First open the checkbook

Yesterday Senator Joe Lieberman called for US action in response to the use of Damascus International Airport as a transit hub for terrorists. Terrorists entering Iraq from Syria is an old story; what's new is willingness to use Congress for action on the situation. I don't think that's the way to go.

The US is fighting a war in a region where we've been very hostile to two countries bordering the war zone. Pundita is of the mind that the top priority is to win the war, and for that we need all the help we can get.

Right now Syria's government is overwhelmed with looking after refugees from Iraq. So I would try offering Syria considerable help in exchange for vigilance with foreign travelers.

When it comes to asking Iran and Syria for help with Iraq, I see too much halfhearted trying from the US, then waving of hands and saying, 'See, they won't deal.' Try harder.

Also, Lieberman's approach overlooks improving relations between Washington and Paris. France and Syria have good relations, so I think the US Department of State should ask their French counterpart if they can do quiet diplomacy on the transit issue. For that reason I think the US should put on hold the confrontative approach with Syria.

Here's Lieberman's report and suggestions:

... the U.S. military estimates that between 80% and 90% of suicide attacks in Iraq are perpetrated by foreign fighters, making them the deadliest weapon in al Qaeda's war arsenal. Without them, al Qaeda in Iraq would be critically, perhaps even fatally, weakened.

That is why we now must focus on disrupting this flow of suicide bombers--and that means focusing on Syria, through which up to 80% of the Iraq-bound extremists transit.

Indeed, even terrorists from countries that directly border Iraq travel by land via Syria to Iraq, instead of directly from their home countries, because of the permissive environment for terrorism that the Syrian government has fostered. Syria refuses to tighten its visa regime for individuals transiting its territory. [...]

Coalition forces have spent considerable time and energy trying to tighten Syria's land border with Iraq against terrorist infiltration. But given the length and topography of that border, the success of these efforts is likely to remain uneven at best, particularly without the support of the Damascus regime.

Before al Qaeda's foreign fighters can make their way across the Syrian border into Iraq, however, they must first reach Syria--and the overwhelming majority does so, according to U.S. intelligence estimates, by flying into Damascus International Airport, making the airport the central hub of al Qaeda travel in the Middle East, and the most vulnerable chokepoint in al Qaeda's war against Iraq and the U.S. in Iraq.

Syrian President Bashar al Assad cannot seriously claim that he is incapable of exercising effective control over the main airport in his capital city. Syria is a police state, with sprawling domestic intelligence and security services. The notion that al Qaeda recruits are slipping into and through the Damascus airport unbeknownst to the local Mukhabarat is totally unbelievable.

We in the U.S. government should also begin developing a range of options to consider taking against Damascus International, unless the Syrian government takes appropriate action, and soon.

Responsible air carriers should be asked to stop flights into Damascus International, as long as it remains the main terminal of international terror.

Despite its use by al Qaeda and Hezbollah terrorists, the airport continues to be serviced by many major non-U.S. carriers, including Alitalia, Air France, and British Airways.

Scoop! Plot of upcoming "24" season!

Jack Bauer will be battling the African Violet Grower's Association of Greater Los Angeles as they plot to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge!

That is, if America's New Left have anything to say about the dastardly depiction of Muslims as terrorist bombers.

The BBC has dropped plans to screen a fictional terrorist attack by Muslim extremists in the new series of the hospital drama Casualty.

Senior executives had discussed the plotline in a development meeting but were overruled by the corporation's editorial guidelines department amid fears it would cause offence.

The opening episode, to be shown next month, will now focus on the bloody aftermath of an explosion caused by animal rights extremists.

Critics, among them Lord Tebbit, the former Conservative Party chairman whose wife was paralysed by an IRA terrorist attack in Brighton 23 years ago, condemned the climbdown.

"People were perfectly free during the violence in Northern Ireland to produce dramas about terrorism for which presumably they might have been accused of stereotyping IRA terrorists or even suggesting that all Catholics were terrorists," said Lord Tebbit. "What is the difference here? The BBC exists in a world of New Labour political correctness."

Read more

Sea change in European opinion on Iraq?

Here are some signs: The French foreign minister's trip to Iraq. The UN's new willingness to help in Iraq, which I don't think could have happened without encouragement from Brussels. And an August 10 in-depth report from Germany's Der Spiegel on the situation in Iraq that breaks with Spiegel's previous estimates of the situation there.

From all that, West European governments strongly opposed to the US position in Iraq may be poised to support the US effort, although I don't see this translating into military support.

The Der Spiegel report is notable because the paper has always been a harsh critic of the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq and the war effort. The Spiegel report by Ullrich Fichtner (translated into English by Christopher Sultan) continues to chastise Bush, but finds notable progress in Iraq and finds the US effort worth pursuing. Fichtner writes:

[...] Research for this story took me on a three-week journey throughout the country, my fourth trip to Iraq in as many years. Under the protection of the US military, it led us to the northern city of Mosul and its suburbs, to Ramadi and to Baghdad. The military did not choose our destinations, SPIEGEL did. Apart from a few technical and strategic details, nothing was censored. [...]

In some parts of the country, especially Baghdad, the situation is even worse than was feared, and in others, it is much better than anyone could have hoped. [...] Earlier this year, thousands of attacks occurred every week, and hundreds died daily. It seemed that terror reigned supreme, that its resources were inexhaustible. But now the trend appears to be reversing itself. Terror is weakening, and its leaders, most recently al-Qaida's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are issuing dramatic appeals to radical communities not to give up the fight. This is a good sign. "They are no longer on schedule," Petraeus says. "They have a problem."

