- A roadside bomb targeted a police patrol in Fudhailiyah neighborhood (east Baghdad). Five people were injured including two policemen.
- A roadside bomb targeted an American patrol in Tobchi (Al-Salam) neighborhood (northwest Baghdad) .One civilian was killed and five others were wounded. No US casualties reported, police said. The U.S. military said that one person suffered minor injuries and no one was killed.
- Police found one dead body in Ur neighborhood (east Baghdad) today.
Diyala
- Gunmen opened fire on Sahwa members in Swghaa village near Buhriz (3 miles south of Baquba). Three Sahwa members were wounded.
Salahuddin
- A car bomb targeted a police patrol in Abu Ajeel village (3 miles east of Tikrit). One policeman was injured. ‘
There is not any doubt that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz intend to go to war against Baghdad, and the signs I’ve seen are that they have convinced President George W. Bush to do it. Apparently the top officers in the US armed forces are unanimous in not wanting this war, but then Colin Powell initially opposed the first Gulf War, as well. Who wants to be dragged into an uncertain operation that might make you look bad? Nevertheless, if Bush orders the war, it will happen.
The varying Pentagon war plans being leaked are not a sign of unseriousness. They are a sign that different factions within the Pentagon want to do the war in different ways, and they are jockeying for position by releasing their opponents’ plans with a negative spin on them. War departments always have varying scenarios for fighting a war, and often only in the actual event are the hard choices made. Those with good memories may remember that the geniuses over at The New Republic were insisting on putting 100,000 U.S. troops into Afghanistan last October, and apparently there were some in the Pentagon who agreed that might be necessary (what a recipe for disaster) before the Taliban collapsed so startlingly.
The Senate and the House don’t appear to be opposed to the project. And, the drumbeat of the intellectually dishonest members of the war party, such as former CIA director James Woolsey, intimating that perhaps maybe somewhere there is not impossibly a possibility that it is not unthinkable that there is an Iraq-al-Qaida connection appears to be being bought by the naive. (Of course, there is no such evidence).
The lack of enthusiasm for such a war on the part of the militarily important Powers in continental Europe, in Russia, and in the Arab World, does not mean it cannot be done, I’ve decided. It simply means that the U.S. will be acting almost unilaterally. Since it will need Saudi or Jordanian air space, which won’t be on offer, it is entirely possible that the US will simply use it anyway, on the theory that there is nothing that the Saudis or Jordanians can do about it.
While it seems likely that Bush will go to war, the outcome of such an action is very much in doubt and could haunt him (and us) in the future. The negative possibilities include:
1) Iraq could be destabilized, with ethnic forces becoming mobilized and squabbling over resources, as happened in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion.
2) Iraq could be reconstituted as an unpopular American-backed dictatorship, as happened in Iran in the 1950s. So far, close US allies in the War on Terror in the Middle East include Egypt, which is a military dictatorship that just jailed Saad Eddin Ibrahim for human rights work; Pakistan, a military dictatorship whose leader is attempting to manipulate the fall elections to keep himself in power; Saudi Arabia (nuff said); and other countries with extremely bad human rights records or which are involved in imperial occupations. A Pinochet in Iraq would potentially harm the US diplomatically for decades to come.
2) The loss of civilian life will be significant, further turning much of the world against the United States and losing any sympathy generated by September 11.
3) Recruitment of terrorists to strike the U.S. in the Muslim world may well be easier in the aftermath of a bloodbath in Iraq.
4) The unilateral nature of the action may well provoke Europe, Russia, China and India to begin trying to find ways to unite against the U.S. on such issues in the future, so as to offset its massive military superiority by isolating it on the Security Council and in other international venues. Europe’s relative economic clout could grow if war uncertainties keep the US economy weak.
5) The Bush First Strike doctrine may well be emulated by other nations who fear their neighbors, producing copy cat wars that destabilize entire regions. It should be remembered that the German army in 1914 had a first strike doctrine, which dragged Europe into an unnecessary and highly destructive maelstrom.
6) There may be no dividend to an Iraq war in the form of lower petroleum prices in the long run. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait both have significant excess capacity, and OPEC always has an incentive to pump less oil for higher prices, as they have done in the past. Even if Iraq could pump 5 million barrels a day instead of 2, OPEC can just reduce its output by 3 mn. barrels a day and put the price back up. They would have every incentive to do so since they could get about the same amount of income from less oil, benefiting them over time.
I know it may seem a novel idea to people like McCain and Palin, but it would be worthwhile actually reading Khalidi’s book on the Palestinian struggle for statehood. (I urge bloggers interested in this issue to link to his book, which the American reading public should know).
McCain’s and Palin’s attacks on Khalidi are frankly racist. He is a distinguished scholar, and the only objectionable thing about him from a rightwing point of view is that he is a Palestinian. There are about 9 million Palestinians in the world (a million or so are Israeli citizens; 3.7 million are stateless and without rights under Israeli control in the West Bank and Gaza; and 4 million are refugees or exiled in the diaspora; there are about 200,000 Palestinian-Americans, and several million Arab-Americans, many living in swing vote states). Khalidi was not, as the schlock rightwing press charges, a spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization. He was an adviser at the Madrid peace talks, but would that not have been, like, a good thing?
