A shaky agreement

Iraq Slogger has published the full text of the Five Party Agreement, which is very tenuous. Iraq Slogger's Amer Moshen observes:

The new agreement (announced jointly by five Iraqi leaders: the President, his two deputies, PM Maliki and Kurdistan’s President Mas'ud Barzani) seems to be designed with two objectives in mind: Pleasing the Sunni leaders and providing “good news” for Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker to include in their September report to the American President.

The agreement includes a bundle of laws: chiefly an amendment to the de-Ba'thification law allowing ex-Ba'thists to run for elections and be considered for positions in the administration, which was a major Sunni demand. Secondly, the agreement guarantees the release of thousands of Iraqi prisoners without trial (most of whom Sunni,) third, a new law will be passed organizing local elections (another Sunni demand), lastly, passing the controversial oil law will be part of the “package” -– which is good news for the US administration.

The bad news is that it's just an agreement between only five in Maliki's government (it might be said those five are the government right now) and has a way to go before it can become law. The way is strewn with pitfalls. Amer continues:

It remains to be seen how the Iraqi parties will react to the agreement (especially the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front) and whether the Sunni ministers of the IAF will return to the government, thus breathing life into Maliki’s crumbling cabinet.

It should also be mentioned that the agreement is one of principle, and the laws included in it still need parliamentary approval to be promulgated. However, al-Jazeera reported that an IAF leader commented on the agreement, describing it as “insufficient” and announcing that his front will wait to judge its application on the ground.

But by any which way, an agreement has been wrestled into existence. Perhaps loud complaints about Maliki's leadership from some US Democrat and Republican senators spurred Maliki, despite his grumbles about back-seat driving.

Pick up a wrench

"What can France do to help this ravaged country recover hope? First, it can be modest. No one imagines that we have a magic formula."
-- Bernard Kouchner, France's Foreign Minister

The Armchair Generalist spoke with Brigadier General Michael Walsh, who is working to bring more electricity to Baghdad, about Iraq's electrification situation and came away with insights that reminded me of the broader context:

The Iraqi goal is to have 24-hour access to electricity [in the] 2010-2013 time frame. BG Walsh pointed out that the Iraqis have never had 24-hour access, even during Saddam's regime. He also pointed out that, even in the United States, there had been issues in the 1990s (notably, California) where neighboring states either refused to cooperate in energy distribution or hiked the costs so high that the solution had to be rolling brownouts for the state.

Try to imagine living in country that's never had electricity round the clock.

We talk about "reconstructing" war-torn Iraq but in many ways we're having to fit together the nuts and bolts of a modern society, and from the ground up. So I really do wish the Europeans who have come to the idea of helping Iraq would stop hovering and talking about history or modesty. Just grab a wrench and pitch in.

Ayad Allawi returning to Iraq

He told Wolf Blitzer on CNN that he would be traveling first to "Iraqi Kurdistan" then to Baghdad to fight for his political position.

Wolf questioned Allawi about David Ignatius's claim (made in an op-ed in today's Washington Post) that Allawi is receiving financial support from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Allawi denied the claim, adding in amusement that he only wished he could be receiving funds from those quarters.

(Ignatius also wrote that Allawi was not receiving financial help from the United States, which I think is correct.)

When Wolf asked about the $300,000 Allawi is reportedly paying a Washington lobbying firm, Allawi replied that he is not making the payment. He said the contribution has come from an Iraqi supporter of his party and their anti-sectarian stance. He said that he could not name the supporter who must remain anonymous.

Allawi also pointed out that other Iraq political parties are spending many more times that amount on purchasing media outlets - TV stations, satellite time, press, and so on.

Allawi refused to be drawn into criticizing Maliki; he said that the problem is not with one person but with the "system" of sectarianism. Throughout the interview, he returned to the anti-sectarian theme.

Allawi also said that a drawdown of US troops in Iraq could realistically occur within 2 to 2-1/2 years provided the Iraqi government worked in "partnership" with the US one.

Over at NBC's Meet the Press, Richard Engel repeated what he said last week, which is that Maliki's government is on the verge of collapse. Engel believes the government will collapse; he said that it could be replaced by a series of weak governments.

Also, Michael Gordon, the author of Cobra II, told Tim Russert that he will be publishing his observations on the surge in next week's New York Times magazine. He said that he saw progess from the counterinsurgency strategy. He also said that the strategy of the US military forming alliances with Sunni tribes is having success and that building up these coalitions is still in the early stage, but promising.