[...] Something is happening in Iraq that is consistently concealed behind images of bombings. The situation that the White House and its deceptive advisors had erroneously predicted before their invasion -- that the troops would be greeted with candy and flowers -- could in fact still come true. That's already the case in many places. It's as if the terrorists have lost popular support, as if their acts of violence have driven the Iraqi people into the arms of the enemy, the Americans.

But there is little talk of these developments outside of Iraq.

I think there is more talk of positive developments in Iraq in the 10 days since the Spiegel report. Yet the report deserves close attention from the public -- and from everyone in the media who is following the story.

In the Fog of War Dept.: The Spiegel account of the important Battle of Donkey Island has it that the attackers' plan "was foiled when Iraqis intent on preserving peace in Ramadi betrayed them to the Americans."

The Spiegel reporter had good sources in Iraq. But yesterday The Washington Post's version has it that a routine US patrol near Ramadi stumbled across the camp of insurgents preparing to retake the city.

The Post's blow-by-blow report was culled from " ... interviews with three dozen U.S. soldiers and Iraqis with direct involvement in or knowledge of the battle and its aftermath, as well as official U.S. military accounts and maps detailing the fighting, insurgents' videos later obtained by the U.S. military, and a Post reporter's survey of the battlefield."

And a hat tip to Zenpundit and Small Wars Council for bringing back the Spiegel story.

Musharraf continues to pursue suicidal negotiations with Qaeda and Taliban

From a Fourth Rail report today:

As the Taliban fights the Pakistani military in an undeclared insurgency in the Northwest Frontier Province, the Pakistani government continues to sue for peace, and in the process, has released a senior al Qaeda operative [Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan] [...]

The release of Khan from custody is an ominous sign. The Pakistani government released over 2,500 Taliban, al Qaeda, and associated Pakistani jihadis during the signing of the Waziristan Accord in September of 2006. Currently, the government is seeking to revive the North and South Waziristan Accords, which have been negated by Pakistani Taliban commanders.

Read more

War jumble

Just Life Happening
Finally, finally, Anthony Bourdain's documentary for the Travel Channel aired last night about his being stranded in Beirut, along with his film crew, during the Israeli bombings last summer.

There's just no way to describe the documentary without shorting it; so much was packed into the hour but it was also very simple: cook goes to Beirut to film show on restaurants, and ends up in the Royal Hotel watching Lebanon get bombed. Of course, not just any old cook; it's Bourdain and his sharp eyes.

One thing I'll mention; his surprising and moving tribute to the Marines who evacuated people from Beirut.

Also, disturbingly, Bourdain said that a flim clip of President Bush eating a buttered roll "while Tony Blair tried to get his attention" aired over and over again on Beirut TV during the bombings. I know the Lebanese felt abandoned and betrayed by the US but the anecdote brings the feelings home.

One caveat: A hip young Lebanese tells Bourdain, who knows nothing about the politics of the region, that Beirut residents have moved beyond sectarianism. Only in that young man's class.

But the documentary shows Christians and Muslims mourning together at the memorial shrine to Rafik Hariri.

Okay, one more: For those who know about Bourdain's role as an acid-tongued food critic, the footage of him happily scarfing tuna noodle casserole aboard the USS Nashville is priceless.

Now They Tell Us
CNN Friday report on the Iraq war -- a reporter explaining that al Qaeda had been dug into Diyala province "for years;" that they were operating very openly, and even had their own government.

Why weren't we hearing years ago about the extent of al Qaeda's presence in Iraq, when US commanders kept assuring Congress that they didn't need more troops? Sometimes I fear that trying to see through the fog of this war from a Washington vantage point is driving me mad.

Stop Eating your Buttered Roll, Mr Bush, and Act
The biggest complaint about Ayad Allawi is that he spends too much time in Jordan. If Allawi sees signs that the US government will get behind him, he'll spend less time in Jordan.

Lack of alternative means Maliki remains: [...] Iraqi politicians complain that they are not able to replace Maliki until the Americans signal their own opposition and identify a replacement. There is a strong sense among the Iraqi political class that it would be better to wait to see who could be the likely victor, then jump on board.

Qasim Dawood, a Shiite lawmaker, said the Americans' refusal to act was becoming increasingly frustrating as the political deadlock continued.

"From one side, they interfere in everything they want," he said. "Then on the other side, they say, 'Sorry, you are a sovereign country, you have to do it yourself.' "

A Great Team
"We don't hear as much about [US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker] as about Petraeus (although they seem to get along, and do PT together), but Crocker deserves the same amount of respect; together, the general and the ambassador seem, for the first time in this war, to have both the military and the political sides well in hand and closely integrated."
-- from Wes Morgan's account of his day making the rounds with General Petraeus in Iraq

How tragic that it took years to get cooperation between Defense and State in Iraq.

What Is This Man Saying?

Baghdad, Aug 18,(VOI)- Iraqi President Jalal al-Talabani on Saturday said the Arab countries had showed no desire to establish diplomatic relations with Iraq. [...]

The Iraqi President also said, "Iraq has been making efforts to enhance relations with the Arab countries as we recognize the importance of such ties for Iraq. [...] He is a mistaken who thinks that Iraq is a weak country. We do not want to be involved in hostilities with the states anemically act towards us but we will not sit idle for good," Talabani added.

The Iraqi President noted that if problems with theses states were not settled through dialogue, they should know that "Iraq is a strong country and not weak as they miscalculate."

I wonder if it will occur to Mr Talabani that if you threaten your neighbors you can't expect them to invite you to their barbeques.

