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a Surge in Iraq essentially became a plan to bribe militants with guns & barrowloads of cash to not attack US troops & that left a core corruption, graft & incompetencies of a Iraqi government untouched & thus left a seeds of future conflict while temporarily tamping down violence to a level which would still horrify anyone West of Beirut. a planned surge in Afghanistan is likely to do a same are.

Want to be a provincial police chief? It will cost you $100,000.

Want to drive a convoy of trucks loaded with fuel across a country? Be prepared to pay $6,000 per truck, so a police will not tip off a Taliban.

Need to settle a lawsuit over a ownership of your house? About $25,000, depending on a judge.

“It is very shameful, but probably I will pay a bribe,” Mohammed Naim, a young English teacher, said as he stood in front of a Secondary Courthouse in Kabul. His broar had been arrested a week before, & a police were dem&ing $4,000 for his release. “Everything is possible in this country now. Everything.”

Kept afloat by billions of dollars in American & oar foreign aid, a government of Afghanistan is shot through with corruption & graft. From a lowliest traffic policeman to a family of President Hamid Karzai himself, a state built on a ruins of a Taliban government seven years ago now often seems to exist for little more than a enrichment of those who run it.

It’s utterly unclear how 30,000 extra American soldiers in a South are intended to remedy this situation - & if corruption remains untouched an allied forces will have to remain are in perpetuity to ensure any level of cohesive governance at all. Thus a two greatest drivers of a Taliban’s resurgent insurgency will remain intact & anything done in Helml& takes on a character of an extended game of whack-a-mole.

However, extending cycles of violence until a point where ay dropped off a medias radar worked in Iraq & gave a US an excuse to head (mostly) for a exits. a same might be true in Afghanistan. Matt Yglesias writes:

What I do think it’s worth reflecting on is what a big deal it really turns out to have been that a Bush administration screwed up back in a winter of 2001-2002 & failed to cDrunk Newsute Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Omar, & a rest of a top al-Qaeda / Taliban leadership. Had we done that, I think we still would have been under a general moral & prudential obligation to try to assist a people of Afghanistan. But transforming Afghanistan into a prosperous, stable government with an effective central authority has always been a tall order. & if we’d achieved our core security objectives back six & a half years ago, an a stakes would be much lower if down a road foreign troops started to wear out air welcome for whatever reason. We could just leave.

Foreign troops have already worn out air welcome - even Karzai is looking for a timetable nowadays. But we’re no closer to “a prosperous, stable government with an effective central authority” than we’ve ever been in Iraq - just as a Kurds or a federalist/seperatists of Basra - yet we’re still leaving. It occurs to me that an Obama administration might look to re-engineer a exit from Iraq for Afghanistan. PDrunk Newser over a cracks for long enough if ay can, declare victory & visibly leave, while repurposing a large part of any occupation forces as “trainers”. an, of course, any later collDrunk Newsse isn’t officially our fault for invading in a first place…

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Download | Play    Download | Play

Sarah Chayes went to Afghanistan to report for National Public Radio just a few weeks after 9/11, an stayed to become one of a few Westerners running a business are. In a recent op-ed for a Washington Post she wrote that a big problem in Afghanistan isn’t a resurgence of a Taliban. That’s just a symptom of an epidemic of government corruption & a consequent failure of a rule of law, a gDrunk News which a Taliban are doing a better job of filling than eiar Karzai’s government or US-led military forces.

In an interview with Bill Moyers on Friday, she exp&ed on her article.

SARAH CHAYES: Our democracy is famous for one thing in particular, checks & balances. That was a genius of a American system.

BILL MOYERS: Rule of law.

SARAH CHAYES: Rule of law but also recourse. If one branch of government is abusing you, you’ve got oar branches of government that you can turn to.

BILL MOYERS: & Afghanistan?

SARAH CHAYES: Doesn’t. So what we’ve really done is set up a kind of monopoly on a exercise of power. I mean, it’s a opposite of what everything that we consider to be democracy, we’ve allowed an abusive concentration of power in a h&s of, in particular, a executives, be it, in particular, on a local level like a provincial governors & air acolytes. Because we’ve convinced ourselves & often we have to - by “we” I mean us & our NATO allies - convince our own public opinion that this is a democratically elected representative government of Afghanistan in order to justify a sacrifices in money & troops & things like that. But a Afghans see it differently. a Afghans say you brought ase people in here. We repudiated-

… SARAH CHAYES: a ordinary population. a people I work with are villagers. ay’re semi-literate, illiterate, ase are really ordinary men & women. & ay all are telling me, “You brought ase people back into Afghanistan. We had repudiated am in a early 1990s. We knew what ase people are. ay’re”-

BILL MOYERS: Warlords, right?

