How do Iraqis feel about Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, and the fact that for the past three years, it has been permitted to operate as a de-facto part of the Iraqi state - in the process driving away a good portion of Baghdad’s non-Shiite population? Now that Baghdad seems serious about putting a stop to the Mahdi Army, Fateh Abdusalam asks in Iraq’s Azzaman newspaper:
“One of the many questions that are forbidden or that can only be asked with great difficulty - like something that’s so hard to swallow, one needs a drink afterwards - is this one: Why was the Mahdi Army permitted to operate day and night for three years … Why was the Mahdi Army allowed to parade in front of the public and guard areas of central Baghdad, flouting what passes for democracy, the rule of law and the fiction of a “just constitution?” … Why is a person who was above the law three years ago, now wanted by the law? What has changed: the person or the law or the ones in charge of overseeing that law?
By Fateh Abdusalam
Translated By Nicolas Dagher
April 24, 2008
Iraq - Azzaman - Original Article (Arabic)
There’s a king of perverse equality in Iraq, which is that no one has a right to ask questions. Or everyone has a right to ask questions, according to Democratic theory, but not everyone who asks a question has a right to an answer.
The same can be said about questions on political matters. There are those who excuse this situation and exempt the Iraqi government from any responsibility on the grounds that, ‘the eye cannot overcome the will” … or the American administration of Iraq, where the file of outstanding problems remains suspended in the Pentagon.
One of the many questions that are forbidden or that can only be asked with great difficulty - like something that’s so hard to swallow, one needs a drink afterwards - is this one: Why was the Mahdi Army permitted to operate day and night for three years - and especially the last two years - since the eruption of sectarian strife [since the bombing of the Golden Mosque] and the failure of the notorious government of al-Jaafari, which showed leniency toward all parties involved and failed to control the strife, all of which only served to pour oil on the fire?
Why was the Mahdi Army allowed to parade in front of the public and guard areas of central Baghdad, flouting what passes for democracy, the rule of law and the fiction of a “just constitution?” The public airwaves reported on these “authorities” as though they comprised part of the new Iraqi state - until three-quarters of Baghdad’s original population comprised of various sects and groups were forced to flee because they weren’t “loyal” to those who prevailed in the street … or to those who prevailed in the secret/or open headquarters of public authorities or armed parties.
Why does the Mahdi Army remain silent about the “renegades and infiltrators” who used its name and address for years, through the consent of alliances and friendships. … until a crisis of “existence” and “authority” broke out with a party that was smarter and better equipped logistically [the Badr Brigades of al-Hakim?] and which caused all parties to expose the dirty laundry of their opponents.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated coverage of the Iraqi side of the war.
Now it’s Condoleezza Rice’s turn to take a hand in putting up the false front the Bush Administration is trying to construct and pass off as “victory.” She follows President Bush last September, Vice President Cheney and the war’s heir apparent, John McCain, last month in projecting a perception of peace with smoke and mirrors.
In a surprise trip last weekend, the Secretary of State was cheerleading “a coalescing of a center in Iraqi politics in which the Sunni leadership, the Kurdish leadership, and elements of the Shiite leadership that are not associated with these special groups have been working together better than at any time before.”
The “special groups” are militias of the Mahdi Army. If the central government continues to attack them, as it did ineptly in Basra this month only to be bailed out by US forces, al-Sadr is threatening “all-out war.”
While Rice hailed the coalescing, there were three rocket attacks–the first as she was meeting with Maliki at his office, another while returning to the Green Zone from a meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talibani, a third that delayed a ceremony at which she unveiled a plaque commemorating civilian deaths in the Green Zone.
Are Iraqis beginning to feel better about the the U.S.-led occupation and the state of their nation? In our continuing effort to help answer that question, WORLDMEETS.US has translated this article from Iraq’s Azzaman newspaper. Fateh Abdusalam writes in part, “In the sixth year of the new dispensation and still looking for excuses to justify its policies, Iraq’s war-mongering government is isolated from Iraqis. … Iraq remains an ever-shifting Read the rest of this entry »
It’s semi-annual Iraq progress report time for David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker. But, alas, there has been no progress beyond a return to 2005 death-toll levels, which merely has given Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki an opportunity to try to exterminate his chief political rivals, so the general and the ambassador desperately need a carrot or a bogeyman to appease the few restive senators and representatives among the fawning congressfolk to whom they will report.
You may recall that the duo dangled a carrot when they last checked in back in September.
