Al-Hayat confirms the "Sunni wish-list or else" threat

Al-Hayat today (Wednesday November 30) offers the following background to the Amman meetings.

First, it says its reporters in Washington were told by their Bush-administration sources that the patience of the Bush administration in Maliki is starting to wear out, and Bush is going to give Maliki "a final deadline" to improve the security situation in Iraq, and these sources mentioned the following points in particular: Take firm action against the militias, especially the Mahdi army; strengthen the "moderates" for example the Ayatollah Ali Sistani; establish and maintain constructive relations with Sunni groups. These points are very general.

But the Al-Hayat reporter then says sources in the Iraqi delgation to Amman added the following more specific points as part of the Bush demands: Security should be strengthened by including in the Iraqi law-enforcement regime "a large number of officers in of the former [Saddam era] army", and "exclusion of those leaders who are accused of supporting the militias, while at the same time issuing a general amnesty so that the armed groups will be able to participate in the political process, via early elections, and that is a proposal that has [already] been rejected by the Shiites."

There is quite a bit packed into that last sentence attributed to the Iraqi sources. They said: Bush is demanding inclusion of Saddam-era officers in the law-enforcement agencies; a full amnesty for the resistance groups; and early elections, the latter a point already rejected by the Shiites. In other words, it looks like a version of the Sunni-resistance wish-list (minus the commitment for a US withdrawal).

And the paper said its Washington sources added: Patience is wearing out, and this will be the "final deadline", after which Bush will have to consider "other alternatives."

The only major points that are included in the Azzaman version of the "Amman alternative" that aren't included in this Al-Hayat account, are those that would come after the "or else": namely new government of technocrats, rollback of the federalism law and constitutional amendment to secure central control over resources, and a new Security Council resolution to reorganize the occupation forces. Apart from those elements, the two accounts are essentially the same. Accept these demands, or else. As a commenter in the earlier post has pointed out, elements in the Azzaman account relating to the "or else" clause, including the UN part, would be completely unfeasable in the real world. Which is of somewhat limited relevance, when you think about it.

Finally, Al-Hayat, like the other major papers, quotes the remark attributed to Abdulaziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) in his meeting Tuesday evening with Jordanian King Abdullah, to the effect that if there is all-out civil war, "the biggest loser will be our brothers the Sunni population of Iraq". People were surprised. Juan Cole scolds Hakim and says he was supposed to be promoting good relations. But it was only surprising if you overlook the context.

Presumably Hakim was told about the Bush ultimatum including the "or else" clause, and his reponse was a very predictable one.

The big picture according to Al-Quds al-Arabi

Abdulbari Atwan cites five examples of a recent "sudden shift" in the attitude of the major Sunni-Arab regimes with respect to Iraq, as follows:

(1) Egypt hosted Harith al-Dhari in Cairo and permitted him the use of the press-club facilities for his press conference attacking the legality of the Maliki government, a government that up to recently had enjoyed Egypt's staunch support.

(2) Saudi national security adviser Obeid wrote in the Washington Post that Saudi Arabia would have three options if the Iraqi situation deteriorates, including (a) flooding the oil market so as to collapse prices and hurt Iran, (b) forming and financing new Sunni armed units in Iraq to fight the Shiite militia; and (c) most interestingly for Atwan, financing and arming the existing Sunni-resistance groups in Iraq. Atwan's main point is that while the Shiite leaders have enjoyed the hospitality of Riyadh in the recent period, the armed Sunni resistance movements have not. The Saudi regime has not supported the armed Sunni resistance in Iraq up to recently, so this is a very dramatic shift.

(3) There has been a recent upsurge in expressions of anxiety about conversions to Shiism in the Sunni world, including from the regimes of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Morocco and its neighbors.

(4-5) There is also the leak of the Hadley "Maliki incapable" memo, and the cancellation of the three-way meeting with Maliki Bush and King Abdullah of Jordan. The connection to a change in Sunni-regime attitudes isn't as clear with respect to these points.

But the Egyptian and Saudi examples do point to a 180-degree shift in the Arab-regime attitudes to the Maliki regime, from "pro" to "contra", and Atwan rhetorically asks for the explanation, which has to fall into one of two categories: Either it is a shift sponsored and supported by the US, or it represents an independent "late awakening" of the Arab regimes to their own self-interest. For Atwan, this part is a no-brainer. For one thing, if the Arab regimes are suddenly supporting Arab resistance movements, how come they aren't supporting the Hamas? Clearly the shift is US-inspired.

