Informed Comment

Salehi: Iran would back Down if West supplies LEU; Khamenei vows self-defense against 'US-backed saboteurs'

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:14:00 +0000

The USG Open Source Center translated remarks of Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, regarding Sunday's announcement by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Iran would seek to enrich uranium to the 19.75% necessary to produce medical isotopes. Salehi represented the announcement as a way for Iran to put pressure on the West to provide the low enriched uranium for its medical reactor on Iran's terms.

' Tehran Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network 2 in Persian at 1920 GMT: . . . "Mr President [Ahmadinejad] made the comment in a subtle way. If you paid attention to his comments, he said: Start the 20-per cent enrichment, but the doors for cooperation are still open and we are still ready for fuel swap. In other words, we - although we will start the 20-per cent enrichment tomorrow - will stop the enrichment as soon as they (West) come to their senses and provide our fuel." '

He also reiterated that Iran had no intention of producing bomb grade enriched uranium. Obviously Iran has the potential capacity. "But whether or not we plan to do, the answer is no," Salehi said.

In a face to face meeting at the beginning of October in Geneva, the West had suggested that Iran send most of its stock of low enriched uranium to another country for enrichment to the nearly 20% that is needed to run its medical reactor. Iran's hard liners balked at the agreement, however, presumably because they view even a stock of low enriched uranium as a sort of deterrent to a Western attempt at regime change or a military strike on Iran's civilian nuclear enrichment facilities near Isfahan. Uranium enriched to 3.5% as fuel for reactors can theoretically be further enriched to the 95% desirable for making a nuclear warhead. Iran keeps saying they have no intention of carrying out the latter operation, and all the evidence points to their being truthful on this score, at least at present. But the hard liners think it is best to keep the US and its allies guessing about Iranian capabilities and intentions. (The hard line strategy may actually be counter-productive for Iran, just as a similar strategy proved fatal to Saddam Hussein.)

The compromise Iran offered is that they would keep sending abroad a small portion of their low enriched uranium for another country to enrich to 19.75% for the medical reactor, on a rolling basis. Salehi is saying that Ahmadinejad's announcement was meant primarily to force acceptance of this alternative. At the same time, on Saturday Ahmadinejad seemed to say that he would accept the deal offered by the US in October. US officials were understandably skeptical about this alleged softening of Tehran's position, and Salehi on Monday seemed to suggest that Iran was making a push for the hard liners' compromise.

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke as though Iran's announcement that it was going to try to make its own medical isotopes with low enriched uranium was tantamount to a weapons program. Gates said that if Iran did seem to be close to getting a nuclear warhead, it would provoke a nuclear arms race in the region. But it seems obvious that it is Israel's stockpile of some 200 nuclear weapons that is driving the already-existing nuclear arms race in the region.

The US will probably seek further sanctions on Iran at the UN Security Council, this time on its banking sector. But there is a substantial possibility that China may protect Iran by vetoing any such new program of sanctions.

Meanwhile, Iran's political opposition is calling for big demonstrations on Thursday, the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei addressed Air Force officers on Monday, recalling the key role this branch of the armed services had played in largely going over to Imam Khomeini and spurning the shah or king.

According to Kayhan writing in Persian, Khamenei said that the enemies of the Islamic Revolution and the instruments of imperialism and Zionism are unable to perceive the reasons for the endurance and spiritual power of the Islamic Revolution. He called for unity on the anniversary of the revolution and dismissed protesters as agents of the US, the UK and "Zionism." Defeating what he sees as a US-funded and instigated fifth column in his movement is what he meant by dealing the West a 'stunning blow.'

The regime's rigidity and conspiratorial mindset prevent reconciliation with the political opposition, which genuinely believes that Ahmadinejad stole the election last summer.

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More Nuclear Scaremongering about Iran from Clinton; Neocons Quake at Ahmadinejad threat to make . . . gasp . . . Medical Isotopes

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:39:00 +0000

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton engaged in some fearmongering on Iran on Sunday on Candy Crowley's CNN magazine show, State of the Union. Here is how the exchange went:

'CROWLEY: If you were to say to the American people, this country is the most dangerous to Americans and to the U.S., where is that country?

CLINTON: You know, Candy, in terms of a country, obviously a nuclear-armed country like North Korea or Iran pose both a real or a potential threat.

CROWLEY: And you're convinced Iran has nuclear...

CLINTON: No, no, but we believe that their behavior certainly is evidence of their intentions . . .

Kudos to Crowley for not letting that ridiculous assertion pass. To put Iran in the same category as North Korea in 2010 and to make it among the primary 'threats' challenging the United States is just bizarre. The US intelligence establishment continues to doubt that Iran has or wants a nuclear weapons program. Tehran does have a nuclear enrichment program, which is permitted by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran allows United Nations inspections of it nuclear facilities. Although Iran is not as transparent as the UN International Atomic Energy Agency would like, there is no dispositive evidence of a weapons program. For the Secretary of State to frame Iran as she did is just muddled or dishonest.

Clinton again repeated that the new facility near Qom is evidence that Iran intends to build a bomb. But then head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohammed Elbaradei was invited to inspect it in late October and found a 'hole in a mountain' with no equipment or uranium on-site. The facility is too small to be an efficient producer of High Enriched Uranium for bombs, and is more likely intended to serve as a repository of equipment and know-how that cannot be bombed by the Israelis or Americans.

It is a trick of the Washington Establishment to scare apparently easily frightened Americans into a conviction that some small, poor, third world country is a dire threat to the most massively funded and armed military in the world. Repeating falsehoods is one way the Big Lie is implanted, that then allows US belligerence to be unquestioned at home.

Clinton did go on to defend the Obama administration's attempts to engage North Korea and Iran (again, placing them on the same plane), but not on the grounds of success in negotiations. Rather, she argued that attempting to engage the problem countries made it easier, when the negotiations failed, to convince countries such as Russia and China (in N. Korea's case) or Russia (in the case of Iran) to ratchet up sanctions at the UN. But if all engagement accomplishes is to make imposition of sanctions easier, it isn't really engagement, it is just posturing. Here is the video:

News from Iran will be spun by the US press to justify Clinton's fears. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made headlines Sunday by directing Iran's (regularly inspected) nuclear research establishment at Natanz near Isfahan to begin attempting to enrich uranium to 19.75% so that that country will eventually have the ability to supply its own fuel for its sole reactor that produces medical isotopes for treating, e.g., cancer. Any uranium enriched to 19.75% and fed through the reactor is transformed into isotopes and then used up.

Note that Iran is openly announcing this decision and is informing the International Atomic Energy Agency of it, in accordance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Nor is it something they'll be able to accomplish soon.

Iran's PressTV reports on the Western reaction to the announcement:

But if all Iran does is enrich to 19.75% (the upper level of low-enriched uranium) for the isotope reactor and then use up the isotopes, this step is the least dangerous one it could take.

Iran in the past bought the enriched uranium for the isotope reactor from Argentina. So it would be nothing new if Iran came to possess that grade of LEU. Iran's government is horrible, but it is less dictatorial than that of the Argentinean generals of the 1970s and early 1980s who developed Buenos Aires' nuclear enrichment capabilities to the point where it really could have made a bomb. But the country foreswore any such ambitions despite its knowledge. Iran likewise denies it wants a bomb, and there is no good evidence to the contrary. It is just that Washington adored the far rightwing generals in Argentina who made people disappear in the thousands, and didn't care if they had the Bomb. And much of Washington is determined to lie about what is known of Iran's capabilities and intentions.

The list of other countries capable of producing LEU of 19.75% includes Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Holland, North Korea, South Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. There would be nothing extraordinary about Iran joining this list, and none of the others on it except N. Korea is being sanctioned-- and that is for constructing a bomb, which Iran is not doing. Argentina was sanctioned neither for enriching to 19.75% nor for selling that stock of LEU to Iran! And South Korea was never sanctioned for secretly enriching to 77%, near bomb grade, something Iran has never been accused of.