While they both equivocated about whether the Al-Maliki government was making progress (of course it wasn’t), Petraeus was able to say that the number of troops in country might return to the 130,000 pre-Surge level by this summer.
Well, events on the ground, notably Al-Maliki’s recalcitrance, and statements from President Bush have effectively swept that wee glimmer of hope off the table, so Petraeus and Crocker need a bogeyman.
T.E. Lawrence and John McCain are bona fide war heroes, but when it comes to Iraq, that’s where any similarity between the two men ends.
Lawrence (top photo), one of the most astute observers of Iraq and the Middle East of any generation, knew impending disaster when he saw it and warned three years after the British occupation of Iraq commenced in 1917 (bottom photo) that it:
“Is a trap which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. The [British people] have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told . . . It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster.”
McCain, devoid of Lawrence’s nuanced insight and lacking his first-hand experience, offered a warning of another kind in a major policy speech last week:
“It would be an unconscionable act of betrayal, a stain on our national character as a great nation, if we were to walk away from the Iraqi people and consign them to the horrendous violence, ethnic cleansing, and possibly genocide that would follow a reckless, irresponsible, and premature withdrawal.”
The British occupation of Iraq, which when adjusted for population then and now involved about 10 times the number of troops the U.S. deployed for the Surge, ended with a whimper after four decades.
This is because the Brits didn’t belong there in the first place and never were able to understand the Arab mindset and historic sectarian enmities. The Americans also don’t belong in Iraq, and McCain, acting for all the world like an imperialist poobah, has famously remarked that it would be fine with him if America troops stayed in Iraq for 100 years.
This despite the reality that presence would be a fraction of the troops that Britain deployed and the opposition today is far better organized – and armed — and it is long past time for the Iraqis to pick up the pieces from a disastrous American occupation and cobble together some sort of confederation.
McCain may have trouble telling Shiites from Sunnis, but he does know one thing that Lawrence didn’t and it is an important but largely unspoken element of why the presumptive Republican nominee has made staying in Iraq indefinitely the centerpiece of his presidential campaign: Oil.
Although it at first may seem like a strange way to look at the latest round of bloodshed in Iraq, it’s all about Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki casting the first vote in that country’s much anticipated provincial elections.
The result is a troubling new chapter in the Forever War: Basra city and parts of Baghdad are under siege, the seven-month ceasefire called by Moqtada al-Sadr is history and Iraq has entered a perilous new phase that no amount of bribing by General Petraeus’s paymasters or speechifying by George Bush can change as U.S. troops get sucked into a maw that the White House and Pentagon were instrumental in creating in giving the prime minister no-strings-attached support.
Al-Maliki’s stalled offensive, which would have collapsed without U.S. air and ground intervention and eventually will, is all about politics, not national reconciliation. For Bush to call it “a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq” on top of the Pentagon’s contention that it is a “byproduct of the success of the Surge” is laughable in an Orwellian sort of way.
Here’s the real deal:
Provincial elections, one of the few Bush administration benchmarks for measuring Iraqi progress that have not been discarded as utterly unrealistic, are to be held on October 1.
The Madhi Army of Al-Sadr, the anti-America Shiite cleric, holds the keys to Basra and has since the British Army ceded its role as American helpmate because the number of casualties it was taking had become a public-relations nightmare for the Labor government back in London.
Al-Maliki desperately needs Basra, the oil-rich province on the porous border with Iraq, but the British are cowering in their barracks and there is no American military presence, hence the botched offensive on Basra city, the second largest in Iraq, where the 30,000-man Iraqi army and security forces find themselves surrounded by the Madhi Army, which has set up checkpoints and is now controlling access to the city.
Al-Sadr’s gunmen are thugs, but so are the gunmen belonging to the Badr Organization, the militia affiliated with the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), which is joined at the hip with the prime minister.
Iran not only has a dog in this race, it has all the dogs in the form of close ties with Al-Maliki, Al-Sadr and ISCI, which makes Washington’s breast beating over the meddlesome Tehran regime so tiresome.
The seven-month ceasefire brokered by anti-American radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is, for all an intents and purposes, off. Times Onlinereports that neighborhood after neighborhood in Baghdad is being taken by militia gunmen, some with heavy fighting and others without a shot being fired.
Meanwhile, The Washington Postreports that U.S. troops have taken the lead in fighting in the capital.