Much of the assault on Khalidi comes from the American loony Zionist Right, which quietly supports illegal Zionist colonies in the West Bank and the ethnic cleansing of the remaining Palestinians. They have been tireless advocates of miring the US in wars in Iraq and Iran to ensure that their dreams of ethnic cleansing are unopposed. They are a tiny, cranky but well-funded group that has actively harassed anyone who disagrees with them (at one point, cued by Daniel Pipes, they cyberstalked Khalidi and clogged his email mailbox with spam for weeks at a time). All opinion polling shows that most American Jews are politically liberal, overwhelmingly vote Democrat, and support trading land for peace to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Khalidi is their political ally in any serious peace process, which many have recognized.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has repudiated the “Greater Israel” fantasy that drives the Middle East Forum, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Commentary, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the Hudson Institute, the American Enterprise Institute and other well-funded sites of far-right thinking on Israel-Palestine that have become, with the rise of the Neoconservatives, highly influential with the US Republican Party. Olmert’s current position is much closer to Khalidi’s than it is to the American ideologues.
That McCain should take his cues from people to the right of the Neoconservatives shows fatal lack of judgment and signals that if he is elected, he will likely pursue policies that are very bad for Israel, forestalling a genuine peace process (which would involve close relations with Palestinians!)
McCain is bringing up Khalidi in order to scare Jewish voters about Obama’s associations, and it is an execrable piece of McCarthyism and in fact much worse than McCarthyism since it is not about ideology but rather has racial overtones. Not allowed to pal around with Arab-Americans, I guess. What other ethnic groups should we not pal around with, from McCain’s point of view? Is there a list? Are some worse than others?
The rightwing American way of speaking about these issues is bizarre from a Middle Eastern point of view. Lots of real living Israelis have close ties to actually existing Palestinians. There are 12 Palestinian members of the Israeli Knesset, and they have helped keep the Kadima government in power. Here is PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas with current Israeli Prime Ministerial candidate Tzipi Livni; Livni has repeatedly negotiated with the PLO as foreign minister of Israel. McCain’s entire line of attack assumes that Palestinian equals “bad” and ignores Israel’s and the Bush administration’s support for the PLO against Hamas.
As the Young Turks pointed out, before the ‘straight talk express’ became the ‘mealy-mouthed train wreck,’ McCain advocated direct negotiations with Hamas when it was in control of the Palestinian Authority after the 2006 elections.
Remember how John McCain insisted to Wolf Blitzer that the security pact being negotiated by Iraq and the Bush administration talks about the withdrawal of US troops as “conditions-based” rather than tied to a strict timetable? That was not true of the draft, which called for US troops out by 2011 but did contain language in a different section that allowed for them to stay under certain conditions. The Iraqis now want that clause removed and the Baghdad government wants an iron-clad guarantee of US troops being out by 2011. The recent US military raid into neighboring Syria may have stiffened Iraqi resolve in this regard. If McCain were elected, which McClatchy argues is still entirely possible, he’d have rocky relations with Iraq if he continued to oppose a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops.
The US military turned over security duties in Wasit Province to Iraqi forces on Wednesday. All Shiite-majority provinces are now under Iraqi army control. The US continues to have primacy in five provinces including Baghdad itself (also Diyala, Salahuddin, Ninevah and Kirkuk). These provinces continue to see significant social violence and Diyala, Salahuddin and Ninevah have Sunni Arab majorities.
The International Organization for Migration urges that the 2 million Iraqi refugees in nearby neighboring countries be given support, not forced back to Iraq. Most of the refugees have been traumatized, seen a family member kidnapped, been personally threatened, or seen their old neighborhood ethnically cleansed and their property expropriated, so that they are disinclined to return or have no place to return to. Violence remains endemic in some of the places they have fled, including Baghdad.
- A roadside bomb targeted a bus of the ministry of education’s employees in Ur neighborhood (east Baghdad). Two employees were killed and six others were wounded. – A roadside bomb targeted a police patrol near the Nadia ice cream shop on Palestine Street (east Baghdad). Five people were killed and seventeen others were injured, including the head of the traffic police department in Nahda neighborhood (downtown Baghdad).
Diyala
- Gunmen attacked the house of the Dahalka Sahwa leader in Dahalka village in Balad Ruz, about 27 miles east of Baquba.They killed three people, the father of the Sahwa leader, his daughter and her husband. Fourteen others were wounded, including 7 men and 7 women. – A roadside bomb detonated in the Baquba central market downtown Baquba city. Sixteen people were wounded including one a girl who died later.
Mosul
- A car bomb targeted a police patrol in Yarmouk neighborhood in downtown Mosul city. One policeman was killed.
- A sniper killed an Iraqi soldier in Al-Tanak neighborhood in Mosul city around noon.’
Iraqi government spokesman Ali Dabbagh on Tuesday backed off his earlier support for the US raid into Syria. He said that the Iraqi constitution forbids third parties to use Iraq as a staging ground for attacks on other countries. It is not clear whether Dabbagh was just issuing a pro forma condemnation or whether the Shiite government in Baghdad has gotten new information suggesting that the raid was problematic in some way. Ordinarily the al-Maliki government is delighted to see Sunni fundamentalist guerrillas targeted.
McClatchy reports that the Iraqi cabinet has made some changes in the draft security agreement with the Bush administration. US officials are quoted as saying it is unlikely Washington will accept the changes. The cabinet members in Baghdad are convinced that without these changes, parliament will reject the agreement. One new provision gives Iraq authorities the right to decide whether a US GI accused of wrong-doing was on- or off-duty at the time. (On-duty US soldiers would have immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts; off-duty ones would not).
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