The rest of the argument is easy to follow: The US is well on its way to getting the Arab regimes involved in the internal Iraqi civil war, as a way of laying the groundwork and setting the table for their involvement in the coming war with Iran.

(Atwan doesn't mention the Azzaman reports about the "Hadley program" and the "Amman alternative". But if his analysis is correct, then something like the Sunni-coup scenario would be a logical next step. The Arab regimes would become involved up to their necks in the Iraq civil war, and unable to extricate themselves when the US attacks Iran).

The real Hadley "proposal"

Wait a minute. Take a look at this post from Tuesday, with its summary of the Tuesday Azzaman piece, and alongside that the text of the leaked Hadley memo, printed and reported Wednesday by the New York Times.

Azzaman referred to a six-point set of options that it said Hadley evolved following his visit to Baghdad last month. The NYT version Hadley memo is also (on the face of it) a summary of Hadley's thoughts following that visit. And the Hadley memo NYT version includes three of the six points referred to in the Azzaman piece, to wit: Disbanding militia and bringing leaders involved in crimes to justice; a broader National Reconciliation program; and suspending De-Baathification. What the Hadley memo NYT version doesn't include is the following: any reference to rolling back or suspending the federalism legislation; to setting rules for oil-revenue distribution; or for employing former Baathists or compensating them for the last four years.

In other words, where Azzaman reported a six-point list including frankly pro-Sunni points, the Hadley memo NYT version refers to three points, and leaves out three. The three points that are left out of the Hadley memo NYT version are the points that take the package out of the realm of classic "reforms" and make it a clear "pro-Sunni" policy: Compensating ex-Baathists, and rolling back the federalism legislation, for example.

So: Either Azzaman made up the latter points, which is doubtful to the point being unthinkable, or else what we have seen so far is two versions of the Hadley policy, a soft version as outlined in the Hadley memo NYT version for English-speaking eyes, and a hard version summarized by Azzaman for the edification of the Sunni Arabs.

I mention this because actually there seem to be three versions. This morning (Thursday November 30), Azzaman prints on its front page what it calls the "alternative, Amman program", by which it means "alternative" to the six-point Hadley program it had outlined on Tuesday.

The "alternative, Amman program" is basically a program for a coup under another name. Here is the whole Azzaman piece:

Observers are asking about the alternatives to the Stephen Hadley policy, and high-level sources talked about an "Amman program" which they described as the ready substitute for the Hadley program. They said Bush is going to give Maliki a deadline which won't go beyond the end of the year to improve the situation in Iraq, in default of which he [Bush] will initiate an alternative program which consists of five points: (1) Initiation of military action by Iraqi special forces supported by the multinational forces to disarm the militias; (2) issuance of a new resolution by the Security Council reorganizing the multinational force in Iraq under the supervision of the international organization, with the US retaining the leading role, but including forces from Arab and Islamic countries, and also Asian and European ones, excluding however the six neighboring countries; and this would be done simultaneously with the creation of an Iraqi government composed of technocrats, without any type quota-measurements; (4) this Iraqi government would undertake the re-organization of the armed forces and guarantee their loyalty to the state only; (5) preparation of a new elections law in preparation for new elections for a parliament which would undertake revisions to the constitution and revision of the law respecting federal regions and guaranteeing central government control over natural resources including oil and minerals.

This appears at the bottom of the newspaper's front page this morning, the top half of which is devoted to the excitement of everyone in the Iraqi political world having descended on Amman for the appearance of Bush. The cancellation of the Bush-Maliki Wednesday-evening get-together was reported elsewhere to have been Maliki's answer to the leaked Hadley memo, NYT version. On that line of reasoning, publication of this "Amman program" looks like the riposte by the Sunni loyalists in the Bush administration. If that is a permissible expression.

ADDED NOTE: Two knowledgeable commenters point out that (1) the Azzaman reporters don't know Washington as well as they know Baghdad; and (2) the content of the "Amman alternative" includes completely impractical points. I agree on both counts.

The "Amman alternative" is not a responsible program for action such as you would find at any respectable white-collar institution. It seems to be a tool for gathering together the broadest possible Sunni support from across the spectrum (political groups, resistance groups, and so on) for getting behind the idea of replacing the Maliki government with a Sunni-oriented one, regardless of the "seriousness" or otherwise of the program that would follow.

