Followups

(1) Sources think Maliki is working on dividing the IAF

A couple of posts back, I noted one of the roadblocks in the way of the Iraqi Accord Front (IAF) rejoining the government--namely the rejection by the Maliki government of the nominees of Khalaf al-Alyan, reviewing who he was and what that rejection meant. Today, AlHayat has some additional remarks by an IAF person that point in the same direction, only more bluntly.

The issue of the IAF rejoining the government...is still suspended, waiting for the position of [Maliki] on the list of candidates the IAF has presented. High-level sources said accusations of "belonging to the Baath" or "close to a banned party" have pursued lists that have been proposed [earlier] by the IAF, and sources in the IAF are convinced this represents an attempt to obstruct the return of the IAF to the government, ahead of [trying to] split its ranks, dismantle it. An Islamic Party official by the name of Omar AbdulSattar said he doesn't understand the reasons for the current delay by the government in approving the latest list.

(2) Meanwhile, Maliki will be touting "political progress" next week in Stockholm

Maliki leaves tomorrow or the next day for Stockholm, for a regular annual meeting of the 50 or so countries that are signatory to the "international covenant" that was signed May 2007 in Sharm-el-Sheikh. If you want to be reminded what that covenant consisted of, you'll have to ask someone else. In any event, the GreenZone paper AlSabaah says one of the point Maliki will be touting in his address to the meeting will be the political progress that he has made in the recent period of time! It is possible we have here another motive for last Thursday's visit to Najaf to try for some good PR from Sistani.

(3) No sign of Sistani image-refurbishment in Iraq

Speaking of Sistani, the evidence so far is that there isn't any basis at all for thinking that the Najaf authorities were responding to domestic pressure and trying to distance themselves from the oppressive policies represented by the Sadr City campaign. On the contrary, they seem to have made no meaningful effort to have any part of the AP story reflected in Iraqi news accounts. On the Sistani.org official website, the only reference to the meeting is a few lines from the AFP story, which merely quoted Maliki on the theme of Sistani's "support for the government in general". And Aswat al Iraq, which would be the natural place to launch something into the Iraqi media, dismisses the whole dustup this way:

A source close to [Sistani] denied reports circulated by global [meaning foreign] news agencies about Sistani having issued a fatwa permitting the use of arms to oust the foreign forces from Iraq, stressing that [Sistani] has been calling for peaceful resistance since the fall of the prior regime.

The "not at the present time" phrase, so far, seems to have occurred only in a couple of lines at the end of a story in AlSharq al-Awsat this morning; and on the obscure website I cited yesterday.

(By contrast, the big proponent of refurbishing his image, and holding out the prospect of an eventual turn against the foreign forces by Najaf (and by Maliki and Hakim too!) was none other than Juan Cole himself. Whether refurbishment of the Najaf/Maliki image in America via Cole was in any way behind the whole AP kerfuffle or not, of course one cannot say. But the fact it didn't have that effect at all in Iraq does make one wonder...)

"Eventually, but not right now"

Moqtada al-Sadr's spiritual authority Kazem al-Haeri (or Hae'ri or other spellings) issued a statement from his office in Iran (where he has been since the 1970s) on Wednesday May 21, taking as the occasion a commemoration of the birth of Zainab, daughter of Imam Ali and granddaughter of the prophet Mohammed. The actual purpose of the statement was to denounce the long-term bilateral security agreement that is being negotiated by the Americans and the GreenZone authorities (read on and you'll see the connection), and in particular to bluntly center out the Najaf authorities (Sistani in particular, without naming him) for failing to take a position on this. (RoadstoIraq blogger Ladybird calls attention to this statement, posted on Haeri's website, and says the recent byplay over Sistani is best understood as a game played out in religious terms between the Sadrists and Maliki over where Sistani stands). Let's see where that takes us.

Haeri denounces the proposed agreement as an attempt by the occupation to perpetuate their control and wasting of the resources, culture and people of Iraq, and he says in any event such an agreement would be binding on no one except the persons who sign it. He concludes:

And I say to the occupation in the words of our lady Zeinab: "Carry out any treachery that you can; make every attempt that you can; exert all of your efforts. For you will not be able to erase our memory [from the minds of the people], and you cannot suppress our inspiration."*

I say to you my dear sons: The blessed clerical Hausa of Iraq is stronger, more pure and blameless, higher and more noble, than to recognize the legality of any agreement of this kind.

This obviously constitutes an in-your-face challenge to Sistani and the rest of the Najaf authorities, who have so far made only vague remarks about the proposed bilateral agreement. RTI thinks the information leaked to AP about the right to armed resistance was the same kind of a challenge, putting Sistani and the other Najaf authorities on the spot in another way, by making them deny the news.

And she cites an Iraqi news-site (which is new to me) called Iraq Alaan (Iraq now), which runs a picture of Sistani and a brief item that says Sistani's office does in fact deny the news, but in an interesting way.

[A source close to the office of Sistani in Najaf] denied on Friday what was reported on a number of sites to the effect the authority Sistani is preparing to issue a fatwa inviting armed resistance to the occupation.

[The source said] there is no truth to the report in general or in particular, adding that the attitude of the authorities from the beginning has been that "Iraq is not ready for jihad or military confrontation at the present time, after the damage and destruction that is left after the wars of the prior regime".

