The Awakening Councils and the Future of Iraq

The New York Times reported today that Sunnis in Iraq formerly allied with the U.S. appear to be (re)joining the Qaeda-led insurgency. The article cites militia leaders in Salah ad Din, Diyala, and Baghdad governorates. The Awakening Councils played a critical role in defeating al-Qaeda in Iraq, initially in Anbar province. (For a compelling interpretation of how this actually happened, see John McCary's The Anbar Awakening: An Alliance of Incentives.) Although the Iraqi central government politicians interviewed in the article deny that such defections are taking place, there seems little reason to doubt that fighters are leaving the employ of the government or threatening to do so. Apparently, the tribal militiamen and their commanders have had enough of the Iraqi central government refusing to pay them or grant them immunity from prosecution. They see little reason to co-operate with the Shi'i-dominated federal government. With American forces leaving Iraq, the Sunni tribes in places like al-Anbar are now renegotiating their role in the Iraqi order. It is unlikely that they will want to surrender their sources of income to al-Qaeda, as they almost did in the bad years of the insurgency. But they need more assurances than they have been getting from Baghdad and from the U.S. The Iraqi security forces are not strong enough to govern areas dominated by the tribes in western Iraq and in the Sunni governorates. Whoever ends up taking charge in Baghdad will have to make concessions to them.

Iraqi Jews in the Meshulash ("Triangle")

Another interesting tidbit mentioned by Somekh: apparently the teaching corps for the Arab education sector in the Triangle (Meshulash) region in Israel in the 1950s was made up entirely of Iraqi Jews. It sounds like a fascinating story as is everything related to language teaching and study (Hebrew, Yiddish, Arabic, and other) in the days of the yishuv and early state of Israel. My friend Liora Halperin at UCLA is doing very impressive work on the period of the yishuv for her dissertation, which promises to open up some great discussions around this topic. For a sample, see her article, available to those with access to Muse.

Haim Blanc (1926-1984)

Haim Blanc, whom I mentioned in yesterday's post on Sasson Somekh's lecture, looks like a remarkable figure in his own right. Somekh told me that Blanc went from Romania to France and then the U.S. He was attached to the U.S. army forces after the war, according to Somekh in France. I wonder if he was also with the occupation forces in Germany. Apparently, he was born in Czernowitz, a detail that Somekh neglected to inform me about. I am sure he grew up speaking either German or Yiddish and I wonder if his original name was not Weiss. He went to Harvard after the war, then went to fight with the Palmach in 1948, was wounded in action. For more, see the Hebrew Wikipedia entry on him.

Somekh told me that Blanc's doctorate was on the Arabic of the Druze in Israel. The consensus then had been that they spoke a different dialect of Arabic (than non-Druze). He proved that this was incorrect and that they did not speak a different dialect at all. Remarkable: as far as I understand, Blanc only started studying Arabic when he came to Israel.

His 1964 work on Communal Dialects in Baghdad discussed the "qiltu" and "gilit" Arabic dialects. Jews spoke the former, Muslims the latter. I am a complete ignoramus on these matters though - perhaps there were some differences among Muslims, and I don't know what the various Christian groups spoke. "Qiltu" and "gilit" both mean "I say." If I recall correctly, qiltu is less prestigious and comes from northern Iraq.

Sabih

BY AMOS

Sasson Somekh (see post below) also gave me the definitive etymology for the popular fast-food dish known as "sabih" in Israel. While everyone agrees that it was brought to Israel by Iraqi Jews, there are various stories about the origins of the word. Somekh claims that he knows the person who first sold the delicious eggplant-egg-potato-in-a-pita sandwich (probably somewhere in Ramat Gan, but I did not ask). The man's name was ... Sabih, which Somekh tells me was a popular name among Iraqi Jews in the twentieth century because it was religiously neutral.

Arabic as a Jewish Language

BY AMOS

Earlier today, Professor Emeritus Sasson Somekh (b. 1933) delivered the first of three lectures held under the auspices of the annual Taubman series at the University of California - Berkeley. Somekh, who was born in Baghdad and came to Israel with the airlifts of Iraqi Jewry in 1951, at the age of 17, is Israel's foremost authority on contemporary Arabic literature. In his Taubman lecture he spoke about "Arabic as a Jewish Language," beginning the series with background about Judeo-Arabic and a survey of the two greatest Iraqi Jewish writers.

Somekh's brief sketch of the history of Judeo-Arabic will probably be familiar to most of our readers and can be found in several sources, including his own publications. The highlight of his talk was Somekh's discussion of Iraqi Jewish literature in the twentieth century. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marked the onset of a linguistic revolution for the Jews of Iraq. Until then, Jews in the various Arab countries spoke some form of Judeo-Arabic, which they recorded in Hebrew letters using a relatively standardized system of transcription. But in the twentieth century, an increasing number of Iraqi Jews learned what Somekh calls "Arabic-Arabic" - for the first time, they wrote literary Arabic in Arabic letters. In North Africa and Egypt, on the other hand, Jews tended to be literate primarily in French, while in Yemen, Jews continued to write Judeo-Arabic until very late.

For a brief period of a few decades, Iraqi Jews wrote for an audience of non-Jewish Iraqis, taking part in many of the journalistic and literary endeavors that sprang up in Baghdad from the 1920s to the 1950s. Somekh mentioned such writers as Meir Basri, Shalom Darwish, and Ya'qub Bilbul. At least some of these authors have been studied by Arab scholars and praised for their contributions to Iraqi literature. The situation is more complicated with those writers who came to Israel as teenagers or in their early twenties. Sami Michael and Shimon Ballas, for example, left Baghdad between the ages of 18-20. Both had been part of political (Michael, who was active in the Communist Party) and literary circles (Ballas) in Baghdad. In Israel, they learned Hebrew and published most of their works in that language. Somekh, who came to Israel when he was 17, belongs to this group. Although he did not speak about it, he has published a memoir called Baghdad, Yesterday: The Making of an Arab Jew which has been translated into English.

But a different group of writers found itself in a sort of "doubled exile" after the immigration to Israel. Somekh spoke about two remarkable individuals who, for whatever reason, wrote almost all of their works in Arabic while living in Israel. They were perhaps the most accomplished Jewish novelists to write in Arabic but their work has made almost no inroads in the Arab world. Yitzhak (Ishaq) Bar-Moshe and Samir Naqqash (1938-2004). Both were born in Baghdad but came to Israel at different ages.