Interestingly, Gordon said flatly that the US military is not arming the Shia or Sunni militias in Iraq.

If for no other reason Maliki's government needs to get out of Dodge

Pundita is having a fit. Just yesterday I advised that to help keep gains made by Sunnis against Qaeda in Iraq that the US bring in security contractors to help guard the Sunni sheiks who have fought Qaeda. Well according to Michael O'Hanlon's op-ed in today's Washington Post, my idea is dead in the water:

And while the interior and defense ministries have approved firing some commanders who have been guilty of clear bias or corruption, they still protect Shiite militias. They also often interfere with the hiring of security forces, particularly in Sunni regions such as Anbar.

That's the final straw.

Why should US soldiers be dying and wounded to bring an end to the worst violence while Maliki's gang works against them at every turn? That damn Dawa party has to go. Don't be fancy; just run 'em out of Baghdad on a rail.

Clarity from a Commie website, again

Readers who have been with this blog since 2005 know that when Pundita gets really desperate for a clear summary of doings in a country she hunts around at the World Socialist Web Site. Trotsky's ghost hasn't gotten me yet, maybe because Pundita squirts a liberal application of demon repellent on the computer screen before her visit to WSWS.

It's very odd, but during a critical phase of events I've found the clearest picture of the political situation in Ukraine, Mexico, and Venezuela from a journalist publishing on WSWS. Of course Pundita had to cast out the Commie verbiage and the writer's interpretation of events. The remainder was remarkably informative.

The problem with following the daily news is that it's like studying a landscape from the window of a moving train. Now matter how clear the view, it's immediately replaced by another view. The upshot is a kind of blur of knowledge. One longs to get off the train for a few minutes and get to high vantage place; there one exchanges many clear details for a sweeping vista.

The other day Pundita found a WSWS analysis of the current political situation in Iraq. The analysis, written by James Cogan, contains little news for those who closely follow Iraq. But it's a great summary of how things stand now in Iraq. So it's a good review to read ahead of Ayad Allawi's interview with Wolf Blitzer tomorrow. (11:00 AM EDT on CNN.)

Two key points not mentioned in Cogan's report: Iraq's intelligence service has been run by the CIA because the Iraqis believe that otherwise the service will be taken over by Baathists loyal to Saddam. The other day the head of Iraq's intel told a reporter that a country which has 160,000 soldiers defending it can't be considered a sovereign nation. This by way of explaining that he wouldn't dissolve in tears if the US ousted Maliki.

Here's the report.

Get two Iraqis together, you immediately have 10 different opinions

Today Iraq Slogger's Chris Allbritton gives a crash course on Iraqi religious styles that is helpful to understanding the chaos in Iraq politics:

Islam -- and Sunni Islam especially -- isn't like the Catholic Church with a hierarchy that locks in place obedience to Church dogma. A fatwa issued by Imam Ahmed al-Kubaisi is valuable, but many Sunnis will not feel bound by this. A lot of Sunnis don't follow any one imam and often go for a "second opinion" if they come across a religious ruling they don't like.

Shi'ites are more hierarchal inclined -- there is no doubt Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is the most senior Shi'ite leader in Iraq -- but they're not monolithic. Many Shi'ites revere Sistani as their marja, or advisor, but many also do not. If they don't follow Sistani, and most followers of Moqtada al-Sadr don't, they don't have to listen to his fatwas. He's also an Iranian by birth so anything coming from his mouth will do little to convince nationalist Sunnis, who make up the bulk of the Sunni insurgency.

All this is oddly comforting; it suggests that many Iraqis are an independent minded lot. However, Allbritton's explanation throws light on why Iraqi religious leaders who call for an end to violence between the sects haven't made headway.

So what's the tiebreaker? Business profits, probably. Allbritton mentions elsewhere in his Saturday summary that the "Mahdi Army has gone into numerous businesses around Baghdad and now controls 70 percent of the city's gas stations."

War may be good for business, but constant turmoil isn't. Given enough freedom, people eventually decide it's better to make buckets of money than war. However, we're not there yet. Much of the sectarian warfare comes from a Shiite grab for business that the Sunnis had previously dominated. It's like the wars for land in America's Wild West.

So there is really no way for the US to stop the bloodshed until the new business cartels have emerged. In the meantime a strong central government, with US help, can put a lid on the worst violence.