The Azzaman people would be in a better position to know about schemes like this than the NYT or any of the North American expert groups would be.

Finally, another unspoken assumption I guess I am making is that the Bush priority has to be a Baghdad administration that is some way or other goes along with its "Sunni bulwark against the Shiite menace" ideology. If all the other routes are dead ends, then isn't the "Amman alternative" the logical place where this is all heading? Not "serious" or "responsible", to be sure.

Saudi press: The problem is Bush

Here's the first sentence from the lead editorial in the Saudi regime-oriented newspaper Al-Riyadh today:

President Bush and Pope Benedict XVI are visiting our region trying to undo their errors, for instance the former has learned that when you plunge politically and militarily into an abyss of tensions, then finding the way out is going to require something far different than occupation, and [far different than] looking at the Palestinian situation as an ordinary case of troublemakers and terrorists, as Israel insists, on the one side, and absolute force on the other, the latter driven by historic hatreds, and there is the collapse of the situation in Iraq, representing the Bush administration's worst reversal, so that this visit has its origins in domestic politics in America, as well as the politics of the region, which represents the most dangerous of the challenges facing Bush in the remainder of his presidency . . .

The dots are in the original. The spotlight is on Bush; on the facile use of military occupation; on the exploitation of ancestral hatreds and namecalling; on the question how he is now going to extricate himself from these problems of his own making. The tone is not one of panic over the fate of Iraqi Sunnis, as the Washington rumor-mill has been suggesting. The tone is that of quiet anger. Let's look at another Saudi paper, Al-Jazeera (no relation to the more famous satellite TV people operating out of Qatar). Here's the start of the Bush-Mideast summary on their international news page:

Iran agreed on Tuesday to talk to Washington about Iraq, and confirmed its readiness to assist in Iraq, but it conditioned this on the withdrawal of the American forces, which it accused of supporting Baathists and spreading divisions and chaos in the country. An Iranian official told Al-Jazeera that the Talabani delegation brought a proposal for Iranian talks with Washington, and he said Iran has agreed to assist the Americans in withdrawing from Iraq and restoring [normal]conditions in for Iraqis.

Bush finally has his say in the second half of the fifth paragraph, his points being that most of the current violence in Iraq is sectarian, and he will not order US troops to withdraw until the mission is completed, implicitly presenting these as clear non-sequiturs in the context of any discussion of regional cooperation. The implicit point here is the same as in the Al-Riyadh editorial: the underlying problem has a name, and the name is Bush.

Which in turn suggests that the Saudi intelligensia (can I use that word?) perhaps sees itself more in the role of a critical observer, than in the role of the half-crazed partisan which is so often assigned to them.

Arab reflections of the latest Bush "strategy"

Asharq al-Awsat says this morning that its Washington sources assured it that Bush plans to rely primarily on his "Arab friends" to help him in Iraq, rather than relying on direct talks with Syria and/or Iran, as recent reports had suggested. Specifically, Bush will be relying on Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt to "support [Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki] in facing down the Shiite religious figure Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army is behind a lot of the attacks in Iraq." The newspaper cites a high official in the Bush administration.

This suggests that Washington, by elevating Moqtada to Public Enemy # 1, is marketing to Riyadh a campaign focusing initially on what you could call the Shiite "near enemy", Moqtada (in contradistinction to the Shiite farther enemy, Iran).

With respect to Jordan, Al-Quds al-Arabi reports that Amman has rejected a request by Hamas leader and Palestinian Prime Minister Haniya to visit Jordan as part of a Mideast tour, providing further evidence (if any were needed) that Jordan is adopting the "near enemy" strategy too, Hamas being supported by Iran. It is worth recalling King Abdullah's remarks over a year ago about the dangers of a "Shiite crescent", remarks dismissed at the time as an exaggeration. Increasingly it seems he really meant it.

(However, there is something about Washington's approach to the Palestinian issue that seems to be bothering King Abdullah. In his speech yesterday for the opening of the new session of Parliament, he repeated Jordan's support for the Palestinians, but he also said Jordan would reject "any solution that is oppressive, or that is achieved at the expense of Jordan." The Al-Hayat report didn't explain what he was getting at exactly).