It is not dangerous for Iran to produce low enriched uranium, whether for reactor fuel for the nuclear electric plants it is building or for its small medical isotopes reactor (given to it in 1969 by the United States).

It would be dangerous if Iran determined to enrich to 95% to make a bomb. In order to do so, it would have to evade all US electronic surveillance, withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and throw out the UN inspectors. No country being actively and continuously inspected by the IAEA has ever developed an atomic bomb. The US National Security Agency can hear a walkie-talkie conversation in the jungles of Guatemala, and for Iran to hide a decision to make a bomb would be very difficult. The US has also been successful in enticing Iranian nuclear physicists into defecting, with insider knowledge and documents. The idea that Iran could conceal a major enrichment facility somewhere is far-fetched, because enrichment is a water- and electricity-intensive activity that can be detected. Even just the building activity for the new small facility near Qom showed up on US satellite surveillance.

Does the step Ahmadinejad announced on Sunday make sense for Iran? The answer is yes. Jeffrey Lewis of the New America Foundation writes that:

'Iran has developed plans to use naturally occurring uranium as a �target� for producing an important medical diagnostic isotope of molybdenum, an isotope whose decay product can be used to scan for cancers in bone, heart, lung, and kidney. Iran already imports a sizable quantity of this pharmacological radionuclide but producing it indigenously would not only save Iran a considerable amount of money each year, much more than it would pay for the fuel for the reactor it would use to produce it, but also allow a more efficient use of this short lived isotope by preventing the decay of nearly half of the amount bought before it even reached the patients. Perhaps the biggest incentive indigenous production of 99Mo in Iran would be the encouragement of its entire nuclear medicine infrastructure; an infrastructure that might right the imbalance of medical isotopes into this developing country relative to other nations." '

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Iran is already producing low enriched uranium for reactor fuel. That it has decided to produce a higher grade of it for its medical infrastructure is neither surprising nor a cause for panic. You'll know if Iran decides to build a bomb. It will throw out the inspectors or refuse them access, including to places the US detects a huge electromagnetic signature but which Iran declines to declare as facilities. None of that has happened. Until then, the world should relax.

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Saying 'Constitution' while meaning 'Lawlessness': Palin attacks Obama

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 07:36:00 +0000

Sarah Palin's turn before the teabaggers was an exercise in emptying the US Constitution of meaning while seeming to exalt it.

She praised US military personnel for defending the constitution.

But she complained that constitutional protections were offered to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the underpants bomber. She said it is 'our' constitution, reducing it from a universal document (the Declaration of Independence says 'all men' are endowed with inalienable rights) to a tribal one.

She said Abdulmutallab could otherwise have been questioned. But why should he have answered, rights or no? Holder's methods got him talking. (Nor is it likely constitutional to arrest a lawbreaker on US soil and whisk him off to military detention.)

Then she said we need a commander in chief, not a professor of constitutional law.

But Obama is designated by the constitution as commander in chief. Is she denying that status to him?

And if the constitution is so great and worth dying for, why is it bad to study it systematically?

So at every turn she invoked the constitution to undermine the constitution.

She is not about law, but is about power. We've had enough narcissistic sociopaths in politics.

And note that Jerry Brown, e.g. Would not be put on CNN addressing 600 leftwing democrats in prime time. I'm afraid of Time Warner now.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Thousands Flee Marja Area as NATO Prepares Campaign; Anti-American Rally in Kapisa

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:39:00 +0000

Agence France Presse reports that thousands of Afghans are fleeing an anticipated NATO/Afghan (mainly British) campaign against the Taliban stronghold of Marja, a city of 80,000, south of the capital of Lashkar Gah in Helmand Province. Marja is in the midst of a major poppy-growing region and so a center of narco-terrorism (the poppies are used to make heroin, and it is estimated that 40% of the drug trade goes to insurgents fighting the Karzai government).

The 5,000-man strike force will be British troops in the majority, and the rest will be Afghan or American. Although the campaign is called Operation Mushtarak, the Dari Persian word for "joint," it seems obvious that Afghan Army troops are a small part of the force. Unlike past such campaigns, the invasion force will be garrisoned in Marja rather than withdrawing, so as to allow the troops to keep the Taliban out and to win over local hearts and minds.

Perhaps in preparation for the campaign against Marja, in the past couple of days NATO and Afghan troops attacked insurgents in the Baba-ji district of Lashkar Gah, killing some 19 and taking control of it. Afghan troops will be garrisoned in Baba-ji to consolidate Kabul's control.

NATO and the Afghan army have waged similar campaigns in Qandahar and its environs. NATO is now racing to train enough Afghan troops to stay in the major southern city and keep it out of the hands of the Taliban.

In other news, several hundred demonstrators in Kapisa Province, northeast of Kabul, staged an anti-American demonstration in which they blocked the road to Kabul on Saturday. The crowd was protesting the US military's arrest of Col. Ataullah Kohistani, security chief of the province. Protesters insist that only the Kabul government has the right to arrest Afghan officials, not foreign troops.

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Undoing Lex Luthor

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 18:54:00 +0000

The red increase in job loss is the climax of Republican White House control. The blue decrease in job loss is Obama and the Democrats. Sort of like when Superman flies around the world counter-clockwise to undo Lex Luthor's fiendish destruction.

h/t TPM docs.

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Reading cuts stress levels by 68%

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:54:00 +0000

Reading cuts stress levels by 68% | Health news | Marie Claire

Well now we've solved the difference in approach to the world of Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

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40-Day Mourning Sessions targeted by Sunni Radicals in Karbala, Karachi

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 06:16:00 +0000

The 40th day mourning ceremonies after the commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Husayn (the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad) in 680 CE was marred by bombings in both Iraq and Pakistan. This violence on the terrain of sacred space and sacred time marked a regional low-intensity war between Shiite revivalists and Sunni vigilante extremists. In Iraq, the Shiites came to power in the wake of the US overthrow of the secular, Arab nationalist (and Sunni-tinged) regime of Saddam Hussein, and are being resisted by radical Sunni Arabs, whether religious or secular. In Pakistan, the Taliban in the northwest Pashtun areas are hyper-Sunni and have often attacked Shiites. The current president, Asaf Ali Zardari, is a nominal Shiite, and many Shiites support the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP). It is the center-left PPP that has authorized massive military operations against the ultra-Sunni Taliban in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan.

In Iraq, the Sunni radicals attacked pilgrims pouring into the holy city of Karbala south of Baghdad, the site of Imam Husayn's tomb. A car bomb blew up among a throng of pilgrims, and than they were subjected to a further mortar attack. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that as many as 41 persons were killed and about 150 wounded in the attacks, though exact statistics were hard to come by in the chaos. The atrocity came after a bomb killed 22 pilgrims on Tuesday.

According to al-Zaman, Shiite authorities claimed that "10 million" pilgrims had packed into the shrine city and environs over the past 5 days, 100,000 of them "Arabs and foreigners." Personally, I don't find an estimate of more than a million pilgrims for Arba'in (the 40th-day mourning ceremonies) plausible. During the official pilgrimage to Mecca, about 2 million persons come from all over the world. Moreover, Shiism is a minority branch of Islam, encompassing about 10%. And the 40th-day observations are not as central as Ashura, the day of Imam Husayn's martyrdom.

In any case, Shiites in Karbala seemed more resigned than revengeful, according the anonymous NYT reporter in Karbala.

In the major southern port of Karachi in Pakistan, guerrillas detonated a roadside bomb as a busfull of pilgrims went by, as well as attacking a hospital, killing 22. The guerrillas followed the wounded pilgrims to the hospital and attacked them again there. Karachi has been filled with sectarian tensions since early January.

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Informed Comment Poll: Should US Troops be in Pakistan?

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 05:01:00 +0000

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Michael Schwartz, Will Iraq's Oil Ever Flow? | TomDispatch

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:14:00 +0000

Tomgram: Michael Schwartz, Will Iraq's Oil Ever Flow? | TomDispatch

Sociologist Michael Schwartz, a sharp Iraq-watcher and author of a provocative book on the Iraq War, surveys the travails of Iraq's oil industry since the 2003 Bush-Cheney invasion and points to the continued difficulties of the Iraq petroleum industry.