Thank You, President Sarkozy
French FM pays unannounced, highly symbolic visit to Baghdad

[Bernard Kouchner] The French foreign minister arrived in Baghdad on Sunday in a highly symbolic gesture to the United States effort in Iraq after years of icy relations over the American-led invasion. [...] Kouchner said he was not in Iraq to offer initiatives or proposals but to listen to ideas on how his country might help stop the devastating violence.

"Now we are turning the page. There is a new perspective. We want to talk about the future, democracy, integrity, sovereignty, reconciliation and stopping the killings. That's my deep aim," Kouchner said in English after meeting with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hosyhar Zebari. [...]

He also gave a nod to calls to have the UN play a more active role in Iraq's future. "I believe that part of the solution, part of the beginning of the whispering of a drop of solution might be going through the UN system and we are ready for that," he said.

Asked at a news conference if France was now ready to help the Americans who are mired in Iraq, the top French diplomat demurred and said he was on a fact-finding mission.

"We are ready to be useful, but the solution is in the Iraqis' hands, not in French hands," he said, adding "I'm not frightened of the perspective of talking to the Americans." [...]

Al Qaeda the dope dealer, and say whatever happened to Julie Sirrs?

Qaeda's propaganda has been so effective that legions of Western opinion experts believe the organization can't fail to drive the US out of the Middle East. I didn't realize how entrenched the belief had become until I received a note from Dave Schuler, which in effect compares Qaeda's mission to Gandhi's mission to eject the British from India.

Qaeda cannot be compared in any way with India's independence movement. The Indians were fighting for their homeland. Qaeda is fighting to survive dope wars.

Qaeda's fortunes started to wane when De Beers put a lid on trading in blood diamonds. Today Qaeda depends on the dope trade to keep them afloat. This is running them afoul of kingpins in the Pakistan narco-state and Afghanistan, and pitting them against dope gangs throughout Central Asia and the Middle East.

Now they're trying to make inroads in Latin America's dope trade, but the same pattern of running up against the locals will repeat there.

Qaeda's membership includes many nationalities, but anyone who hangs with the organization long enough realizes the top echelon belongs to Saudis and Egyptians. The rest are, well, highly expendable; they figure that out fast enough, if they're not doped out of their skull. Why do they stay on, then? Money; the drug trade is lucrative.

Al Qaeda is a rootless organization surviving on dope deals, and people who learn to think in rootless fashion find betrayal as easy as breathing. Qaeda has ended up fighting every government that aided them. But most people can't think in rootless fashion for long, or can't learn the knack.

So while al Qaeda may look like a big oak tree with many branches, it's sawdust inside. A few stiff winds will knock it over. The US is just one wind; a sense of betrayal from inside will be the strongest.

As for driving the US out of the Middle East -- China is racing to develop a blue water navy to rival the US one. The PLA wants to serve as an alternative to US protection for the Arab gulf oil producers. But one way or another, foreign security forces from non-Muslim nations will be hanging around the Middle East, at invitation from the Gulf states. This will keep on until the wells run dry or a real alternative to petroleum is found.

Every one of those Gulf states believes that given an opening, Qaeda will overthrow their government and that Qaeda is always trying. Qaeda has a well-worn tradition of wearing out their welcome, in every nation where they've been given refuge -- even Sudan.

As for attacking the dope trade as a means of getting at Qaeda: if you can manage to read through this timeline on the evolution of al Qaeda's involvement in the drug trade, without wanting to throw up at any point on the timeline, I'd like to hear your plan of attack.

By the way, every title in the timeline is linked to masses of additional data, but I won't hold you to the links. Just try to get through the blurbs without looking for a barf bag. This is the one that made Pundita's stomach turn; I hadn't followed the story when it first came out:

October 1998: Julie Sirrs, a military analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), travels to Afghanistan. Fluent in local languages and knowledgeable about the culture, she had made a previous undercover trip there in October 1997. She is surprised that the CIA was not interested in sending in agents after the failed missile attack on bin Laden in August 1998, so she returns at this time. Traveling undercover, she meets with Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud. She sees a terrorist training center in Taliban-controlled territory.

Sirrs claims, “The Taliban’s brutal regime was being kept in power significantly by bin Laden’s money, plus the narcotics trade, while [Massoud’s] resistance was surviving on a shoestring. With even a little aid to the Afghan resistance, we could have pushed the Taliban out of power. But there was great reluctance by the State Department and the CIA to undertake that.”

She partly blames the interest of the US government and the oil company Unocal to see the Taliban achieve political stability to enable a trans-Afghanistan pipeline (see May 1996) (see September 27, 1996).

She claims, “Massoud told me he had proof that Unocal had provided money that helped the Taliban take Kabul.” She also states, “The State Department didn’t want to have anything to do with Afghan resistance, or even, politically, to reveal that there was any viable option to the Taliban.”

After two weeks, she returns with a treasure trove of maps, photographs, and interviews. [ABC News, 2/18/2002; New York Observer, 3/11/2004]

By interviewing captured al-Qaeda operatives, she learns that the official Afghanistan airline, Ariana Airlines, is being used to ferry weapons and drugs, and learns that bin Laden goes hunting with “rich Saudis and top Taliban officials” (see Mid-1996-October 2001) (see 1995-2001). [Los Angeles Times, 11/18/2001]

When she returns from Afghanistan, her material is confiscated and she is accused of being a spy. Says one senior colleague, “She had gotten the proper clearances to go, and she came back with valuable information,” but high level officials “were so intent on getting rid of her, the last thing they wanted to pay attention to was any information she had.”