The source added: Sistani supports resistance to the occupation, but not by military means, at the present time.

(The authority Sistani is the most prominent religious authority of the imami Shiites in Iraq and the world, and the spiritual leader of the clerical Hausa in Najaf).

It is the "eventually, but not right now" defense. According to this account, Sistani's office says he is in fact for "resistance" but not "by military means at the present time" citing national weakness. If this this "all in good time" argument sounds familiar, it is because it is also the position Juan Cole takes. This morning he wrote: "I have all along believed that Sistani would ultimately issue a fatwa saying that it was illegitimate for there to continue to be foreign troops on Iraqi soil." And in this connection he vouches for the good faith of Hakim and the Dawa party: "When al-Maliki and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim feel strong enough domestically, their first order of business will be to vastly reduce American military influence. They represent the Islamic Mission (Da`wa) Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (founded by Ayatollah Khomeini), after all. There is likely a limit to this marriage of convenience."

I don't know how Juan arrived at that surprising view, so closely aligned with the Sistani "not right now" defense. What I do think is that it would help raise the quality of the discussion if Juan would be a little less modest about his relationship with the Supreme Council, Najaf-Hakim-Maliki axis. For instance, it might help explain his silence about the Sadr City bombings when they were going on, and his showy denunciation of them now as "brutal", even though they were conducted under the authority of this same Maliki and his group, who, he assures us, are the type of people that will eventually do the right thing.

In any event, focusing on Haeri's in-your-face challenge to Sistani over the bilateral agreement gives us another way of understanding why Maliki paid his surprise visit to Najaf the next day (in addition to the "investor-confidence" issue discussed in a prior post).

_________
* Here is a bigger excerpt from that sermon of Zeinab's in a translation appearing on a Shiite website, just to make sure you get the message:

“What you consider today as spoils of war will become ruins for you tomorrow and on that day you will find what you have sent from before. Allah does not oppress his servants. I express my complaint only to Allah and have trust in Him. You may therefore do any treachery that you have, make all your attempts, and try all you can. By Allah, you cannot remove us from the minds (of people), and you cannot fade our message. You will never reach our glory and can never wash the stain of this crime from your hands. Your decisions will not be stable, your period of ruling will be short, and your population will scatter. In that day, a voice will shout: “Indeed may the curse of Allah be upon the oppressors….”

Alleged plan to activate 2005 bilateral agreements that combine economic and military advantages for the US

The semi-official Syrian paper Al-Watan published a story on Monday May 19, citing "journalistic sources in Baghdad" on the subject of Iraqi-government plans to implement four bilateral US-Iraqi agreements signed in 2005 by then State Dept official Robert Zoellick and the then Iraqi finance minister Ali Adbul Amir Alawi. The signing, in July 2005, took place only 10 weeks after his appointment as finance minister by the incoming Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari (May 2005). Although they had first and second reading in the Iraqi parliament in early 2007, they were never approved by parliament. I did not see the Al-Watan article at the time. It was dug up and translated yesterday by an outfit called Global Policy Forum, which among other things monitors UN policies.

The four agreements in question are the following:

The US-Iraq Investment Incentive Agreement
The US-Iraq Trade and Investment Framework Agreement
The US-Iraq Agreement for Economic and Technical Cooperation
Memorandum of Understanding on Agricultural Cooperation

There is a lot in this short article, and the translation is good, so you should read it. Two points immediately stand out:

(1) Plan to circumvent legislative approval

The sources told Al-Watan that the plan is to implement these agreements before the end of 2008 without parliamentary approval. Although the explanation isn't 100% clear, it appears the justification would be that when they were signed, there was a provision in place that permitted entering into international agreements by representatives assigned by Cabinet with the approval of the Presidential Council. (I haven't found any such provision in the Coalition Provisional Authority acts, but who knows?)

(2) "Economic" agreements including important military concessions

A second point worth underlining is that the sources' description of the agreements included this, according to the paper:

"The sources continued: "These pacts are closer to commandments imposed on Iraq than agreements between two independent states. They grant the American side immunity, all the traveling prerogatives from and into Iraq and the right to protect the undefined American missions with American military troops that can roam the country without any restraints"

In other words, these agreements with "economic development" titles incorporated important military components as well.

The Al-Watan story unfortunately doesn't include the text of the agreements, but according to the description they included a broad plan for privatizations:

"Moreover, [the sources continued],the agreements exempted all the American companies and individuals from taxes and customs in what contradicted even the controversial Iraqi investment law... The pacts also proposed a transitory plan through which the remains of the Iraqi public sector are to be privatized and destroyed.

There is a lot that isn't completely clear in this, and the other caution is that the story doesn't appear to have been picked up anywhere, so corroboration is a problem. However, it stands to reason that in the current climate the Maliki/Bush team would be on the hunt for any available means--plausible or otherwise--to lock in the colonial relationship over the long term, while minimizing disclosure.

Morever: It does seem too much of a coincidence that this should have surfaced just at the time that the Maliki administration is rolling out its "Iraq--Foreign investment paradise" campaign. The fact this surfaced in Syria suggests the point here could be "Paradise--for whom exactly?"

What happened in Najaf

Prime Minister Maliki paid a surprise visit to Najaf on Thursday, where the two big events were: first, a speech to members of the provincial council, including the governor and other local officials, and secondly his interview with Ayatollah Sistani and the subsequent spin.