My own guess is that eventually the security situation will settle down enough to allow the foreign petroleum companies now signing bids to develop specific fields to press forward. It will be a long slow haul, but Iraqi petroleum will likely come online over time. When that expansion of production happens,it will have a big impact on Iraq. There will be massive internal migration of labor to the Basra and other oil-rich areas, mixing up Sunni Arabs and Kurds with regional labor migrants from e.g. Egypt, India and Pakistan.

The Neoconservative dreams that Iraq would rival or replace Saudi Arabia as swing producer, and that it would recognize and perhaps supply petroleum to Israel, however, are both unlikely developments. Moreover, as China, India and other Asian giants begin growing more rapidly and depending on automobiles, demand for petroleum could well grow so fast over the next twenty years that any new big fields' production is just slurped up, with the world demanding more. That is, Rupert Murdoch's notion that Iraq production could plunge prices down to $14 a barrel for the long term, helping industrialized economies, was always stupid, since it did not take account of rapidly growing demand from Asia.

The emergence of Iraq as a petroleum state (or rather a bigger, wealthier petroleum state) will also further upset the geopolitical balance in the Middle East. With a Shiite majority, it will offset Saudi Arabia in the Sunni-Shiite culture wars. It seems likely to have a big, well-trained and effective army, which cannot always be depended on to be allied with the interests of Washington. A military coup down the road cannot be ruled out (there are few democratic oil states, where petroleum supplies more than a third of the national income). And, it likely will be a friendly and supportive big brother to movements like Hizbullah in Lebanon. While it won't always be on the same page as Iran, it will likely be an ally of and support for Tehran. One possibility is that a rich Iraq 20 or 25 years from now will be in a position to promote Twelver Shiism in the region, picking up some of the Alevis in Turkey, the Nusairis in Syria and the Zaidis in Yemen. With its possession of the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, with the enormously influential chief cleric of Najaf as among its more prominent residents, Iraq's soft power among Afghan, Pakistani and Indian Shiites has the potential for being greater than that of Iran.

In the end, an oil-rich, Shiite-dominated Iraq is far more likely to be a victory for the Shiite revival kicked off in 1979 by Imam Ruhollah Khomeini than a triumph for Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Daniel Pipes and the other hard line warmongers who advocated for a revolution-by-invasion in Iraq.

But Schwartz is correct that all these developments are likely a decade or more off.

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Al-Maliki Gov't Appeals Reinstatement of Candidates, Calls Special Session of Parliament

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:14:00 +0000

Iraqi politics and the conduct of the March 7 elections has been thrown into turmoil by the reversal on Wednesday by a judicial appeals panel of the exclusion of over 500 candidates for parliament out of several thousand.

The decision of the appeals panel evoked outrage among the Shiite religious parties, including the State of Law coalition of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Iraqi National Alliance (which groups the Sadr Movement and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, among others). The INA condemned what it called the interference of the USA in the appeals panel decision and called the decision "unconstitutional." It warned that any step to rehabilitating Baathists and allowing them to serve in the front ranks of the government would doom Iraq's nascent democracy.

The original decision to disqualify the candidates was made by the Justice and Accountability Commission. Technically it falls under the authority of the Central Criminal Court of Iraq, since the Baath Party is illegal and therefore continued connections to it are a crime. It is for this infraction against the law, i.e., continued ties to Baathism, that the Justice and Accountability Commission excluded those hundreds of candidates. Its decisions could therefore be appealed to the appellate panel of the CCCI.

In the meantime, the Independent High Electoral Commission confirmed the disqualifications. This Commission was created by parliament and therefore is technically under the legislature.

The appellate panel agreed that the over 500 figures disqualified should be further investigated, but said that the investigations should be carried out after the election. This scenario is potentially nightmarish, since it could lead to the removal of members of parliament and an alteration of its balance of power, after the people had spoken.

Ali al-Lami, the head of the Accountability and Justice Commission, denied that the appeals panel had any standing to intervene in the issue.

The Independent High Electoral Commission made a different argument, suggesting that the appeals panel only had the prerogative of deciding guilt or innocence. But it simply postponed that judgment and allowed the accused to run anyway. The IHEC insisted that deciding whether a candidate could run was its own prerogative and that the appeals panel could only decide guilt or innocence, which it had declined to do. Its decision was therefore irrelevant and the High Electoral Commission ruling should therefore be unaffected (i.e. the disqualified candidates should remain disqualified).

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports in Arabic that the al-Maliki government is combatting the appellate panel reversal in two ways. It is appealing the ruling to the Federal Supreme Court. And, on Sunday, it is calling a special session of parliament to discuss the issue.

The Independent High Electoral Commission has also sent a letter to the Federal Supreme Court about the reversal, asking for a clarification of the authority of the appeals court reinstatement of the secular candidates. In the meantime, the IHEC has postponed the beginning of the campaign season from 7 February to 12 February to give the Supreme Court time to rule first.

Riz Khan of Aljazeera English interviews Salih Mutlak, the secular Sunni Arab leader of the 11-seat National Dialogue Bloc in parliament, who was among those disqualified to run on March 7:

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Sophisticated Taliban Bombing, Deaths of 3 US Troops, Embarrasses Zardari Government by Revealing US Troop Presence on Ground in Pakistan

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:09:00 +0000

The fragile Pakistani government of Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and President Asaf Ali Zardari was deeply embarrassed Wednesday when a massive bombing killed 3 US soldiers on the ground in that country. The Pakistani public has been increasingly upset about US military and para-military (Blackwater/ Xe) actions in their country. On Tuesday, several US drone strikes killed a total of 29 persons. The controversy over whether the US is actually fighting a third war, in Pakistan, may have been settled by the troop deaths.

On Wednesday morning, A suicide car bomber slammed into a Frontier Corps convoy of vehicles heading to inaugurate a girls school in the village of Kad, in the Lower Dir district of northwest Pakistan, killing 7 and wounding at least 130. Among the dead were 3 US troops in Pakistani dress and a Frontier Corpsman. The others were schoolgirls. The attack occurred as the convoy was reaching two girls' schools, one an elementary school and one a high school rebuilt with US funds. The force of the blast collapsed the high school's walls, but it was empty. Most of the wounded were schoolgirls in the elementary school, hit by flying glass and debris; ironically, given that the Taliban claim to be Muslims, some were having their class on Islam when the shrapnel hit them.

The bombing was claimed by the Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (Taliban Movement of Pakistan), according to Agence France Presse: "We claim responsibility for the blast," Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Azam Tariq said in the call from an undisclosed location. "The Americans killed were members of the Blackwater group. We know they are responsible for bomb blasts in Peshawar and other Pakistani cities." '

Many Pakistanis believe that the wave of bombings besetting their country, blamed by the mainstream on the Taliban, is secretly carried out by American agents, in order to destabilize Pakistan and justify a US imperial presence.

The bombing differs little from numerous other such attacks in the frontier badlands, but is distinctive because it accidentally revealed that some 200 US troops are on the ground in Pakistan, some 60-100 on a training mission. Those killed had been giving training and support to the Frontier Corps, a Pakistani unit charged with policing the lawless Pashtun areas on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The News says, "The US soldiers were apparently in the area to train the FC [Frontier Corps] personnel engaged in the military operation against the Taliban in Maidan, which is the native area of Tanzim Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi's [Organization for the Implementation of the Law of Muhammad's] jailed chief Maulana Sufi Muhammad. The Taliban group in the area was commanded by Hafizullah, who had escaped the action."

The Daily Times notes that 'Local authorities appear confused by the foreign troops� plans to attend the inauguration of the school, as �they had little role in the project�. '

But in fact, The Guardian reveals that 'The attack also highlighted an even less well-known civilian aid scheme: a retired US official said the defence department had been discreetly funding development projects such as schools in North West Frontier for years. The targeted soldiers could have been going to the school in Dir as "a show of solidarity" with their Pakistani colleagues, he said. '

The targeting of the convoy by truck bomb strongly suggests that the operation was an assassination aimed at the US troops, and further suggests that the Taliban had a man on the inside among the Frontier Corps, who could report the Americans' movements. The US military is known to use jamming technology that interferes with the detonation of roadside bombs by remote control, so that ramming by car bomb would be the only way an insurgent group could bomb them.