* * * * *
One, two or three years (pick one) after the Iraqi army was ready to stand up so that U.S. troops could stand down, Shiite milita gunmen with comparatively meager weaponry and far fewer logistical resources still have the upper hand after three days of ferocious fighting in the key southeastern city of Basra.
Napoleon, as Daniel reminds us, famously remarked that “If you set out to take Vienna, take Vienna!”
Methinks there are three reasons why Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s gamble is backfiring:
* White House and Pentagon claims that the Iraqi army has finally gotten its act together as usual have no basis in reality.
* As Fester notes here, even with tactical air support from the U.S. and U.K., the Iraqi force seems to be a little on the thin side.
* And most importantly, the militamen are fighting for their very existence while Iraqi boots are fighting their own countrymen, in many cases members of their own religious sect, for the political gain of the unpopular Al-Maliki.
Then there is Iran’s machinations in all of this, which range from big and evil to paltry and passive depending upon your view of the Tehran regime.
Mine is that the ayatollahs find themselves in the difficult position of having to both support and rein in Al-Sadr. who is the key player in this drama, not the prime minister and certainly not George Bush, who for all his bloviating has essentially tied his own hands because of years of wrongheaded policy making that determinedly put politics ahead of more practical concerns.
As it was, the president packed an extraordinary number of misstatements into his speech yesterday before yet another “safe” audience, chief among them that it “makes no sense” to divert troops from Iraq for the real War on Terror.
The question of the hour is what happens next. The answer is nobody knows, but here are a few scenarios:
* All hell breaks loose as U.S. ground troops are further drawn into the fighting, which has already taken out one of Iraq’s two major oil pipelines as it has spread from Basra and Baghdad to several other cities. As it is, they are now battling militants in and around the Sadr City slum in Baghdad.
* All hell breaks loose as Al-Sadr, who enjoys far more popularity than the prime minister among Shiites, calls for an end to the seven-month ceasefire against U.S. troops.
* All hell breaks loose as Al-Maliki’s already tenuous political situation is further undermined by the escalating violence and his ineffectual army and security forces.
My guess is that none of the above will happen in the short term because it may be in the best interests of Al-Sadr and Al-Maliki, who has extended by 10 days the deadline for militias to take bribes in return for turning in their weapons, to negotiate some sort of truce.
That, however, would only delay the day of reckoning that was bound to come after the prime minister failed to even make an effort to fulfill his end of the Surge bargain.
Photo by Mahmoud Raouf Mahmoud/The Associated Press
Below is an excerpt of a translation of an article in the Saudi newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat by editor Tareq Al-Homayed that offers a fascinating insight into how the U.S.’s closest ally in the Middle East sees the outburst of violence in Iraq as the presidential race goes into overdrive.
Marc Lynch, who says he checked the accuracy of the excerpt compared to the original Arabic before posting it at Abu Aardvark, notes that Al-Homayed is hard wired to the Saudi royal family and his views probably reflect theirs:
“Muqtada al Sadr is a mighty but reckless force; he is not as intelligent as Hassan Nasrallah and does not speak the language of politics, however he was an important factor in enforcing the Iranian influence at the moment in which Saddam Hussein’s regime fell. Today, it appears that Tehran no longer needs al Sadr – so long as it has control over Iraq within the political framework.
“Nouri al Maliki’s regime, with its political prowess as opposed to the Sunni political crudeness, has managed to win over Washington – or neutralize it – as well as bring about American-Iranian rapprochement over the Iraqi issue. This was achieved whilst taking advantage of the political situation in Washington in light of US President George W. Bush’s weakness following the Democratic victory in Congress and at time when the US has entered into a state of political paralysis as a result of the upcoming elections.
“Iran no longer needs Muqtada al Sadr but rather wants a sophisticated model that is even more progressive than Hezbollah’s in order to take over Iraq. A government in control is much better than an opposition whose only possession and demands are the right to disrupt – such as the case in Lebanon.
“The importance of the ‘Knights’ Assault’ operation does not lie in American participation but rather in the outcome of Ahmadinejad’s most recent visit to Baghdad since it is impossible to target the Mehdi army – the same army that Muqtada al Sadr declares cannot be dismantled except at the orders of the Imam himself, and without Iran’s blessing.