More important, it appears that since Cheney's Saturday visit to Riyadh and the resignation of Zelikow, Saudi Arabia, at least, is worried about US plans with respect to the farther enemy, Iran. The Saudi cabinet held its first meeting Monday November 27 following the Saturday Cheney visit, and they issued this statement (according to Al-Hayat on Tuesday):

[Cabinet] took up [the question of] the direct influence the United States exercies in the region, and the importance lf [seeing that] this influence is in keeping with the reality of the region, and is in conformity with the historic balances, and [is exercised] in support of [the region's] stability, and is in search of equitable methods for participating in the ending of [the region's] disputes.

Here we have the Saudi government post-Cheney-visit telling the United States it should "respect the reality" of the region, including its "historic balances", and that when it comes to solving regional disputes the United States ought to search for "equitable methods" for its participation in the problem-solving. A pretty clear indication that they heard something from Cheney that frightened them.

Americans bearing gifts

The Iraqi newspaper Azzaman prints a curtain-raiser on tomorrow's the Bush-Maliki meeting in Amman that makes it appear Bush will be "choosing" among a number of points on the Sunni-Iraq wish-list, and will be pressing Maliki to implement some of these on his own, or face serious consequences. The newspaper, which is nationalist in its editorial line, does not describe these points as particularly Sunni in nature, rather as reforms. But in the current circumstances, it is clear that Azzaman thinks this meeting will support a major pushback by Sunni opponents of the Maliki regime. Here is the opening sentence:

American president Bush will be selecting tomorrow in Amman the solution that observers are calling the final one from a basket of options that has been presented to him by [the Baker group] and by a policy that has been evolved by national security adviser Stephen Hadley since his [Hadley's] visit to Baghdad last month as a solution to the question of Iraq, and there are six options: [First], issuance of a general amnesty to all of the resistance groups, and an expansion of the National Reconciliation program; [second], shutting down the de-Baathification agency; [third], including former Baathists in government and paying them conpensation for the last four years; [fourth], disbanding the militias and turning over the leaders that have been involved in crimes to the courts for trial; [fifth], freezing the law relating to establishment of federal regions; and [sixth], set a policy for the fair distribution of oil [revenues] to the people of Iraq.

In the same vein, the writers says King Abdullah, who met with Harith al-Dhari (head of the Sunni-opposition Association of Muslim Scholars) on Monday, wants to bring al-Dhari "within the environment of the talks with Bush", and although he doesn't suggest exactly what al-Dhari might do, the suggesting does give a further unmistakable Sunni/resistance-oriented tone to this.

Their take on the US political dynamics points in the same direction. They cite a number of statements by Democrats who will be in key positions in the new Congress to the effect Bush should press Maliki harder to end the violence, with serious consequences to him if he fails to do so. The discussion suggests the consequences would involve withdrawal of support, sometimes suggesting ready-or-not troop-withdrawal, but sometimes left ambiguous.

And they say the US State Department has been pressing the Sunni regimes in the region to press al-Dhari to join in the process (adding however that he continues to adhere to his prior conditions).

There are many ways of reading the newspapers, but I think is the right reading today is the following: If the above-noted Azzaman piece represents a question-mark (because it suggests such an abrupt toughening of American policy), then the lead opinion-piece in Al-Quds al-Arabi suggests a logical reply.

Abdulbari Atwan writes this morning about a speech by Israeli prime minister Olmert which appeared to represent another abrupt turn in policy, this time a softening toward the Palestinians. (Here is the Haaretz take and here is the NYT take on that speech). In a nutshell, Atwan says the 1991 war was accompanied by a promise to the Palestinians of an international conference to solve their problems (the Madrid Conference), which however produced nothing for them; and the 2003 attack was preceded by the famous Bush promise of a sovereign contiguous state for the Palestinians by 2005. In other words, these promises are attempts to rally Arab support ahead of major wars. While the two prior cases (1991 and 2003) involved support from both the Sunni-Arab regimes and the Shiite-Iranian regime, this time the situation is a little different. The pattern is going to be Sunni support for an attack on Shiite Iran. It's hard to believe that a century after having acquiesced and even cooperated in the Ottoman-British dismemberment of Palestine and division of the rest of the region into British and French areas, the leaders of the Sunni Arab regimes still don't seem to understand how the game works. What they are now doing is acquiescing in an attack on Iran, which will result, via Iranian counter-attacks, in untold destruction in the region. What this means ultimately is that the dissolution of Iraq into Sunni-versus-Shiite civil war will be generalized to the whole region.