Aljazeera English has video:

Opinion polls show that many observers in Pakistan already feel that the US is humiliating their country and sowing discord there, and this revelation of the presence of US troops on the ground, along with the Department of Defense role in building girls' schools, will further raise hackles (and risks making girls' schools unpopular even among non-Taliban).

The USG Open Source Center translated an editorial by Dr Hussein Ahmed Paracha: "How Much Dignity is Left?", published in Nawa-e Waqt in Urdu on January 18, 2010, which exemplified this point of view:

'The United States has been attacking within Pakistani land with drones for the last four to five years and is also killing innocent people. . . There were 44 drone attacks in 2009 alone in which more than 700 innocent people, majority of whom were innocent children, elderly, and women, were killed. According to the statistics provided by various agencies, those who belonged to "Al-Qa'ida" or the Taliban could not be more than 18. . .

Having made sure that the wealth of our national dignity has turned to ashes and the last flame has burned down, the US Administration has now announced a program of naked screening for the passengers coming from a few countries. All these countries are Muslim countries, and Pakistan is one of them. Yes, the same Pakistan, which is the frontline US ally in war against terror. Pakistan has danced to death in others' parties and has made fun of itself. It is the same Pakistan, which left its citizens starving and spent $35 billion in others' war. . .

The United States is bent on treating us shamelessly. Moreover, we pay too much regard to anyone coming from the United States. The Blackwater operatives, who committed heinous and inhuman crimes in Iraq, come wherever they please in Pakistan without visa or travel document. They keep on roaming around in vehicles with fake number plates with dangerous weapons. These US officials point guns at the security people if asked to reveal their identity. During a few minutes debate, there is a series of phone calls from the high officials, and they, who consider Pakistan as their playground, are allowed to go with honor.'

In an opinion poll done last summer, 64% of the Pakistani public said that they saw the US as an 'enemy,' and only 9% saw it as an ally.

Pakistan was born out of the Freedom Struggle against British colonial domination, which aimed at securing independence for what had been branded as 'British India' and an end to control of the place by foreign Western white Christian troops. The return of such troops to Pakistani soil under an American guise will be highly unwelcome to most Pakistanis. Now that Pakistan is having parliamentary elections again, moreover, it matters what the public thinks, because they could well vote for anti-American parties in the next polls, as part of a backlash against US intervention.

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Was US-Iran rivalry Driving the Exclusion of Candidates in Iraq? Was Allawi the Target?

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:35:00 +0000

I am going to speculate a little today, but I am hoping it is informed speculation. I think an end-game drama is playing out in Iraq between the United States and Iran, and possibly among factions of Americans in Iraq, over the likely leader of the next Iraqi government. I am going to argue that the disqualification of 500 candidates, some of them prominent Sunni Arabs, was not a sectarian measure, but a strategic strike at a single candidate. Update: The ban on the 500 candidates has just been lifted.

Iraqi Vice president Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni Arab and member of the three-man presidential council, visited Washington for consultations with President Barack Obama on Tuesday. In an interview with political scientist Marc Lynch, al-Hashimi was clearly upset about the decision of the High Electoral Commission to exclude over 500 candidates, many of them Sunni Arabs, from running in the March 7 parliamentary elections because of their alleged connections to the banned Baath Party (the secular Arab nationalist party that had been taken over by Saddam Hussein in 1979). But he was apparently not sure how much US intervention he wanted in the crisis. The visit appears to have been extremely successful, insofar as back in Baghdad the ban was lifted on Wednesday.

I think the visit was to strategize with the US over how to counter the Shiite chess move, which was probably carried out in consultation with Iran, aimed at checkmating candidate for prime minister Ayad Allawi. Allawi is one of five or six plausible successors to current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, assuming al-Maliki cannot muster the seats to allow him a second term. They also include Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi of the Shiite Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, former prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari, who broke off from the Da'wa Party, perpetual gadfly and Neoconservative favorite, Ahmad Chalabi, and a couple of others. Of them all, only Allawi is anti-Iran. Of them all, only Chalabi might try to recognize Israel, though many suspect him of being a double agent for Iran.

Al-Maliki, head of the Islamic Mission Party (Da'wa), is running in the State of Laws coalition. But that coalition is mainly made up of the Islamic Mission Party, which just has not been a dominating party in the elections held so far. Unlike in the past two parliamentary elections, al-Maliki declined to join the big coalition of Shiite religious parties, now called the Iraqi National Alliance, which includes the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the Sadr Movement. The Shiite vote could therefore end up being split.

Since the Iraqi constitution specifies that the single party or party-coalition that has the largest number of seats will be given the first shot at forming a government, al-Maliki could only get a second term if Da'wa does unprecedentedly well and outpolls almost all the other Shiite parties together. Worse for Shiite interests, you could imagine a situation where Da'wa gets 65 seats and the Iraqi National Alliance gets 70, but where some other coalition gets 73. It could be the Kurdistan Alliance, or the new cross-sectarian secular coalition of Ayad Allawi, to which Hashimi belongs. If Allawi's list got the 73 seats in this scenario, he would have the chance to try to form a government.

Allawi, an ex-Baathist of Shiite extraction, was a CIA asset in the 1990s in London, in charge of running the officers in the Iraqi military who defected from the Saddam Hussein regime, and of coordinating terrorist attacks in Baghdad and attempts to assassinate or overthrow Saddam Hussein. Allawi appears to be too much of an Arab nationalist to look with favor on reconciliation with Israel, and so he was disliked by the Neoconservatives in the US. But he was favored behind the scenes by the CIA, which managed to convince George W. Bush to appoint him interim prime minister in June, 2004, a post he held until he was defeated by the religious Shiite parties early the following year. While Allawi was in power, he appointed hard line Sunni Arab nationalists to key positions, including Defence and Interior, who constantly attacked Iran and called it Iraq's number one enemy. Iran was very upset about this emergence of a Washington-backed 'Baath lite' in Baghdad, and may have responded by helping fund the political campaigns of the Shiite religious parties in fall of 2004. The United Iraqi Alliance, Shiite religious parties who made a coalition with each other, unseated Allawi in the January 2005 parliamentary elections, and trounced him again in December 2005.

Allawi leads a small coalition that has 25 members in parliament. He has occasionally attempted to put together a coalition of parties in hopes of unseating al-Maliki, who is too pro-Iran and pro-Shiite religious groups for his taste. But Allawi's efforts in that direction never bore fruit and he appears not to have gotten the green light from Washington to make a serious push.

But Allawi suddenly became a plausible candidate for prime minister in January for four reasons.

First, the Shiite religious parties are not running unitedly, and so the Shiite vote could well be split.

Second, he did manage to put together Iraqi National Movement that groups both Sunnis and Shiites, most of them secular but including also some religiously-oriented figures.. It includes VP Tariq al-Hashimi as well as Abdul Karim al-Muhammadawi, the Shiite 'Prince of the Marshes' and Marsh Arab leader who led a group called Hizbullah in insurgency against the Saddam Hussein regime and is now a notable and leader in Amara. It also included the National Dialogue Bloc of Salih Mutlak, which has 11 seats in parliament, and is made up of Sunni Arab nationalists.

Third, secular parties did relatively well in the January 2009 provincial elections. A Sunni Arab nationalist party, al-Hadba', took over the northern province of Ninevah. Secular or tribal Sunni Arab groupings did well in al-Anbar and Diyala provinces. And while Da'wa or the Islamic Mission Party is a Shiite fundamentalist grouping, it avoided religious rhetoric in the campaign and did well, especially in Baghdad and Basra.