(1) What Maliki said to the Najaf council

In his speech, Maliki could not have been more clear on the theme that Iraq is on the brink of a boom in foreign investment. Aswat al Iraq begins its summary of the visit this way:

[Maliki] stressed, on Thursday, that all the energies of the state have been exhausted for the purpose of bringing about security over the past several years, at the expense of investment and construction, and he indicated that Iraq needs big global corporations for investment and the improvement of services, and it was this that he promised to focus on in the coming period of time.

And Maliki went on to say that security will continue to be the top priority and the top challenge for his government, assuring his Najaf audience that his government will not take their eyes off this issue for even an instant. The reporter says Maliki continued:

"And we are not suffering from any shortage of finance for electricity or water or other services. Rather, this [lack of progress in these areas] is owing to the fact that foreign governments have barred their corporations from coming into Iraq on account of the lack of security, and the lack of financial guarantees. Now, however, a flood of global corporations in a variety of sectors is starting to pour into the country for the purpose of construction and investment in the country."

On the issue of financial guarantees and the need to satisfy the requirements of the foreign corporations, Maliki was quite clear, according to this account, adding:

He explained that "the government has decided to deposit money to the account of a number of large global corporations, to guarantee their work in a number of service projects in the country which they are undertaking", indicating that "Iraq is in need of big foreign global corporations for development [projects]."

This was not the first indication that Maliki and his people are beating the drum for foreign investment (see for instance this grandiose speech by deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh at Sharm-el-Sheikh last week), but so far as I know it was the first explicit reference to this idea of a division of tasks: Namely that the government will continue to focus on security, a task which has been "exhausting all of the energy of the state", while using its financial resources to attract foreign corporations to undertake "development and investment" projects, including "services".

(2) What Sistani said to Maliki, and the spin

Naturally we do not know that was said in the meeting between Maliki and the Ayatollah Sistani, but we do know how this was spun by Maliki's people to make it appear that Sistani agreement with extending the rule of law implied specific approval for what the Maliki government has been doing by way of security operations. Here's how Aswat al Iraq described the spin:

[Maliki] said on Thursday that [Sistani] and the Najaf authorities in general expressed support for the government's measures to extend the rule of law, and limiting weapons to the hands of the state, and the efforts to make the political process in Iraq succeed.

And he quotes from the Maliki press-release:

"The religious authorities generally support the government in the extension of the rule of law", and the statement added that his conversation with Sistani "focused on topics which serve Iraq".

So while Maliki's account of the talks was in the most general terms possible, still as far as possible he tried to highlight the theme of "weapons only in the hands of the state" as if this was an endorsement of his recent campaigns.

Nahrainnet spells out the implication, first quoting Maliki, then indicating what "observers" think:

[Maliki said] "Our conversation focused on issues that serve Iraq, and the religious authority in general supports the government in extending the rule of law." Observers think this support is tantamount to support for the military operations that the government has been carrying out with the support of the coalition forces in Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul.

In other words, it almost seemed possible to spin Sistani's position as being in favor of weapons exclusively in the hands of the government and in the hands of the foreign military forces that it relies on for support. So there was a need to reply to that (see the remarks below on the AP story).

As noted here earlier, the Maliki government is in the process of trying to announce the inauguration of a new phase in Iraqi development: Following supposed improvements in security, and in the political process, the theme now is that while the government continues to focus on these two themes, it is time to inaugurate the new phase, which will be characterized by Iraq using its financial clout to attract foreign corporations to carry out the tasks connected with economic development.

And the key point is that the promise of this brave new world of foreign investment is being rolled out against a background of continuing reliance on foreign military power in the country. A "bold vision", you might say.

There is a lot that could be said about the AP yesterday that said:

Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric has been quietly issuing religious edicts declaring that armed resistance against U.S.-led foreign troops is permissible — a potentially significant shift by a key supporter of the Washington-backed government in Baghdad....So far, al-Sistani's fatwas have been limited to a handful of people. They also were issued verbally and in private — rather than a blanket proclamation to the general Shiite population — according to three prominent Shiite officials in regular contact with al-Sistani as well as two followers who received the edicts in Najaf.

Most likely the "edicts" themselves were not that controversial, having apparently been issued to members of his protective agency and thus not outside of his own circle. The news is in the touting of them by AP and their sources. And the disclosures were made to an English-language news agency, not to an Arabic-language one, suggesting the message, it that is what this is, is to the Americans.

And that is where the context comes in. Maliki, with his speech on the new era of foreign investment, and then his implication at the same time that Sistani agrees with continued foreign military involvement, was very boldly outlining a vision for the future of Iraq that went beyond anything that had been made public up to then, and obviously it was a vision not acceptable to the Ayatollah. Or, some would say, to any decent Iraqi for that matter. And I think that is the point of all of this: Not that the Ayatollah is against the occupation, something everyone already knew, but rather that Maliki and his American sponsors have for some reason made a point of touting a foreign-investment-first policy, against a background of foreign military involvement, that they would have been better off continuing to keep under wraps. (And probably, if you had to come up with a reason for rolling out the foreign-investment-first policy at this particular time, the answer would be that this was seen as necessary in order to foster an atmosphere of "investor confidence").