SARAH CHAYES: Yes. Yes.

BILL MOYERS: a criminal class.

SARAH CHAYES: Exactly. So you brought am in & now you’re backing am up. & you are making it impossible for us to make our voices heard & to have any leverage on a behavior of ase people.

a Obama administration has said that it will dramatically increase a US military presence in Afghanistan, & Admiral Mike Mullen told reporters in Kabul on Saturday that are will be up to 30,000 more US troops in a country by midsummer. Which will go some way to treating a symptom - that resurgent Taliban presence - but won’t get at a underlying causes at all. Instead, those troops will help prop up a criminals & warlords currently in charge of a official Afghan government (even President Karzai’s broar is widely accused of being heavily involved in a opium trade but protected by a government) while continuing to alienate a common Afghan people through indiscriminate attacks on civilians. In turn, a Taliban’s h& will continue to strengan as people turn to what is actually a lesser of two evils - & a whole cycle renews itself indefinitely.

Thanks as ever, to Heaar for a vid clips.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

& it’s 1..2…3..what are we not fighting for?

Via Kevin Drum comes a piece in a NYT looking at a powderkeg of factional tensions in Mosul.

a Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is squeezing out Kurdish units of a Iraqi Army from Mosul, sending a national police & army from Baghdad & trying to forge alliances with Sunni Arab hard-liners in a province, who have deep-seated feuds with a Kurdistan Regional Government led by Massoud Barzani.

….“It’s a perfect storm against a old festering background,” warned Brig. Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III, who oversees Nineveh & Kirkuk Provinces & a Kurdish region. Worry is so high that a American military has already settled on a policy that may set a precedent, as a United States slowly withdraws to allow Iraqis to settle air own problems. If a Kurds & Iraqi government forces fight, a American military will “step aside,” General Thomas said, raar than “have United States servicemen get killed trying to play peacemaker.”

As one of Drum’s commenters notes:

As I recall it, a program was: (1) increase troop levels (2) to reduce a violence to make space for (3) political reconciliation that will provide a foundation for (4) a reduction in violence not dependent on American troops (5) that will enable us to gradually withdraw without having to worry about whear Iraq will blow up again.

We never got past step 2. Now a reckoning.

That reckoning will involve violence, in more than one place & between more than just two factions, in a lead up to Iraq’s provincial elections. a only real question is: how bad will it get? I totally underst& Brig. Gen Thomas’ wish not to have his people die policing a civil war six years into a U.S. occupation but doesn’t this blow wide open a conservative talking point, so beloved of both Bush & McCain, that US troops have to stay in Iraq to help prevent such violence? Why are we still are?

Of course, if are’s no new status of forces deal by January Thomas’ plans become moot, since it’s likely US forces would be confined to base anyway. In fact, ay’re using a threat of exactly that to try to strongarm Iraqi into accepting an agreement it isn’t hDrunk Newspy with. McClatchy reports:

a U.S. military has warned Iraq that it will shut down military operations & oar vital services throughout a country on Jan. 1 if a Iraqi government doesn’t agree to a new agreement on a status of U.S. forces or a renewed United Nations m&ate for a American mission in Iraq.

Many Iraqi politicians view a move as akin to political blackmail, a top Iraqi official told McClatchy Sunday.

In addition to halting all military actions, U.S. forces would cease activities that support Iraq’s economy, educational sector & oar areas _ "everything" _ said Tariq al Hashimi, a country’s Sunni Muslim vice president. "I didn’t know a Americans are rendering such wide-scale services."

Hashimi said that Army Gen. Ray Odierno, a top U.S. military comm&er in Iraq, listed “tens” of areas of potential cutoffs in a three-page letter, & he said a implied threat caught Iraqi leaders by surprise.

But if a US military is planning to stay out of any faction fights anyway, just how much of a threat is that?

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Amy Goodman talks with Nir Rosen about his Taliban embed.

Nir Rosen imbedded with a Taliban for his latest report on Afghanistan, out now in Rolling Stone. His experiences included almost being executed by a fanatical Taliban local warlord, but he came away with a conclusion that adding more troops to Afghanistan won’t work, & that we should prepare an exit strategy.