Bar-Moshe left Baghdad when he was 23. He found work as an Arabic-language broadcaster and journalist employed by the Israeli government and did not become active in literary circles until 1972 when he published a first collection of stories, in Arabic, called "Behind the Fence." Over the next decade, he had published ten more short story collections and four enormous autobiographical novels. Most of his stories are "like Kafka's worlds," devoid of local context and often philosophical. A posthumously-published memoir called Two Days in June (2003) described his experience of the 1941 "Farhud" (pogrom) against Baghdad Jews in June 1941.

Samir Naqqash arrived in Israel at the age of 13. Unlike many others of his generation, he mastered literary Arabic and indeed never learned to speak Hebrew properly. He published his first collection of stories, called Al Khata (The Mistake), in 1971. Subsequently he published about a dozen novels, plays, and short stories. The most remarkable feature of Naqqash's writing was his transcription of the differing colloquial dialects spoken respectively by Baghdad's Jews and Muslims. Because these dialects, which were the subject of a study by Somekh's revered teacher Haim Blanc (Communal Dialects in Baghdad. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964) would have been incomprehensible - in writing - to readers of literary Arabic (indeed, Somekh claims that Baghdadi Jews would not have been able to decipher the Muslim dialect and vice versa), Naqqash added footnotes to each of his many passages of dialog with a "translation" into fus'ha. To accomplish this, Naqqash engaged in the "Sisyphean labor" of adding diacritical marks (of his own contrivance) to precisely render the dialect pronunciations.

Somekh's talk next Wednesday will discuss the Cairo Genizah. More to follow.

Iraq Election Law Vetoed by Sunni Vice President

BY AMOS

UPDATE: Here is some more behind-the-scenes detail as well as speculation about Hashimi's vote. The author suggests that Hashimi is trying to position himself as a nationalist but is actually following a line that benefits Kurdish interests. He breaks down some of the seat numbers and explains why the Kurds are also interested in the minorities clause (it has to do with increasing Kurdish influence over Shabak and Yezidi lists).

Last week, the Iraqi parliament passed an elections law that was to have resolved some of the contentious issues surrounding voter eligibility. But today, one of Iraq's two vice presidents, Tariq al-Hashimi, vetoed the bill. Hashimi belongs to the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni Islamist coalition. He objected specifically to some of the details of the proposed legislation which limited the representation of "minorities" and Iraqi refugees living abroad to 5%, according to the New York Times. Most of the 2 million Iraqi refugees residing outside the country are Sunnis; their numbers constitute 8% of the country's population of 25 million.

Initially, it seemed that the bill's handling of Kirkuk voter lists - it decided that 2009 lists of city inhabitants would be used - favored Kurdish interests, since it is widely believed that the Kurdish share of Kirkuk's population has increased significantly in the last 5 years. But on Tuesday, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Massoud Barzani, expressed his opposition to the law, threatening a Kurdish boycott in response to the seat allocation (i.e., the 5% limit). Apparently, Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, who is a Kurd, had also threatened to veto the bill, already before Hashimi did so (NYT).

New Election Law in Iraq

BY AMOS

The Iraqi parliament passed a crucial elections law yesterday, which is said to end a political stalemate that had prevented any progress on the road to holding new elections. The electoral law specifically addresses the thorny issue of voter lists in Kirkuk, the oil-rich city in northern Iraq, home to a mixed population of Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmens.

Located in the Kirkuk Governorate, outside of the present borders of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which is currently comprised of the Iraqi governorates Arbīl, As-Sulaymāniyyah, and Duhok , the former Ottoman city's political future is still uncertain. As is well-known, Saddam Hussein settled large numbers of Arabs in the city to reduce Kurdish influence there. In the post-Saddam era, large numbers of Kurds have moved to Kirkuk. Arabs and Turkmens in the city and the Iraqi central government fear that Kirkuk will fall under KRG control. They have thus far insisted that future Iraqi elections, to be held in early 2010, would use 2004 voters' lists for Kirkuk. These lists would presumably have fewer Kurdish eligible voters for Kirkuk than lists compiled in 2009. As a result of the political stalemate among the various interested parties, a comprehensive elections law has languished.



The bill that passed yesterday, appears on the face of things to favor the Kurds. Under the new elections law, Kirkuk voter eligibility will be determined by 2009 residents' lists. Such lists would increase the Kurdish share of the vote and political representation of the city. As Juan Cole, translating and paraphrasing Al-Zaman, writes, Kurdistan Alliance MPs were jubilant at the passage of the bill. Cole believes that American Vice President Joe Biden must have lobbied hard with Arab leaders to achieve the passage of this bill (he takes issue with another blogger on this point):

Steve Clemons reports that Vice President Joe Biden played a central role in the negotiations. Clemons stresses his calls with Kurdistan president Massoud Barzani. But since the legislation was a big win for the Kurds, the hard talk must have been with Arab leaders such as PM Nuri al-Maliki, who gave up a lot on Kirkuk.

The New York Times quotes both Turkmen and Arab legislators from the city, reporting that

[t]he compromise satisfied each of the groups competing for dominance in Kirkuk. “We have passed a stage, a crisis, and no one is a loser,” said Abbas al-Bayti, a Turkmen legislator.

Osama al-Najafi, an Arab legislator, said: “There will be no injustice for the people of Kirkuk. This is a great victory for their historical rights.”

There is a proviso in the elections law intended to prevent voter registration fraud in Kirkuk, but that in itself does not seem enough to assuage the fears of Arabs and Turkmens that they might find themselves under Kurdish rule. Does anyone know how the impasse was really resolved? My suspicion is that some high-stakes wrangling was involved that included more far-reaching guarantees to the various parties, all backed by the U.S. government.

Changing Course in Iraq

Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) (Photo credit: webb.senate.gov)

Don't hold your breath. After two grueling days of Gen. Petraeus' Congressional hearings and several more of the candidates' blustering responses, the change, if any, in the U.S. mission in Iraq is likely to be zilch. The WaPo ran a story today that outlines the insurmountable political obstacles to a fundamental change of course. Yet change, we're told, is on the horizon: Petraeus vowed to begin "redefining the mission" in December, shifting forces from a combat role to a more supervisory one. Nevertheless, the troop levels are expected to stay above 100,000 until at least June 2009.