” . . . Today at a time when Muqtada al Sadr receives a blow Iran remains tight-lipped, same as the Shiaa clerics and all this is because there is only one control button and it belongs to Tehran. Clearly the opportunity is convenient for Iran to tighten its grip on Iraq and to exploit the US desire for Iraq’s stability at any price before the US elections take place. After the elections a new US president will arrive at the White House to find himself/herself obligated to deal with a reality that enforces itself upon Baghdad. Even if people change in the next Iraqi government, it will still continue to orbit around Iran.”
To those of us who are up to our necks in the Clinton-Obama-McCain slugfest, the observations on American politics and how the outcome of the election may impact on U.S. policy on Iraq seems somewhat naïve. But recall that the American media makes sweeping pronouncements on the Middle East’s ever shifting tectonic plates all the time that probably strike Saudis, Iraqis and Iranis much the same way.
Now that the fog around the battle for Basra and upturn in violence elsewhere in Iraq is lifting a bit, we can conclude that:
* The Pentagon’s spin that the bloodshed is a consequence of the “success” of the Surge would seem to be silly on its face, but it isn’t.
* This is because the violence is the result of a carefully planned Al-Maliki government offensive to destroy the prime minister’s Shiite opponents in the advance of provincial elections in October.
This is especially important in Basra, the major city in oil-rich southeastern Iraq where government-militia clashes (photo) are in their third day, because it has been controlled by loyalists of radical anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr since the British cut and run.
Since Tuesday, clashes in Basra and throughout Iraq’s Shiite heartland have left more than 100 dead and many wounded in Basra, Baghdad, Hilla, Kut, Karbala and Diwaniya.
This state of affairs yet again puts the Bush administration in the position of backing the wrong horse, as Eric Martin puts it, but I don’t think there are any “right” horses because political fault lines, even within sectarian interest groups, run so deep.
And while the militiamen are lightly armed, they are highly motivated. There would be no amount of Pentagon spin to explain away an end to Al-Sadr’s seven-month-old ceasefire against U.S. troops since the Surge was supposed to give Al-Maliki the breathing room to bring warring parties together, not an opportunity to crush his opponents with U.S. troops and air support.
Then there is a biggest reason why there will be a major American presence in Iraq indefinitely: Oil.
Saboteurs blew up one of Iraq’s two main oil pipelines near Basra today, severely reducing exports and pushing the price of crude up by more than a dollar a barrel.
UPDATE
In another by-product of the success of the Surge, the Iraqi government spokesman for the Baghdad security plan has been kidnapped and his three bodyguards killed.
A PERSONAL NOTE
There are an especially pernicious pair of bloggers who delight at bashing The Moderate Voice who shall remain nameless.
One of them accused me of “joyfully claiming vindiction” in my post yesterday on the upsurge in violence.
This is a libel on two counts:
First, there was nothing joyful in my noting I had predicted weeks ago that Iraq was a hiccup away from sliding back into cyclical violence because Al-Maliki has had no interest in using the military success of the Surge as intended.
Second, I am a Vietnam War veteran who bleeds for the men and women fighting their hearts out in this never ending war. Yes, it is possible to support the troops and not the war, something that this blogger is unable to comprehend because he is so determinedly small minded.
I invite skeptics to read my 18-installment series on the Triangle of Death abductions as well as many other deeply personal and joy-free posts on U.S. troops.
And so, it begins anew. Although the 7-month ceasefire hasn’t come to an official end, Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army is again picking up their arms, this time to battle American and Iraqi forces in the Shiite-dominated southern port city of Basra. Local members of ISCI (led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim) and Dawa (led by Nuri al-Maliki) have fled the area. The fighting has recently spread to Baghdad, and Sadr City appears to be coming apart at the seams.
The renewed fighting, and the apparent disintegration of Sadr’s ceasefire, could easily bring about the unraveling of the myth surrounding the surge’s success: that the relative calm is likely to endure. By most accounts, the drop in violence experienced during the last few months of heightened troop levels can be attributed to several factors: the buying-off of Sunni militiamen (who now make up the 80,000-strong Awakening Councils), better American counterinsurgency tactics, successful ethnic cleansing, and the self-declared ceasefire of Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia. Of all of these factors, the last may well be the most significant.
If you look at the data, one of the most significant drops in violence occurred in August/September of 2007, directly after Sadr ordered his militia to lay low and put down their arms. At the time, the surge had been going on for several months and funding for the Awakening Councils had been ongoing for months longer. As Ilan Goldenberg notes, “the data seems to point to the fact that the Sadr Ceasefire more then anything else is what caused the drop in violence in the early fall.” Indeed, according to The Seattle Times, “U.S. commanders say the cease-fire played a key part in a 60 percent drop in attacks nationwide since the troop buildup ordered last year by President Bush reached its height in June.”