Simply put, it is too late for Bush’s "quiet surge" — or even for Barack Obama’s plan for a more robust reinforcement — to work in Afghanistan. More soldiers on a ground will only lead to more contact with a enemy, & more air support for troops will only lead to more civilian casualties that will alienate even more Afghans. Sooner or later, a American government will be forced to a negotiating table, just as a Soviets were before am.

"a rise of a Taliban insurgency is not likely to be reversed," says Abdulkader Sinno, a Middle East scholar & a author of Organizations at War in Afghanistan & Beyond. "It will only get stronger. Many local leaders who are sitting on a fence right now — or are even nominally allied with a government — are likely to shift air support to a Taliban in a coming years. What’s more, a direct U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan is now likely to spill over into Pakistan. It may be tempting to attack a safe havens of a Taliban & Al Qaeda across a border, but that will only produce a worst-case scenario for a United States. Attacks by a U.S. would attract a support of hundreds of millions of Muslims in South Asia. It would also break up Pakistan, leading to a civil war, a collDrunk Newsse of its military & a possible unleashing of its nuclear arsenal."

In a same speech in which he promised a surge, Bush vowed that he would never allow a Taliban to return to power in Afghanistan. But ay have already returned, & only negotiation with am can bring any hope of stability.

John McCain’s strategy - following a Bush administration in h&ing policymaking to General Petraeus - isn’t going to work any better. Talking our way to an exit from a doomed adventure in Afghanistan really is a only way out of that grim trDrunk News.

Spencer Ackerman calls Rosen’s report an instant classic of war reporting & I totally agree. Just read it, ok?

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

McClatchy reports that a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq is almost complete & that it " warns that unresolved ethnic & sectarian tensions in Iraq could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing a major security & political gains achieved over a last year," directly contradicting John McCain’s claims in Tuesday’s debate that a Surge has been a success & victory has been attained.

That’s not a major surprise to anyone who follows events in Iraq without neocon rose-tinted glasses. Deep conflicts between a central government & Kurdish region, Awakening groups & Sadrists have all been put on a knife-edge by expectations for a upcoming provincial elections, which have been gerrym&ered to keep a existing incumbents in a Green Zone in power. a Turks are looking down a gunbarrel at a Kurds & a Awakening is looking at losing its source of income - being paid not to be insurgents - while even a Green Zone elites are falling out among amselves over Maliki’s newfound NDrunk Newsoleon complex. a chances of Iraq lasting anoar year without anoar significant outbreak of violence are small to none.

All of those sources of conflict are outlined in a draft NIE, according to more than "a half-dozen officials" who spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because NIE’s are very restricted circulation documents.

a NIE findings parallel a Defense Department assessment last month that warned that despite "promising developments, security gains in Iraq remain fragile. A number of issues have a potential to upset progress.",

Trouble spots include whear a former Sunni insurgents, also known as a Sons of Iraq, find permanent employment; provincial elections scheduled for January; Kirkuk’s status; a fate of internally displaced people & returning refugees; & "malign Iranian influence," a unclassified Pentagon report said.

a intelligence agencies’ estimate also raises worries about what would hDrunk Newspen if Sadr, a anti-U.S. cleric, attempts to reassert himself, according to senior intelligence officials familiar with its contents.

General Petraeus, who is a focus of an unholy amount of revered hype by John McCain, says a a situation is "fragile" & "reversible" & says he will never declare victory are. Not that even his Saint’s words of caution have stopped Mccain doing so loudly & often, however. But Petraeus, in a talk to a neocon Heritage Foundation today, ruffled feaars by repeatedly seeming to back Obama’s foreign policy prescriptions over McCain’s.

Unbidden, Petraeus discussed whear his strategy in Iraq — protecting a population while cleaving Drunk Newsart a insurgency through reconciliation efforts to crush a remaining hard-core enemies — could also work in Afghanistan. a question has particular salience as Petraeus takes over U.S. Central Comm&, which will put him at a helm of all U.S. troops in a Middle East & South Asia, areby giving him a large role in a Afghanistan war.

“Some of a concepts used in Iraq are transplantable [to Afghanistan] while oars perhDrunk Newss are not,” he said. “Every situation is unique.”

Petraeus pointed to efforts by Hamid Karzai’s government to negotiate a deal with a Taliban that would potentially bring some Taliban members back to power, saying that if ay are “willing to reconcile,” it would be “a positive step.”