While one can only expect promises of "redefining the mission" to follow in the proud Bush administration tradition of "redefining success in Iraq" -- or redefining "optimism," that distinctly American, uniquely malleable virtue -- the real changes in the conduct of this war might fly below the radar. Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) has long decried the practice of extending reservists' tours through administrative gimmicks. As a friend and fellow graduate student explained to me before he left for Iraq last Spring, guardsmen were until quite recently allowed to return to civilian life for two full years for every year they spent deployed. Today, that allowance has been reduced to one year. We are now witnessing a further erosion of the distinction between professional soldier and weekend warrior. The guardsman returning from Iraq after a year-long tour is simply transferred to another unit heading back to Iraq, in the process spending a nominal amount of time stateside. The "unit" gets a year off, but he gets to go back to Iraq or Afghanistan for a second consecutive year.

Webb recently led a bipartisan delegation to Iraq, and he appears poised to see his amendment on troop rotation passed into law. This will be a significant victory for all Americans interested in seeing support-the-troops-style sloganeering backed up with compassionate treatment for the uniformed.

The Spin on al-Qaeda in Iraq

Baghdad. I don't know whether Jabbur, on the southern bank of the Tigris, is the
Arab Jabour cited as the operation's location (Map: Perry-Castaneda)

This morning I saw an interview with Col. Terry Ferrell, the commander of 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division of the U.S. Army, who answered questions about an operation that took place several days ago, on July 14. The operation targeted an Iraqi al-Qaeda (AQI in the military press release) leader by the name of Abu Jurah, in a suburb southeast of Baghdad. The particular brigade that he commands is the heavy brigade combat team (HBCT) "Spartan," which includes armored and artillery battalions. The latter were apparently used to full effect, firing two Excalibur rounds on Abu Jurah's safe-house.

The White House has been talking up its actions against al-Qaeda in Iraq recently. This looks like a another desperate attempt by the administration to spin the obvious failure of the surge. It has become clear that the surge has been able to score only tactical victories against the insurgents - whether al-Qaeda, Sunni, or Shi'a. Thus, once again, the White House is trying to portray the army's battles in Iraq as efforts to defend America from al-Qaeda attacks on its soil.

Interestingly enough, the CNN anchor asked the colonel several times whether he believed that this latest operation would contribute to protecting Americans from an attack "in the homeland." Both times, he avoided giving an answer that would be either blatantly misleading or blatantly subversive of the current White House press campaign.

As the recent attempted attacks in the UK showed, Islamist terrorists inspired by al-Qaeda still pose a great threat to the world. It would be foolish to downplay the dangers posed by such groups. However, no one is served by the ongoing misinformation that casts Iraq as a front in the global war on terror. The Iraqi al-Qaeda "franchises," as a recent Stratfor report by Peter Zeihan argues, have a rather tenuous connection to the real al-Qaeda, currently holed up in Northwest Pakistan. The association between the Iraqi node and the bin Laden crew, Zeihan argues,

started with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who put himself forward as the leader of the Iraqi node of al Qaeda in 2004. While one can argue that al-Zarqawi might have been through an al Qaeda training camp or shared many of bin Laden's ideological goals, no one seriously asserts he had the training, vetting or face time with bin Laden to qualify as an inner member of the al Qaeda leadership. He was a local leader of a local militant group who claimed an association with al Qaeda as a matter of establishing local gravitas and international credibility. Other groups, such as Southeast Asia's Jemaah Islamiyah, had associations with al Qaeda long before al-Zarqawi, but al-Zarqawi was the first to claim the name "al Qaeda" as his own.

For al Qaeda, prevented by its security concerns from engaging in its own attacks, repudiating al-Zarqawi would make the "base" come across as both impotent and out of touch. Accepting "association" with al-Zarqawi was the obvious choice, and bin Laden went so far as to issue an audio communique anointing al-Zarqawi as al Qaeda's point man in Iraq.

Militants such as the late Abu Jurah are engaged in a terrorist war against the Iraqi government and U.S. forces in Iraq. However, their abilities to launch operations against America on its soil are virtually zero.

I am not sure what the current White House strategy on Iraq is. Everyone knows that the U.S. will not be involved much longer in the costly counter-insurgency that has claimed so many of its soldiers' lives for little in return. Given the failure to achieve calm in Iraq, the administration seems to be angling for dramatic victories against Iraqi al-Qaeda crews, before U.S. troops pull back to safer locations in the region. However, it is possible that the U.S. will have to redefine its mission in Iraq as war against Iraqi al-Qaeda, not in order to defend the homeland proper but to prevent Islamists from destabilizing U.S. allies in the region. The Americans would do well to observe developments in Pakistan, where al-Qaeda seems to be growing ever stronger in the frontier region of Waziristan and poised to attempt a dramatic strike against the unpopular Musharraf dictatorship.

Iraqi Oil Trivia of the Day

Iraq Oil Infrastructure (source)

From Lieutenant General Martin Dempsey's testimony (watch it on CSPAN) at the House Armed Services Subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, June 12:

Nearly 90% of Iraq's total revenue depends on two offshore oil terminals in the Persian Gulf. The Al-Basra Oil Terminal (ABOT) pumps oil worth 83% of that revenue, while Khor al-Amaya's output (KAAOT) makes up 5-6%. They are protected by a "ring of steel" about which you can read more in one of Michael Yon's older dispatches.

Has Turkey Crossed the Rubicon?

Southeastern Turkey, Syria, and northern Iraq (Perry-Castaneda)

There is currently a media blackout on Turkey's military operation in the south of the country and in northern Iraq. The American as well as the European press have hardly covered it. Initial reports in the international media, which cited Turkish "security circles," spoke of several thousand Turkish soldiers having entered Iraq in a "very limited" operation. These reports, however, were later denied by the Turkish foreign ministry, Iraqi border officials, as well as by the White House.

At this point, we can only speculate about what is truly transpiring. Clearly, the Turkish military is engaging in a large-scale operation against the PKK within its own borders; most likely, it has also carried the fight into Iraq. The Kurdish separatist group has stepped up its terror campaign inside Turkey in the past few months, providing the Turks with plenty of reasons for a response in southern Turkey as well as against hide-outs and camps across the border.