The apparent unraveling of the ceasefire, then, might well lead to a spike in violence, perhaps bringing us back to the high levels of 2006. If this occurs, our surge strategy will likely fall apart as the underlying strategic flaws become increasingly obvious. As a writer for Daily Kos argues, “if the surge had worked, Iraq would not find itself in today’s precarious situation, relying upon a radical cleric’s fragile ceasefire for [relative] stability.”
As noted here on February 1, you don’t have to be a bloody genius to know that sooner or later the window of opportunity for Iraqi national reconciliation and a lasting reduction in sectarian violence as a result of the military successes of the Surge would begin to close unless there was progress by the Baghdad government.
Well, there has been no progress of consequence despite the wishful thinking of pro-war pundits who endlessly write that the Iraqis are working on This, That or The Other, while the last 72 hours have brought an explosion of violence reminiscent of the Bad Old Days that coincides with the 4,000th American combat death.
There has been no progress because Prime Minister Al-Maliki has no reason to upset his Shiite-dominated applecart knowing that President Bush is committed to maintaining present U.S. troop levels through Election Day and then dumping the whole mess on his successor.
Does this mean that the window of opportunity has closed? No. Not yet.
Does this mean that an unraveling of the success of the Surge is underway. No. It’s too soon to tell, but the omens don’t look good.
As General David Petraeus prepares to testify before Congress about the surge, the question will arise, “How much progress has there been toward Iraqi national conciliation since the surge began.” In order to help answer that question, WORLDMEETS.US has translated this news account from the Al-Iraq News about the status of talks between the Shiite-led government and opposition parties. Adnan al-Dulaimi of the Iraqi Accord Front - the largest Sunni coalition - calls for, ‘The participation of all Sunni sons and not just those of The Accord Front - including supervision in the area of security. Effective control over the nation’s security services by a single sect must end. This would solve many of the country’s existing problems, because having one sect monopolize the area of security has created great harm.’
Izzat Al-Shabandar of the secular Iraqi Accord is quoted as saying, ‘There will be no concessions on our existing demands, in particular because these are the demands of all Iraqis … which include abolishing all sectarian-based quotas and establishing a national project based on performance, good citizenship and integrity - none of which can be waived or conceded.’
Translated By James Jacobson and Nicolas Dagher
March 3, 2008
Iraq - Al-Iraq News - Original Article (Arabic)
Not a single Iraqi opposition party is willing to offer the government concessions on their demands about how to address the tense political situation. Some of these parties attribute their hard line to the government’s failure to pay proper attention to their proposals.
Fadel Al-Sharaa, an advisor to Prime Minister al-Maliki, said “the government is serious about finding solutions that will contribute to improving the political process. In order to rebuild a basis for progress, we are negotiating with blocs that have withdrawn their support.” A number of blocks, including the Iraqi Accord Front [the largest Sunni bloc ], Iraqi National Accord [secular bloc lead by former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi ] and the al-Sadr faction , have withdrawn from the Maliki Government.
Al-Sharaa said, “the government is continuing its dialogue with these political blocs,” adding that the demands and proposals of these blocs would be closely examined, but emphasizing, “these groups must show their seriousness about reforming the political situation.” He added, “the status quo won’t do, in particular because the political situation doesn’t only pertain to political factions, but to the Iraq people, who expect the political blocs to confront the challenge of finding a way out of the impasse and put forward serious proposals that are commensurate with the heavy responsibility they bear for achieving a successful political process in this country.”
For his part, Adnan al-Dulaimi of the Iraqi Accord Front [Sunni], said that the Front was prepared to return to the Government when it is willing to back down from its hard-line demands and agree to compromise. “The demands of the Accord Front are clear and they are popular demands.”
The Front has called for a greater role in government decision-making and the release of detainees [Sunnis]. On the government’s position regarding these demands, Al-Duleimi said: “Unless the government responds positively, we cannot return to the Government.”
On the adoption of the General Amnesty Law [for former Baathists] which was passed by Parliament and was one of the demands of the Accord Front, Al-Duleimi said, “The General Amnesty Law is an important law, but we expect seriousness on the part of the Government in implementing it and speeding up its execution. This is what we hope the government will do.”