Can Iraq's religious leaders help? Well, if they get on the same page and put out a strong united front. Will hell freeze first? Maybe not, if US commanders manage to convey to the various religious leaders that the US military is not the Golden Goose.

Pakistan: the ball is in play

Pundita can't imagine Musharraf taking this turn of events lying down:

The increasingly assertive Supreme Court in Pakistan ruled Thursday that [former prime minister Nawaz] Sharif could return from exile, throwing politics in the nation into turmoil and threatening the strategy of support by America for the president. [...]

Sharif and Musharraf are longtime enemies, and his return could split the party that supports Musharraf and undo any prospect of his re-election. (The Pakistan Muslim League, the party of Sharif, on Friday rejected any possibility of reconciliation with Musharraf ... Sadique al-Farooq, a senior leader of the party, said "there is no chance for any reconciliation" with Musharraf.) [...]

For the Bush administration [...] the re-entry of Sharif into politics would overturn its plan to prod the general to share power with the Pakistan Peoples Party chairwoman, Benazir Bhutto [another former Pakistan prime minister], as a way of keeping him in power [...]

Sharif is a rival to Bhutto, who had been made politically vulnerable by reports that she had held secret talks with Musharraf to negotiate a power-sharing deal. [...] (1)

Earlier this week Bhutto chatted at length with PBS NewsHour about the talks. Not wise.

Complicating matters, Sharif is not a friend of the United States.

[...] should Sharif end up becoming prime minister after general elections, current agreements that America has with Musharraf - particularly on the sharing of intelligence - would have to be renegotiated, said Daniel Markey of the Council on Foreign Relations.

"For months or longer, there would be no progress on a lot of different issues," he said. But, he asked: "Could we resurrect the relationship? I think we would. I think we'd have to."

The return of Sharif would certainly hamper the efforts by the Bush administration to arrange a power-sharing accord between Bhutto and Musharraf, and it could further complicate the plan by Musharraf to seek election next month by members of the current National Assembly, whose term expires this year.

A government minister, Ishaq Khan Khakwani, said this week that moves were already afoot to start reconciliation with all parties and have Musharraf seek re-election from a newly elected Parliament instead. The general has sought to avoid that route because his support in a new Parliament is far less certain.

Political analysts predicted that the court decision would fundamentally alter the political map of the country as it headed toward general elections.

Europe's new interest in helping Iraq could again put them at loggerheads with US

Last night's Daily Report with Jon Stewart featured an interview with someone in the US military who noted that the fundamental philosophy of the new US counterinsurgency can be summed in three sentences:

"Be polite. Be professional. Be prepared to kill."

Of course we don't want to kill any of our friends in Israel or Europe. But I think the gist of the advice is also good for analysts who support the US effort in Iraq. We should always remember to thank offers of help from governments, but also be prepared to pounce.

It could be argued that the Allies won World War Two because General Eisenhower was good at herding cats. If your idea of a friend is someone who won't pursue their own agenda while throwing in with your lot, then you need to accept the idea that one has no friends in war.

I make that observation to caution that Western Europe's growing interest in helping the US in Iraq does not necessarily translate into doing what the United States wants.

Last week a study published by an influential German policy institute argued that federalism is the only way to keep Iraq a single country. The author wrote:

The basic assumption of this study [...] "is that a federalist solution will be the only possibility to maintain Iraq as a single country. The most important role of German and European policies should therefore be that of supporting steps toward a peaceful federalist solution."

It's noteworthy that Der Spiegel highlighted the study, but Pundita found the Swedish Meatballs Confidential report on the study to be very useful.

If Europe will not support a unitary government, I imagine they don't like Ayad Allawi and his National Project. Allawi has been called Saddam Lite by those who don't like him. Pundita likes Allawi so I don't go that far. But it will take a strongman to create a functioning central government.

And without a central government, I think US troops in Iraq will be put in an untenable position. The German study does not factor in that angle because Germany will not be investing troops in helping the US in Iraq.

Iran stages a provocation. Pass the aspirin.

Oh, blast war! There are never any timeouts. Pundita got a headache yesterday reading Kenneth Timmerman's report for Front Page Magazine titled Iran's High Stakes Game in Northern Iraq. My wild hope -- like clutching at seaweed for support during a tsunami -- is that because it's Timmerman, the situation might not be as bad as it sounds. Timmerman is a superhawk on Iran.*

However, the facts he sounds, while sometimes from anonymous sources, suggest that Iran has come up with their own Hail Mary pass. And just in time for General Petraeus's report to Congress in September.

