What do the Russians see when they look at the military challenges that Barack Obama must now confront? This article from Russia’s Novosti News Service lays out the general Kremlin view, in regard to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and most importantly, Ukraine, Georgia and Russia.

The author, military affairs Analyst Ilya Kramnik, anticipates that Obama will continue the anti-missile shield in Europe, continue to push for Ukrainian and Georgian membership in NATO, that his administration will seek to undermine Iran from within, and that if he isn’t careful, he could get the U.S. mired in Afghanistan just as the USSR did. Kramnik sums up his forecast this way:

“Don’t expect open warfare to break out in other parts of the world. For the past few decades, the cabinets of Democratic administrations have preferred undermining potential enemies from within by backing pro-U.S. forces. For example, in Venezuela, Washington is most likely to back anti-Chavez forces and gorge them with money, but at the same time refrain from direct intervention.

Overall, the situation in the world is unlikely to become any less tense. The global economic crisis has only just begun, and as it deepens further, it may seriously affect the political plans of the leading powers.”

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I remember when I was a young man in the military, that some of my buddies celebrated a new assignment, or nearing the completion of a tour of duty, for weeks, sometimes months by “going FIGMO.”

Although the military is famous for its acronyms, this particular one, “FIGMO,” will probably not be found in official or semi-official military dictionaries, since the first letter stands for a verb generally banned from public usage. Nevertheless, almost any military or ex-military will immediately tell you that FIGMO stands for “F***- it, I Got My Orders,” an event that generally ushers-in for some a period of lackadaisicalness, self-centeredness, lack of interest, etc.

After George W. Bush received his muster-out orders mandated by the Constitution, he has shown signs of being FIGMO. For example, he was recently caught downing pisco sours (a cocktail containing a Peruvian brandy, lemon juice, syrup, and regional bitters) in Perú and clowning around in an alpaca poncho. (Bush has shown an interesting propensity for donning and performing in exotic vestments).

Earlier on, even before receiving his “orders,” Bush was seen doing a silly tap dance on the North Portico of the White House while waiting for McCain to show up.

To Bush’s credit, according to the New York Times Magazine’s “The Final Days,” Bush has made time on his “busy” lame duck schedule to

…chat with children who had set up a lemonade stand outside a North Carolina fund-raiser or to pose for a birthday picture in Ohio with a 91-year-old woman whose family hoisted a sign asking him to stop. By one count, Bush has held 19 sports-related events already this year — from hosting bass fishermen at the White House to presiding over a T-ball game in Ghana — and that was before he attended the Olympics in Beijing.

More recently, Bush pardoned the national Thanksgiving turkey and, on Thursday, he will even light the National Christmas Tree.

Bush’s FIGMO attitude may not be so noticeable for at least a couple of reasons.

First, it coincides with perhaps one of the longest and most pathetic lame duck periods of any presidency in recent history. With our nation’s number one problem, the financial and economic meltdown, growing worse by the day, Bush has become increasingly detached, ineffective and irrelevant, to the point of almost being negligent—in other words, a typical lame duck, FIGMO attitude.

Second, when one objectively examines Bush’s presidency, this man has been FIGMO from virtually Day One. Just consider the debacle of Iraq; taking his eye off the real war on terror; his “Mission Accomplished” costume party staged aboard an aircraft carrier; his dispassionate peering out the window of Air Force One at the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina thousands of feet below. And, don‘t forget that cute little skit starring none other than the Commander-in-Chief, looking for weapons of mass destruction under pieces of furniture in the Oval Office, while our brave soldiers were being maimed and killed in Iraq as a result of his misjudgments.

With respect to a couple of FIGMO symptoms, indifference and lack of interest, Joe Klein, in TIME, has some pertinent observations on Bush‘s “Lamest Duck” performance:

In the end, though, it will not be the creative paralysis that defines Bush. It will be his intellectual laziness, at home and abroad. Bush never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and regulation that was necessary to make markets work. He never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and equity that was necessary to maintain the strong middle class required for both prosperity and democracy. He never considered the complexities of the cultures he was invading. He never understood that faith, unaccompanied by rigorous skepticism, is a recipe for myopia and foolishness. He is less than President now, and that is appropriate. He was never very much of one.

In other words, he was always FIGMO.

To many Americans, another familiar “acronym,” TGIF, is assuming a new meaning and significance: “Thank God It’s (almost) Finished.”

In addition to coverage of the terrorist attack on Mumbai as it pertains to the United States, WORLDMEETS.US is continuing our Iraqi coverage of the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement - or as it is called in Iraq, the “U.S. Withdrawal Agreement.”

According to this article from the Al Iraq News, despite the overwhelming vote in Iraq’s National Assembly in favor of the deal (149 to 35) on Thursday, there is no shortage of people expressing their dissatisfaction.