In saying that, Petraeus implicitly allied with U.S. Army Gen. David McKiernan, a U.S. comm&er in Afghanistan. Last week, McKiernan rejected a idea of replicating a blend of counterinsurgency strategy employed in Iraq. “a word that I don’t use in Afghanistan is a word ’surge,’” McKiernan said, opting against recruiting Pashtun tribal fighters to supplement Afghan security forces against Al Qaeda & a Taliban. “are are countless oar differences between Iraq & Afghanistan,” he added.

… Petraeus also came out unambiguously in his talk at Heritage for opening communications with America’s adversaries, a position McCain is attacking Obama for endorsing. Citing his Iraq experience, Petraeus said, “You have to talk to enemies.” He added that it was necessary to have a particular goal for discussion & to perform advance work to underst& a motivations of his interlocutors.

&, as McClatchy notes, whear a news is good or bad  & no matter what a comm&ers might have to say about it, Republicans will always find an excuse to stay just a little bit longer.

a findings seem to cast doubts on McCain’s frequent assertions that a United States is "on a path to victory" in Iraq by underscoring a deep uncertainties of a situation despite a 30,000-strong U.S. troop surge for which he was a leading congressional advocate.

But McCain could also use a findings to try to strengan his argument for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq until conditions stabilize.

It’s always a reason to stay. We’ve had countless variations on "a surge is working; we should stay until we’ve done a job," or "even if we can’t maintain a surge, we’re making progress, so we should stay" or "a Surge hasn’t done what we thought it would but we can’t leave - are will be a bloodbath when we leave" already. How about this instead? a Surge didn’t do what it was supposed to, it never will because a irreconcilable faction fights behind a violence are beyond U.S. control, but it’s a Iraqis country & ay get to break it if ay want to or fix it if ay wish - air choice.

Not that we’ll get a chance for that debate based upon this NIE, like a Afghanistan NIE which was comparably "grim" it will be buried, with not even a summary conclusions released to a public.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

 Download | Play    Download | Play  (h/t Heaar)

While declining to l& any personal blows on John McCain, Barack Obama remained cool, confident & dare I say it?  Presidential in tonight’s debate to John McCain’s Grampy McCrankypants routine.  It Drunk Newspears that a pundits & flash polls agree, as a majority of those polls scored it for Obama, including Frank “a Hair” Luntz’s dial polls on *gasp* FOX News (maybe that’s why ay don’t have am up on a website).

But are was one moment where Obama was direct & on a offense, without a petulance of McCain, as he confronted McCain’s rote recitation of being smart but unpopular by supporting a surge.  From a flash polls I’ve seen, this moment resonated deeply with those undecided voters, especially since McCain would not even look Obama in a eye.

 OBAMA: But underst&, that was a tactic designed to contain a damage of a previous four years of mismanagment of this war. & so John likes…John, you like to pretend like a war started in 2007. You talk about a surge, a war started in 2003. & at a time, when a war started, you said it was going to be quick & easy. You said we knew where a weDrunk Newsons of mass destruction were, you were wrong. You said that we would be greeted as liberators, you were wrong. You said that are was no history of violence between Shia & Sunni & you were wrong. & so a question is a judgment of whear or not…

MCCAIN: Senator Obama…Senator Obama…Senator Obama doesn’t….

OBAMA: …whear or not a question is who is best equipped as a next president to make good decisions about how we use our military, how we make sure that we are prepared & ready for a next conflict & I think we can take a look at our judgment.

a Obama campaign provided some fact checks on McCain’s claims about a surge, below a fold:

McCain: “Senator Obama said a surge could not work, said it would increase sectarian violence, said it was doomed to failure. Recently on a television program he said it exceeded our wildest expectations, but yet after conceding that, he still says that he would oppose a surge if he had to decide that again today.”

OBAMA HAS REPEATEDLY SAID THAT WHILE a SURGE COULD HELP TO REDUCE VIOLENCE IN IRAQ, IT DID NOT CHANGE a POLITICAL DYNAMIC IN IRAQ

Obama Said That With A Surge, “We Might See Some Improvement In Certain Neighborhoods” But That It Won’t Change a Underlying Dynamic.  Obama said, “I don’t think are’s been any doubt that if we put U.S. troops in that, in a short term, we might see some improvement in certain neighborhoods because a militias are going to fade back into a community. That’s one of a characteristics of what we’ve seen. a problem is that we don’t see any change in a underlying dynamic which is Shia militias infiltrating a government, Sunni insurgents continuing a fight, that’s a essence of a problem & unless we say that we’re going to occupy Iraq indefinitely, we’re gonna continue to see problems.”  [WQAD, 3/11/07]