Fourth, in mid-December Iranian forces took over the Fakka oil field, claimed by Iraq, and raised an Iranian flag over it. This move put the Iraqi Shiite parties, which are close to Iran and probably receive emoluments from Tehran, in a very difficult position. The Iraqi public wanted thunderous denunciations of Iran. None were forthcoming from al-Maliki or other Shiite leaders, though they successfully worked behind the scenes for an Iranian withdrawal. Allawi's coalition partner, Salih Mutlak, complained bitterly not only about the Iranian incursion but also about al-Maliki's silence. The Iraqi Shiite press in turn complained about the attempts to promote Irano-phobia in certain quarters. Iraqis are nationalistic, and an anti-Iran backlash could have awarded Allawi's coalition enough seats to let him form the government.

An Allawi victory would be music to Washington's ears, because the Obama administration and the US military could withdraw from an Iraq ruled by a secular Arab nationalist government profoundly suspicious of Iran.

The banning of the candidates, with Mutlak at their head, had been initiated by the Accountability and Justice Committee, headed by Ali al-Lami, a militant Shiite. He was arrested in summer of 2008 by the US military on returning from a trip to Beirut, on suspicion that he was a covert leader of the rogue cells called "Special Groups," within the Mahdi Army. These Special Groups were suspected of being run by the Jerusalem (Quds) Brigade or special forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. He has also been linked to the Asa'ib Ahl al-Haqq, a splinter of the Sadrist Movement involved in the kidnapping of Britishers. Al-Maliki recently released a leader of this radical group, Qais al-Khazali, who will likely campaign for al-Maliki.

Lami is himself running for parliament as part of the Shiite religious parties coalition. He is said to be close to Chalabi, who supported the attempted exclusions.

So it looks to me as though Lami's move may have been intended to make sure that Allawi's Iraqi National Movement could not emerge as the largest single bloc in parliament on March 7. The constitution, mind you, doesn't specify that the party or coalition that forms the government be a plurality or majority. It just has to be the single largest group. By excluding Mutlaq, Lami would have blunted al-Maliki's momentum significantly, and might even have provoked some Sunnis to boycott the elections, which would have weakened Allawi's bloc further. Unsurprisingly, al-Maliki was enthusiastic about the exclusions.

I surmise that Iran, including the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps that used to run Lami and Khazali, and some Iraqi Shiite religious parties are conspiring to ensure that whether al-Maliki survives or not (and he is perfectly acceptable to them), the next prime minister of Iraq comes from one of the Shiite religious parties and so remains aligned with Tehran. A possible but unlikely scenario is that fierce Da'wa/ ISCI rivalry allows Chalabi to emerge as a compromise candidate.

The March 7 elections will therefore help to determine whether the US withdrawal from Iraq leaves behind a strong ally of Iran or a government with lukewarm or bad relations with Tehran.

Personally, I don't find it plausible that even without the disqualifications of Mutlak and some others, now lifted, Allawi's Iraqi National Movement can emerge as the biggest in parliament or that he can become prime minister. He has too much baggage. But he now has a fighting chance.

It is said that al-Maliki's own polling points to a Da'wa win. But that development would also surprise me. I think he could get a second term, but it would be by entering a post-election coalition with the Iraqi National Alliance (the Shiite religious parties). It is also possible that the INA will have the most seats, and that Adil Abdul Mahdi of ISCI could emerge as the strongest candidate.

Since al-Maliki is the first fairly strong leader in post-Baath Iraq, and since he seems genuinely to have gotten control of the Iraqi armed forces, any change in prime minister does raise the specter that his successor will not be as good at the game of military influence, leading to more instability.

Long story short, the March 7 elections and the politics around them are only in part sectarian. They are also about the relative position of Washington and Tehran in Baghdad as US troops rapidly withdraw.

It remains to be seen I Washington's surprise win over Iran Wednesday is a prelude to a major geopolitical shift in Baghdad on the eve of the US withdrawal.

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Could Thomas Jefferson's DNA Trail Reveal Middle-Eastern Origins?

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:18:00 +0000

Could Thomas Jefferson's DNA Trail Reveal Middle-Eastern Origins?

Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the Jefferson clan in the British Isles may have descended from a Phoenician merchant family that set up a trading post up there.

Maybe the Lebanese (many of whom trace their ancestry to the Phoenicians) will get more interested in Jefferson's thought if they realize he may share a direct, fairly recent common patrilineal ancestor.

And, of course, the finding lends a whole new meaning to the phrase "Americans of Middle Eastern descent"!

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56 Killed, 144 Wounded in Suicide Bombing of Shiite Pilgrims in Baghdad

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 05:26:00 +0000

AFP Arabic reports that a female suicide bomber detonated her payload in a tent in northeast Baghdad (Bub al-Sham) among pilgrims walking to the Shiite holy city of Karbala, killing 56 and wounding 144 according to late reports. The pilgrimage commemorates the 40th day after the anniversary of the martyrdom of Imam Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, at the hands of the Umayyad Empire in 680 CE. Thousands of Iraqi Shiites are walking or driving toward Karbala, creating a security nightmare for Iraqi army and police intent on preventing Sunni Arab terrorist attacks on the pilgrims.

Along the way philanthropic groups have set up tents with food and drink. Since Husayn was said to have suffered from thirst as he and his family and friends were besieged by the armies of the Caliph Yazid, it is common for pious Shiites to put out water stalls. The suicide bomber is said to have entered such a tent for women pilgrims, which had Interior Ministry female security personnel within, patting people down. The attacker set off her bomb before she could be inspected, killing 3 inspectors along with many others in the tent.

AP has video:

Some 35,000 pilgrims have already reached Karbala in preparation for the 40-day mourning sessions there, about five days from now.

Aswat al-Iraq reports via PNA that the Iraq ministries of the interior, defense and health said Sunday that 196 non-insurgent Iraqis were killed in political violence in January, 135 of them civilians and the others police or soldiers. In addition, Iraqi security forces killed 54 armed militants and arrested 681 others. The total of wounded this January was 782, 620 of them civilians.

The civilian deaths declined 56% from December, when 306 civilians were killed. The death total was also a steep decline from January of 2009 when 376 Iraqis were killed. The number of wounded showed no change from January 2009.

The US military suffered 5 deaths in Iraq in January, but only 2 were the result of hostile action. In December, no US troops died in Iraq.

Sunni-Shiite violence has continued as part of the low-intensity conflict in post-Baath (and increasingly post-American) Iraq. Already raw nerves have been rubbed even more raw by the exclusion of over 500 candidates out of some 3000 from running for parliament. Those excluded include some candidates who presented forged credentials to he High Electoral Commission. But many were disqualified by the Accountability and Justice Committee on grounds of close connection to the banned Baath Party. Since the more prominent politicians so excluded were Sunni Arabs of a secular cast of mind, Sunni Arabs are particularly upset.

Salih Mutlak, the leader of the National Dialogue Bloc in parliament (11 seats), was among those excluded, and his appeal to the courts has failed. Sunni Awakening leader Ahmad Abu Risha, whose group went on the US payroll to fight Sunni radicals ("al-Qaeda"), is considering boycotting the March 7 parliamentary elections over the exclusions.

Tensions over the election are running so high that US ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill has publicly weighed in, warning about the danger to the credibility of the elections of excluding high-profile Sunni Arabs.

One menace is that Sunni boycotts or noncooperation could complicate the process of forming a new government after the early March elections.

Tensions also remain high between Arabs and Kurds in the north, where the US is jointly patrolling with Iraqi and Kurdish paramilitary forces.

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The News alleges US drones killed 123 civilians, three al-Qaeda men in January; Other Sources categorize some 'Civilians' as Militants

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:46:00 +0000

US drones killed 123 civilians, three al-Qaeda men in January

The Pakistani newspaper, The News alleges that:

"Afghanistan-based US predators carried out a record number of 12 deadly missile strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan in January 2010, of which 10 went wrong and failed to hit their targets, killing 123 innocent Pakistanis. The remaining two successful drone strikes killed three al-Qaeda leaders, wanted by the Americans.

