders along with others, breaking down front doors and going into houses where they feel it necessary. It says that residents of the Baghdad neighborhood where their latest clashes took place are disgusted with the behavior of the Badr Corps. It says that US troops incarcerated dozens of Mahdi Army militiamen in Diwaniya and other cities.

Reuters details some of the other deaths. Police found 24 bodies in Baghdad, an alarming number and a sign that sectarian shootings are rising again. Other major action:

' SAMARRA - A suicide car bomber killed 12 police officers and wounded another 11 after detonating himself at a police headquarters in the city of Samarra, the U.S. military said. Two U.S. soldiers were wounded after an ensuing gunbattle. Samarra's police commander was among the killed, deputy governor of Salahaddin, Abdullah Jubara, said. . .

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed two people and wounded 10 others in the Mansour district of western Baghdad, police said.

GARMA - Police said they found the bodies of three policemen, shot and tortured, in the town of Garma, near Falluja, 50 km (35 miles) west of Baghdad. . . . '

Aljazeera has been banned from the Iranian parliament building for allegedly insulting Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

Not only is Republican congressman from Ohio, John Boehner, leaning toward setting benchmarks for progress in Iraq-- this approach seems to have been endorsed by Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, as well. The point is that benchmarks for progress imply that a policy can succeed or fail, unlike Bush's policy in Iraq. For Bush, there are only two settings, "slow progress" and "progress." 300 hundred people slaughtered in a single day? That's "slow progress." Since there are only these two settings, there is never any reason to change policy, since whatever happens yields "progress," even if it "isn't as fast as we would like." That things have for four years been spiralling down into the Night of the Living Dead is precluded by BushRove's rhetorical strategy, which is almost never challenged by the press. But benchmarks? Then you could get "no progress" or even "things are getting worse." And the further implication is that there is going to be a plan B. The Republicans in Congress have two choices at this point. Let Capt. Bush take them down to Davy Jones' locker in 08, or work with the Dems on a plan B.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Al-Zawahiri attacks Democratic Plan in Iraq;
75 Killed in Civil War Violence;
Police/Mahdi Army Truce in Najaf

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's no. 2 leader complained in a videotape released Saturday about the Democrats' plan to withdraw US troops from Iraq. Al-Zawahiri said he preferred that the US remain so that Muslim guerrillas could bleed the US military. Where have I heard that sort of reasoning before? Aha! It is a fly trap strategy!

Al-Zawahiri's opposition to the Democratic plan suggests that it is the right plan.

An Alja