Turkey has conducted many cross-border raids in the past, and aside from denying that Turkish troops are in Iraq, both the U.S. and the Turks are publicly playing down the scope of this operation. However, there are people in Turkey who are hoping and/or expecting this to be a far more significant move than that. Dr. Melih Can, an "international relations expert," has a long article in Today's Zaman, which I think expresses some of the foreign policy aspirations and grievances of members of the Turkish elite, as they have developed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

I previously encountered Can's name last August, when he published a piece on Russian policy in the Middle East. The article, "Did Russia have a hand in stopping Israel?" was a mixture of analysis and wishful (though not entirely unrealistic) thinking that resembles his more recent piece about Turkish ambitions in the region. Writing in the wake of the Lebanon war, Can seemed to me a bit too convinced that Israel had suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of Hizbullah:

The war Israel waged against the Hezbollah will go down in history for destroying the Israeli army’s image of invincibility as much as for the massacres of civilians (Zaman, August 17, 2006).

Can attributed special significance to Hizbullah's supposed successes against Israeli tanks:

Known as the source of Israeli military might and named the “mountain steel,” the Israeli-made Merkava tanks, destroyed one by one by the Hezbollah became a symbol for this crushing defeat.

This, of course, is nothing but hyperbole. Hizbullah actually did not destroy Israeli tanks "one by one." It is true that one older Merkava model was blown up by a massive mine in the initial pursuit across the border, after Hizbullah's kidnapping action. It is also correct that, after the war, Israel complained that Russia had armed Hizbullah with advanced anti-tank missiles (of the type Metis), and that a few of these put some older Merkava tanks out of commission. However, the main damage that Israeli troops incurred at the hand of this weaponry was not to tanks but to soldiers sleeping in houses.

The main point that Can was trying to make in that piece, however, was about Russia's moves to thwart American and Israeli power in the region in order "to continue in its traditional role of selling arms, directly or indirectly, to Middle Eastern governments and organizations," and to "rectify[...] the role of Russian businessmen in the region’s energy sector" (Zaman). Interestingly enough, the article does not mention Turkey's role in these moves at all. In his latest contribution to the debate, Can lets the cat out of the bag.

While Can's more recent article is not explicitly pro-Russian, it brims with resentment about American limitations on Turkish ambitions in the region. The sense of wounded pride is especially palpable in the penultimate paragraph of the article, in which Can gives the US two choices:

either to pull new “canvas sacks” over Turkey’s head or to enter into a fresh compromise with Turkey in the near future (Zaman, June 7, 2007).

The "canvas sacks," I believe, are a reference to the "hood event" in July 2003, when U.S. troops arrested Turkish special forces operating in northern Iraq, and put hoods or canvas bags over their heads. That incident provoked an uproar in Turkey and was apparently the basis of a 2006 feature film based on the television show "Valley of the Wolves" (whose distribution was blocked in the US, in part due to accusations of antisemitism and anti-Americanism)

According to Can, an over-the-border military operation by Turkey would be about much more than a response to PKK terrorist attacks. Rather, he argues, it would be about "Turkey's new role within the Middle East," and whether the country is to follow a "mission appropriate to its own history or a more independent set of policies" (Zaman). By "appropriate to its own history," Can seems to mean a policy in line with its Cold War pro-American alignment - not one that accords with Turkey's "historical destiny." The trans-border operation, in Can's mind, thus figures as a crucible for Turkey - it will clarify both the country's willingness to pursue its real interests, as well as America's stance vis-à-vis a more independent Turkey. In that sense, an "over-the-border operation" marks a crossing of the Rubicon, and seems very much bound up with Turkey's destiny in the region.

Kirkuk (Source: Perry-Castaneda)

Can's claim that "there is an extremely pressing need for a breaking point right now, with this need emerging as an over-the-border military operation," is full of expectation of some change, and the sense that aggressive action is necessary for Turkey to break free from the force containing it. That force, it becomes clear, is the U.S., which has pushed Turkey into a difficult predicament. Can distinguishes 7 sub-forces, almost all of which are closely linked to American involvement in the region:

1. the beginning of America's withdrawal, and its alleged "encouragement of various ethnic and sectarian clashes within the framework of its 'New Middle East Strategy.'"

2. increased awareness of threats to Turkey from northern Iraq, and the "provocation of Turkey by the PKK-Barzani relationship"

3. the danger facing Iraqi Turkmens and Kirkuk

4. "the irresponsible and one-sided stance of the US administration"

5. an "increase in activities aimed at shaking the prestige of Turkey and the Turkish Armed Forces"

6. the involvement of other countries in Iraq, most notably Iran

7. Turkey's domestic political situation

I may be misinterpreting Can, but it seems to me that he even accuses the U.S. of being behind #7. He argues that to prevent Turkey's entry into northern Iraq, "the US is using all possible tools and national dynamics possible in Turkey ... [and that] this is how the current domestic political crisis, blockages and lack of stability in Turkey need to be understood." I am not sure whether Can is implying that the U.S. is supporting Erdogan in his recent show-down with the military and secularists or the latter. It is also possible that he is alluding to U.S. support for the Kurds in Turkey (unlikely), or perhaps even the Armenian Genocide resolution in the American Congress (also unlikely).

Can argues that the Americans aim primarily to have Ankara coordinate its activities with Washington, according to the latter's interests. But Turkey's post-Cold War foreign policy has increasingly diverged from America's, and the U.S.

has become uncomfortable with Turkey's displays of a more independent stance, the attempts to define the agenda, moves to forge new alliances and, as a result, entrance into a new period in the "Turkish-Islamic" world through a venture involving Russia and Iran (Zaman).

Both Turkey's increasingly eastern orientation in the region - Can speaks of shifts in the Ankara-Damascus-Cairo-Riyadh-Tehran-Islamabad line - and its refusal to subordinate itself to America's stance on Russia (the Turks are not cooperating with the U.S. strategic aim of building a gas pipeline network that provides a viable alternative to Russia's Gazprom) testify to a clash of interests. Of particular concern to the U.S., is the possibility that Turkey will go for an even more independent policy vis-à-vis Iran.

Source: Wikipedia

On the other hand, in the Caucasus, American and Turkish interests seem so far to coincide, as both countries have invested a great deal in strengthening Georgia and Azerbaijan (see our post on some of the pipelines). Still, in the Middle East, or as Can says, "in the former Ottoman Empire areas," the Turks are clearly flexing their muscles. Turkey has emerged as a respected (by the Arabs) "mediator" in the region who might undermine American pre-eminence as a broker, and the

respect and esteem achieved by Turkey in the former Ottoman Empire areas following March 1, 2003 have only served to underscore its capacity for changing current regional balances in the future (Zaman).