The latest chapter in "political reconciliation"--Updated

The Maliki/Bush script at the moment has three parts: Improved security; improved political situation; incipient investment boom; a chicken in every Iraqi pot, vote Republican. Not much attention has been paid to the "political improvements" part of the story, which as far as anyone can tell is limited to the fact that the Iraqi Accord Front (IAF, biggest Sunni parliamentary bloc) have proposed names of their respective party members to re-fill the cabinet positions that the IAF resigned from last August. The more meaningful idea of naming competent people without exclusive reference to their political affiliation, and shrinking and rationalizing the number of cabinet posts, has been scrapped, reflecting the GreenZone clubhouse dynamics. But even at that, there seems to have been an unexplained problem with some of the names.

AlHayat this morning gives us an important clue. There are three main components of the IAF: the Islamic Party headed by Tareq al-Hashemi; the Peoples Assembly headed by Adnan Dulaimi and the National Dialog Council headed by Khalaf al-Alyan (or 'Ulyan). Maliki is said to have rejected the nominees of the latter, the group headed by Alyan.

The quick way to understand the meaning of this, if you have a few moments, is to type "Alyan" into the search-box at the upper left of this page, and you will be reminded of what he has stood for over the past couple of years. For instance:

(1) In October 2006, at startup of the Salvation Council boom, Alyan was against the idea of any of these groups accepting aid from either the US forces or the sectarian GreenZone government, since in his view both AQ and the American occupation were for the breakup of the country. This is from the above-linked post, referring to Abu Risha's plans for an alliance with the US to fight AlQaeda:

But Abu Risha's viewpoint isn't the only one. This Al-Hayat piece also cites remarks by Khalif Alyan, a leader in the Iraqi Accord Front, which is the biggest of the Sunni coalitions in parliament. Alyan's remarks are particularly interesting as an expression of the new Sunni rejection of the Maliki government. Alyan said the followers of his group would object to joining in the Anbar Salvation Council if any of the tribes were to accept Iraqi government support or US support. And he said he was skeptical of the ability to Abu Risha to actually bring the tribes together in the way that he claims to be able to do. Alyan added that the clan leaders in Ramadi and other cities in Anbar that he has spoken to object to the idea of any group "based on Abu Risha". And to drive the point home, he said if the Salvation Council ends up accepting Iraqi government or US government support, the result will be fitna or all-out civil war in Anbar.

On the question of overall strategy, Alyan said the creation of a balanced security force, and a political process "open to all resistance groups" both require the elimination of AlQaeda from the province, and the reason is that the AlQaeda aim of setting up an Emirate ultimately supports the US aim of breaking up the country.

(2) At the time of the political blowup over the start of the wall-building campaign with the Adhamiya wall in April 2007, Alyan's Baghdad home was ransacked by government forces and his security detail arrested, while he was in Amman. The following is from a post here at that time:

Khalaf al-Alyan, one of the three leaders of the Iraqi Accord Front, the biggest bloc in Parliament, was quoted last week from Amman predicting announcement soon of a multi-bloc coalition to oppose Maliki, is quoted this morning in several Iraqi papers as calling on the rest of the IAF leadership to issue a clear warning to Maliki that they will leave the government if the Adhamiya wall policy is continued, but in the current statements, he appears to have dropped the multi-bloc aspect of this, talking only about the IAF itself. (See this summary of Iraqi papers by Aswat al-Iraq).

So no doubt what is going on is the process of sifting the Iraqi Accord Front so as to accept the "reconcilables" while at the same time rejecting the likes of Alyan with their Iraqi-nationalist ideas. It is the same principle that that outlined in the famous Hadley memo and continued through the Sadr City campaign, of sifting the Shiite trends, accepting those that are "reconcilable" and setting up the others targeting by the US military.

To say the least, you could say this is the opposite of a policy of allowing creation of a meaningful two-party system, unless by that you mean one party in power, and the other to be targeted militarily as the "bad guys".

Still, Azzaman this morning says the idea of a GreenZone coalition of non-reconcilables, including Sadrists and Alyan's group along with others, is still under discussion. Unfortunately their website is unavailable this morning, so I can't give you the link or details.

Update:

Azzaman is back. The item in question focuses on the refusal of the Iraqi List to rejoin the government, in spite of invitations by Maliki, and the explanation given by their spokesman Osama al-Najaifi, namely that Maliki hasn't been "serious" in his offers in this regard, but also because of the following:

He explained that the Iraqi list is working on discussions and agreements with leaders of the Fadhila party and the Sadrist trend, along with the Dialog Council led by Khalaf al-Alyan, and the Arab Dialog Front of Saleh al-Mutlaq, the aim being a unification of our positions. He said "the results of our discussions with these political blocs encourages us to continue, and what we are trying for is the creation of some kind of parliamentary coordination."

It will be recalled that efforts to form a roughly similar group have been reported from time to time in recent months, culminating in this January 13, 2008 announcement of a so-called "12-party agreement" (including the Sadrists, the Iraqi List, and some Sunni groups including Alyan's and Mutlaq's, with Fadhila first reported in, then out) and that among their common "nationalist" aims were opposition to privatization of the oil sector, and opposition any further Clause 140 procedures as demanded by the Kurds on Kirkuk.