The rapid increase in the US drone attacks in the Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan can be gauged from the fact that only two such strikes were carried out in January 2009, which killed 36 people. The highest number of drone attacks carried out in a single month in 2009 was six, which were conducted in December last year. . ."

But other sources speak of US drone attacks regularly killing "militants,"-- GEO TV counts 9 dead since late Friday. So The News coding of all the non-al-Qaeda killed as "civilians" seems disingenuous. Some proportion of them were armed Pashtun guerrillas.

What is indisputable is that the number of drone strikes is way up in January in the wake of the suicide bombing on the CIA's Forward Operating Base Campbell.

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Karzai said Ready to Talk to Taliban; H. Mahsud's Death Questioned; Is Afghanistan a Potential Oil State?

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 06:18:00 +0000

Reuters reports that President Hamid Karzai is calling upon the Taliban and other insurgent groups to drop their demand that foreign forces leave the country before agreeing to attend a Loya Jirga or national tribal council in six weeks to seek reconciliation with the Karzai government. Karzai says he will go to Riyadh to seek Saudi mediation, though Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal says that the kingdom will only host talks if the Taliban and other guerrillas drop their ties to al-Qaeda.

Omar, the son of Usamah Bin Laden, maintains that al-Qaeda Arab fighters and their Pashtun Taliban hosts are not in fact close, and that their alliance of convenience is riddled with disagreements.

Radio Azadi reports in Dari Persian that center-right Pakistani politician and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif says that the Pakistani government should initiate the reconciliation talks with the Taliban.

Aljazeera English reports that Ashraf Ghani, former presidential candidate, is confirming that the Afghanistan government has been talking to the Taliban and other insurgents behind the scenes.

Meanwhile, US Marines and troops fighting the insurgents find themselves embroiled in an unconventional struggle in which the enemy has many advantages. There has been no winter lull this year, as the Taliban and other guerrilla groups have resorted increasingly to roadside bombs and sniping at US troops, filling them with anger and desire for revenge. Some 29 US troops were killed in January in Afghanistan, up from 15 in January of 2009. Commanders are attempting to restrain the US military personnel from revenge attacks that would only end all hope of winning local hearts and minds.

Karzai attempted to raise the stakes for Western success in Afghanistan, saying that a US geological survey will soon announce that the country has $1 trillion in petroleum reserves, in addition to substantial copper and iron ore deposits (China has a contract to mine the copper.)

On the Pakistan side of the border, the Pakistani military is investigating press reports that a US drone strike may have killed the leader of the Pakistani Taliban Movement (Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan or TTP), Hakimu'llah Mahsud. The Taliban maintain that Mahsud is alive. He was pictured in the martyrdom video of the Jordanian double agent, Humam al-Balawi, who attacked the CIA's Forward Operating Base Campbell in late December. He has also been behind a string of deadly bombings against civilian and military targets inside Pakistan.

The TTP faces increasing public anger in Pakistan, and in this weekend's by-election in the Swat valley, which the Movement took over last winter-spring before being forcibly expelled by the Pakistani army this summer, a secular Pashtun nationalist candidate won, defeating more conservative and religious aulternatives. The Pakistani Taliban are driving the Pakistani public into the arms of the secular parties.

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Give a Book and a Rose to a Lover for George's Day, April 23

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:01:00 +0000

Reprinted from last spring. Bookstores and bibliophiles: time to get working on this--advertising, word of mouth, etc. for this year..

There is a delightful custom in Barcelona. On April 23, St. George's Day, men give their girlfriends or wives a rose. And the women give their male beloved a book. The gift of the book is said to have been initiated in 1926 as a commemoration of Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote

The rose is more traditional. It is said that after St. George killed the dragon to save the maiden, a droplet of its blood sprouted into a rose.

Perhaps under Catalonian influence, April 23 has already been adopted by UNESCO as the International Day of the Book. However, I don't think very many people know about this day.

The advantage of the way the Barcelonans do it is that it ties book-giving to individual romance, and so makes it universal. Obviously the traditional Catalonian custom, however quaint and colorful, had been sexist. Among most couples nowadays, each gives both a book and a rose to the other.

I propose that this updated way of doing it be widely adopted, that whoever loves someone else romantically of any sex give the loved one both a book and a rose for George's Day.

If we do it that way, I think George's Day could be promulgated successfully as a day internationally observed by individuals, just as Valentine's Day has become.

April 23 has the advantage of falling at a time of year when there is little to drive customers to bookstores. Moreover, despite UNESCO's effort, there is no popularly recognized special day for book-buying. One can give a book on lots of occasions, but it is just one possible gift among many. Having a special day on which only a book will do as a gift would be a great good thing. And, of course, buying someone a Kindle file would also work.

It is true that St. George is a Catholic saint and so on the surface not suited to universal commemoration. But I know of nothing objectionable about him, and the main legend associated with him is that of killing the dragon. That is of course a mythic deed common in world mythology-- Indra and Vrta, Faridun and Zohak, Thor and the Midgaard serpent. Killing the dragon of ignorance on behalf of the Book is a universal.

Besides, in the US we don't have a problem widely commemorating St. Valentine's Day. And then there is our appropriation from Catholic sources of St. Patrick's Day, Cinco de Mayo, Mardi Gras, and virtually any other excuse to get tipsy, so why not at least put one saint to literate use?

What say you, bloggers and bibliophiles? Shall we push George's Day, April 23, with all the vigor that the jewelers put into Valentine's Day?

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Top Ten Ways al-Qaeda Causes Carbon Emissions and Climate Change

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 06:00:00 +0000

In an audiotape attributed to Usamah Bin Laden, the mass murderer called for a boycott of the US dollar and blamed the US for global warming. There is nothing worse than a terrorist who kills thousands of innocent people, but being a hypocrite is also a pretty bad character flaw, and Bin Laden manages both. Global terrorism is a high-carbon activity and very bad for the environment, not to mention humans and other living things.

During human history on earth, there were typically 275 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Low levels of carbon dioxide have coincided with ice ages over the past 400,000 years. Only once in that period, 325,000 years ago, did carbon dioxide reach 300 parts per million, coinciding with a hot climate then. There are now 390 parts per million (ppm), with the extra carbon dioxide having been produced by the industrial revolution beginning in the late 18th century-- coal-burning factories, railroad engines, etc., and then with the addition of gasoline-driven automobiles and coal- and gas-powered electricity plants in the 20th century. That is, we already have more carbon dioxide in our atmosphere than in any time during the past nearly half-million years! In geologic time, if we go back hundreds of millions of years, there were often as much as 1500 parts per million of C02 in the atmosphere; but the world was steamy swamp then, with average surface temperatures as much as 20 degrees higher than they are now and much higher sea levels. Homo Sapiens Sapiens is only about 120,000 years old as a species and evolved in relatively low-carbon, low-temperature conditions. We don't know how well the species would adapt to radical climate change. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, trapping heat from the sun in the atmosphere that would otherwise radiate back into outer space.

Scientists such as James Hansen have concluded that 390 ppm of carbon dioxide particles in the atmosphere is too much for a sustainable earth comfortable for human life, and that we need to reduce the amount to 350 ppm. The world is currently adding 2 ppm of carbon dioxide per year, so that in 2020 if that rate does not increase we will be at 410. As we approach 450 ppm, James Hansen's projections suggest large-scale and potentially catastrophic climate change (global warming is only part of the effect--some places may become much colder; the point is that the climate will change dramatically). See Hansen's important new book, Storms of My Grandchildren.

The decade 2000-2009 was the warmest on record. Climate is complex, and everything from changing water vapor levels in the atmosphere to decades-long wind patterns affect it. But it is a myth that global warming ceased during the past decade, and it is also a myth that solar activity can account for climate change in recent decades. (It appears to have done so in history, as with the 'little ice age' of 1250-1850, but there are no such consistent climate-relevant solar patterns in the past 30 years). There are lots of other things that interfere with getting a clear read on the changing climate situation. A weakened ozone layer (caused by industrial emissions by humans may actually be protecting the Antarctic ice shelf from melting as fast as had been feared. There are also carbon sinks, which absorb carbon dioxide, such as the oceans and forests, the full capacity of which is unknown.