She is cleared of wrongdoing, but her security clearance is pulled. She eventually quits the DIA in frustration in 1999. [ABC News, 2/18/2002; New York Observer, 3/11/2004] Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R) will later claim that the main DIA official behind the punishment of Sirrs is Lt. Gen. Patrick Hughes, who later becomes “one of the top officials running the Department of Homeland Security.” [Dana Rohrabacher, 6/21/2004]

Have a nice day.

News Flash! President Bush to interrupt his vacation!

I'm not sure what Bush can tell the leaders of Canada and Mexico next week except, "Sorry, folks, the American people have spoken," and as a consolation prize sew up the deal to give Calderon money for fighting drug cartels.

Anyway, Bush interrupting his vacation to attend the summit is a nice gesture. Now just make sure the damn fence gets built quickly along the southern border. Then we can start on the northern fence. As a matter of fact, why aren't we starting now? Because, as we all know, Qaeda sits around with a scheduler so their attacks don't happen until US fortifications have caught up.

HELLO Washington, we're at WAR.

State's patience with Maliki worn thin

The Washington Post, that weathervane for US State Department winds, has decided to publish an editorial by Ayad Allawi. That in itself is news, although a somewhat mixed message because the Post published the editorial on Saturday -- traditionally a dead day -- instead of the 'don't miss' Sunday editorial fest in the Outlook section.

In his op-ed Allawi sends a clear message to the Middle East's Arab states: de-Baathification is the sticking point, and overturning de-Baathification cannot move forward under Maliki's government.

Allawi notes that Maliki has stalled the passage of March legislation to reverse de-Baathification but I find this the key passage:

Iraq's security forces need to be reconstituted. Whenever possible, these reconstituted forces should absorb members of the sectarian and ethnic militias into a nonsectarian security command structure.

Translation: the insurgency will continue until 'reformed' Baathist soldiers are reabsorbed into Iraq's military.

Allawi also takes a dig at General Petraeus's counterinsurgency strategy:

Empowering militias is not a sustainable solution, because it perpetuates the tensions between communities and undermines the power and authority of the state.

Well, we're fighting a war against Qaeda so we do what we must. Would we need to fight this way in Iraq if the government declared a nationwide state of emergency and enforced it? That's Allawi's recommendation, which seems out of reach while Maliki holds the reins. And in the present state of affairs, I really don't see how even the combined Iraq and US security forces could make a state of emergency stick, countrywide.

There are so many fighting factions that it's hard to tell the security militias from the insurgents, Southern separatists, and Qaeda. So, reversing de-Baathification would be a forest clearing operation. Top of the list, bring all those disgruntled guys back into 'their' military.

I recall Rajiv Chandrasekaran's account of a furious military ex-commander, booted under Bremer's de-Baathification edict, telling Rajiv that the Iraqi army had been around before Saddam Hussein; that the army was for Iraq, not any one political party.

There are a lot of spitting mad military men in Iraq who would agree, although they couldn't have expressed their feelings while Saddam was their commander-in-chief. One such Iraqi told Rajiv that if he was wondering where all the military men had gone since de-Baathification, they'd gone to join the insurgency.

There has been some side-door easing of the de-Baathification edict since then, on the simple recognition that Iraq's army couldn't function with all its experienced soldiers gone. But the reversal needs to be made official and accompanied by genuine reaching out in all sectors to Iraqis who have recanted the Baathist line.

Can that happen under Maliki? Allawi thinks not.

The big question is whether Allawi can do enough coalition-building to force a showdown with Maliki by September. I think State is hoping so.

Note re Pundita's rendering of Allawi's first name: "Iyad" is closer to the Arabic translation but, according to Wikipedia, Ayad is the Iraqi pronunciation for Iyad. Pundita will probably continue to publish whatever spelling a source provides, which makes for inconsistency. If by some miracle Allawi ends up in Iraq's top post, the spelling of his first name in the press will surely standardize.

"The Princes of Sects"

Iyad 'Allawi dubbed the participants in the new coalition as “the princes of sects”

Political junkies the world over must be having a ball trying to keep up with Iraq politics. Iraq Slogger's Amer Moshen has a great summary of the latest dizzying developments; don't miss a word, especially if you're bored to tears with US politics.

But I'm highlighting the following passages from the summary because -- well, because Pundita is an Allawi fan. And also because it's still a wonder to me that Iraq is free enough to sound so many views. For all his power, Saddam Hussein lived in fear of Iraq's sects; for an Iraqi to be able to poke fun at them, and have his opinion heard in Iraq, is really something.

To accentuate the absence of Sunni representation in the new coalition, several Arab papers are referring to it as “the Shi'a-Kurdish alliance,” a term that may be as inaccurate as the “moderate” label that the leaders of the front are trying to promote.

The “Front” also excluded non-sectarian parties - which are admittedly few and of limited popularity – a fact that its enemies are exploiting to portray the new coalition as a sectarian front. According to Az-Zaman, Iyad 'Allawi dubbed the participants in the new coalition as “the princes of sects,” and said that his party, the Iraqi List, was not invited to the negotiations because of its “secular” character.

Pro-Government al-Mada tried to portray the new Front under the best possible light, claiming in its headline that the front aims at “supporting the government and energizing the political situation” in the country. The paper also tried to minimize the effect of the absence of the Sunni Islamic Party from the coalition, highlighting a congratulatory telegram that was sent by Hashimi to Talabani and avoiding to report the criticisms directed at the new coalition by Hashimi’s party.