What today's reports seem to indicate is that this idea of a "nationalist"-oriented parliamentary opposition is still alive, in some form. And the fact that one of its proponents, Khalaf al-Alyan, is also a leader in the IAF has been a roadblock (or one of the roadblocks) to an agreement on IAF rejoining the government.

Iraqi investment boom just around the corner ? (Updated with the latest from Najaf)

The GreenZone newspaper AlSabaah reports from Cairo, where an "investment conference" has been going on, that Iraq has signed contracts worth over $63 billion with a number of global investment corporations, for startup of a number big construction projects. "These include," says the headline, "construction of the big port in Basra, the Baghdad International Airport, gigantic projects in Najaf, and the construction of what will be the largest residential city in the Middle East". The journalist explains:

Major projects, according to Dr Ahmed Radha, president of the Iraqi National Investment Agency, include the big Basra port, rebuilding of the Baghdad Airport, and also construction of housing units and a complete residential city that will count as one of the biggest modern cities in the Middle East...He explained that the value of these projects is: $12 billion for Basra port-construction; $17 billion for construction of the Baghdad Airport along with a commercial city and hotels; 200,000 housing units and hotels [in a] tourist city at the corniche (?) in Kufa in Najaf province, with a value of $34 billion; and construction of a new city of Kut for $650 million.

And it is downhill from there as far as the values are concerned. With the exception of the Baghdad airport, these mega-projects are all in the center and the south of Iraq.

(Presumably the contract arrangements for construction of the US mega-bases elsewhere in the country are just as big or bigger, only not as widely-publicized).

And naturally, there aren't any actual contract details or even names of the corporations involved.

On the same theme, Aswat Al-Iraq says Maliki met with the Australian ambassador on Wednesday and urged him to get in on the ground floor of the coming Iraqi investment boom, suggesting agriculture and construction sectors might appeal to him. He said "the political situation has never been better or stronger," following the recent security improvements in Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul.

Update:

And as if to underline the fact that this is mainly a south-central theme, AlHayat (Thursday morning May 22) reports remarks by the governor of Najaf province, urging Arab and Islamic countries in particular to open consulates in Najaf because:

Najaf is witnessing an important construction and investment upswing, particularly considering it is characterized by peace and security, so that Islamic and Arab countries can open consulates there in order to serve its thousands of visitors.

He didn't specifically mention the alleged $34 billion Kufa construction project mentioned above (Kufa being also in Najaf province), but he expressed similar promotional fervor in other ways: The opening this year of the new Najaf airport will enhance the world standing of Najaf in the domains of science, politics and culture, and they are hoping for designation as the "Capital of Islamic Culture" in the year 2012.

Also, the Najaf governor, sounding just a little like a head of state, "renewed calls for cooperation from Saudi Arabia in opening up a land-route for the annual Hajj pilgrimage; and for the signing of a bilateral investment and commercial agreement".

Doha success: Among other things, a defeat for Saudi prestige

The announcement in Doha, Qatar of the Lebanese agreement came too late for the Wednesday Arab papers, but for the moment it seems worth noting that the Syrian semi-official paper Al-Watan anticipated the success of these talks in an editorial on Sunday May 18, taking it as the sign of the end of the era of real or imagined Saudi leadership in the region. Already the Lebanese authorities had ordered the rollback of the provocative decisions on Hizbullah's communications network and airport-security, and all the parties had agreed to undertake settlement-talks in Qatar. Given that Saudi Arabia had been the sponsor of the Taif Accord that set up the current political framework in Lebanon, the editorialist said, these events (backdown of the March 14 parties, and recourse to Saudi-rival Qatar for talks) already signaled "the end of the Saudi era, and the beginning of a new era..." starting with Qatar representing the start of a "new Taif agreement".

The editorialist talked about the history of Saudi political failures in the region: failure of the "Mecca agreement" that was supposed to bridge the differences between Fatah and Hamas, and likewise the failure of Saudi efforts to mediate a Lebanese agreement, attributing all of these failures to Saudi one-sidedness, summed up in their latest ridiculous proposal:

Following establishment of a new balance of power by the Lebanese opposition on the ground with the events of May 7...the Saudi kingdom issued an alarm and called for the dispatch of Arab troops to Lebanon to "rescue" the loyalist forces. This in spite of the fact that during the July Israeli war on Lebanon, the Saudi authorities did not budge, nor did they propose the sending of a single Arab soldier for the defense of that country..."

The editorialist says Syria distinguished itself not only by not intervening in the recent events, but also by supporting the Qatar negotiations, implying that their success would constitute a historic defeat for the Saudi political pretensions in the region.

Over and above the fact that the Qatar talks succeeded, I think it is interesting that the Syrians knew that they would be successful, given the whole trend of recent events, and I think this can be seen as part of the general feeling of a new direction in regional events, reflected in the recent indications in Egypt and especially in Jordan of a need to get re-oriented away from the recent lock-step alliance with America and its Saudi allies. (Taking into account, however, the caution about habitual Arab-regime behaviour that Abdulbari Atwan continually warns us about).