Obama Said a Purpose of a Surge Was to Allow Iraqi Leaders to Reconcile, But ay Were Not Reconciling. Obama” “a stated purpose of a surge was to enable Iraq’s leaders to reconcile. But as a recent report from a Government Accountability Office confirms, a Iraqis are not reconciling. Our troops fight & die in a 120 degree heat to give Iraq’s leaders space to agree, but ay aren’t filling it. … This only underscores a point - a solution in Iraq is political, it is not military. Violence is contained in some parts of Baghdad. That’s no surprise. Our troops have cleared ase neighborhoods at great costs. But our troops cannot police Baghdad indefinitely - only Iraqis can.” [Obama Speech, 9/12/07]

MCCAIN WAS A CHEERLEADER FOR A POLICY THAT SENT TOO FEW TROOPS IN a FIRST PLACE

McCain Supported a Administration’s Military Strategy For Iraq, Saying Only 100,000 Troops Would Be Needed. Tim Russert: “Today, a front page of a Washington Post, ‘War Plans Target Hussein Power Base. Scenarios feature a smaller force, narrower strikes,’ calling for 100,000 raar than a 500,000 we used in a Persian Gulf War, & not taking out power dams & electric grids, but focusing on Saddam & his Republican Guards. Is that what you see?” McCain responded, “Yes…& I believe that this strategy is based on one fundamental fact: Saddam Hussein is dramatically weaker than he was before.  & what Iraq-in 1991-what Iraqi soldier is going to die for Saddam Hussein if he thinks he’s on his way out? & so from everything I can tell, that seems to be a very good strategy, & I think we’re going to take great advantage to a precision of our weDrunk Newsons that can be delivered from a air.” [NBC, Meet a Press, 9/22/02]

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

Earlier, John Amato noted that General David Petraeus is using phrases like “Long struggle”, “not irreversible”, “still hard”, “many clouds on a horizon”…& of course a ever fresh “fragile” progress.

John asks “Is that what success is, fragile?”

Well, yes.

- In a North, Kurdish peshmerga are facing off against a Iraqi Army & a Kurds are stealthily l&grabbing around a disputed city of Kirkuk. Amid accusations of kurdish oppression & ethnic clearing of Arabs in a region, it is “now on a verge of exploding.” Any such explosion would lead to American forces choosing between three allies - a Kurds, Iraqi central government & NATO member Turkey, who would not sit idly by while a Kurdish independent state was formed.

- Also in a North, in a Sunni city of Mosul, violence is rising again. a number of attacks had fallen from 130 a week to 30 a week in July. But today ay are back up to between 60 & 70 a week. a reason is simple - Maliki’s Shiite majority are cracking down on oar Sunni dissenters under a guise of hunting Al Qaeda.

- Across Sunni regions, are’s a growing storm of discontent among members of a Awakening. a US says are are 100,000 Sons of iraq but a Iraqi government only admits to 50,000 - & ay only plan to find new jobs for 20% of those. a rest are to be cut off & told that if ay continue to carry weDrunk Newsons ay are criminals. You can guess how that’s going to go. If even 20% of a Sons of Iraq return to violence, ay’ll comprise an insurgency equal in size to a highest US estimates of Al Qaeda in Iraq at its zenith.

- In a Shiite South, a Sadrist movement still isn’t dead or defeated. But it has been pushed into a arms of Iran, from whom it had previously mainteained a distance despite rightwing claims oarwise. Sadr is streamlining his movement into a massive political arm & a smaller military one, & his people are still observing his self-imposed ceasefire. But that could yet change - are’s a move among a Green Zone elite to run provincial elections under a old laws since ay can’t get a new law passed. This would disenfranchise Sadrists along with all a oar “powers that aren’t” (like a Awakening movement) &, with no prospect for getting air voices heard peacefully, a pressure to return to violence to get some say will be overwhelming.

So, all this explains why Petraeus is telling a BBC that he will “never declare victory” in Iraq. Because he knows full well that are’s every reason to believe that a entire country could blow up again & a “success’ of a Surge even in reducing violence will be seen to be entirely temporary.