Az-Zaman, on the other hand, devoted its front page to displaying the attacks directed at the new front. According to the paper, officials in 'Allawi’s bloc described the Front as being led by “sectarians and racists, with Iranian sponsorship, against the national project.”

Furthermore, Pan-Arab al-Quds al-'Arabi (which often panders to the Sunni Arab public) headlined that the new front “edifies the exclusion of Sunnis."

There's more, lot's more.

Note: Moshen italicized all the newspaper names.

Speaking of the Soviet era

"We overthrew Mossadegh not because he was too strong but because he was weak and the most logical successor to him would have been a Tudeh coup and Soviet divisions on the Straits of Hormuz. The Shah was a lousy client and Khomeini was an even worse alternative but at the time it was preferable to Iran as a Soviet satellite."

-- Mark Safranski, in a reply to a ZenPundit reader.

Once again, ZenPundit uses his historian's knowledge to keep the record straight. See the first and second comments in the Zenpundit post for the complete exchange. I was going to add Mark's quote to the Yalta post but decided it deserves to be spotlighted.

The Yalta play

ZenPundit Mark Safranski has weighed in on the announced US plan to designate the Pasdaran a terrorist organization (or to be more precise, give them a "special" terrorist status).

Mark takes issue with those who have voiced a negative view of the plan and states why he strongly supports the plan. (See this Pundita post for my view of the plan.) One of his arguments is that during the Soviet era, the US " ... saw no contradiction in bleeding the Soviets in one part of the world while negotiating with them in another."

Thus, Mark does not see the US plan as counterproductive:

... until we have an agreement with Iran we do not have any agreement and the regime should be squeezed at every point until we do. I'm all for negotiating in earnest [...] We should scrupulously keep our word and demonstrate to the Iranians through actions that we will deliver exactly what we promise. But until that point in time, Teheran should get no favors, no breathing space, no economic freebies of any kind until we come to an arrangement.

I agree, within the context that Mark is viewing relations with Iran; i.e., through the lens of negotiations. Yet there is a big difference between negotiating and asking for help.

The US request for help from Iran did not come through official channels; it was made public by Maliki. But the US agreement to meet face-to-face with Iran clearly signaled a request for help with ending the violence in Iraq.

Then, within about 24 hours of the first US working meeting with Iran about Iraq, out came the announcement to designate the IRGC a terrorist organization! And what did we hear about the reason for this plan? US negotiators working on Iran's nuke program are getting impatient with the UN. Well, tough cookies. The negotiators were the ones who set up the parameters of the negotiations. They set September as the time they would go back to the UN and attempt to wring out tougher sanctions on Iran.

American negotiators don't think China and Russia will go along in September with tougher sanctions; okay, but that situation has been going on for years with no sign of change. So that's not enough reason to blow up the footbridge on joint US-Iranian efforts to fight al Qaeda in Iraq.

(I have noted in some recent posts that I think the time has ripened for Iran's Supreme Leader to put the Pasdaran on a leash in Iraq. Pundita thinks military events in Iraq are making a strong argument for Iran to stop instigating strikes against the US military in Iraq.)

And notice the timing of the announcement! The plan to designate the Pasdaran a terrorist organization has been rolling around Washington for more than a year. But on the very heels of a history-making US-Iranian joint effort on Iraq, BAM! out comes the announcement about the plan.

I stress this is only an announcement of deliberations about whether to carry out the plan. So it seems as if some in Washington just couldn't wait to set off this firestorm -- again, on the heels of a joint US-Iranian effort.

Pundita bets these people are in the Washington camp that has already written off Iraq. That camp sees halting Iran's nuke program as the top priority. That's because their thinking about Qaeda has settled into a groove. They see the war with Qaeda as a generational one. Yet events are in the saddle, not Qaeda, and many events around the world are turning against Qaeda.

So at the risk of trying to sound like Roosevelt at Yalta, I think the top priority is to destroy al Qaeda as soon as humanly possible; for that we need all the help we can get, even if means holding our nose.

However, none of my arguments overturn ZenPundit's reasons for wanting to be tough on the Pasdaran, and which deserve attention. So what is the tiebreaker? I think we should let the Europeans do the heavy lifting right now with regard to negotiations with Tehran. I think we should let the Europeans hurl sticks at the Pasdaran. Let the Europeans designate the IRGC a terrorist unit.

The obvious retort is 'That's just the problem.' Yes, and that's why I led off my earlier post on the subject with a passage from Victor Comras's congressional testimony. We need to clamp down on our buddies who do business with Iran -- and keep going after US shell corporations doing business with Iran.

Those actions are the logical starting point for turning the screws on Iran -- because if we don't get more cooperation from allies who do business with Iran, the Pasdaran can continue to find banks and companies that will do business with them.

Yet those who cooked up the plan to block Pasdaran funds are treating the Pasdaran, who do many billions of dollars in business -- as if they were North Korea's army, which controls not a drop of petroleum. Hello, the Pasdaran are megabucks businessmen.

At the least, wait until the September meeting before launching financial war against the Pasdaran. What they should have done was float the Pasdaran plan in backchannel discussions with the Europeans. If the discussions leaked, well, it wasn't our fault and it just an idea we were batting around. In this way, we could have left some room for our request for help from Tehran.