The Wa'ilis and the Hakims (Updated)

Here is the latest set of charges in an ongoing war of words between leaders of two of the main power centers in Basra, the Shiite nationalist Fadhila party, headed locally by the Basra governor Mohamed Musbih al-Wa'ili, and the Iran-oriented axis of Hakim and/or Maliki. Naturally there is no way of assessing the actual content of any of the following charges, or how much of it is merely personal, but I think the story is interesting anyway, as an indication of the bitterness of the continuing war of words (and interesting too for the fact that AMSI republishes the accusations against the Hakim axis). [UPDATE: For an assessment, see the remarks of Reidar Visser in the comments]

Here is the story:

Ismael Musbih al-Wa'ili, a leader of the Fadhila party and brother of the governor of Basra, told the newspaper Al-Akhbar al-Khaleej that control of the Iraqi oil ministry is in the hands of Mohamed Radha al-Sistani, son of the famous Najaf Ayatollah, to such an extent that no decisions respecting oil operations can be taken without his approval! This brief report doesn't explain how that allegedly came about, but Ismael Musbih al-Wa'ili also said Maliki and his oil minister Shahristani have received large sums of money for permitting the Iranians to infiltrate into the Majnoon oilfields and two other districts, all in Iraqi territory.

Ismael Musbih al-Wa'ili also told the newspaper that he was recently visited in Kuwait by Maliki's office-director who came to him with a proposal for settling the differences between the two sides, and among the demands in connection with that was that the Wa'ili family would use their good offices with the Saudi authorities to arrange for an invitation for an official visit by Maliki to Saudi Arabia, something he declined to do. He admitted his family has good relations with the Saudi authorities, but he said such a request would be contrary to the principle of national sovereignty.

He also said he had been arrested, tortured and held for five years in an Iranian prison in the late 90s for transmitting the sermons of Mohamed Sadiq al-Sadr (the Iraqi nationalist "Sadr II", Moqtada's father) to Iraqis living in Iran. He declined to name the person responsible for that, but the paper says he was clearly referring to Abdulaziz al-Hakim.

Reflecting the interest of this kind of story to Iraqi nationalists generally, the story was picked up and run verbatim on the website of the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI), the main Sunni-nationalist authority in Iraq, without comment.

Jordan could be the first to step away from the "madmen of the White House"

Among the members of the "axis of moderate Arab states", it is Jordan that seems most highly motivated to move away from a complete submission American policy. This follows the setbacks in Lebanon and Palestine, and the insulting Bush speech on the weekend, but more importantly it is the result of a build-up number of factors, the main one being the dead-end in the Palestinian talks and the fear that Jordan could end up bearing the brunt.

Employing a combination of kremlinology and personal contacts, the Amman correspondent of Al Quds al-Arabi outlined in detail yesterday (pdf: scroll down to p. 6) the signs of this shift in Jordanian thinking. These range from the fact that the Religious Endowments Ministry has been permitting much more blunt criticism of America and Bush in the Friday sermons in the mosques, to consternation in government circles over the recent rejection by US allies Kuwait, Saudi, and the UAE of Jordanian requests for financial assistance in the face of rising oil prices, the fact that Bush has skipped Amman on his two recent "ill-omened" trips to the region, and most ominously the lack of any concern about the vulnerability of Jordan as part of a last-resort arrangement in Palestine. The journalist says the Jordanians have concluded that it is not just the Palestinians that are at risk in this, but Jordanian interests as well. He says this has led to decisions at the highest levels in Amman as follows:

"We will not permit any political or non-political solution (in Palestine) that is at the expense of Jordan and Jordanians, and we will stand against any "alternate" options and oppose any attempts at forcible migration to Jordanian lands, by any means available to us, including military force."

And the journalist continues:

The question now is: What has motivated the "moderate" Jordanian administration to bring up this idea of the "Jordanian option" [mass relocation of Palestinians to Jordanian territory], while there is still uncertainty surrounding the peace process and its trajectory? The answer lies in the persistence of sure signs that the Jordan-American relationship is going through an extraordinary period of actual crisis, [which has led to] Jordanian anxiety about the possibility that there exists a dark scenario in the minds of those who are called in political circles in Amman "the madmen of the White House". What this says is that the American indifference to the interests of Jordan is no longer a secret, and can no longer be hidden or dissembled under any cover....

Any requests made in Washington for increased economic assistance are met with the demand to send an ambassador to Baghdad. And the journalist says the Jordanian authorities have been made aware of the fact that the biggest instigator against them in Washington is Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki. This is reflected in the absence of any kind of assistance in respect to oil, and instead harrassment by the Iraqi authorities of Jordanian goods and merchants. In fact, says the journalist,

[Maliki] refuses to acknowledge that the approximately one million Iraqis who live in Jordan are in fact citizens [of Iraq] belonging under the protection of his government, clearly pushing [instead] the idea that these are Sunnis hostile to the current regime in Baghdad, and that their elite enjoys Jordanian protection, connected with Saddam Hussein.

Those are three of the broad reasons why the Jordanian authorities are said to be looking to realign themselves politically in the region: (1) Fear of Bush driving the Palestinian problem over the cliff leaving Jordan holding the bag; (2) The undeniable lack of any inter-Arab solidarity on the economic front, particularly from the oil-rich US allies in the Gulf; (3) Sectarian attitude from Bush's friend Maliki in Baghdad, who insists the failure to open an embassy amounts to a hostile act, and considers the one-million Iraqis living in Jordan not as Iraqis but as sectarian enemies.