Amman, says Atwan, has become the holy Kaaba to which Arab leaders hoping to be part of this "Sunni crescent" are making their pilgrimages, and he mentions in particular Mahmoud Abbas and Harith al-Dhari. And naturally he mentions the Cheney visit with the Saudi king earlier this week.

The "logic" that is suggested in these two articles is a consistent one. It is the season of gifts to the Sunni Arabs, and this is not out of a sudden welling-up in the heart of the Americans of good-will and remorse for their past tribulations. For the Iraqis, it is a harbinger of a decisive move to Part II (back-the-Sunnis) of the American divide-and-conquer strategy, and for the region generally it is a harbinger of war and the spread of the Sunni-versus-Shiite wave of destruction to the whole region.

Another strategy based on unsubstantiated demonization ?

Let's listen to James Fearon, Theodore and Francis Geballe Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, PhD, University of California, Berkley.

He was Edward Wong's lead witness in the "Iraq in civil war" piece on Sunday.

On September 15, a couple of months ago, Fearon gave expert evidence on Iraq at the House Committee on International Relations. His recommendation: "Gradual redeployment" of US troops, rather than rapid withdrawal (or "staying the course" or "ramping up").

His evidence against rapid withdrawal was pretty straightforward, and it consists really of two essential points:

(1) "I am not a specialist on the politics of the Middle East..." (page 1)

(2) A rapid withdrawal would be less desirable than a "gradual redeployment" for the following reason: "[Rapid reduction in US troop levels] may spur Moqtada al-Sadr to order his Mahdi army to undertake systematic campaigns of murder and, in effect, ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods in Baghdad and other cities where they are strong. Obviously a murky subject, some recent reports suggest that such plans exist." And later in his report: "In addition to being logistically problematic, rapid US troop-withdrawal from Iraq would yield rapid escalation of militia violence and empowerment of the extremely brutal Sadrist faction on the Shiite side. Redeployment and repositioning of US troops therefore needs to be gradual..." (pages 6 and 12)

This is very unusual. A person with no particular expertise on Iraq is able to say with assurance that a rapid US withdrawal would be wrong primarily because of the alleged brutality and aggressiveness of Moqtada al-Sadr.

He cites "some recent reports" about Sadr's plans to lead a mass murder campaign. I think we can be confident he will post a comment here or somewhere else explaining where these "recent reports" came from. He is a scholar after all.

And we are talking about something that should sound familiar.

The decision to attack Iraq was supported by the "intelligence community" with its concoctions about Saddam's WMD and so on, much of it touted by the New York Times. What is going on now is development of the case for staying in Iraq ("gradual redeployment"), and sure enough, this too is appears to be based on the same type of murky "reports", this time targeting the Shiites. This time coming from the mouth of the political science community. Which is absolutely not the same thing as the intelligence community. It's completely different, right? That's why we can be confident Professor Fearon will clear this up for us.

Yesterday we saw Professor Fearon elevated by the New York Times to the status of expert on Iraq, but they didn't get around to his attack on Al-Sadr, perhaps for tactical reasons. Because (forgive me for saying it this way) when you consider what Wong did to that other leading resistance figure Harith al-Dhari, clearly it is the sleaze and the slime that is the giveaway.

Baghdad collapses in violence; US troops keep out of sight

Yesterday, Sunday November 26, was really the day. Please read what Baghdad bloggers at Healing Iraq report was going on around them, and what was on the message boards from other Baghdad neighborhoods. Al-Quds al-Arabi reports on mortar attacks on residential areas; on bodies piling up at the morgue with people unable to come for them on account of the curfew that continued until 6:00 am today (Monday); on expectations for further escalation once this is lifted. Reuters, for its part, quotes "experts" from all over to the effect the situation is completely out of control and the state has collapsed.

US troops kept mostly out of sight, says the Al-Quds al-Arabi report, or limited themselves to observing the events. (US army said three of its soldiers were killed in Baghdad, but gave no details).

There appear to be no further plans for any measures at the Green Zone political-coalitions level to try and stem the violence, al-Quds al-Arabi added.

Aswat al-Iraq, an independent news agency, says schools, universities and government offices opened on Monday morning, and attendance by students and government officials was "moderate". The agency said traffic was moving on the streets and there was a degree of congestion. There were still no newspapers available on the street, since the curfew had continued through Sunday evening. The online editions of Azzaman, Al-Mada and New Sabah weren't updated through Sunday.