He added, “There are other conditions that the Accord has put forward, such as demands for real participation in making decisions and administering the country, as well as finding a balance between the parties in regard to how to create a successful political process. This would require the participation of all Sunni sons and not just those of The Accord Front - including supervision in the area of security. Effective control over the nation’s security services and plans by a single sect must end. This would solve many of the country’s existing problems, because having one sect monopolize the area of security has created great harm.”
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing coverage of how Iraqis themselves view the Iraq War.
Now that the man once described by the U.S. government and media as ‘radical Shiite cleric’ Muqtada al-Sadr, has extended the truce observed by his Mahdi Army Militia, some are wondering what could be behind his apparent embrace of peace. It may well be that the inter-Shiite violence that was ripping parts of Iraq apart was not to Iran’s liking. Elias Harfouche of Lebanon’s Dar al-Hayat writes, ‘After the announcement of the first truce last year, it was said that al-Sadr headed to the Iranian city of Qum to seek protection from Iran’s leadership, fearing for his safety in Iraq. It’s more likely that the Iranian project in Iraq, like the rest of its projects in the region, leaves very little room for sectarian divisions of the type that seemed to be developing in Iraq. This may explain al-Sadr’s “awakening” and his belatedly seeing reason!
By Elias Harfouche
February 24, 2008
Lebanon - Dar al-Hayat - Original Article - (English)
Who would have imagined at the beginning of the American invasion of Iraq five years ago, that the decisions of Muqtada al-Sadr and the Al-Mahdi Army he leads would be the subject of praise by American forces, which once described him as “the most dangerous man in Iraq?” Indeed who would have imagined that this young leader, once held responsible for the bloodiest sectarian aggressions, would be transformed into the Shiite figure embodying the hope of preventing sectarian disintegration?
Say what one will about progress in Iraq, it must be conceded that it now enjoys something of a free press. This article from Iraq’s Kitabat newspaper not only calls for an end to the Iranian occupation, it fingers some of the most prominent Shiite members of the Iraqi Parliament and government for being ‘Iranian Agents.’ According to Dr. Fawaaz al-Fawaaz, who is clearly a Sunni writer, ‘The American occupation knows well that these are Iran’s agents; they know what they do, how they do it, and who their commander is. And here we refer to the Iranian ambassador to Iraq and officer of the Quds Force, Hassan Kazemi Qomi. They will be eliminated one way or another when American forces are finished liquidating the Al-Mahdi Army and al-Qaeda.’
By Dr. Fawaaz al-Fawaaz, Translated By James Jacobson, February 16, 2008, Iraq, Kitabat, Original Article (Arabic)
Iraq’s occupation is twofold: the first occupation is fluid and is pursued by the Americans. The second is more fixed, and by this we refer to the Iranian occupation. We are all aware of it [Iran’s occupation] and it purposes: stealing our nation’s goods and enslaving its people. Read the rest of this entry »
“The irony is that the occupier, by which we mean the Americans, the British and the rest of the countries of the occupation, are of the Christian religion, and yet we have heard of no non-Muslims who have collaborated with them.”
By Dr. Fawaaz al-Fawaaz
Translated By James Jacobson
February 5, 2008
Iraq - Kitabat - Original Article (Arabic)
Before I go any further, I would like to say that I am a Muslim man, but that I see facts as being separate from religious bigotry or fanatical ethnic affiliation. When it comes at the expense of others, I do not believe we should see things from the emotional perspective of the group alone.
After the arrival of the occupier, we saw that most of the collaborators were Muslim - not ordinary Muslims - but clerics. Clerics must be the most committed to religion, to the Prophet and to the family of the Prophet, and there are times that we need to seek out the religious instruction of these men, to help us and keep us from straying from the faith. But like it or not, we have seen that the best collaborators were clerics. So there is no choice but to remind everyone of the emergence of clerics who put on the garb of politics to achieve dirty ends that expose Read the rest of this entry »
GEN. PETRAEUS PLAYS GOLF GAME AT NEW USO FACILITY IN BALAD
In what at first blush would seem to be an unusual acknowledgment that presidential power actually has limits, the Bush administration says that it has dropped a provision from the U.S.’s pending business deal with the Iraqi government under which it would defend Iraq from both internal and external security threats.
It may well be that the president’s handlers have realized that trying to ram through the deal in the form of something other than a treaty, which would not require congressional approval, would provoke too great a backlash, and Defense Secretary Gates tacitly acknowledged as much this week.