The same Al-Quds al-Arabi journalist writes today about an interview with a senior person in the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood, the point of which is entirely summed up in the headline: "The Islamist opposition in Jordan warns against [an attempt to] put through a substitute for peace, at the expense of Jordan: On account of the weak Jordanian role in the region, and a frivolous foreign policy".

Atwan: Don't hold your breath

Among widely-read Arab writers, Abdulbari Atwan is probably the most consistently critical of the so-called moderate Arab regimes for their dictatorial nature and their lock-step submission to US demands. He writes this morning about the insulting speeches by Bush on the weekend, and asks what Bush intended to achieve with this, and if he is likely to succeed.

His basic point is this: Experience tells us that these regimes will eventually submit to any and every US demand, but this isn't always without some resistance. By attacking these regimes at their weak points (human rights abuses and so on), Bush was applying the usual pressure for compliance in a number of areas where he has failed to get full compliance so far, and they include the following demands: (1) Apply more pressure on the Palestinians to accept a temporary state with elastic borders and permanent Israeli settlements; (2) Pump enough oil to bring prices down and rescue the western economies; and (3) Open embassies and send ambassadors to Baghdad to support the Maliki administration.

Atwan agrees that the attack enraged Mubarak, who had his official media launch a ferocious attack on Bush, but he says experience shows these outbursts have a way of blowing over. Imagine, he says: This is a man whose "democracy" has killed over a million Iraqis and displaced several million more, threatened the national unity of the country and plunged it into sectarian war, a man who will be known to history for the atrocities of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Instead of refusing to see this man, the Arab regimes continue to roll out the red carpet for him and they still habitually welcome him as a guest to be honored. The reason, of course, is they have no popular support, fear any criticism such as the Americans are capable of mounting, and actually rely on American support for their survival. So the question is: Will the new round of pressure announced by Bush's insulting speech at Sharm-el-Sheikh be as effective as similar pressure has always been in the past.

Uncharacteristically, Atwan seems to be a tiny bit ambivalent. He writes:

President Bush, who in his speeches in Jerusalem and Sharm-el-Sheikh failed to criticize a single settlement expansion, or call for the removal of a single road-block in the West Bank, has killed the peace process that he said he came in order to support; he has insulted his Arab allies and provided a rich harvest for the Islamist extremists whom he says he is trying to combat, without actually intending to. The question now is whether the Arab states will reply to this insult, by seeking out real national alternatives.

We are not convinced they will do anything at all. [We think] they will swallow this insult as they have swallowed others. They will send delegations to Washington asking for pardon and proposals for complete cooperation. They will tighten the cordon around the starving people of Gaza. They will strengthen surveillance of the border, and order the closing of the Rafah crossing. They will increase the offer of oil. This is what they have always done in the past, and there is nothing to indicate that they will do the opposite this time.

We hope we are wrong.

"Axis of (anti-Iran) moderates": An idea whose time seems to be up

Both the Egyptian and Jordanian regimes have concluded that the Palestine-Israel talks are dead, at least for the duration of the Bush administration, Arab reports suggest. This led to an undiplomatic and possibly historic Mubarak-Bush dust-up at a Sharm-el-Sheikh conference, and a suggestion by an experienced Jordanian commentator that his country would do well to seek out a better relationship with Iran.


(1) Historic Dust-up at Sharm-el-Sheikh (Al-Quds al-Arabi)

What happened here is that Bush, in order to cover the fact that the Palestinian talks were a failure, started blathering about the promotion of democracy in the Mideast and other related talking points, "about which America had been silent for so long that people assumed it had dropped out of their vocabulary" (in the words of the AlQuds al-Arabi reporter), which so infuriated Mubarak that when it came time for the official speeches, he took care not to be in the hall to hear Bush's speech, and Bush reciprocated by not being in the hall for Mubarak's speech either. Mubarak, for his part, said in his speech that the Arab nations "will not be providing cover for any agreement that does not satisfy the Palestinians", and the Al-Quds al-Arabi reporter explained: When an Arab leader of the experience of Mubarak says a thing like that, you can take it as an anticipatory death-certificate for any further negotiations; and more particularly that the remark "reflects information confirming that the talks have reached a dead-end". And the Al-Quds reporter notes that the semi-official Egyptian paper Al-Jumhuriya described Bush as "a failed president", and his speeches as "fatuous" (or "idiotic"), something that paper would not have published without a green light from the powers that be. Egyptian authorities clearly hoped he will not be back, ever, the journalist adds.


(2) Jordan seen repositioning (Abu Ruman in Al-Ghad)

Mohammed AbuRuman began his column yesterday (Sunday May 18) by noting the combination of Bush-policy failures in Palestine and Lebanon both. He wrote:

The political winds have been blowing in the opposite direction to what the "moderate Arab" nations were hoping for, because on both the Palestinian and Lebanese fronts, with both Fatah and the Siniora government suffering from difficult internal crises, and both Hamas and Hizbullah moving forward on the ground, albeit in stages. And in parallel with that and at the same time, comes Bush to the region, with speeches calling attention to his foolish bias, overlooking and skipping over the interests of the "friendly" Arab states, assuring Israel of his absolute support, thus strengthening the arguments of the rejectionists on the one side, and further embarrassing the Arab "moderates" on the other.