Because the situation has so many moving parts, which include Turkey, I will provide only a few paragraphs from Timmerman's piece, and urge you to read the report in its entirety. That won't be time wasted if the situation blows up into a shooting war between US and regular Iranian forces:

Iran is banking on its secret “entente” with Turkey -- to supply Hezbollah through Syria, and to smash the bases of each other’s opposition Kurds in Iraq -- to deter the United States from any military intervention in northern Iraq.

The Turks have been threatening for months to go after the PKK, who have tens of thousands of fighters training in camps inside Iraq, along the Turkish border.

And so the Iranians have spread the rumor, which until now has been accepted at face value, that its own Kurdish dissidents (PJAK) are actually the Iranian branch of the PKK, which the U.S. has designated as an international terrorist organization.

Clearly, the Iranians believe they can thumb their noses at the U.S. military. For more than a week, they have conducted intermittent shelling of Iraqi Kurdish villages in the general vicinity of suspected PJAK bases.

My Iranian sources tell me that the Iranians are hoping to expel PJAK from the area and replace them with Ansar al-Islam, the precursor group to al Qaeda in Iraq, “They want to send Saad Bin Laden, who is currently in Iran under Iranian government protection, into a new base inside Iraq,” one source told me.

* Kenneth R. Timmerman was nominated for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize along with John Bolton for his work on Iran. He is Executive Director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, and author of Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran (Crown Forum: 2005).

If true, then time to pile on another counterstrategy.

According to today's Washington Post, one aspect of the US counterinsurgency is running into trouble:

An insurgent attack Thursday [in Baqubah] on a Sunni sheik who has cooperated with U.S. forces escalated into an extended street battle involving the sheik's militiamen, local villagers and Iraqi forces [...]

The attack underscores a key difficulty for U.S. forces in maintaining the support of Sunni militias, which generally oppose Iraq's Shiite-led government and whose long-term goals remain unclear. As more Sunni leaders are attacked, American commanders are finding it increasingly difficult to persuade others to join the effort.

[...] no American troops were in the area when the attack began in the early morning, but [...] commanders sent a unit to stabilize the situation later in the day.

The Post report does not source the statement that commanders are facing increased difficulty in persuading Sunni tribal leaders to fight Qaeda. So Pundita takes the statement with caution.

But the bottom line is that Qaeda killed the sheik. The kind of attack Qaeda carried out in Baqubah village, which managed to fight off the attackers but at a high toll, would certainly cause many tribal leaders to think twice about affronting Qaeda.

So if this particular US counterstrategy is to hold onto gains, security has to be scared up from somewhere for the sheiks who side with US forces. Of course more US troops in Iraq would be a help. But maybe the security could be provided, at least short term, by contractors at US expense. That, until local security forces could be beefed up.

Meat of latest National Intelligence Estimate

From Bill Roggio's Fourth Rail site:

Most significantly, the NIE states that a shift [in Iraq] from a counterinsurgency role to a counterterrorism and support role, or the “strategic redeployment” of US forces, would squander the progress of the past year and lead to further instability in Iraq.

“We assess that changing the mission of Coalition forces from a primarily counterinsurgency and stabilization role to a primary combat support role for Iraqi forces and counterterrorist operations to prevent AQI from establishing a safehaven would erode security gains achieved thus far,” the NIE concluded.

“The impact of a change in mission on Iraq’s political and security environment and throughout the region probably would vary in intensity and suddenness of onset in relation to the rate and scale of a Coalition redeployment.”

Read the rest of the report.

So by Matzzie's reasoning, America's high casualities on D-Day meant the Allies were losing.

I caught Tucker Carlson's dust-up yesterday with MoveOn.Org's Washington director, Tom Matzzie. Tucker was so flabbergasted by Matzzie's talking points that he was off his game. Here's a sample of the exchange:

MATZZIE: There is no evidence that the troop surge is making things better.

CARLSON: Hold on. I want to be—I want to be open minded enough to recognize that. I don‘t think you are. I mean, all these liberals, all these Democrats, confirmed war opponents, have come back from Iraq saying, actually, we are making progress. Are they lying?

MATZZIE: Well, I think you‘ve got to look at the facts on the ground. They‘re getting the dog and pony show from the White House. And they‘re having one quote out of their entire speech pulled out and, you know, skewed out of context.

CARLSON: But that‘s not true. Wait, wait, wait. No.

MATZZIE: You need to look at the facts. There is the bloodiest summer in Iraq.