One such person quoted in the article, speaker of the Association of Muslim Scholars, Muthanna Al Dari, says that the National Assembly approved the deal to ‘protect the present government, since it fears Iraq’s people and hence an American withdrawal.’ He also said that the agreement enshrines the idea that American forces are friendly, which means that there will be no withdrawal, which he complains is the opposite of what the government has asserted, namely that all U.S. forces with pull out by 2011.

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A security pack ratified by the Iraqi Parliament Thursday finally allows the United States to legally withdraw its troops in a responsible time frame.

It won’t appease the liberal wing of the Democrat Party, whose support for Barack Obama opposing the Iraq war catapulted him to prominence in the early stages of the presidential primaries.

But it does lend credence for Obama’s expected choice to keep Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who supported the compromise agreement, on board for a year as a means of continuity.

It also reflects a partial defeat for President Bush who opposed timetables for withdrawal and, to use his own words, because events on the ground changed.

The pact consists of two documents: a Status of Forces Agreement defining the rules under which American forces will operate, and a wider Strategic Framework Agreement outlining a broad bilateral view looking toward the future.

A New York Times dispatch from Baghdad outlines the bitterly contested pact:

The new agreement comes into force when the United Nations’ mandate that currently governs the American troops expires on Dec 31. The new pact says all American combat forces should withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30 next year and all American troops should be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.

The pact gives Iraq considerable say in what operations American troops can undertake in the country, and sets limits on the Americans’ ability to search homes and buildings, and hold suspects that they detain.

The agreement also allows some foreign contractors to be tried under Iraqi law if they commit a crime, a clause aimed particularly at curbing the behavior of Western security contractors such as Blackwater.

American troops will remain subject to American military law if they are on duty and on their bases, but could be prosecuted under Iraqi law if they commit heinous offenses while off duty and outside their bases.

The Iraqi Supreme Council consisting of a Shi’ite, a Sunni and a Kurd is expected to certify the agreement in the next several weeks. One of the compromises approved by 140 of Parliament’s 275 members was a referendum vote next July. If the people vote it down, all U.S. troops would be withdrawn in 2010.

However, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government can negotiate a later, separate, agreement with the Americans allowing them to stay longer if it believes Iraq is not yet stable enough.

The so-called preemptive invasion of Iraq was a colossal blunder by the neocons who held favor with the Bush administration in 2002. The strike was justified by fabricated intelligence that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear warhead capabilities.

Management of the occupation was bungled by U.S. Ambassador Paul Bremer and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Nearly 4,000 U.S. soldiers were killed and 30,000 wounded.

Americans should allow this sorry chapter in U.S. geopolitics to drift away into the sunset. It almost has as our attention is now directed at ourselves struggling to cope in a recession economy.

Our military is commended for its bravery and fighting a cause with one hand tied behind its back.

There is no sense in arguing the past.

The Iraq war was not won. It was a diplomatic settlement as so many wars end.

cross posted on The Remmers Report

As we have been documenting on WORLDMEETS.US for the past few weeks, the controversy over the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement [SOFA] has been well represented in that nation’s newspapers. The agreement, now in the hands of the Iraqi National Assembly, was due to be voted on today, but the vote has been postponed at least until tomorrow.

This editorial from the Shiite-leaning Iraqi News Agency offers a new twist on the situation. According to the editorial, the SOFA is being used to distract the attention of people from the still-unsigned Iraq Oil Law. That’s right - after all of the commotion last year over the Oil Law, it was never signed, and many Iraqis continue to believe that this is the real priority for the United States.

The editorial says in part:

“After Iraqis and Arabs argued for months about an oil agreement , the issue seems to have been “lost.” Suddenly, people have forgotten about it, and many don’t know or recall what became of the deal, which would “organize” the theft and looting of Iraq’s oil wealth, offering unprecedented legitimacy to thievery in broad daylight … The resistance is capable of shooting down this agreement just as it shot down such agreements in the days of the British occupation and the successive governments they imposed.”

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The prospect of Americans leaving Iraq is not an appealing one to the Kurds. And judging by what we posted yesterday from Iraq’s Kitabat newspaper by Khadir Taahar, ‘Obama’s Election Makes ‘Fatal Blow’ Against Kurds Possible,’ one gathers why Kurds are so concerned.

With Iraq’s National Assembly set to vote on the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement today [Nov. 26], we have this article by Rauf Naqishbendi from the Kurdish Media in Iraq’s Kurdistan Autonomous Region, which outlines in stark detail why Kurds are so worried about America’s departure.