Qaeda is now to Iraq as Soviets were to Afghanistan

From Bill Roggio's August 16 Iraq report:

Multinational Forces Iraq described the fighting, and notes the coordination between the insurgent group, the local police, and US attack helicopters:

"In an unprecedented combined action in Diyala Province, Iraqi police and citizen volunteers defeated a coordinated attack of approximately 40-60 al-Qaeda terrorists in the southern Burhitz area of Baqubah, Wednesday, and killed an estimated 21 insurgents, wounding more. As the terrorists entered the city of Burhitz, a group of concerned local citizens, called ‘Baqubah Guardians,’ and IPs stationed in Burhitz engaged the first wave of attackers, killing seven.

"At least two suicide bombers were killed before they reached their intended targets, with the bomb vests detonating prematurely. The IP notified the Provincial Joint Coordination Center and requested Coalition Force attack helicopter support after the first engagement. Attack helicopters arrived and engaged another large group of heavily armed fighters staging near the first attack site, killing or wounding an estimated 14 terrorists."

This kind of joint effort against Qaeda, which is mushrooming in Iraq, is reminiscent of the Afghan tribal leaders turning enmasse to the US for help in fighting the Soviets. This situation is bad news for both the Pasdaran and the Saudis meddling in Iraq.

Note that Pundita is being very diplomatic and saying Pasdaran instead of Tehran. Yes indeed, butter wouldn't melt in our mouth right now when it comes to talking about Iran.

If they were smart, they would recall the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan and say, "Hey, let's get known among the Iraqi tribes for helping the Americans!" But the Pasdaran are so busy waging a proxy war against the Saudis that they may not notice the trap door. Ditto from the Saudi side.

I suppose Tehran would retort that Iran was helpful to the US invasion of Afghanistan, and what they got in return was Iran designated a spoke in the axis of evil. But the name of the game is influence in Iraq after the US pulls back, so right now they're playing their cards wrong.

On a related subject, yesterday a US military Talking Head said, in commenting on the massive suicide bombings of Yezidi villages near Singar, that the US military couldn't be everywhere in Iraq.

True, but I think the military might want to strive to be everywhere that Qaeda is now fighting for turf in Iraq drug smuggling routes.

It's just Pundita's theory but I think there's enough evidence of Qaeda's drug operations to test the theory against Qaeda's recent pattern of land-clearing, shall we call it, in Iraq.

Pundita blows off Friday steam

"Dear Pundita:
You wrote [yesterday]: "What do you want Qaeda to do in Iraq, Mr Allbritton? Fall back without a whimper?"

Awed, no doubt, by the purity of our spirits.

When are people going to figure out that Gandhi succeeded because he opposed the British?
Dave Schuler"
The Glittering Eye

Dear Dave:
If Gandhi hadn't existed, the British would have invented him. I won't carry that remark further. Pundita is in a terrible mood, so I don't want to regret everything I say this week. Not to cry on your shoulder but --

I just woke up and I'm having to type with CNBC blaring in the background. This in in hopes the Fed will suddenly wake up to the fact that they can't focus too much on technicals during a wartime situation.

And Ahmadinejad is having a great week on the international front -- first with Maliki, then with Karzai, then his little speech to the SCO.

Meanwhile, US policy on Iran is veering toward incoherence. There are so many layers to the US war effort, and State won't let the Pentagon take control of policy, and vice versa. Bush is just standing there with folded arms repeating his mantra, "What do I hire you people for?" The upshot is a crazy quilt of policy initiatives, from which Maddy is making mounds of hay.

But I get your point. In this context, however, the big difference between Gandhi and al Qaeda is that Gandhi wasn't a dope dealer. I will explain that remark as soon as I consume a quart of coffee.

Hey, moron, what do you think war is?

Chris Allbritton's Iraq Slogger roundup of Thursday's news reports on Iraq features a summary of a new tactic by the enemy: Sniper fire at US soldiers to lure them into a booby-trapped house in search of the shooter, then blowing up the house with the troops inside.

Then Allbritton gets huffy about the US military's discussion of the new tactic, which has al Qaeda written all over it.

In a stunning example of spin, the increased deadliness of these attacks is actually a good thing, according to Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly, spokesman for the American operation in northern Iraq.

"It's a clear sign that they could not get to us by other means, and that's a good sign," he said. "Obviously we're countering the improvised explosive devices, and force on force, they know that they can't fight us."

Then Allbritton launches into editorializing:

Can we please stop with all this, "they're killing more people, more efficiently because they're desperate" stuff? With so many bombs, killings, ambushes and an about-to-collapse Iraqi government, they don't seem very desperate.

What do you want Qaeda to do in Iraq, Mr Allbritton? Fall back without a whimper? The US military has already denied them their preferred strongholds. And now one of Qaeda's most effective tactics, the use of IEDs, is collapsing. So tell me, are they supposed to slink off to the hinterlands without a murmur? What do you think war is?

If you can manage for a few minutes to rip your attention from US mistakes, why don't you try something new for a change? Spend a little time studying the enemy's mistakes and spin. And why not report on the number of US and Iraqi enemy kills, wounded, and captured?

For perspective you can study Adolf Hitler's fallback tactic of ordering bombing against his own people; this on his theory that a people who couldn't win against the Allies didn't deserve to live.

I'm not asking you to be a cheerleader. I asking you to keep in mind that the situation is not about desperation. It's simply that there is nothing more dangerous than a ruthless enemy in retreat. You may trust that the US command in Iraq knows this.

Whoa! This is not the kind of political progress the US is looking for!

Here is a disturbing turn of events:

"Shia, Kurdish Parties Form Political Alliance; New Coalition Creates Governing Majority That Excludes Sunnis"

One of the new coalition's goals, according to Prime Minister Maliki, "would be to address charges that his government is biased against Sunnis, which could prove a difficult task as the new governing coalition doesn't include any Sunnis."

