US government sources maintained on Monday that the cross-border raid into Syria that left 8 dead had succeeded in killing “Abu al-Ghadiyah” (Badran al-Mazidi) of Mosul, a member of the fundamentalist vigilante group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (originally called “Monotheism and Holy War” but more recently “The Islamic State of Iraq”). Al-Zarqawi was killed in 2006. US intelligence fingered al-Mazidi as a major facilitator for networks of fundamentalist vigilantes who were infiltrating into Iraq from Syria. The administration allegation is that it struck when it did because it got especially good information on al-Mazidi’s exact whereabouts.
Apparently Syria declined to move against al-Mazidi, leading to charges by the US military that the ruling Baath Party in Syria was actively harboring al-Qaeda. That charge does not seem plausible to me, since the Alawis at the top of the government are terrified of Sunni fundamentalism and are vulnerable to being overthrown by it. (Sunnis are some 80 percent of Syrians; a folk Shiite group,the Alawis, are at the pinnacle of the government). The US is always over-estimating how powerful and efficient these ramshackle, personalistic regimes in the Middle East are, and attributing things to deliberate plotting that are likely just the result of incompetence or cowardice. Washington also tends to over-estimate the importance of individual leaders such as al-Zarqawi and al-Mazidi. Mostly they are fairly easily replaced. It is not as though they have been through a military academy or anything. When al-Zarqawi was killed, it changed absolutely nothing with regard to violence in Iraq. Others than Mazidi can smuggle North African volunteers into Iraq.
I still think the timing of the raid had to do with the US presidential election, and that it is likely Bush and Cheney want to make sure Iraq stays off the front pages for McCain’s sake, since otherwise his talk of “victory” might seem hollow. It is also possible that the White House was offering the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad a carrot in hopes it would smooth the passage of the draft security agreement.
In fact, some Iraqi politicians said that the raid would complicate negotiations on the security agreement. Certainly, Iran’s opposition will have stiffened. Kurdish parliamentarian Mahmud Osman charged that the US acted without Iraqi government knowledge. Iraqis are touchy about the idea of the US using Iraq as a launching pad for attacking neighboring countries. Even Ali Dabbagh, spokesman for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who approved of the American action, said that it would not be allowed after the first of the year.
NYT reports that al-Maliki has been mainly using Arab police and soldiers in his security campaign in Mosul, drawing down Kurdish troops of the Iraqi Army. Kurds had dominated Ninevah Province because Sunni Arabs boycotted the Jan. 2005 provincial elections, but they are a minority. Kurdistan nationalists wish to annex some areas of Ninevah to the Kurdistan Regional Government. There is growing tension between Arabs and Kurds in the north, reflected in the increasingly difficult relations between al-Maliki and Kurdistan president Massoud Barzani.
Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports in Arabic that the Shiite grand ayatollahs in the holy city of Najaf are signalling to Iraqis that they may vote for whatever party they choose, religious or secular, so long as they judge it competent in solving the country’s problems. In past elections the top Shiite clerics had urged voters to cast their ballots for the United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of Shiite fundamentalist parties. That coalition seems to be breaking up, and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has been deeply disappointed in its record in power. Sistani had all along been opposed to the Iranian model of clerical rule, but he had in the past favored the Iraqi religious Right. If al-Sharq al-Awsat is accurately reporting his views, this move toward pragmatism and willingness to see lay Shiites vote for secular parties marks a further evolution of his thought.
- An American squad raided the New Baghdad and Baladiyat neighborhoods, Iraqi police said, with no more details. The coalition reply was, “Coalition forces killed five criminals after a small arms fire attack in Baghdad’s New Baghdad security district, Oct. 27. At about 1:20 a.m., Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldiers were attacked with small-arms fire at a joint security station. The Soldiers were able to identify those responsible for the attack and returned fire. A total of five attackers were killed with no U.S.casualties.
-A roadside bomb detonated in Ameen neighborhood (east Baghdad). Three people were killed and five others were injured. Also two civilian cars were damaged.
- Around noon a roadside bomb detonated near the Kindi hospital intersection (northeast Baghdad). Two people were wounded.