March 1, 2003, of course, was the date on which the Turkish parliament ended up rejecting U.S. troop deployment in the country ahead of the invasion of Iraq. Turkey, in other words, Can says, is no longer content to play the "memorized roles" that it performed during the Cold War.

It is true, of course, that the PKK's terrorism in Turkish cities is also an important motivating factor for action in northern Iraq. Turkey's patience with U.S. declarations about the problem of attacks carried out from bases in Iraqi Kurdistan has run out. Furthermore, according to Can, the Turkish Army does not take seriously "veiled threats" against the Kurds as well as against Turkish incursions (on the latter, see my January post on former Pentagon Undersecretary Dov Zakheim's op-ed). Turkey's Chief of Staff, General Yaşar Buyukanit has apparently not ruled out a confrontation with American troops, and there is a pro-Russian tendency in the military.

Can's hope - and hence the sense of expectation - is that an "over-the-border operation" will finally address a complicated set of policy problems that require resolution. In particular, he believes that it could clarify

1.Turkish-Western relations (Turkey-US as well as Turkey-EU)

2. Turkish-Russian, Turkish-Iranians, and Turkish-Iranian-Russian relations

3. the future of Iraq and a Kurdish state, and thereby, "the partnership and friendship of Turkey-Syria-Iran"

4. role of the Kurds in the region, especially Kurdish nationalism around the PKK and Barzani

5. Turkey's new regional and global position, especially the question of whether Turkey will be a global player

6. the terror problem in Turkey and "theoretical 'civil war scenarios'"

7. leadership processes in Turkey.

This seems to me a very tall order that will probably be disappointed and thus lead to further frustration. But very much will depend on the American response. It is possible that the U.S. has been denying that anything unusual is taking place precisely because it does not want the "over-the-border operation" to extend beyond the immediate problem of the PKK. News of a large Turkish invasion, with designs on Kirkuk, would be an untenable provocation and force the U.S.'s hand. However, in the meantime, it appears that the Americans have left the Kurds to confront the threat by themselves (a May 30 agreement handed security in three provinces over to the Kurdistan Northern Regional Government), and are waiting things out on the sidelines.

Jimmy Carter at Berkeley

Berkeley students lining up to see President Carter (May 2, 2007)

If you put 1,500 college students in a room and make them listen to 30 minutes of canned analysis followed by some valedictory banalities from a failed ex-president, they will still give the man a standing ovation. After all, many of them waited in line for two hours to get tickets.

The funny thing is that those who have been involved in "the struggle" for years (well, semesters) probably left the room wondering about the future of the resistance ... with "friends" like him. First, President Carter denied that Israeli policies in the West Bank were racist. Then, he explained that he never claimed that "events and conditions in Israel" constitute apartheid. Why then does his book carry the subtitle Peace not Apartheid? As As'ad AbuKhalil has said, it is clear that while

Jimmy Carter gave his new book a strong title ... he lacks the courage to defend it. He always waffles when he is asked to explain it.

Instead, Carter admitted that he chose the title to provoke and to get people to pay attention. If he made an argument to the effect that Israel engages in a policy of apartheid in the West Bank, I missed it. In lieu of such an argument, he told the audience that he simply "can't think of any word that describes the situation more accurately."

I have heard many people invoke "apartheid" when describing Israel's policies in the territories. On my walk to campus, I pass by signs urging me to "boycott apartheid Israel" every day. It is also true that the term is thrown about with abandon by some on the Israeli far left. But I have never heard a rigorous argument for this, especially not one that actually makes reference to the situation in South Africa. I don't find these comparisons any more convincing than I find the equation of Israeli policies with Nazism.

Aside from the apartheid question, there isn't a whole lot to get excited about. Carter's vision of peace sounded suspiciously close to the one articulated by the Zionist left for years. In Carter's view, the Palestinian refugees should not be allowed to return to Israel proper but would be compensated by an international fund; half of the Israeli settlements should be annexed to Israel as part of a territorial exchange with the Palestinians; and guaranteeing Israel's security from terrorism is as important as the creation of a stable and prosperous Palestine alongside it.

On top of that, Carter spent the first ten minutes of his speech sucking up to the Zionists. First, he highlighted his efforts on behalf of Soviet Jewry, including his interventions to help neo-liberal and hawkish refuseniks like Natan Sharansky. Then, Carter spoke proudly of his role in prohibiting U.S. companies from cooperating with the Arab League boycott of Israel by engaging in "secondary boycotts." He also talked about his role in setting up the commission that planned the construction of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Time and again, he invoked the visions of "justice and righteousness" in the Hebrew scriptures and in the Jewish tradition; he sounded almost like Michael Lerner.

Representing

Surely, some audience members must have wondered, Carter would say something about the Zionist conspiracy to control the American discourse on Palestine. He did, sort of, but first he emphasized that he had "never believed that Jews control the media," and that "the overwhelming support for Israel comes from American Christians like [him]." Interestingly enough, a murmur went through the crowd when Carter began his sentence about "major news organizations," as if in anticipation of some lethal blow; it died down quickly as he finished the next clause.

Representing something else

According to Carter, the "powerful influence of AIPAC" constitutes only an "additional factor." And there is nothing wrong with the lobby, "which is exercising its legitimate right to pursue the goal of defending the most conservative governments of Israel."

To top it all off, Carter kept saying such nice things about ordinary Israelis, shifting the blame solely onto "the leaders of Israel, AIPAC, and most of the vocal leaders of American Jewry." Indeed, among the latter - the rabbis - Carter claimed, there were many who, in private conversation, told him that "given the American climate, it was almost impossible for them to criticize Israel."

President Carter began his talk with the claim that few people have had as many opportunities to get to know the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as he has. I am sure that Carter has done some very valuable work in the region, especially as an elections monitor (no sarcasm intended here). But I was a bit perturbed by the state of his knowledge at some points of the talk - though this was usually marginal to the argument.

For example, Carter referred twice to the "three [sic] Israeli soldiers that the Palestinians are holding." He advocated that Israel swap these for "9,800 Palestinian prisoners" held by the country. Did Carter's people never brief him on the fact that Hizbullah, not Palestinian militants, is holding two of these soldiers?

Carter was very sanguine about the prospects for peace in the region. In his view - which certainly does not lack adherents - "the growth of Islamic extremism is directly related to the continuing bloodshed between Israelis and Palestinians." He even felt it necessary to add that it is "foolish to say otherwise." Muslim animosity for the West is mostly "because of the Palestinians' plight." The notion that Iraqis will stop killing each other and that al-Qaeda will throw in the towel as soon as the Israelis leave the West Bank is ridiculous and dangerous (for Americans). It will be disproved as soon as some idiot actually tries to turn it into policy.