But that explanation runs counter to the reality that George Bush has said in word and deed many times over the last long seven years that his power is pretty much limitless, most recently in yet another of his draconian signing statements, this one attached late last month to a defense spending bill that created a law banning the use of taxpayer funds to establish permanent bases in Iraq.
In the signing statement, the president yet again gave Congress the finger in asserting that as commander in chief he has the power to bypass that law.
The business deal, as I insist on calling it, would provide a long-term troop commitment in return for first dibs at Iraq’s vast oil resources. Its technical name is “A Declaration of Principles for a Long-Term Relationship of Cooperation and Friendship Between the Republic of Iraq and the United States of America. ” (Text here.)
So what’s really going on?
Methinks part reality check and part game playing, both long overdue and most welcome.
Although no presidential loyalist would put it in these terms, the reality check is that the White House has made such a hash of its Iraq “policy” that it has slowly come to realize one carelessly tossed match will reignite a civil war tamped down by the self-imposed exile of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr and the military successes of the Surge. (See “The Same Game” below for a pungent example.)
Military is in italics because that was only half — and in retrospect the easiest part despite the considerable blood shed by U.S. troops — of the Surge strategy, the other part being a good-faith effort by Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki to use the window of opportunity that those military successes afforded him to rev up national reconciliation efforts.
What has happened, of course, is that Al-Maliki and his Shiite henchmen have continued to act in bad faith knowing that Washington would not lean on them.
There has been no progress toward reconciliation. Zip, zero, nada, while the Sunni minority is busily consolidating its modest gains in the expectation that it won’t be invited to share power any time soon.
The game playing is the White House’s belated recognition of this sad state of affairs, if not that it is mostly to blame, hence the removal of the crucial internal and external security threat clause from the business deal. This is because the clause not only couldn’t pass congressional muster, but represented long-term coup insurance for Al-Maliki and without it his sorry ass is no longer covered.
Is this to say that the White House would approve a coup, however tacitly? Not exactly, but with the clause in place the U.S. had a whole lot less leverage.
BAGHDAD BLASTS TODAY KILLED OVER 50, SCATTERING BODY PARTS
You don’t have to be a bloody genius to know that sooner or later the window of opportunity for Iraqi national reconciliation and a lasting reduction in sectarian violence as a result of the successes of the Surge would begin to close unless there was progress on the part of the Baghdad government.
Well, boys and girls, it would appear that the window is indeed beginning to close since there has been no progress whatsoever except for a totally bogus un-de-Baathification law passed earlier this month.
As a consequence, insurgents have predictably adapted their tactics amidst this power vacuum, there has been an up-tick in high-profile bombings and U.S. and civilian casualties, and the level of violence in Mosul is at a two-year high despite intense U.S. pacification efforts. The twin suicide bombings that apparently involved two mentally retarded women and took over 50 lives in mainly Shiite areas of Baghdad today were the worst since additional U.S. troops began flooding into the capital last spring.
Spencer Ackerman, writing in The Washington Independent, has it exactly right when he says:
“It used to be that surge enthusiasts would at least hint at the unachieved strategic objective of the surge. As Bush himself put it, the surge was meant to provide the Iraqi government ‘the breathing space it needs to make progress’ on sectarian reconciliation. But reconciliation hasn’t happened, and, in important respects, sectarianism has deepened over the past year. So surgeniks are now simply declaring victory by the sheer fact of reduced violence itself, unmoored to any strategic goal.”
Now you would expect William Kristol and other willfully blind Bush sycophants to ignore the elephant in the room (yes, the one with really big and really sharp tusks) while declaring victory.
But this myopia has reached epidemic proportions on Capitol Hill and out on the campaign trail where only Barack Obama is asking hard questions about the war while John McCain is telling everyone who will listen that he’d be happy if the U.S. stays in Iraq for 100 years. And didn’t you just love it when Hillary Clinton Read the rest of this entry »
Over recent weeks, the tone of information emerging from the Iraqi press has confirmed that the security situation is indeed improving. According to this op-ed article from Iraq’s Kitabat newspaper, Iraqis are now grappling with how to dis-empower militia groups and factions that have grown powerful during the occupation, but which have gone completely out of control.
By Muhsin Al-Jilawi, Translated By James Jacobson and Nicolas Dagher
January 1, 2008
Iraq - Kitabat - Original Article (Arabic)
We all know the painful and absolutely plain truth - that Iraq is an occupied country from north to the south, and every grain of dust bears the brunt of the shoes of strangers. We all share equally the bitterness of this lost dignity and the sense of lost honor and conscience that millions of Iraqis feel - dignity and honor that some people sell every day without the least bit of shame and embarrassment.