- An adhesive bomb detonated under a civilian car at Khilani intersection (downtown Baghdad). Two people were killed and seven others were wounded.
- Police found one dead body in Mashtal neighborhood in east Baghdad today.
Mosul
- Gunmen killed a civilian near the jewelry shops in downtown Mosul.
- Gunmen opened fire on an Iraqi army patrol in Al-Jazair neighborhood (downtown Mosul). Two soldiers were wounded.
- A suicide car bomber targeted an Iraqi police patrol in Borsa neighborhood in Mosul. One policeman was killed and two others were wounded.
Dohuk
- Turkish artillery bombed some villages in the northeast of Dohuk in Kurdistan region before noon, Peshmerga sources, the security forces in the area, said. Also they said that the Turkish had bombed the same area last night, too. No casualties or damages were reported.’
The USG Open Source Center surveys the Middle Eastern press reaction to the US raid on Abu al-Kamal in Syria, finding it mostly negative and based on Syrian reports. Lesson: If the US had just gotten word out about its side of the story more quickly and effectively, it might have blunted the generally negative reation in the region. It appears that Washington did no public diplomacy at all around the episode. This report concerns the Middle East and so does not mention that Russia condemed the attack, as well.
OSC Report: Middle East Reaction to US Operation in Syria Monday, October 27, 2008
Middle East — Limited Official Reaction Mostly Condemns US Operation in Syria As of 1830 GMT on 27 October, OSC has monitored limited reaction in the Middle East to the US operation in the vicinity of Abu Kamal in northeastern Syria, news of which came too late for extensive print media coverage or comment on the 27th. Apart from harsh Syrian condemnation, limited official comment elsewhere generally condemned the US operation. Official Iraqi reaction suggested some confusion within the Iraqi Government. Most regional media reporting of the incident cited Syrian claims that the target and victims of the attack were entirely civilian in nature.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Mu’alim, at a press conference in London, denounced the operation as a “criminal, terrorist act” that was “not a mistake” but “deliberate.” He branded as “lies” claims that Syria is turning a blind eye toward terrorist activities by Al-Qa’ida or other terrorist organizations operating from Syrian territory and asserted that all the casualties were “unarmed Syrian civilians” (Al-Jazirah TV, 27 October). Both state-controlled and nominally independent Syrian newspapers echoed the official line.
Official Iraqi comment suggested uncertainty on the part of government officials.
As quoted by AP, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh implicitly endorsed the operation, describing the area in which it occurred as “a theater of military operations where anti-Iraq terrorist activity takes place” (27 October). Foreign Ministry Under Secretary Labid Abbawi, however, described the incident as “regrettable” and said that “we are sorry it happened” (AP, 27 October). A separate Foreign Ministry statement said that Iraq would provide Syria with the results of the Iraqi investigation into the incident, which demonstrated the “extreme importance of joint security coordination and cooperation between the two countries” (PUKMedia, 27 October).
Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa condemned the operation, saying that he is “holding constant contacts with the Syrian authorities and listening to Syrian reports on what happened” (MENA Online, 27 October). Iranian
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi condemned the operation, saying that the “murder of innocent people” is “unacceptable” (IRNA, 27 October).
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Baraq implied approval of the operation but distanced Israel from the incident.
He told the independent daily Ma’ariv : “It was a pinpointed strike against a terrorist target. Israel was not involved in it in any way. We had no part in the matter” (27 October). Media Coverage Largely Based on Syrian Accounts
The two major pan-Arab news channels, Al-Jazirah and Al-Arabiyah, led their 27 October newscasts with the story, airing videos from the scene as well as statements and interviews with locals, journalists, and officials. The two channels’ coverage provided both Syrian and American as well as Iraqi perspectives on the incident.
The Qatari Government-financed Al-Jazirah interviewed former US Ambassador David Mack, who justified the operation as a “last resort” in response to the infiltration of foreign fighters into Iraq across the Syrian border. It also carried a Syrian TV clip of a woman said to be a victim of the operation, and its own correspondent’s statement that witnesses claimed US soldiers fired “indiscriminately” during the operation.