CARLSON: Hold on, man. Slow down.

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: Slow down. On this show yesterday, we had Brian Baird, Democrat—five-term Democrat from Olympia, Washington. He‘s a liberal, voted against the war. He‘s nobody‘s right-winger, nobody‘s neocon.

And he came back. He didn‘t give a single sound bite to me. I talked to him for six minutes, and he said, actually, the troop surge in some ways is working.

I mean, do you -- is he lying?

MATZZIE: We need to talk about the facts. Let‘s list the facts.

CARLSON: Where does he come up with that?

MATZZIE: The bloodiest summer in Iraq yet. More Americans killed June, July and August of this year than any year since we went in. That‘s a fact. Right?

Matzzie continued pounding at Tucker with the statement that the surge was a failure because this has been the bloodiest summer in Iraq for US troops.

Pundita fully expected Tucker to come back with something like the rejoinder in the title of this post. But he was so stunned by Matzzie's complete refusal to accept any Democrat's testimony of an improvement on the ground in Iraq that he couldn't get past that.

General Petraeus warned Washington that American casualties would increase once the US began fighting a war again in Iraq instead of conducting mostly policing operations. He may have put it a little more diplomatically but that was the gist.

Of course higher casualties in a war are not necessarily evidence a campaign is working. But there is enough evidence from numerous quarters that the new counterinsurgency strategy, in combination with the additional troops, is turning the tide. Yet Matzzie rejects all eyewitness accounts to this effect, saying that visitors are only treated to a show.

True, you have to be embedded to get a good look at what's happening in Iraq, but Der Spiegel was able to choose which regions their embed examined. Their reporter brought back accounts that comport with recent accounts of Democrat (and GOP) visitors to Iraq, who see evidence that the surge is working.

Matzzie twisted two other facts to argue the surge isn't working:

The second fact we need to look at is, Iraqi parliament on vacation. No political reconciliation in the country. [...]

The third point we need to look at: the Iraqi cabinet, 38 cabinet ministers, 17 of the 38 cabinet ministers are boycotting the government. They‘re not showing up for work. [...]

The point of the surge was to force the Iraqi government to make progress.

No, the point of the surge was to beat back the insurgents, who had run away with Iraq during the years the US military played cop. Instead of confronting this bleak situation head-on, Congress -- under fire from American voters about the disaster in Iraq -- reasoned in stepwise fashion about the surge:

They expected that the upshot of military progress during the surge would translate to giving Iraq's government a breather from violence. And from there, the belief was that with more security there could be conciliation between the sects.

MoveOn has clearly kicked out the steps; they read the surge as a failure because Iraq's government is in deep trouble.

MoveOn and the Democrats supporting their position need to keep in mind that no amount of political conciliation would have influenced al Qaeda's war in Iraq. No amount of conciliation would have influenced Iran's military actions in Iraq.

None of this means the US shouldn't push hard for conciliation but it's wrong to analyze the progress of the surge in terms of Baghdad's political problems. Indeed, the counterinsurgency has gone round Baghdad to work with regional players.

Does that mean Maliki's government is on the verge of collapse? Pundita's fav NBC war correspondent, Richard Engel, told NBC national news last night that he thinks so.

The French Connection in Iraq: what George Will is overlooking

George Will's latest op-ed cautions that General Petraeus's September report is likely to only harden positions on Iraq held by the opposing congressional camps.

In 2005, Pundita wrote a post in which I branded the Democrats the "Eurocrat" party because they had become so influenced by the thinking in Brussels and particularly West Europe. Agree or disagree, there is no question that America's (overwhelmingly Democratic) antiwar stand on Iraq was profoundly influenced by West Europe's antiwar movement.

Yet August is showing evidence of being the month of a major shift in West European thinking on Iraq. That doesn't mean they have rethought their opposition to the US invasion; they are simply taking events as they stand now and coming round to the view that Americans need help in Iraq.

In her most recent announcements on Iraq, Hillary Clinton is showing herself to be ahead of the Democrat pack in being sensitive to the changes in European thinking on Iraq. If she continues on this path, she is making an incredibly smart move -- so smart that Clinton would really be positioning herself to win the presidential election.

In the Iraq U-turn Dept.: Today's Christian Science Monitor notes:

France's sudden shift on Iraq "is almost as spectacular as the refusal of France to take part in the American intervention in Iraq," noted the left French daily Le Monde. "It is time to stop lecturing the Americans about their errors and start contributing to a solution." [...]