Rauf Naqishbendi fror Kurdish Media writes in part:

“U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari signed a broad outline of the deal on November 17 … A Kurd, Mr. Zebari endorsed genocide against his own people and placed his signature on a document assenting to the mass slaughter of Kurds by Turks, Iranians and Arabs. … Secretary Rice signed a document that accepts America’s defeat and invites Iranian domination. It is a victory for the Iranians and al-Qaeda; and a death certificate for a federated Iraq.

Naqishbendi then points out an unpleasant likelihood:

“A combined Iran and Iraq would constitute a petroleum powerhouse capable of disrupting the global economy by driving up oil prices up and controlling its flow to worlds markets.”

Then, with evident consternation, Naqishbendi says:

“With the absence of U.S. forces in Iraq, the Kurds, who are pro-American and battled Saddam’s regime alongside the Americans, face annihilation. … The Kurds are a minority locked between three anti-American countries - Syria, Turkey and Iran - and all three are opposed to Kurdish freedom and are united in crushing their demands for freedom. The Kurds will certainly not be able to defend themselves … If appropriate measures aren’t set in place, January 1, 2012 may well see the commencement of yet another round of genocide against the defenseless Kurds.”

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Did you happen to catch Rumsfeld’s op-ed in the Times on Saturday? And did you happen to read it? I won’t blame you if you didn’t — who cares what Rumsfeld thinks about anything at this point? — but, believe it or not, once you get past the pro-Bush, pro-Iraq Surge self-aggrandizing, he actually had some interesting, and correct, things to say about what is needed in Afghanistan.

Specifically, he argues that success in Afghanistan will not be achieved “with the same tactics or strategies,” that is, with the Surge, employed in Iraq. At the beginning of his piece, he calls the Surge “one of the most impressive military accomplishments in recent years,” but it hasn’t been nearly the overwhelming success he makes it out to be. Iraq may be less violent that it was, but the country is still a long way off from political reconciliation. Indeed, I would argue, as others have, that the Surge has just contributed, along with other factors and developments, to a temporary lull.

Regardless, Rumsfeld is right that:

The way forward in Afghanistan will need to reflect the current circumstances there — not the circumstances in Iraq two years ago. Additional troops in Afghanistan may be necessary, but they will not, by themselves, be sufficient to lead to the results we saw in Iraq. A similar confluence of events that contributed to success in Iraq does not appear to exist in Afghanistan.

What’s needed in Afghanistan is an Afghan solution, just as Iraqi solutions have contributed so fundamentally to progress in Iraq. And a surge, if it is to be successful, will need to be an Afghan surge.

Again, I would hesitate to call what has happened in Iraq genuine and lasting “progress,” but his point is a sound one nonetheless. Simply sending more troops to Afghanistan isn’t the answer, or the only answer. It may be part of the answer, but the situation there is not the same as in Iraq: “In a struggle with an adaptable, thinking enemy, there is no single template for success. More is not always better. One size does not fit all.”

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The followers of Shiite Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr may not like it, but the Iraqi National Assembly is now preparing to vote on the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, and it looks as though they’ll pass it. So the question is - what next? And what will the election of Barack Obama mean to the Iraqi calculus?

Continuing with our coverage of the war from the Iraqi point of view, we present another op-ed article from one of Iraq’s most pro-America columnists, Khadir Taahar. If things go as he suggests, the Kurds may soon be ejected from the Iraqi state and given their independence - minus Kirkuk.

For Iraq’s Kitabat newspaper, Taahar writes in part:

“Obama’s victory and the advent of the Democratic Party to power have created radical changes on the Iraqi political landscape that could lead to disaster for everyone - but especially the Kurdish parties.”

After arguing that the Kurds are of ‘no political or economic value’ to the Americans, Taahar continues:

“This would seem like a great opportunity for Iraqi Shiites, Sunnis, Turkmen and Christians to close ranks and strike a fatal blow against the Kurdish parties - and not the Kurdish people - and expel the Kurdish politicians from Baghdad and purge them from the government and National Assembly … Iraq gleans no benefit whatsoever from the Kurds. It would be foolish to bear the weight of five million Kurds who have absolutely no loyalty to Iraq. The plots and malice of the Kurds are clear for all to see, and every noble Iraqi should firmly oppose them and amputate this cancer from the body of our nation, since we don’t want them living among us and enjoying our wealth while plotting against us.”

It begins to look like the past five years may have simply delayed the inevitable.

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David Schraub’s “Leave the land so we won’t rape you,” quoting a female Egyptian “human rights” attorney, who made that statement “in the course of urging Arab men to, at the very least, sexually harass Israeli women as part of their “resistance” to Zionism,” prompted me to go back to the Sunday Opinion section of my New York Times today.

I had read similarly outrageous comments by some Pakistani officials in a Nicholas Kristof column.

In his “