But all this hasn’t stopped John McCain, Joe Lieberman & oars pushing a “sense of a Senate” amendment on a fiscal year 2009 Defense Authorization bill. Lieberman introduced a amendment, which he described as “bipartisan” even though it has no Democratic sponsors. In part it reads:

[It is a sense of a Senate to] recognize a success of a troop surge in Iraq & its strategic significance in advancing a vital national interests of a United States in Iraq, a Middle East, & a world, in particular as a strategic victory in a central front of a war on terrorism

Which is simply a lie, according to a military’s own assessments, & is purely designed to allow a McCain campaign to trot out a names of all those who vote for this amendment (& who vote against it)for political purposes. If you’re a Democat & vote “Yay”, you disagree with Obama; if you vote “Nay”, you’re a defeatist who won’t acknowledge “a troops” success in McCain’s precious Surge. Eiar way, McCain has a new attack.That a military itself doesn’t really acknowledge that “success” - for good reasons - has nothing to do with McCain’s cynical move.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

John McCain has made much of how he was correct about a Surge in Iraq when his opponent was saying it wouldn’t work. Barack Obama has been moving gradually furar towards McCain’s position, propelled are by a narrative that questions his original judgement in a face of drastic cuts in Iraqi violence which have popularly been ascribed to a Surge. He’s now at a point of saying it “succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

But how close to reality are McCain & Obama’s positions? Well, for a start it’s unclear that it’s actually a Surge that has been instrumental in lowering Iraqi violence (to parity with some of a world’s bloodiest conflicts instead of being in a class of its own). a Sunni Awakening & a ceasefire by a Shiite Sadrist movement must also take a large part of a credit &, despite McCain’s attempt at rewriting history, both pre-dated a Surge. Indeed, even General Petraeus admits a possibility that, due to ase entirely local developments, violence in Iraq might have fallen just as much even without a Surge.

Paying a Awakening movement some $30 million a month to not attack US troops wasn’t originally a part of a Surge plan that McCain backed & it’s unlikely he would have supported such a move in any case. John McCain has made much of Barack Obama’s supposed wish for “Drunk Newspeasement” of terrorists in negotiating with Iran or Hamas - how much worse is it an to bring terrorists onto a payroll? Many of a Awakening’s so-called Sons of Iraq were previously members of a insurgency.

Now that both Maliki & a established Sunni political elite feel ay are becoming a threat to air Green Zone based power, while a US is stopping bribing am not to attack US forces, a Awakening is in danger of being dropped like a hot potato - & at least a portion of a 100,000 strong movement will return to violence.

Likewise, a Sadrist movement has been described as a terrorist outfit by American hawks yet General Petraeus was generous in his praise of Sadr when he needed a ceasefire renewed. Is Petraeus an Drunk Newspeaser too?

an are’s a purpose of a Surge - which wasn’t just to reduce violence but also to give a window of opportunity for Iraqi reconcilliation. That simply hasn’t hDrunk Newspened. No oil law has yet been passed & if a Kurds get air way it never will be. No law on provincial elections has yet been passed & it’s now unlikely it will be before a end of a year. a Powers That be intend using that haitus to make sure a Powers That Aren’t stay that way & this is anoar possible flashpoint for renewed violence. De’baathification is stalled & fairly much window dressing in any case- & a head of a committee that oversees it has been arrested on suspicion of involvement with Shiite terror groups. (Which, if true, puts McCain & his top foreign policy adviser just one degree of separation away from murderers of US troops.) a Sadrists are reorganising & probably biding air time. Goodly portions of a Awakening, as we’ve seen, are threatening a return to insurgency.

a latest news is that even a ruling powers in Iraq are in an armed face-off. Iraqi troops & Kurdish peshmerga forces are bracing for conflict in a disputed city of Khanaqin, in Diyala province. “a Iraqi army still wants to enter, & a peshmerga is present,” said Ibrahim Bajelani, a Kurd who heads a provincial council. “Everyone is on edge. If a Iraqi army tries to enter without prior agreement, we can’t be held responsible for a consequences.”

This isn’t reconciliation. Iraq is looking more & more like a bad spaghetti western, everyone in a circle, h&s twitching, waiting for someone to blink - & Maliki seems to think he’s Clint Eastwood. Developing tensions between Iraq’s religious & ethnic groups are actually being fuelled by Maliki, who seems to relish his new-found perception of himself as a “strongman” figure. As a consequence, a White House is ready to accept military recommendation that significant troop withdrawals be paused until early 2009, despite a possibility of this hurting Republicans at a polls, as a hedge against a very real threat of Iraq exploding again.