The mostly Saudi-owned Al-Arabiyah aired a video from the scene of the attack. It also carried an interview with Iraqi Member of Parliament Jabir Habib Jabir, who maintained in the face of skeptical questioning from the channel’s correspondent that the area of the operation was used to smuggle weapons and fighters into Iraq.
Reportage of the incident on 27 October in the Saudi -owned London dailies Al-Sharq al-Awsat and Al-Hayah, as well as the domestic Saudi daily Al-Riyadh, cited official Syrian accounts. State-run Saudi TV1, in its report, cited “the Iraqi Government” as saying that the operation targeted “fighters” inside Syria.
Reports in Egyptian, Jordanian, and Turkish media on the 27th were largely based on wire service accounts, which in turn mostly cited official Syrian reports.
The headline in the independent, pro-government UAE daily Al-Khalij on the 27th reported “US Aggression Against Syria,” while the independent Qatari daily Al-Arab adopted neutral language in reporting the incident.
Farmhouse raided in Abu Kamal village, courtesy Syria-news.com
Joshua Landis at Syria Comment carries an account from a physician of the killed and wounded that casts doubt on the US military story that the workers killed were part of a logistics operation in support of fundamentalist vigilantes on their way to Iraq.
Landis speculates that Bushco. figures that it would get a lame duck freebie in attacking Syria now, on the brink of an Obama administration.
It seems to me more likely that the attack was aimed at making sure that what the administration calls “al-Qaeda in Iraq” did not have the means to mount a spectacular bombing or assassination campaign that would hurt McCain and help Obama. I was told by NGOs when I was in Amman last summer that the Bush administration had for the first time pledged money to help Iraqi refugees, and that US officials had admitted to them that the reason was that the administration wanted the refugee crisis kept off the front pages this fall. Scott McClellan has already told us that the Bushies are in campaign mode 24/7. I’d say that every single thing they are doing, whether raiding Pakistan or raiding Syria, is intended in some way to help the Republican Party in the election, in addition to whatever local military goal the action had.
Although both candidates tie the resurgence of the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan to US domestic security, I personally have difficulty understanding exactly how that works. The September 11, 2001, attacks on the US were planned by Arab expatriates in Hamburg, Germany, and Pushtun tribespeople had almost nothing to do with them (did the Taliban even know what Bin Laden was planning?)
Both McCain and Obama have adopted Bushspeak on this issue, allowing W. and Cheney to frame the national debate into the next four years. Bushspeak works by contiguity, by things being next to one another, rather than by causality. Al-Qaeda was in Khost, which was controlled by the Taliban, so ipso facto the Taliban are related to 9/11, and since the Taliban were largely Pushtuns, the Pushtuns in Pakistan and Afghanistan are, whenever they rebel against their local government, a dire threat to the US mainland. There are roughly 28 million Pushtuns in northwest Pakistan, and 12 million in Afghanistan. The ones in Pakistan recently rejected the fundamentalist parties for the most part in favor of a secular-leaning Pushtun nationalist party. Many of the ones in Afghanistan are part of, or back, the Karzai government. In my view, tying US national security to Pushtun local politics is magical thinking. The stability of Afghanistan and Pakistan are important, but framing that stability in the terms of a “war on terror[ism]” ignores the dynamics of secular and religious forms of Pushtun national self-assertion.
Although the US media gives us glib references to the resurgence of the Taliban, I see little or nothing on US television news explaining the fighting in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, which is presumably what the US politicians are talking about.
The Pakistani military has adopted a scorched earth policy toward the Taliban in Bajaur, tearing down houses and using them as bunkers, and displacing an estimated 200,000 civilians from the region (some have become refugees in nearby Afghanistan).
Maulvi Faqir Muhammad and his Tehrik-i Taliban frontally attacked Pakistani military checkpoints and started a feud with the Pakistani army. The Tehrik-i Taliban has been blamed for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto last December, and it is said that as her widower, Asaf Ali Zardari, rose to the presidency, he pressured the military to destroy the movement, with which he now has a family feud.