Well, let's hope the new alliance is just more horse trading, but the Sunnis had better stop folding their arms at Maliki's government.

Next week should be an interesting one for Iraqi politics. I wonder how Allawi is taking the new coalition.

Say, let's work together to help Iraq! First off, how about labeling one of your military units a terrorist organization and freezing their assets?

"Halliburton is not the only US corporation with foreign subsidiaries working with and in Iran. Some of its main competitors in the oil field industry, including Baker Hughes, and Smith International, also have foreign operations there. General Electric’s Canadian, Italian and French subsidiaries have also long been engaged in business deals with Iran, and there is a Swiss owned Caterpillar dealership in the heart of Tehran.

"Some 35 foreign subsidiaries of different US companies are reportedly now operating in Iran. Several, including GE, have decided to follow Halliburton’s example. They have announced they also will no longer seek new business deals with Iran. This is an interesting declaration given the fact that they have long claimed to exercise absolutely no corporate control over these subsidiaries."

-- Victor D. Comras, Attorney and Consultant Special Counsel to Eren Law Firm, in testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, April 30, 1997

Victor Comras is cautiously in favor of yesterday's announced US plan to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization. I recommend that you read his April congressional testimony, which is clear and brief, before plunging into his analysis of the planned move. Yet after taking in both his opinions, I think the route of additional economic sanctions against Iran, which wends through negotiations with Europe, China and Russia, is very complex.

There is nothing complex about the US offer to work with Iran to help tamp down Iraq's violence. The first US committee meeting with Iran took place just days ago in Baghdad. Now we turn around and, going beyond the issue of sanctions, designate an Iranian military branch as a terrorist organization. The move ignores the situation on the ground in Iraq and mocks the US offer to work with Iran. So the move sends a loud message that the US government is not working in concert to gain Iran's help in Iraq.

The upshot is that the US presents itself as acting in such irrational fashion that Iran's so-called moderates are completely confused.

If the US were not fighting a hot war next door to Iran, it would make sense at this time to attempt to isolate Iran economically and throw at them every financial strategem the US Treasury could cook up. But hello, the top priorities are to kill Qaeda in Iraq and beat down sectarian violence. So it makes no sense to strip Iran of all face, then say, "Help us."

The curious thing is that the US annoucement about labeling the IRGC a terrorist unit comes on the heels of concilliatory noises from Iran's president:

"The terror going on in Iraq has links to foreign states that were adopting ideologies hostile to Iraq but recently they felt that supporting terror will make it spread outside Iraq to other countries," the Iraqi Premier told reporters. The Prime Minister, who just ended official visits to Turkey and Iran, told the news conference that he got pledges from Turkey and Iran to support Iraq in face of violence and providing basic services to its people [...]

What is a pledge from Ahmadinejad worth? The answer depends on how his military advisors read Petraeus's counterinsurgency.

Petraeus has created virtual chaos by cutting deals with an endless parade of Iraq's Sunni and Shia tribes. One result is that Iran can no longer control Iraq's insurgency. Ergo, one reading is that it would make sense for Iran to morph into the fountainhead of helpfulness at this time.

But it's almost as if there are elements in Washington that don't want Iran to be helpful. It's as if some elements are focused on the campaign in Iraq, and other elements are focused on Iran's nuclear weapons program.

If Pundita's speculation is in the ballpark, she would suggest that President Bush settle on priorities and enforce them.
* * * * * * *
August 17 Update
Tonight I saw that ZenPundit had weighed in on the discussion. Here is my counter-argument: The Yalta play.

War, not terrorism

Two reports on the Tuesday bridge bombing in Iraq show why the war has been so hard to follow from news accounts. Watch carefully; don't blink:

Insurgents hit a bridge north of Baghdad on Tuesday, using a suicide bomber at the wheel of an oil tanker truck to destroy the span, plunging cars and people into the canal waters below. Ten people are reported dead and six more missing.

The Thiraa Dijla bridge in Taji links Baghdad to Mosul, and was reportedly a strategic asset to the US, which relied on it for supply transport.

I took those quotes from a compilation of reports of the bridge bombing on the Iraq Slogger site. Now here's a discussion of the bridge bombing from Bill Roggio's Tuesday Iraq Report posted at the Weekly Standard:

Yesterday, Multinational Forces Iraq announced the start of two major operations --Phantom Strike and Lightning Hammer. Operation Phantom Strike “consists of simultaneous operations throughout Iraq focused on pursuing remaining AQI terrorists and Iranian-supported extremist elements,” while Operation Lightning Hammer is directed at al Qaeda in Iraq and allied insurgent groups that escaped Baqubah and are organizing north of the city in the Diyala River Valley.

These operations are the continuation of the Baghdad Security Plan and Phantom Thunder, the operations in Baghdad and the Belts that established a security presence in areas from which Iraqi and Coalition forces were absent throughout 2006.

In a response to Lightning Hammer, al Qaeda in Iraq is attempting to disrupt Coalition supply lines. A suicide bomber detonated a fuel tanker on the Thiraa Dijla Bridge in Taji. [...] The bridge, which was heavily damaged, spans a canal and serves as a vital link from Taji to Diyala province, as well as from Baghdad to Mosul. U.S. and Iraqi forces have been using Taji as a staging point.

While the full scope of Lightning Hammer, which consists of elements of two Iraqi divisions, four U.S. infantry brigades and a U.S. combat air brigade, has yet to be determined, the operations against al Qaeda and the Shia terror cells have picked up the pace over the past week.