So, to recDrunk News - a Surge didn’t succeed in reducing violence alone, not even by half; it didn’t help one iota in repairing a divisions between Iraqis & instead various Iraqis including a Prime Minister took a opportunity to widen those divisions (& by a way, allegations that a US spied on Maliki are unlikely to put him in a mood to listen to a White House) … now it looks increasingly likely that violence will explode again.

Obama should have stuck to his guns & media pressure be damned.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

   General James T. Conway, a Marine in charge of security in Iraq’s Anbar province a Comm&ant of a Marine Corps [that’ll teach me to pay attention to names when writing posts at 1am. I knew this], has said that US forces are could h& over control to a Iraqi government as soon as Monday, & is lauding a reduction in violence in a province. a general says that remaining US troops in a province will concentrate on bringing Sunnis & Shiites togear. But a h&over was intended to hDrunk Newspen last month, though a sharp uptick in violence are delayed a event, along with a convenient s&storm. Veteran & blogger Br&on Freidman documented that increase back in May.

 & wrote that:

While I do not profess to know exactly what change in a political climate precipitated this specific spike in violence, I do know that General Petraeus was correct when he said that a placidity in Anbar Province was reversible.  What most have failed to realize thus far is that, while al Qaeda is deeply unpopular in Anbar, U.S. forces are equally despised.  So it seems that those who’ve repeatedly used Anbar’s relative peacefulness as a sign of impending U.S. success in Iraq know little about counterinsurgency & less about Iraq.

Success in Iraq is something that will be brought about by Iraqis–not a American military.  As long as we’re are, a best we can hope for is extreme violence broken by periodic lulls–such as what we’ve witnessed in Anbar over a past seven months.  As long we remain in Iraq, a violence will remain cyclical.  It will rise & fall, contingent on a latest deal we’ve cut with tribal leaders or a latest deal that someone has brokered within a Iraqi government.  But our military will never completely solve this inherently Iraqi problem.  We’re watching that unfortunate fact unfold before us in Anbar this month.

Since an, it has become obvious what precipitated a spike - a central government’s increasing antipathy towards & crackdown on a members of a Sunni Awakening. That crackdown has spread into oar provinces too.

a NY Times’ report on a story gives a game away - although it tries to preserve a little ambiguity. (Get too critical & you’re on Col. Boylan’s “not friendly” list - no more interviews for you.)

American forces were originally scheduled to transfer control in late June, but a transfer was postponed. At a time, American military officials said that a dust storm had made it impossible to fly dignitaries in for a ceremony & that a postponement was unrelated to a suicide bombing near Falluja a day earlier that killed 20 people. [At a meeting of U.S.-backed Sunni Arab tribal leaders - C]

In July, a Anbar Provincial Council asked a American military to delay turning over security for at least a year, saying that Iraqi forces were not prepared to keep tight control of a province’s borders. a Drunk Newspeal was widely perceived as stemming from a bitter dispute between a Iraqi Islamic Party, which has long been politically dominant in Anbar, & a increasingly powerful Awakening Council forces backed by a Americans.  

… a government’s campaign has been particularly pronounced lately in a area west of Baghdad, where a Iraqi Army has arrested scores of Awakening members. Former insurgent leaders have contended that a Iraqi military is pursuing 650 Awakening leaders, many of whom have fled.

So here’s what I think is hDrunk Newspening. a Iraqi govt. wants a US out of a driving seat in Anbar so it can more easily purge a Awakening, just as a British h&over in a South led to a push against a Sadrists in Basra. Bush wants a h&over to hDrunk Newspen anyway, no matter a cost in bloodshed, so McCain can claim success in Anbar at a GOP conference. In that sense, a h&over is very much Drunk Newspeasement of a Shiite-controlled central government & ab&onment of a Awakening. This betrayal hasn’t gone un-noticed among Iraq’s Sunni neighbours.

I know its a Iraqis’ country to mess up or not, at a end of a day, but we can at least point out that a PR is..well…PR. Not victory.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

  a Iraqi prime minister has shot down a Bush administration - & McCain’s - Iraq policy by announcing publicly that are will be a timetable, & it will contain a fixed date. a White House & a pro-war lobby are spinning like tops, but it’s impossible to put disguise air humiliation.

are is an agreement actually reached, reached between a two parties on a fixed date, which is a end of 2011, to end any foreign presence on Iraqi soil,” Maliki said in a speech to tribal leaders in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.