This is a country visited by tenth tier occupation leaders [an expression meaning second-rate or less important - referring to obscure members of the U.S. Congress] who don’t know where they are or how the Iraqi government came about, or that they are visiting a country infiltrated by murderers from every corner of the globe, a country whose wealth and resources have been stolen in a blatant, public way … Is this the dignity sought by a great nation that founded such a radiant civilization? Do those who feud over tables and chairs and the spoils of looting [those running Iraq] have any respect left for the millions of Iraqis who are fed up with being displaced, poor and disgraced …? Read the rest of this entry »
Have British forces just handed the vital port city of Basra over to Iranian intelligence? According to this op-ed article from Iraq’s Kitabat newspaper, Iran’s Shiite-clients in Iraq have betrayed their nation by chasing out British forces and preventing the “Queen of the Seas” from refurbishing the city’s ports, ships and other infrastructure. Amonst other things, the author asks, ‘don’t the Iranians know that America, which is currently the greatest nation on earth, was born thanks to British intelligence, planning and leadership?
“We were given a golden opportunity these past four years to rebuild the vital city of Basra with British resources. But we failed to capitalize on the chance when Iranian agents attacked Britain’s army.”
By Khadir Taahar
Translated By James Jacobson
December 13, 2007
Iraq - Kitabat - Original Article (Arabic)
In a matter of days we will witness criminality in the open-air, when British forces hand the security dossier of the city of Basra over to the Iranian intelligence services. And right before our very eyes - on television - the Iraqi people will be treated to Iran’s capture of Basra, only without the presence of Iran’s consul in Basra, who actually governs the city!
After failing to occupy it during eight years of war [the Iran-Iraq War ] Iran will obtain Basra and all of its wealth as a gift from the city’s Shiite parties. The henchmen of these Shiite parties are certain to remember the day that the Iranian army desecrated the land of Al-Faw [a major port on the Persian Gulf ] in Basra, how they changed the city’s name to (Al-Zahra), and how they raised the Iranian flag above it, signifying the Persian Empire’s expansionist ambitions in Iraq.
My beloved Basra will be like the part of Germany that was occupied by Stalin [East Germany], who maintained his rule over it while the world remained silent until his control became permanent. This is just the way the Iranian occupation has become a fact in Basra, with the blessing and participation of its client Shiite parties, since everything in Basra is controlled by Iranian intelligence under the supervision of the city’s Iranian consul!
Iraq has lost the opportunity to benefit from the capabilities of Britain, which is considered the Queen of the Seas, when it was possible to exploit Britain’s presence to rebuild Basra’s ports, rehabilitate its ships, and launch a comprehensive reconstruction campaign … Don’t Iran’s agents know that thanks to Britain, Hong Kong became one of the greatest principalities in the world, and that thanks to Britain, Australia, which was a country of red Indians and made up of various backward tribes, rapidly became one of the most advanced countries commercially, industrially and politically - or that the industrial and political greatness was only obtained thanks to the British occupation?!
As a woman in a pants suit campaigns to become President of the United States, others are being killed on the streets of Basra for wearing makeup and not covering their faces.
Religious vigilantes have murdered at least 40 women this year in the southern Iraqi city because of how they dressed, the police chief has told AP, and “dumped in the garbage with notes saying they were killed for un-Islamic behavior.”
As American politicians debate the future of the country we invaded almost five years ago, what is happening in Basra, “known for its mixed population and night life” under Saddam Hussein, is a chilling reminder of what we will leave behind, no matter how well the Surge works.
Can the sectarian madness we unleashed be negotiated away by Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad? The Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr controls Basra, but one of his aides blames the murders on “gangs with foreign support to destabilize the city,” while citing the “religious principle that says that wearing makeup and forgoing the hijab (headscarf) in public is a sin.”
“But killing them,” he concedes, “is a sin bigger than this one.”
When President Bush makes his next self-congratulatory speech about bringing the blessings of democracy to Iraq, someone should ask him about the women of Basra and remind Hillary Clinton what she may have voted for in the resolution opening the door to our doing the same for Iran.
Now that the fog around the battle for Basra and upturn in violence elsewhere in Iraq is lifting a bit, we can conclude that:
![[The Times, U.K.]](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00303/PeterBrookes385_303670a.jpg)