Attacking the Iranian-Backed Shia terror cells
The announcement for Operation Phantom Strike made clear that the Iranian-backed elements of the Mahdi Army, as well as the Qods Force-created Special Groups terror cells, are major targets. Since the announcement of Phantom Strike, Iraqi and U.S. troops have hit these Iranian-backed groups especially hard in Baghdad and Najaf, the two strongholds of Muqtada al Sadr and his Mahdi Army.

Read more.

Leave the gun. Take the cannolis.

In a development that should cloud further discussions over what country's government has been supplying weapons to Shiite militias, Italian anti-mafia investigators have busted up an arms deal negotiated through an intermediary for Iraq's interior ministry.

Most intriguing, the US military apparently had no knowledge of the pending $40 million sale that would have supplied 105,000 Russian-made weapons to the ministry.

Here's the rest of the story.

Okay, Pundita, stop mucking around the Iraq Slogger site.

City-based warfare creates need for decentralized police and redundant critical services. Do we have the will to carry out the programs?

"The mechanisms of power and control that states once exerted will continue to weaken as global interconnectivity increases. Small groups of terrorists can already attack deep within any state, riding on the highways of interconnectivity, unconcerned about our porous borders and our nation-state militaries. These terrorists’ likeliest point of origin, and their likeliest destination, is the city."
--John Robb

ZenPundit highlights John Robb's The Coming Urban Terror. ZenPundit rightly points out that "Network theory is one of the key concepts for the intelligent public to understand for the 21st century."

Robb's piece is very scary stuff but he also discusses practical countermeasures:

In almost all cases, cities can defend themselves from their new enemies through effective decentralization. To counter systems disruption, decentralized services -- the capability of smaller areas within cities to provide backup services, at least on a temporary basis -- could radically diminish the harmful consequences of disconnection from the larger global grid. In New York, this would mean storage or limited production capability of backup electricity, water, and fuel, with easy connections to the delivery grid -- at the borough level or even smaller. These backups would then provide a means of restoring central services rapidly after a failure.

Similarly, cities may combat networked gangs by decentralizing their own security.[...]

Robb's advice is not new (see Annlee Hines's Planning for Survivable Networks) and the ideas he covers have gained much ground since 9/11. However, many US city governments are stretched to the budget limit, and have put off repairs to basic infrastructure systems. So I think a lot of political will needs to be mustered before US city governments embrace Robb's advice.

The question is how to muster the will. Since the 1970s appeals to civic responsibility have largely taken the form of helping the disadvantaged, supporting diversity, and protecting the Earth's environment. Even in the post-9/11 era, I don't think civic appeals relating to defense issues have gained much ground outside the military milieu.

I wonder how much time US public schools give to teaching the importance of national defense.

Robert Young Pelton, tracking the laughing skull all over the globe

"Hi Pundita,
Thanks for your kind words. Eason Jordan and I are equal partners and owners of Iraq Slogger and we are very proud of building the best 24/7 news source from Iraq.
Robert Young Pelton"

Dear Robert:
Iraq Slogger saves me tons of time, and often the site's coverage of Iraq press puts the reader a day or more ahead of news reports in the Western media. So I sure hope the site continues to be a free resource; it's invaluable for anyone following the situation in Iraq.

Yet the site must be expensive to keep up, so Pundita is happy to give a plug to what I read about Praedict's planned subscription service. I imagine the service will be a boon to anyone wanting to do business in Iraq.

I do have a request, which is that Iraq Slogger carry more of their "Life Goes On" features. I like the reports because they give hope of progress in Iraq.

Even rescue dogs get terribly depressed, if they find nothing but dead bodies in the rubble of an earthquake. So their handlers surreptitiously hide live people in the rubble for the dogs to find, as a means to help the dogs keep their spirits up during the search.

I think humans have at least as much need as dogs for signs of encouragement while investing blood and treasure in a project.

The antiwar crowd treats as a demon anyone who says anything remotely positive about the situation in Iraq. Yet Iraq stands for much else besides conflict. Iraq is all our tomorrows; it represents every problem in the developing world that developed nations put off grappling with during the 20th Century.

At the bottom of the pit is reliance on tribalism and clans as a form of government in an era of megapopulations. The numbers I quote are somewhat arbitrary but once the population gets up past 4,000, tribal government cannot work; past 40,000 the clan system of government collapses.

Then the options are very limited for those who can't do modern government. They invariably fall back on some form of mass murder to cut down the population, and keep the rest in control through a reign of terror. In one sentence, that's what we didn't deal with in the 20th Century. And that's what was going on Iraq by the time the Coalition arrived.

So it's grossly inaccurate to talk about Iraq in terms of reconstruction, in the manner of reconstructing bombed out Europe after World War II. My God, we're trying to build a functioning megasociety from the ground up. For this Herculean task, what do we have? A few thousand contractors, few of which working in concert; many of which working without an adequate knowledge base and funds.

And yet if we can't exactly call it progress, there is a lot of sincere trying going on. If we can just keep trying, and pile on more and more outside help, eventually real progress will come in Iraq. In the meantime, a sense of failure is our worst enemy. Thus, even the smallest signs of progress in Iraq, of the kind Iraq Slogger sometimes feature, translate to more attention on the country from outside.

Yet it's awfully hard to stare Iraq in the face because the country's woes underscore all the failures of central government in this era. You have long put a spotlight on such failures in your coverage of conflicts around the globe. That, too, is an invaluable service. I wish you the best in your endeavors. And come back alive, hear?