A large danger is that there may be sudden tipping points and positive feedback loops for climate change. Thus, reduced emissions of some gases may strengthen the ozone layer over the South Pole in coming decades, removing the wind protection from the Antarctic and allowing a rapid melting of the ice shelves. Or, the melting of Arctic tundra at the earth's other pole may rapidly release trapped carbon dioxide and methane, accelerating climate change. These are dangers, not certainties, but very dangerous dangers that it would be wise to guard against. Sudden climate tipping points appear to have been common in the earth's past.

But that over time a lot of extra human-generated carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will cause the average surface temperature of the earth to rise-- all other things being equal-- is basic physics. Despite the climate-change-denial industry paid for by the oil and gas corporations (and therefore adopted along with Darwin-denial as a dogma by the American Republican Party), this conclusion is not in dispute among serious scientists.

So back to terrorist hypocrisy. Here are the ways al-Qaeda causes global warming and climate change:

1. Bin Laden wants to take over Saudi Arabia and pump its oil for himself and his movement. Use of petroleum and natural gas puts more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and is a major source of climate change. In short, Saudis who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Saudi Arabia produces about 11% of all the petroleum pumped in the world every day. Al-Qaeda would not reduce exports significantly, since it would want the income they generate to pursue its political projects.

2. The attacks of September 11, using airplanes full of jet fuel and destroying skyscrapers and buildings, were--quite apart from being monstrous acts of mass murder-- among the largest discrete man-made events causing high carbon emissions in this century.

3. Bin Laden told London-based journalist Abdul Bari Atwan in 1996 that he would like to embroil the US in a war in the Middle East so that he could do to the US what the Mujahidin had done to the Soviets in Afghanistan. Hint: Provoking large-scale wars involves lots of use of aircraft carriers, tanks, and fighter-jets, as well as bombing strikes-- all of which spew large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Since 9/11 was intended to provoke the Afghanistan War, Bin Laden is single-handedly responsible for among the biggest high-carbon set of events in the twenty-first century. Not only is war itself a significant source of extra greenhouse gas emissions because of vehicle use and explosions, but it wounds and maims large numbers of people. While harming people is bad enough, and is the real tragedy, it is also true that extra health care is carbon-intensive. (In the US, the health care industry accounts for about 8 percent of the American carbon footprint.)

4. Al-Qaeda-linked groups such as al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the 'Islamic State of Iraq' are responsible for hundreds of bombings in Iraq, which release large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Some attacks targeted refineries and pipelines and so were responsible for very large amounts of greenhouse emissions. They have also destroyed automobiles and buildings; not only is burning such things pollution-producing, their replacement generates carbon emissions from factories. In addition, al-Qaeda-linked groups have hijacked chlorine trucks and used them as bombs; chlorine contributes to the depletion of the ozone layer. Bin Laden's 9/11 attacks were intended to bring the US military into places like Iraq, and succeeded. In 2008 Oil Change International estimated of the Iraq hostilities that "The war is responsible for at least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) since March 2003. To put this in perspective, CO2 released by the war to date equals the emissions from putting 25 million more cars on the road in the US this year."

5. Al-Qaeda and its Taliban partners in Pakistan have committed large bombings, including the destruction of the Marriott in Islamabad, which release enormous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, and have provoked Pakistani military action in Swat and South Waziristan employing armored vehicles and artillery and US unmanned drone strikes-- all of which release large amounts of carbon.

6. Al-Qaeda affiliates in Indonesia blew up a nightclub in Bali, the Marriott in Jakarta, and set off a bomb outside the Australian Embassy. Not only are bombings themselves high-carbon events, but they provoke military and paramilitary responses that use extra fuel and so produce more carbon dioxide.

7. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula set off large numbers of bombs in Saudi Arabia in 2003-2006 and provoked Saudi military and paramilitary responses, all of which released a great deal of extra carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Al-Qaeda attempted to blow up a major Saudi oil facility at Abqaiq, which would have spewed out enormous numbers of carbon particles.

8. Al-Qaeda attacks in Yemen have provoked air strikes and bombings from the Yemeni government. Both the terrorist bombings and the government response they provoke release substantial carbon into the atmosphere.

9. Al-Qaeda attacks on airliners have forced airports to scan baggage and passengers, using much more electricity to do so than in the past. Electricity is typically generated by coal- or gas-burning plants, and both spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

10. Increased delays at airports because of increased security measures have led to more idling automobiles at and around airports. Idling automobiles are a major source of carbon dioxide pollution.

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Coal River Mountain Protestors Meet with Governor

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:45:00 +0000

Coal River Mountain Protestors Meet with Governor - Huntington News Network

The closest thing you might get in today's world to Gandhists and followers of Martin Luther King, on a practical plane, are the campaigners in West Virginia against shearing off mountaintops for coal mining. Coal mining should be illegal, much less destroying the environment to do it.

As for obeying the law, the point of Satyagraha, nonviolent nonresistance, is precisely to take public action against unjust laws. They aren't all just, and if corporations can buy politicians at will, as SCOTUS just affirmed, then there will be more and more unjust ones. If you stack the deck against the people in Congress, the people will just have to find other ways to protect themselves.

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Muslim inventions that shaped the modern world

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:26:00 +0000

Muslim inventions that shaped the modern world - CNN.com

Coffee houses, surgical techniques, algrebra, some key institutional developments in universities and hospitals, all from Muslim science. Not to mention optics, astronomical advances (some think they influenced Copernicus), etc.

And those alcoholic stills so popular in Kentucky during Prohibition? Yup, Jabir ibn Hayyan was behind them.

I don't know if Muslims invented it, but Franz Rosenthal showed that smoking pot was a big part of medieval Muslim popular culture (the Qur'an forbids date wine but doesn't say anything about pot, though many clerics forbade it by analogy. Like most clerical prohibitions, a lot of people paid no attention.)

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NATO, Afghan Troops Clash, 4 killed; Call for Talks with Taliban Rejected

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 06:53:00 +0000

NATO troops appear to have made a horrible error in Afghanistan on Friday, as they clashed with what turned out to be Afghan National Army troops and called in an air strike on them, killing 4 and wounding 6. The governor of Wardak province where the fight took place said he was at a loss to explain it.

The incident comes on top of Thursday's slaying by NATO of an Afghan religious leader, again apparently by accident.

Aljazeera Arabic is reporting that Duran Safi, an insurgent leader of the Hizb-i Islami in eastern Afghanistan, has rejected talks with the Karzai government.

The Saudi government declined President Hamid Karzai's call for Riyadh to broker a deal with the Taliban, saying that first the latter must cut off their relationship with Usamah Bin Laden and cease giving him safe harbor.

Ironically, at the same time India is softening on the idea of talks with the Taliban, which New Delhi initially opposed out of fear they would rehabilitate allies of Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Sonia Verma explores the issue of how likely the insurgents in Pakistan are to open talks with the Kabul government. The most promising negotiations might be with Gulbadin Hikmatyar, the leader of Hizb-i Islami or the 'Islamic Party' in eastern Afghanistan. It is unlikely that Mullah Omar, leader of the Old Taliban in Quetta, will take part in talks, and even if he did, she says, he does not seem in firm operational control of the Taliban commanders, some of whom openly say they will defy him if he makes the wrong decision. Siraj Haqqani, leader of the Haqqani network in North Waziristan and south Afghanistan, will also likely not talk.

Money graf from Verma's fine piece:

'According to an unclassified report by Task Force Kandahar, only 30 per cent of insurgents fight for money. The rest take up arms because of tribal allegiances or for �other reasons,� an amorphous category that encompasses everything from revenge to land disputes. Just 10 per cent fight for religious reasons, according the analysis.'

Aljazeera English reports on the Taliban attack at Lashkar Gah late on Friday after the London conference ended.

Ajazeera English interviews a female member of parliament on the issues broachd at the London conference.