And France's foreign minister is admirably positioned to make fast progress in promoting conciliation between Iraq's major factions. See the Monitor story for details.

Wouldn't the French just love to be the saviors of the Americans in Iraq! Wouldn't they gloat! That's okay by Pundita. By any which way. Blowing kisses at Iran and Syria, letting France play older brother: these are things one does, once one gets dead serious about eking out a victory in a theater of war.

Speaking of Iraq Slogger

Because I've done so much promoting of Iraq Slogger since early August, I assume Pundita readers who've taken my advice to follow the site know by now that Iraq Slogger has dropped a bomshell: On September 1 the site is going paid subscription.

Pundita is shocked but resigned. There have been many blows during this war; one learns after a time take bad news in stride. Yet after John Batchelor's show went into hiatus I warned that we'd all have to work harder now that we couldn't depend on John's research and analysis.

It's the same for Iraq Slogger. Often, my choice is between research and writing, as it is for many bloggers who are not paid for their time. So it's been a great help to have quality daily summaries of all major US and Arab media on Iraq at my fingertips.

Given the September showdown in Congress over Iraq, I wish the site's owners had held off until October 1 before halting the free service. But I can only wish the best of success to Iraq Slogger's efforts and thank the entire staff for all their hard work.

A Most Wanted jumps on US-Friendly bandwagon in Iraq; Maliki follows Pundita's advice

Amer Moshen reports for Iraq Slogger that according to Al-Hayat

[...] the leader of the – banned – Ba'th party, and Saddam’s henchman, 'Izzat al-Duri, is considering striking a deal with the US occupational forces and the Iraqi government, which would involve putting a stop to operations against the US Army in Iraq and Iraqi government forces.

He's also offering to fight Qaeda in Iraq.

Ah, popularity! Isn't it grand? You know what's happening to us? Americans have invested so much blood, sweat, and money in Iraq that we're being accepted as an another Iraqi tribe, from the viewpoint of many Iraqis. So now it's okay to enter into negotiations with us.

Amer's summary of today's Iraqi press reports also carries hopeful news on the Syria front. In asking Syria for help with security, Maliki is following a course of offering economic incentives, which Pundita has been recommending. He negotiated several deals with the Syrian government during his three-day visit with Assad, including

[...] an agreement to re-open the Kirkuk-Banias oil pipeline, which allows Iraqi oil produced in the North to be exported from the Syrian port on the Mediterranean. Al-Hayat saw the agreement as part of a “barter” proposed to Syria by Maliki: “security for the economy.” The paper said that Maliki is promising to launch a host of lucrative economic deals with Syria in exchange for heightened Syrian cooperation with Iraq in the security dossier.

We'll see now if Damascus thinks the pot is sweet enough. If not, the US needs to get creative with economic incentives. Reopening the pipeline is sweet for Syria; they lost hundreds of millions of dollars a year when the US bombed the pipeline in 2003. And I assume it's not yet fully operational; if that's the case, maybe the reconstruction the US can fund for Syria is the pipeline.

Pundita doesn't want letters asking, "What about the Golan?" Yes, I understand the situation. However, the better off Syria is economically, the less they will have to depend on Tehran, which means the less they will have to toe Tehran's line.

And I think Assad has seen enough war in his neighborhood in the past few years to want to think twice about going to war with Israel.

Assad is also very useful to the United States right now because he's pressuring Maliki to reform the de-Baathification law in Iraq. Getting that law toned down is a key step to tamping down the Iraq insurgency.

Assad has indeed signed a joint security pact with Maliki, which we discussed recently. But it seems Assad is making the greatest cooperation contingent on the de-Baathification issue in Iraq. So that's a lot of pressure on Baghdad. With all this going on, it's vital for US politicians to put on hold moves that threaten any sanctions against Syria. Just put on the lid for the time being.

There will be additional Pundita posts today; I'm just not sure when.

Missing John Batchelor

"Pundita, Is John Batchelor ever coming back? It's been almost a year and I heard him once as a sub on Drudge. Is his audience only being set up for a big letdown?
Judith"

My dear Judith:
I don't know when or whether he will return to the airwaves. I can tell you this much: From September 12, 2001 until the time he left the air, John Batchelor dedicated his life to teaching his listeners the ways of the new century.

So even if Batchelor never returns to the radio we will go on benefiting from sitting in his classroom. Keep to that thought and stop whining.