‘The ISPR spokesperson Major General Athar Abbas, who also accompanied the media team, said before the start of the operation by security forces, Bajaur Agency was in a state of lawlessness. Militants were constantly attacking security forces’ checkposts and had closed all roads for movement of Government/FC convoys.
“All Levies pickets in the Agency had been demolished by the militants and a parallel system of administration in Tehsil Mamund, Charmang and Salarzai had been established. Militants had taken control of schools in the Agency and had converted them into their centers. They had also established courts in which they use to award severe and capital punishments of beheading and killing of personnel in public,” he said.
The spokesperson said the militants in these areas were granting licenses for business and imposing taxes on people and transport.
He said during first eight months in 2008, they had killed as many as twelve Maliks, dozens of security personnel and also kidnapped many for ransom.
In this backdrop, he said, the security forces started operation codenamed “Sherdil” [Lion-Heart] in Bajaur Agency to clear the area of the miscreants.
He said during last one and a half month, the security forces faced heavy resistance primarily as militants had support from across the border and due to involvement of foreign elements.
“The area was being used as a safe haven by foreign fighters, the militants had developed a strong trench and tunnel system of defence in populated areas like Loesam which also became a stronghold of resistance,” said the spokesman. ‘
It is confusing that, while the Pakistani military is engaged in hard fighting against the Bajaur branch of the Pakistani Taliban, it has been accused of using the organization, and tribes allied with it, to hit Afghanistan and to assert Pakistani influence in southern Afghanistan.
The US attempt to deal with the Afghan Taliban in Ghazni with air strikes may have gone awry on Sunday, as local Afghan officials claimed that 20 government security guards were killed along with Taliban insurgents who had attacked a NATO convoy.
Poland is in charge of Ghazni now.
I come back to my original question. How is the fighting in Bajaur Tribal Agency a threat to domestic US security?
It is a question the next president will have to answer in a practical way. I wish the candidates were at least sometimes pressed on it now.
Absent the unexpected, it is unlikely that a security agreement in the form of a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between Iraq and the US will be in place before our Presidential elections and almost as unlikely before the end of the year when the present UN Security Council mandate runs out. That mandate, in the form of a resolution renewed annually, provides the terms and conditions under which the US has been able to occupy and seek to pacify and rebuild Iraq politically. In practice, it has given the US a free hand as the occupying power. To that extent, it has severely limited Iraq’s sovereignty and has legitimized its maintenance by the US in a tutelary status. The negotiations to replace the UN mandate with a type of SOFA has been underway for much of this year and from what little is known of its contents the US has agreed to initiate military operations only with Iraqi assent; to withdraw its forces from Iraq’s cities by June 2009 and from Iraq entirely by the end of 2011.
While language is included to suggest that a complete withdrawal might be conditions-based by mutual agreement, it seems to be a sop given by the Maliki government to the Bush administration. Even with such seemingly anodyne conditionality, the provision has proven to be unacceptable to many in Iraq’s parliament. Similarly unacceptable to Iraqi politicians seems to be the provisions regarding legal jurisdiction over offences committed by US troops, which would place them under US jurisdiction while on base or on authorized military operations off-base. With senior US officials indicating that the US limit has been reached on further concessions, an impasse seems now to exist.
If the news reports on the draft SOFA’s main provisions are generally accurate, it is hard to understand what the fight is all about. The US appears to have conceded on all major issues and is left with little alternative to withdrawal:
–after January 1, the US will undertake military operations only with Iraqi consent;
–all US non-military contract employees will be subject to Iraqi law. (The US military operation has become so dependent on contract employees that it’s hard to understand how the US could function if US contract employees are pulled out by their employers because of their exposure to arrest by a legal system they do not understand and understandably fear.)
–all Iraqis apprehended by US military must be turned over to Iraq authorities.
–by June 2009, all US military must evacuate the cities and return to fixed bases, from which they can operate only with Iraq’s permission. The practical effect of this provision is that whatever the merits of General Petreus’s strategy of deploying forces to cities and neighborhoods to protect the population and to sponsor civil affairs and local self-help activities, it will be history. Thus the surge will also be no more, together with the many soldiers and special forces needed to support it..