AbuRoman then talks about the whole idea of the "axes"--namely the "moderate" axis including Egypt and Jordan and others taking a position inimical to Iran and its "axis". This isn't working, he says:

The whole philosophy behind the "regional axes" was the political idea of a trade-off between an attitude toward Iran and its axis, and the realization of historic and decisive progress on the level of the Palestinian issue....So now that the freezing-up of that process is confirmed, the whole concept of the "axes" no longer serves these ["moderate"] countries...

AbuRoman stresses he isn't talking about throwing away the good relationship with the United States, rather he is talking about establishing an independent stance like that of Turkey, which has good relations both with the West and the Arab regimes; or Qatar, currently acting as host and go-between in what some think will be a successful precedure for ending the Lebanese government crisis.

A journalist with another paper (AlQuds al-Arabi, as it happens) noted in a press-roundup that Jordanian papers suddenly lacked their usual attacks on Hizbullah on the weekend, and said this is explained--at least according to rumors--by the fact that the Jordanian government has entered into talks with Iran, possibly indicating AbuRoman was writing about something that is already starting to happen.

Bush's Saudi visit: Something serious behind the comic-opera veneer?

US coverage of Bush's visit to Riyadh focused on the issue of oil production, almost completely ignoring the agreement that was signed by the two heads of state relating to nuclear energy production and other issues, but most importantly this (on the unimpeachable authority of Voice of America):

The agreement expands cooperation to better safeguard the kingdom's vast oil reserves and its pipeline distribution system, as well as borders.

Isn't that nice?

Oil-industry sources in the Gulf contacted by the news agency nahrainnet didn't think so. The reporter explains:

The joint communique said the United States and Saudi Arabia agreed on cooperation to secure energy production in the kingdom by protecting essential infrastructure, strengthening Saudi borders, and responding to increased requirements for energy. Oil sources in the Gulf told Nahrainnet: "The Saudis, with this agreement assigning to the United States protection of oil installations and oil fields in the kingdom, has taken an exceptionally dangerous step, because it has permitted the American military umbrella to take upon itself the taking of whatever steps it thinks will protect vital oil installations in the kingdom, even if other Gulf states like Iran think these [steps] are hostile to them, since [the possibilities] include establishment of missiles and surveillance networks, so this is a serious security development involving adding to the tinderbox of tension in the region.

The sources added: "The inclusion of this clause in the communique is an announcement of the signing of a security agreement between the two countries, including in its details the distribution of American experts in broad areas of the kingdom to construct a network of missile bases, information-gathering, intelligence and surveillance, and it will all be directed against Iran, because the Americans see no threat to regional oil, or to Saudi oil in particular, except from Iran, which has threatened to strike oil and non-oil assets of countries in the region if it is attacked by America or by Israel."

This is directly contrary to the spin that is being put on this visit by the American "foreign-policy expert" groupies, all buying into the idea that the purpose of the visit was to risk being rebuffed and humiliated on the question of boosting oil production. As you can see from the following excerpt from yesterday's NYT:

Jon Alterman, a Mideast expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Saudi confidence in the United States has been “extremely shaken,” over the war as well as what Saudis perceive as Mr. Bush’s lackluster effort on behalf of the rights of Palestinians.

“They’ll be polite,” Mr. Alterman said, “but they’re not really going to put themselves out to help this president.”

Still, Mr. Bush had little choice but to try.

Near-term American troop-withdrawal: Brushed off in Washington, welcomed in Baghdad

US media coverage of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Baghdad on Saturday alternated between brushing it off with a short sentence (NYT), and assuring readers and members of the war party that the House rejection of continued war funding without a near-term withdrawal plan (in a measure she got passed just before this visit) will surely be short-lived.

But brushing off the whole near-term troop-withdrawal question is something for English-language readers only. For instance, the pan-Arab daily AlHayat quotes a variety of Iraqi officials who don't brush off the near-term US-withdrawal proposal at all. For instance, their reporter says:

The United Iraqi Alliance welcomed the non-binding decision of the American Congress respecting withdrawal of the American forces from Iraq by the end of this year. Ali al-Adeeb, a Dawa party leader and member of parliament, said the decision of the American congress to withdraw its forces from Iraq was a correct decision. He explained in statements to the press that "the policy [or orientation] of the Iraqi govenment is that this year will be the last year of renewal of the presence of foreign forces in Iraq".

And what about "readiness" of the Iraqi forces? Here is what Maliki adviser Yasin Majid told AlHayat: "The Iraqi security forces have attained a high level of preparedness, and the latest military operations are the best indication of that. We can now say that it has become possible to rely on the Iraqi forces to look after the security portfolio".

For a more detailed explanation, the reporter spoke to general Mahdi Sabih, described as in charge of the forces for the preservation of order, who said:

"The Iraqi forces are capable of managing the security portfolio in the country", and in particular he said: "The Iraqi forces are capable of filling the security gap that the multinational forces leave in the event of their withdrawal." [But] he stressed "the need to supply the Iraqi forces with modern and advanced weaponry".

A spokesman for the Iraqi Accord Front, the main Sunni bloc in parliament, was more ambiguous and non-committal.

For his part, Hussein al-Faluji of the Accord Front said "the question of withdrawal of the multinational forces is linked to the question of readiness of the Iraqi forces and their ability to take over the security portfolio." And he explained that the question of withdrawal depends on an agreement to be signed between the Iraqi government and these forces".