Should US civilian agencies spend more time fighting the war than each other? What a quaint notion!

Re Pundita's post Where the hell is the war czar? --

"Hi Miss P:
You are right. Our policy formation and execution remains a total mess. I think our "War Czar" is a lot like the "Drug Czar" - a box on an org chart (hey - ain't the president supposed to be the "czar" of war???)

Bruce Kesler [at Democracy Project] prodded me into doing a guest post on foreign policy coordination (or lack thereof) when the War Czar thing hit the news. Here's the result:

Modern Foreign Policy Execution

I listened firsthand to Zinni (along with Generals Gray & Van Riper) talk about the trials and tribulations of Goldwater-Nichols at Quantico about a month ago -- it wasn't a perfect solution but in the long term it sure helped the armed services spend more time fighting the enemy than each other. We need that for the spectrum of Military - State - IC - Economic agencies.
Mark Safranski"
ZenPundit

Dear Mark:
Pundita nodded in agreement so many times while reading your observations at Democracy Project that I risked a crick in my neck. Thanks to Bruce for prodding. Your recommendations, which if implemented can get civilian agencies cooperating rather than fighting with each other, are very important. What we face now is unacceptable. As you note:

The foreign policy process is becoming unmanageable because the bureaucracy through which the president – any president – must work his foreign policy, was built for an era that is increasingly relegated to history books. A world of iron curtains and checkpoint charlies that ran at the pace of snail mail, telegrams and rotary telephones. That time is gone and it is never coming back; America’s problems today evolve at a much faster velocity. [...]

I am very concerned about a situation running alongside the agency infighting, which is that US politicians have realized that foreign policy can make or break them, and indeed their entire party. So they are running their own foreign policy initiatives; e.g., promoting legislation designed to pressure a foreign government into giving the US more help in Iraq. But the initiatives come off not as diplomacy or even policy but as threats.

That situation is not new in a time of war. But it's new in that it's playing out during the era of instant globalized news reporting. The upshot is that State spends a lot of time trying to defuse anger in foreign governments about statements by US politicians that are broadcast globally. This takes away from the diplomatic effort and makes a lot of unnecessary problems.

This said, disarray caused by poor interagency coordination feeds into the secondary situation. So I hope a great many in Washington have seen your recommendations, which you framed in highly accessible language.

Clear as mud

Pundita has become a fan of Amer Moshen's press summaries for Iraq Slogger. But the more I learn of the Iraqi factions, the more confused I become. From Amer's summary today:

Al-Hayat’s Mushriq 'Abbas penned an excellent report explaining the balance of power in the Iraqi south, and detailing the current power struggle between the Sadrist Current and the pro-Iranian Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC- formerly SCIRI).

'Abbas’ report comes in the backdrop of several events: multiple clashes have erupted between the Sadrists (and their Mahdi Army) and the SIIC (along with its militia: the Badr Brigade) throughout Southern cities in the last months, in several of these confrontations, the US Army intervened along with units of the Iraqi Army – usually on the side of the SIIC. [...]

'Abbas summed up the political equation in the South as follows: “the street for the Sadrists and the local governments for Hakeem.” Seven out of nine southern provinces are controlled by the SIIC, 'Abbas wrote, while the Sadrist Current seems to have the upper hand in terms of popular mobilization.

Okay, but which Mahdi army are we talking about? From Bill Roggio's August 21 report:

The murder of the two governors and the clashes between the government and Mahdi Army fighters highlights the splits within the Shia community, which, like the Sunni community, is often portrayed as a single political entity. While Sadr portrays himself and his movement as nationalists, his involvement with Iran's Qods Force and Hezbollah, and the Mahdi Army's attacks on government forces and Iraqi civilians, have tarnished this image.[1]

The Mahdi Army has split into factions described as the "noble Mahdi Army," which has cooperated with government and Multinational Forces Iraq Security Forces, and the "rogue Mahdi Army," which receives support from Iran.

But -- but, Hakeem's SIIC also receives support from Iran! And why should the US support the SIIC against the Sadr's forces when -- let's go back to Amer's summary:

A “strategic policy” of Hakeem, 'Abbas wrote, lies in the creation of a “Southern Region,” along the lines of the autonomous Kurdistan government. Consolidating the SIIC control over the administration of southern provinces is an important first step, but the Sadrist challenge is making the task harder for Hakeem. The Sadr Current is not enthusiastic to the idea of southern autonomy [...]