The former president is equally optimistic about the future of Palestine, after "the occupation" - that great metaphysical evil - has been scourged. Given the reports coming daily out of Gaza, I have to admit that I almost laughed out loud (I wasn't the only one) when Carter remarked that "the Palestinians, in their own area, have almost perfect democracy." Don't expect to find a lot of reporting on this in the Western media, but see Avi Issacharoff's article on the democratic situation in Gaza right now.

Finally, I was a little confused by the answer Carter gave to a question from the audience on what the U.S. should do about Darfur. Carter explained that he had met Bashir; "he's a devout Muslim, which is part of the cause of the war between the north and south." Was Carter really confused about the location of Darfur and the causes of the genocide there?

Barbara Lee is Key: House Passes Iraq Bill

Berkeley and Oakland's own Barbara Lee (Photo: motherjones.com)

The US House of Representatives took one small step toward ending the war in Iraq today, passing by the narrowest of margins a spending bill that includes a controversial "time-table" for withdrawal. In addition to providing subsidies for salmon fishermen, citrus growers, and the peanut storage biz, the bill, which amounts to $100 billion in funds for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, calls for most American troops to be out of Iraq by Sept. 1, 2008 and sets benchmarks for Iraqi and American performance in the theater. Failure to meet those benchmarks could precipitate early withdrawal.

Still, we're a long way from the exit. President Bush has vowed to veto the bill. (A Senate measure on Iraq, which seems to be quite different, has yet to be debated). House Democrats labored to secure the bare minimum for passage. They had to work so hard not so much because of defections among the so-called Blue Dog Democrats, a coalition of conservative Dems, many of whom were recently elected, but because of liberal members of the party who opposed the measure as funding qua funding for the war. Nancy Pelosi faced a real threat from members of her caucus who would vote on conscience rather than, it seemed, pragmatism.

In the end, the liberal coalition's machinations became one of the major storylines. I was initially pleased to see yesterday that our local congresswoman here in Berkeley and Oakland, Barbara Lee, was set to cede to Pelosi and withdraw her opposition to the bill along with colleagues Lynn Woolsey (California-6), Maxine Waters (California-35), and Diane Watson (California-33). As it turns out, Lee was one of the 14 Democrats who voted against the bill. Pete Stark (California-13), by the way, voted "present." So what gives? In a bizarre twist House Democrats gave a standing ovation this morning to Lee, Woolsey, and Waters. The trio had apparently convinced enough of the other members of the Out of Iraq Caucus to vote in favor of the bill that they freed themselves up to vote their conscience. Those are I guess, the perquisites of power.

A united Republican opposition will prevent the House from overturning a Bush veto, but it's heartening to see the competence and the stewardship of House Democratic leaders like Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel, and Steny Hoyer. A responsible yet timely withdrawal from Iraq can't happen without cohesion in the Democratic ranks. It appears now that even the idealists understand that.

Counting the Bodies with Angry Arab

As'ad AbuKhalil at UC Berkeley (March 15, 2007)

I'm not sure how much I can add to Amos's report of Angry Arab's presentation. But I think one might want to focus on the morally heinous obfuscation of the scale of sectarian violence in Iraq, particularly because we seem to have something of an audience (see their comments) that considers AbuKhalil not only credible but worthy of our respect. As you can read in detail in Amos's post, AbuKhalil asserted last Thursday evening on the campus of UC Berkeley that western media organizations like the New York Times deliberately suppress the fact that the majority of the violent attacks that the Iraqi insurgency or resistance or whatever commits are directed against coalition forces, not against Iraqi targets. Amos has his references for this, but I believe the authority of the International Crisis Group was also invoked.

I don't think today's NYT, in a statistical and visual piece entitled "Four Years of War in Iraq" could be any clearer. As for the number of attacks:

The average number of attacks tracked by the American-led coalition continues to rise. Coalition forces draw the majority of attacks, while Iraqi security forces and civilians sustain the majority of casualties.

This is a distinction that was sorely missed in AbuKhalil's polemic. If the high ground is, as the professor argued, simply counting the corpses, I think the NYT has it. Under the sectarian violence graphic, one finds the important qualification: "Note: a single incident can cause multiple deaths."

But what's at stake? I think critics of the US policy in Iraq like AbuKhalil rightly fear and ridicule a shift in the American political discourse toward a "blame the Iraqis" line. It may be politically expedient for the likes of Joe Biden or Barack Obama to dump on the Iraqis in stump speeches, but it doesn't do justice to the colossal mistakes of the Bush policy and it doesn't contribute constructively toward a solution to this problem. Still, I think that if one, in the interest of defending Iraqis against American incriminations, obscures the character or scale of civil strife and ethnic cleansing in Iraq, no one's interest is served, least of all the interest of the Iraqi people. The civil conflict in Iraq is by no means being fought in a world apart from American military operations. How the two correlate, and how the civil conflict itself is a monster with multiple, multiple heads are issues that deserve serious study and discussion.

Angry Arab at Berkeley

Sean O'Neill (l.) and As'ad AbuKhalil (r.)

Professor As'ad AbuKhalil of California State University - Stanislaus, the man also known as "Angry Arab," addressed a crowd of about 50 student and community activists at UC Berkeley on Thursday night. His short lecture was part of an event organized by Berkeley's Stop the War Coalition. He was followed by a former marine, Sean O'Neill, who started as a freshman at Berkeley after serving two tours of duty in Iraq. The messages delivered by the two could not have been more different.

AbuKhalil spent much of his time criticizing both the anti-war movement at places like Berkeley, as well as the state of campus activism in general. Strangely enough, he began his lecture with an attack on what he called "the new pet cause: Darfur." He then lambasted those devoting their time to stopping the genocide in Sudan:

This is seen as a safe cause. Parents think that this is an issue where kids can be active. They don’t know that the U.S. is an accomplice in Darfur, along with the Janjaweed. I worry about how people like [New York Times columnist Nicholas] Kristof are marketing a tragedy like Darfur as kitsch. It’s used as a substitute for activism that’s needed to prevent crimes occurring at a rate that’s larger than what’s happening at Darfur.