–By the end of 2011, all US combat forces will be withdrawn unless the two sides agree that circumstances require them to stay.
We know little about the precise language of the draft or anything regarding what must be an extensive agreement covering issues such as jurisdiction over air space; limits on operations; import-export of material ranging from foodstuffs to sophisticated weaponry; designation and inventorying of current bases including elaborate airbases and their eventual disposition (including buildings and equipment) following drawdown and departure; and much more. Further, are there provisions for residual forces, for whatever purpose, authorization for ongoing training and military assistance programs, civil construction and technical assistance programs, and the like?
Taking all into account, and accepting the reality that present efforts to replace the Security Council resolution with a bilateral SOFA is badly stalled and may abort, how should the US and Iraq proceed? From the US standpoint, some organic instrument is needed to legitimize and help manage our continuing activities in Iraq and more especially in the context of our departure over the next few years. From the standpoint of Iraq, the restoration of its sovereignty would be critical not only to its international standing but in bringing about the kind of internal political accommodation so desperately wanting. Popular perception of tutelage and occupation and dependency helps make Iraq a failed state. The restoration of sovereignty in fact as well as theory—essentially, the recognition of Iraq’s adulthood–may well be central to encouraging the kind of national political accommodation the US says it has been seeking.
With this seeming stalemate, any way forward needs to take into account a number of practical realities central to both countries:
–The US will shortly be electing a new President who will be responsible to the American public for the US position in the Middle East and the implementation of a SOFA in that context.
–Similarly, Iraq will be holding critical regional elections early next year which could well significantly alter the political balance within the country, bring new constituencies and new political actors on the scene and perhaps result in a new government. It is that government which should be responsible for implementation of the SOFA and associated withdrawal, indeed, for the future direction of Iraq.
–Gaining time needed to reach agreement should not be a problem. If Iraq, with Arab support, asks for an extension of the current mandate for six months, the Security Council will comply. The Russians, for example, will be only too happy to see the US army bogged down in Iraq for as long as possible.
With a continuing Security Council resolution providing legitimacy, the US and Iraq can proceed to implement the 99% of the SOFA that appears to be agreed upon and which in any event would be compatible with a 2011 (or 2010) withdrawal, with or without conditionality. The matter of jurisdiction over criminal behavior by US troops off base and off duty can perhaps be dealt with by third-part arbitration by the UN. The new US and Iraqi governments can then limit the SOFA to housekeeping matters and concentrate on fundamentally political matters that don’t belong in a SOFA anyway, looking toward a future US-Iraqi relationship. These might include:
–a formal termination of hostilities between the two countries, whether by treaty or executive agreement, supported by a Congressional Joint Resolution that terminates the authorization to conduct hostilities adopted by Congress in 2003. This might be accompanied by a US declaration formally terminating the occupation regime. Nothing would more authoritatively reestablish Iraqi de jure sovereignty as well as its psychological sovereignty and sense of nationhood. (The bestowal of sovereignty several years ago by Jerry Bremer amounted to a formal, but ineffective gesture, given the reality of Iraq.)
–With a now sovereign Iraq, the two governments can negotiate agreements defining their future political and military relations. The latter might include cooperation in combating terrorism, whether by using US forces stationed in Iraq or available over-the horizon; US overflight and landing rights; ongoing military assistance programs involving training and weapons sales. Special provision might be needed for the protection of the US diplomatic establishment by a reduction in size and the according of diplomatic immunity for a protection force assigned to the Embassy and a generous periphery thereof.
A new US Administration might also bear in mind that the successful termination of the war in Iraq could well contribute to the opening of discussions with Iran, leading to the normalization of relations.
Helman “was United States Ambassador to the European Office of the United Nations from 1979 through 1981.”
Welcome to Informed Comment, where I do my best to provide an independent and informed perspective on Middle Eastern and American politics.
Informed Comment is made possible by your support. If you value the information and essays, I make available and write here, please take a moment to contribute what you can.