Okay, but the Americans are supposedly against southern autonomy. So why are we supporting the SIIC? Even if they're shooting at Qaeda? The Madhi army is also shooting at Qaeda, right? So shouldn't we stop playing two sides of the fence? Maybe the answer is that there is no fence, just constantly shifting alliances.

Another point that's clear as mud is that by supporting the SIIC, we must be working at some level with Iran, which doesn't make sense. Maybe it only makes sense if we assume that all the Shia factions in the south are allied with Iran -- although Mookie's involvement with Iran is very perplexing.

Just a few weeks ago Sadr publicly denounced Iran, saying in essence that Iran was working with al Qaeda in Iraq. If I recall he made the accusation during a sermon at a mosque, or at least at some other public venue in Iraq. Yet shortly afterward he reportedly returned to Iran.

Another point of confusion is whether there are competing factions in Iran supporting competing factions in Iraq's south. Is there a split between the Pasdaran and Iran's regular military on how to deal with Iraq?

1) Mookie has not denied his involvement with Hezbollah; he's just denied that he gave an interview with the Independent. See Bill's report linked above.

Where the hell is the war czar?

"Pundita: [re First open the checkbook] You've always harped on the need for border security in Iraq so I don't see why the US shouldn't try Lieberman's recommendations in addition to opening the checkbook and asking France to do heavy lifting with Syria.
Chicago Dan"

Dear Dan:
Pundita is seriously thinking of renaming this blog "HELLO we're at WAR." We're supposed to have a war czar, yet I don't know what he's doing to earn his paycheck. There is no strategy, no coordination of tactics, with regard to how the US treats key players outside Iraq who have influence inside the country.

Instead, we have parades of congressionals and presidential candidates shooting off their mouth with this idea and that, and making threats against this country and that. Every time they read another declassified intelligence report they go running off in six different directions. And we have different cabinet levels and agencies running around and trying this tactic and that for dealing with Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, and so on.

What are we accomplishing with this chaos? Many ruffled feathers and stiff spines.

Senator Joe Lieberman was reacting to recently declassified US intelligence that Damascus international airport is the hub of transit for foreign terrorists on their way to Iraq. However, yesterday a Washington Post report noted:

Syria said this month that it had moved to increase security along its border with Iraq, including setting up fixed checkpoints, boosting patrols and tightening rules on crossings by people under age 30.

That's probably a leak from the State Department. There doesn't seem to be official confirmation of the specific actions mentioned. There's only a pledge from Assad to Maliki during their meeting yesterday that Damascus is "ready to offer everything helping in Iraq's stability."

That sounds to Pundita if there's some horse trading going on. It's worth trying to build on, which means holding off on the confrontational approach with Assad and substituting a lot of creative action.

That doesn't mean the US can't quietly ask European nations with flights into Damascus to work in closer cooperation with Syria's intelligence service, in order to flag outbound passengers who fit the terrorist profile.

But trying to pressure the European airlines into suspending flights into Damascus -- that smacks of an economic sanction; I don't think European governments would go for it. So why rile Damascus with a symbolic gesture?

Keep in mind that Syria's refugee problem now gives Damascus a big stake in tamping down violence in Iraq. Assad's biggest task is to lean on members of Syria's Baath party who are supporting Iraqi insurgents. We might help him do that if Maliki's coalition delivered on easing up de-Baathification in Iraq.

However, it's not productive to loudly signal on the world stage that we'd like to see Maliki's government vanish. Instead, decide on a substitute for Maliki and push him in backchannel ways. Many Iraqis are expecting and hoping that the US will take such action.

Returning to Syria, it could help if we promised to scare up money for a big construction project in Syria that Assad would like to see done. This could be accomplished through a development bank, although don't ask me which one at this point.

Also, the US military should offer to send advisors to work with counterparts in Syria's military. This might not get much done, but it would be an important diplomatic gesture.

If all fails after three months of really hard trying, then is the time to get nasty with Assad, but do this through State, not through a parade of congressionals. Same advice applies to dealing with Iran.

Secretary Rice once famously replied, "One war at a time," when asked about how the US should treat Iran's threat. To some extent she's ignored her advice because all theaters of the war are connected. But right now we need to gather the strands of our attention and weave them into a coordinated effort to win against the insurgents and al Qaeda in Iraq. A big part of that effort is coordination on how the US deals with governments that have a big stake in outcomes in Iraq.

"Studying War Among The Graves"

Dan Riehl is on the road, following the path of General Lee's army and musing on war. Worth the read.