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Obama shows himself a Natural for a Second Term in Debate with Republicans

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 06:48:00 +0000

President Barack Obama was so effective in his 90-minute 'questions session' with the congressional Republican conference that some Republican leaders are said to be regretting that they allowed the session to be recorded. Fox Cable News rectified the error by pulling away its own cameras. Luckily, C-Span was there.

Obama complained about hyperbole on the Republican Right, such that the health bill, which is similar to Republican proposals of the early 1990s when Clinton was trying to overhaul health reform, is depicted as a Bolshevik plot to impose big government.

Here is the C-Span video:

My own view is that pundits and politicians are writing off Obama prematurely. He is likeable, which counts for a lot in politics. People forget now that Reagan had a deep recession, was forced out of Lebanon, and was ridiculed for saying that trees cause pollution, but he trounced Mondale. Clinton failed to pass health care reform, but he trounced the dour Dole. Inside the beltway policy wonks don't include the likeability index in their prognostications, but it was on full display in the president's back-and-forth with Republicans at Baltimore on Friday.

And, it is entirely possible that the rest of his term will see substantial job creation, which is what will really matter to voters. As it is, the economy grew by nearly 6% in the fourth quarter of 2009, and if that sort of growth continues, lots of people will be back to work.

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America's Competitors Will Use Supreme Court Ruling To Block Our Green Jobs Effort And Close Our Factories | OurFuture.org

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:47:00 +0000

America's Competitors Will Use Supreme Court Ruling To Block Our Green Jobs Effort And Close Our Factories | OurFuture.org

'Saudi Arabia�s economy depends on oil exports so stands to be one of the biggest losers in any pact that curbs oil demand by penalizing carbon emissions. �It�s one of the biggest threats that we are facing,� said Muhammed al-Sabban, head of the Saudi delegation to U.N. talks on climate change and a senior economic adviser to the Saudi oil ministry. [...] Climate talks posed a bigger threat, Sabban said, and subsidies for the development of renewable energy were distorting market economics in the sector, he said." '

It will be interesting to see if the oil and gas corporations directly come after Green candidates in November and shape Congress in their image. I don't think that is the Saudis' style, but it is that of Exxon-Mobil and other energy giants. (The Saudis tend to lobby already-elected high officials behind the scenes rather than doing grassroots work, and in that way are the opposite of the Israel lobbies).

The other thing is that some Saudis have an interest in green energy, including the oil minister. Look up the Empty Quarter on google if you want to guess why. And, Saudi Arabia is moving forward with solar-powered water desalinization plants, which if they can be built and operated economically, might save the arid Middle East from decades of further warfare (Israel-Syria-Jordan, Yemen, Turkey-Iraq, etc. are all looming water wars waiting to happen if there isn't such a breakthrough).

So it is not actually in the Saudis' interest to prevent the USG from throwing research money at solar energy, since they will be able to produce a lot of it and continue to get rich from energy production, and because they need it themselves for effective water plants of the future.

But if I disagree about the supposed Saudi threat to US Green candidates, I acknowledge the justice of the anxiety. Justice Alito mouthed disagreement when President Obama pointed out that the Supreme Court had opened the door to international corporations to intervene in US politics. He made this gesture because the Court has not formally ruled on whether foreign corporations have US first amendment rights of "speech" (i.e. of making propaganda infomercials and paying for them to be shown on US television). But most US corporations have plenty of foreign stockholders and partners. And, you wonder about the American corporations who are based in the Caribbean as a tax dodge? Are they 'American' persons?

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NATO to Provide $500 mn. to Bribe Taliban; Seeks Exit beginning 2011; Obama's Request for 10,000-troop NATO Surge Quietly Rejected

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:05:00 +0000

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown may have called the London Conference on Afghanistan for domestic political purposes, as a sort of publicity stunt. But the nearly 70 nations that gathered there unexpectedly took advantage of the meet to plot out a NATO exit strategy. Of course, how realistic it is remains to be seen. The London conference saw as many plans put forward for dealing with the low-intensity war against the Taliban there as there were countries in attendance. And, even while it was being held, major fighting broke out in the Pashtun city of Lashkar Gah. And in the Pakistani port of Karachi, Taliban attacked a NATO truck convoy. Since Afghanistan is landlocked, Karachi is serving as the major port for the war effort.

President Hamid Karzai asked for 15 years more of a substantial NATO commitment and heavy investment of foreign training and aid in the country.

Karzai also offered to open talks with the top echelons of the Old Taliban of Mullah Omar in hopes of bringing them in from the cold. While Karzai has been talking to some elements of the insurgency (including Gulbadin Hikmatyar of the Hizb-i Islami or 'Islamic Party,' one of Reagan's old 'Freedom Fighters' now incorrectly lumped in with the Taliban), he wanted the London conference to give him the resources to make them an offer they couldn't refuse.

Some European powers were unexpectedly open to the idea of a national unity government that would bring some Taliban officials in from the cold. NATO was even willing to back such efforts, putting together $500 million in bribes to bring Taliban or rural tribal forces over to the government side. The Western press is not mentioning it, but Saudi Arabia is putting in $150 mn. in aid to Afghanistan, and Karzai is pleading with King Abdullah to help negotiate a ceasefire with the Taliban.

The US is more wary, willing to bring over the everyday guerrillas but unwilling to imagine a return of Old Taliban officials to positions of power. India was apparently extremely concerned by the widespread interest in the Karzai plan, since New Delhi does not believe Taliban can be separated into 'good' and 'bad.' India remembers that the Taliban helped train guerrillas to hit Kashmir. New Delhi is also worried that any push to reintegrate the Taliban into the government might well increase Pakistani influence, and Islamabad is already offering to help Karzai negotiate with the Taliban and other insurgents. India and Pakistan are fierce rivals.

NATO was generally very unhappy at Karzai's mention of "15 years", and instead began speaking of 2011 as the beginning of a withdrawal of NATO troops, with the expectation that over time more and more of Afghanistan's provinces would be patrolled by the Afghan military without foreign assistance.

US President Barack Obama's plea for an extra 10,000 NATO troops to committed is falling on deaf ears in Europe. The NATO military commitment to Afghanistan is widely unpopular in most countries. Canada has said it would bring its troops home by 2012. France says it will send no more troops to Afghanistan and criticized Karzai's 15-year timeline. Germany is sending only 500 more troops. The Dutch may pull out their 2000 troops soon. Obama is highly unlikely to get his 10,000 quota from NATO, though that piece of the troop escalation was key to his plan.

What he'll get instead is increasing NATO troop drawdowns

There is an emerging Indo-American suspicion of the Karzai reconciliation plan, and a NATO-Pakistan-Afghanistan convergence of interest in it.

Perhaps alarmed at how far the talk of reintegration was going, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who said Monday that The Taliban would inevitably be part of any political settlement, nevertheless warned that "foreign" (presumably Arab) fighters in Afghanistan would not be part of any truce, and would have to leave the country or risk being killed.

Some say that with the US withdrawal from Iraq ahead of schedule, Washington will be willing to take on Afghanistan itself if NATO is not willing to commit to a long-term mission. But Afghanistan is a big, craggy country armed to the teeth, and US resources are not what they once were.

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Gopal, Afraid of the Dark in Afghanistan

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:14:00 +0000

Tomgram: Anand Gopal, Afraid of the Dark in Afghanistan | TomDispatch

"The foreign soldiers, most of them tattooed and bearded, then went on to the main compound. They threw clothes on the floor, smashed dinner plates, and forced open closets. Finally, they found the man they were looking for: Habib-ur-Rahman, a computer programmer and government employee. Rahman was responsible for converting Microsoft Windows from English to the local Pashto language so that government offices could use the software. He had spent time in Kuwait, and the Afghan translator accompanying the soldiers said they were acting on a tip that Rahman was a member of al-Qaeda.

They took the barefoot Rahman and a cousin of his to a helicopter some distance away and transported them to a small American base in a neighboring province for interrogation. After two days, U.S. forces released Rahman�s cousin. But Rahman has not been seen or heard from since."

Worth a read. Doesn't sound like winning hearts and minds.

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