What crimes might AbuKhalil have been thinking of? No doubt, the crimes of the American occupiers of Iraq. Throughout his talk, the professor blamed the U.S. for the "654,000 people who have died in Iraq" since the invasion. Of course, a large number of those civilians who have died in Iraq were killed by fellow Iraqis, most of them "insurgents." But in an amazing exercise in obfuscation, AbuKhalil suggested that most of the civilian deaths were not being caused by the "Iraqi resistance." The proof? A 2005 book, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism by University of Chicago political science professor Robert Pape, according to which only 20% of the acts of violence by anti-American forces in Iraq are aimed at civilians. Of course, AbuKhalil conveniently glossed over the more important statistic: the number of civilian deaths. A car bomb that kills 60 civilians in Baghdad counts as 1 act, while a total of 4 ambushes of Iraqi Security Forces or IED attacks on American soldiers, might kill 5 combatants.

Although AbuKhalil admitted that a small number of the Iraqi insurgents were terrorists, he called the large majority of the "resistance" a legitimate struggle against colonial occupation. The professor chastised the anti-war left in America for accepting the depiction of the Iraqi insurgency as terrorism. From the Western media, he said, you would think that the large majority of acts of violence were perpetrated against civilians. But most are aimed at "American troops and the Iraqi puppet forces." But AbuKhalil did not stop there.

For Angry Arab, the biggest problem of the anti-war movement is that it continues to "worship the troops."

Why should you support the troops when they are on a mission of colonization, destruction of a society. This is the same culture that produced Abu Ghraib, the massacre of Haditha, the rape. Because of the worshipping of troops by liberals and conservatives alike. Even if it will offend many, we have to say no. We oppose the troops, if they’re engaged in a war against a country that is far away and has not hurt us.

He called on the anti-war movement to change course:

We have been way too intimidated on the Left about coming out to support in principle the resistance against the American occupation in Iraq.

AbuKhalil also warned that the Democratic Party would be no better than the current administration. They would simply be smarter about pursuing the "Bush Doctrine." This message was well-received by at least half of the audience, members of which spoke disparagingly about "liberals" and the Democrats. For this hard core, all of Iraq's problems would immediately be solved by an American withdrawal. And indeed, for them, it is America which caused the division and strife in the region in the first place. As AbuKhalil said:

the festering sectarian warfare [in Iraq] is largely the doing of the U.S. government. The U.S. went to Iraq and exploited Sunni-Shi’ite differences. Sectarian warfare began because of deliberate actions of U.S. In Iraq, people married across sectarian lines, unlike in Lebanon. Saudi Arabia is now deliberately funding Sunni fighters. I believe that a secular formula is best in a place like Lebanon or Iraq. But it is not up to me to tell Iraqis what they should do. I believe that no agreement reached by people under occupation is valid. No election under occupation is valid. These are puppet elections. Once the U.S. troops leave, the Iraqis will be more than capable of coming up with their own solutions.

The rest of the audience consisted of activists who probably identified more with the anti-war Democrats, including a number of people who were former servicemen, like Sean O'Neill, who spoke after AbuKhalil. Only in a place like Berkeley, would an eminently reasonable person such as O'Neill have been forced onto the defensive, trying desperately to explain that "you have to speak to Americans in their language" if you want to stop the war. Like O'Neill, I support a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq to safer bases in the Gulf. Hence, I hope that the anti-war movement does not listen to AbuKhalil. On the other hand, I do hope that Americans at large do hear what the Angry Arab has to say, for there is nothing more damning to his various causes than his glorification of the "resistance fighters" killing innocent people in Iraq daily, and his derision of the campaign on behalf of the people of Darfur.

Unfortunately, "the professor" - as O'Neill deferentially called him several times - left immediately after he finished speaking and answering questions. To be fair, AbuKhalil had a long drive home ahead of him. But to me it only reinforced my impression of him as someone who put more stock in his celebrity status than in sincere discussion. It was also rather disrespectful.

More to follow from Noah K, who also attended the lecture with me.

Another Day, Another Tragedy in Baghdad

Baghdad (Source: Perry-Castaneda)

Yesterday's suicide bombing in a Baghdad market was the worst such attack in the war. The bombing, which targeted a largely Shi'i neighborhood, claimed at least 130 lives. Local residents immediately blamed the U.S. for not providing them with enough security and for failing to implement the much-touted new security plan (New York Times). They are basically right. In recent weeks, the U.S. has put pressure on Jaish al-Mahdi fighters, forcing them to abandon neighborhood checkpoints and thereby reducing their ability to monitor security threats. Meanwhile, Sunni insurgent groups, in anticipation of an American and Iraqi Army offensive are trying to mount ever more spectacular attacks. As I have argued before ("Let the Militias Handle the Militias"), the U.S. needs to realize that it cannot compete with sectarian militias when it comes to providing security for their own people. Furthermore, by putting pressure on fighters affiliated with the Mahdi Army, the Americans are giving Moqtada al-Sadr a chance to evade real responsibility for the security and well-being of Iraqis. Instead, he can criticize the Americans from the sidelines and snipe at the government of al-Maliki. Even if the Americans prove somewhat successful, a single bombing can undo all of their best efforts. In any case, the Iraqi Shi'a are unlikely to credit the U.S. for even slight improvements in their lives.

In the meantime, Sunni insurgents are pursuing a policy that will only accelerate the efforts by various militias working in tandem with Iraqi government ministries to "cleanse" Baghdad of its Sunni population. Likewise, the recent escalations in Kirkuk by Sunni terrorists there will embolden Kurdish security forces to assert a more aggressive posture there. Already under pressure, the Sunni Arabs and the Turkmen in the city will inevitably face suspicion and outright hostility by their Kurdish neighbors.

Iranian Involvement in the Karbala Operation?

We still do not know all the details about the bold January 20 attack on a secure American compound, which killed five American soldiers in Karbala. Investigations are ongoing, and it is obvious that the Americans do not want to give away too much information about the tactics used by the attackers and about the compound itself.

Noah expressed concern earlier about the change in U.S. policy on Iranian operatives in Iraq. It is possible that these policy changes came in response to intelligence about increased Iranian involvement on the ground in attacks against American forces. In the wake of the Karbala raid, speculation immediately mounted about the possibility of direct or indirect Iranian involvement - mainly because of the mission's success and precision. Sunni insurgents were ruled out from the get-go, as it is highly unlikely that they would have been able to operate in the area.

