Now that Hillary Clinton has been nominated to be President-elect Obama’s secretary of state, there’s a new narrative going around Europe: ‘Are we ready for this?’
“The political couple, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, had better prompt Europeans to reflect quickly, shake them out of their torpor and bring them to imagine a new American policy. Because this is an explosive duo: on the one hand, there is an idealistic president, and on the other, there is a very pragmatic senator from New York capable of realizing the ideals of the first, at least as far as foreign policy is concerned. This alliance is not only a circumstantial one dictated by the need to reconcile Democrats after the fratricidal battle of the spring primaries. ”
Is President Bush being wrongly blamed for the faults of Iraq’s people? It is a provocative thing to suggest, especially for an Iraqi. But in this article from one of Iraq’s most controversial columnists, Khadir Taaher, it is Bush who is praised and Iraqis who are trashed for their failures.
“The administration of George W. Bush relied on accurate, rational and reasonable calculations when it liberated Iraq from the oppression of Saddam’s criminal regime. He relied on accounts that the Iraqi people, who suffered from oppression, repression, war, murder and the squandering of their wealth, would, according to logical and scientific expectations, welcome liberation and take advantage of this opportunity to tend to their wounds and begin building themselves up politically, economically and scientifically. … But what the brightest strategic minds couldn’t imagine was that Iraqi society is only capable of going wrong and never going right.”
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.”
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.
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.
“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.”
“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.
“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.”
“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.”
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.
“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.”
“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.
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 “The Pakistan Test,” Kristof bemoans the depressing political, military, and social situation and conditions in Pakistan, a country where “the United States has squandered more than $10 billion…since 9/11, and Pakistani intelligence agencies seem to have rerouted some of that to Taliban extremists.”
Kristof also addresses the difficult situation that Obama will inherit when he takes office and gives “several useful steps that we in the West can take to reduce the risk of the region turning into the next Somalia.”
But, getting back to the outrageous comments, the following words attributed to two of President Ali Zardari’s new cabinet members truly disgusted me. According to Kristof:
One new cabinet member, Israr Ullah Zehri, defended the torture-murder of five women and girls who were buried alive (three girls wanted to choose their own husbands, and two women tried to protect them). “These are centuries-old traditions, and I will continue to defend them,” Mr. Zehri said of the practice of burying independent-minded girls alive.
Then there is Pakistan’s new education minister, Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani. Last year, the Supreme Court ordered him arrested for allegedly heading a local council that decided to solve a feud by taking five little girls and marrying them to men in an enemy clan. The girls were between the ages of 2 and 5, according to Samar Minallah, a Pakistani anthropologist who investigated the case (Mr. Bijarani has denied involvement).
Reading about such inhumanities must undoubtedly make people ask the question, “What in heaven’s name are we doing there?” (I know, “if we don’t fight them over there, we’ll have to fight them over here.” But isn’t there a better way of doing this?)
And talking about “over there,” in Iraq and Afghanistan, the same edition of the New York Times carries an excellent set of Op-Ed articles, “by experts on the most formidable issues facing the new president” in Iraq and Afghanistan. My own description would have been, “on the mess that Obama is inheriting from his predecessor.”
The set of articles is called “Transitions” and includes the following (I will use The Times’ own words to describe them.) Please read them, they are well worth an hour or so of your time, and your emotions.
The Little Battles We Must Win
By LINDA ROBINSON
Special Forces and American civilians have much to do in Iraq.
A Wartime Presidency, On Two Fronts
By ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN
Iraq isn’t over, and Afghanistan is going to be even tougher.
How to Leave Iraq, Intact
By PETER MANSOOR
A slow withdrawal and a sizable force after 2012.
The ‘Good War’ Isn’t Worth Fighting
By RORY STEWART
The West’s lofty goals will only set Afghanistan back.
Out of Conflict, a Partnership
By FREDERICK W. KAGAN
As Iraq becomes more independent, it will still share America’s goals.
One Surge Does Not Fit All
By DONALD H. RUMSFELD
Afghanistan — huge, poor and rural — calls for a new strategy.
Thanks, But You Can Go Now
By AHMAD CHALABI
An idealistic invasion has turned into an intolerable occupation.