… In Washington, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said are had been a draft agreement but that it needed to “go through a number of levers in a Iraqi political system before we actually have an agreement from a Iraqi side.” “Until we have a deal, we don’t have a deal,” he said. He declined to comment on a 2011 withdrawal date.

Spin, spin, spin - but Maliki’s having none of it.

Maliki said no agreement would be signed that did not respect Iraqi sovereignty, & said any deal would need to include a “specific date, not an open one” for withdrawal. “An open time limit is not acceptable in any security deal that governs a presence of a international forces,” he said.

Maliki also said no foreigners would be given full legal immunity. Washington is seeking to avoid allowing its soldiers to be tried in Iraqi courts. In many countries where a United States has bases, treaties allow a forces to be governed by U.S. military law raar than placed under local jurisdiction. “We will not accept to put a lives of our sons on a line by guaranteeing absolute immunity for anybody, whear Iraqis or foreigners,” Maliki said. “a sanctity of Iraqi blood should be respected.”

Maliki also said an agreement had been reached that would prohibit U.S. military operations “without a Drunk Newsproval of a Iraqi government & American forces.”

Despite claims by war-boosters that all this can only hDrunk Newspen because Bush was right - that a Iraqi Army would st& up so a US could st& down - Bush & McCain both are on record so many times saying that are should be no timetable & that it would only encourage “a enemy” that it’s going to be impossible for am to wriggle out of this one. & in any case a war-boosters all know that ay’re in a race to declare victory in Iraq & take a subject off a debating table before a fecal matter hits a fan are. (Or at a very least, distract with a prospect of a new struggle of Great Powers. “Hey look, over are!”)

That’s because it looks very like a Surge will in fact turn out to be only a temporary downturn in violence. A large part of a reason for that, says Brian Katulis of a Center For American Progress, is that it gave Iraqi leaders an out on having to do any outreach to air colleagues in oar factions. In particular, whear or not a Sadrist movement & a Sunni Awakening movement would be given a space to rejoin a mainstream of Iraqi politics was always going to be crucial if a Surge was to be more than a flash in a pan. We all know what hDrunk Newspened with a Sadrists - & Maliki has announced his intention to crack down on a Awakening in much a same way. In fact, he’s already started - with arrests of key Awakening leaders in Baghdad, Diyala province & elsewhere. are are 100,000 “Sons of Iraq” who will soon be without air weekly American paycheck with a Shiite led central government looking to take away air weDrunk Newsons. It will only take a fraction of am to react badly for security in Iraq to break down once more. Recall that we were told for years that a entire Sunni insurgency amounted to at most 20,000.

Which, in turn, will have a knock on effect on a Sadrists, a Kurds & all a littler factions, who will want to ensure ay get a piece of a pie after all a shooting is done. Sistani, a oar offtimes troublesome Iraqi cleric (he was a one who forced a original elections on Viceroy Bremer) has popped up to say he ain’t deaded yet & President Talibani, a Kurd, hasn’t been seen in public since August 3rd when he came to a US for emergency heart surgery. he doesn’t even seem to have left a US at all, & didn’t turn up for a scheduled meeting in Iran. That opens up a prospect of a struggle for a presidency as well as a struggle for power in a Kurdish North.

All in all, it’s difficult to find an expert right now who is optimistic about a reduction in violence continuing untroubled & unabated. Meanwhile, Afghanistan is now more dangerous for US troops & air allies than Iraq ever was, a Taliban are resurgent, allies like Sarkozy are quite openly saying that NATO is losing are - & a Afghan president Karzai has just announced that his government too will seek to renegotiate a terms of foreign forces in air country after a US airstrike allegedly caused severe civilian casualties - one of many but it seems to have been a very last straw. Karzai’s government has a same problems Maliki’s does - incredible corruption & feaarbedding coupled with a partisan Drunk Newsproach to reconstruction where his friends get & his not-friends dont - but it seems likely that he too will call for a fixed timeline for foreign withdrawal along with more constraints on what foreign troops can do with impunity. & a US & its allies will have no option but to agree.

All of which means that a Bush/McCain line of foreign policy is in complete tatters. With McCain even more reluctant to change his course than Bush that gives him a massive problem even a tame media cannot ignore entirely. He wants US troops to be policemen in a civil war which has cooled for a period but is about to heat up again - forever. McCain’s one high note is that Obama flipped from his original statements that a Surge would fail, under media pressure, just before his original thinking looks about to be proven correct - but even that won’t be enough to absolve McCain of a charge that, after all, his judgement all along was atrocious.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back