But the evidence for Iranian involvement - at least those bits released to the press - is highly circumstantial. It revolves, on the one hand, around the use of SUVs, uniforms, and weapons that only American troops in Iraq employ, and, on the other, around the ease with which the convoy of 9 to 12 operators were able to penetrate the compound (New York Times). Some of this information has been released by Iraqi officials rather than the U.S. government. This makes it all the more suspect.

It is possible that the Iranians had a hand in this. But it seems far more likely that Iraqis orchestrated the attack. One of the details that emerged in press reports was that the militants spoke "perfect English" and looked like Americans, leading Iraqi guards to wave them through without questions. It seems rather more likely that they were waved through by Iraqi soldiers involved in the attack. American investigators on the ground are heavily leaning toward this policy, as statements by an unnamed U.S. military official in the NYT suggest:

"We’ve got to be very careful as to who we define as our allies, and who we trust and who we don’t,” the military official said. “Was the governor involved? Were the Iraqi police that were on guard complicit or just incompetent?”

It is, however, far more convenient for the Bush administration and the Iraqi government to blame the attack on the Iranians. No doubt the Iranians are up to no good in Iraq; but using them as a smoke-screen to protect the administration of al-Maliki (for whom Mahdi Army involvement would be a profound embarrassment) seriously endangers the lives of American soldiers.

If Iran was indeed involved, the U.S. should bide its time and pick the right moment for an appropriate response - perhaps a response that could be blamed on Sunni militias or al-Qaeda. In any case, given the nature of the evidence released so far, the Karbala incident must not be used in arguments for a war with Iran.

Shots Fired in US-Iran War?

David Petraeus faces one tricky task after another in Iraq (Photo: msnbc.com)

President Bush's recent announcement of a naval buildup in the Persian Gulf and the deployment there of Patriot missile batteries was seen in some circles as evidence that a war, however low-intensity, has already begun between the United States and Iran. Those kind of suspicions can only be stoked by today's announcement in the Washington Post by the administration and the National Security Council that US forces are now authorized to kill Iranian operatives, military and intelligence, working in Iraq. This is a change from the old policy of "catch and release," whereby the US military detained Iranian operatives for a few days to spook them. The idea is to ultimately change the diplomatic as well as the overall strategic equation with Iran, to strip Teheran of its triumphalism.

The American people and its elected representatives should be asking a lot of questions about this policy. Is this the best way to pressure an Iran that is frighteningly recalcitrant on the nuclear issue? What is the endgame? One thing that is far too unclear -- even to Condoleezza Rice, it seems -- is the nature of political oversight here. On the other hand, to what extent are US military personnel on the ground willing and prepared to implement the strategy? Most troubling is the program's origins in heady planning sessions led by, among others, the national security advisor Elliot Abrams, the Administration's notorious pointman on the Middle East. The notion of pushing an image of Iran on the public as a central foe in the War on Terror, with tentacles stretching from Kabul to Beirut, occurred to Abrams et. al. during last summer's Lebanon War. Not that these "tentacles" don't exist, but I confess, I'm not entirely intoxicated by this...what a way to proceed with one of the fundamental foreign policy challenges of our time!

Dov Zakheim: Reposition U.S. Troops to Iraqi Borders

Former Under Secretary of Defense Dov Zakheim, in an article published in the Financial Times on January 6, argues that the U.S. should reposition its forces on Iraq's borders rather than committing more troops to Baghdad and other cities. The concerns underlying Zakheim's proposal is very much in line with some of those expressed previously on this blog. Zakheim writes that

There is no doubt that Iraq is enmeshed in a bitter civil war. The US has had minimal impact on the course of that war. Iraqi casualties continue to mount, as do the number of Iraqis who have decided to kill their fellow citizens. Americans are caught in the crossfire. They cannot stop the sectarian forces that are determined to kill one another. The US could not do so in Lebanon during the 1980s and cannot do so today in Iraq.

He argues for a shift in American priorities. Instead of fighting to achieve stability inside Iraq, the U.S. must focus on preserving stability and American interests in the region. To this end, Zakheim suggests stationing a force of two brigades (a brigade is made up of 3,000-5,000 soldiers) In Iraqi Kurdistan, two further brigades in the far west of al-Anbar on the border with Syria, and a division (10,000-20,000 troops) in the south that will guard the border with Iran.

He also argues that

The forces in Kurdistan would help forestall a Kurdish declaration of independence that would prompt a Turkish invasion. The troops in western Iraq would help prevent both terrorist infiltration into Jordan and serious incursions from Syria. They would also indicate to Damascus that it should not misinterpret a readiness to talk as a concession.

and that the division-sized force in the south would send a clear signal to Tehran.

The New Anatolian has a slightly different interpretation of Zakheim's proposal:

U.S. forces should operate from Iraq's borders to stop the country from launching attacks against its neighbors and preventing any intervention by Turkey in the north in response to a Kurdish declaration of independence, the Financial Times said on Friday.

Stationing forces on the border between Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey could allow both sides to save face in the case of a Kurdish declaration of independence, by setting limits on Kurdish northward aspirations and Turkish responses. However, I doubt that U.S. President Bush will adopt Zakheim's plan when he declares his new Iraq strategy. The members of this administration appear convinced that anything less than "staying the course" will be disastrous for their long-term political fortunes.

The Week Ahead - Iraq and Ramallah

Nancy Pelosi (from her website)

The Democrats are putting pressure on U.S. President Bush just ahead of his much-anticipated new Iraq strategy. Following rumors that Bush will order a "surge" in U.S. troops, some key Democrats have come out charging. Earlier on CNN today, Senator Joseph Biden (D-Delaware) told Wolf Blitzer that he believed the administration could not admit defeat in Iraq, and that it was hoping to pass the mess on to the next president, who would then be responsible for "rescuing Americans from roof tops" (a reference to the fall of Saigon). Before that, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) sent an open letter to the President, in which they told Bush,

Surging forces is a strategy that you have already tried and that has already failed. Like many current and former military leaders, we believe that trying again would be a serious mistake. They, like us, believe there is no purely military solution in Iraq. There is only a political solution.

See our previous post on the idiocy of plans to increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. Will Bush bow to the pressure of the Democrats?

Meanwhile, the fallout from yesterday's IDF daytime raid in Ramallah has yet to be evaluated. Mubarak as well as the Palestinians reacted angrily. Russia made a special statement condemning the operation (Ha'aretz). Will this blow over or can we expect to see an escalation in Palestinian actions against Israel?