Meanwhile, in America, the NYT goes dark on Baghdad, following its brilliant analytical pieces of the last few days. Washington Post leads its web edition this morning with this: "How the President can beat the Mid-term Blues".

By 8:30 PM Baghdad time on Monday, the Iraqi newspaper Al-Mada had posted its Tuesday edition on its website, assuring readers that "life returned to normal yesterday Monday, after several days of curfew imposed on account of destructive attacks across many districts of the capital, not the least of them Sadr City, where there were 400 victims, including the martyred and the injured. Eyewitnesses said traffic in Baghdad (on Monday) was limited, and there were rumors among the citizens of a new curfew, which forced the government to issue an announcement denying [any new curfew] at noon yesterday".

Al-Mada added that President Talabani talked about recent meetings among political groups to work toward fending off any threat of fitna, and "to renew the commitment to work within the unified national government of Prime Minister Maliki".

The latter comment was in response to renewed calls for the Sunni parties to withdraw from the government. One such appeal was the subject of the lead editorial in the Monday edition of the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi.

The Al-Quds al-Arabi editorialist said the original decision by the Sunni parties to join in the political process had been "mistaken and catastrophic", because it had lent an appearance of legitimacy to the "sectarian government" of Maliki, who has monopolized decision-making and encouraged its militias in the direction of sectarian killings and the formation of death squads. The writer says while the Sunni parties criticized Zarqawi and others and were still condemned, nothing was ever done or said about the sectarian killings on the other side.

The Al-Quds editorialist added that primary responsibility for the situation rests with the occupying force, which on Sunday "took the position of bystander", but the Maliki government shares equally the responsibility. He said Iraq needs to be freed not only from the occupation, but from "those who came to government on the backs of the tanks, and set the bad example of killings and destruction..." (Worth noting that "those who came with the tanks", meaning with the American invasion in 2003, would include SCIRI and the Badr organization, but wouldn't include Moqtada al-Sadr).

Badger's Week in Review

Before getting down to Badger's Week in Review, I have some important information that will be difficult for some readers to accept, but I think we should face up to it. There was actually a useful bit of Iraq news in the New York Times this morning, Badger's relentless attacks on that institution notwithstanding. James Glanz writes that the 2003 US strategy going in included alliances with Shiite militias to help topple the Sunni regime, and the strategy now is to look for Sunni allies, including among the Sunni tribes, to help topple the Shiite groups. He does not put it quite that simply, but some of the facts are there, and it is worth a read. Up to now this idea of sectarianism at the heart of US strategy has been a talking point of the resistance and the other groups that are barred access to Western media.

Of course, that isn't the point of the Glanz piece, and if you had not been made aware of the importance of this point to people in the region, you could easily have missed it.

Getting back to the Week in Review: At the beginning of the week, Bush's decision to ask for help from rogue-nation Syria was seen as an indication he had run out of palatable options (such as relying on his moderate friends in Riyadh, Cairo and Amman); and at the end of the week remarks in Al-Hayat and A-Quds al-Arabi indicated he was still trying to get a toehold for talks with the armed resistance groups. Mid-week (you probably missed it, under Miscellaneous Updates), there was a report to the effect that al-Anbar "tribal leader" Sattar abu Risha, or Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, decided that the uniform of its US-supported tribal-alliance fighters would be the uniform of the Saddam-regime Special Forces. And as James Glanz tells us today:

[T]he United States is stepping up efforts to identify militias associated with Iraqi tribes, political parties, geographic regions and even insurgent groups — to placate and co-opt those they can, and even play some off against each other....Such efforts have sometimes seemed promising. In September, 25 tribes in the Sunni-dominated Anbar province [referring to the abu Risha group, the ones who will be dressed in Saddam Special Forces uniforms] agreed to cooperate militarily in order to combat the local influence of Al Qaeda. But so far, that agreement seems to have had little influence on security; American and Iraqi troops continue to die at a disheartening rate in Anbar.

That's it for the Week in Review.

But while we're in a reflective mode, let's take a moment to look ahead and pay attention to the next big thing in the Western media coverage of Iraq: Social Science. Here's how it works, according to our friend Edward Wong, of Abu Risha fame. First: "American professors who specialize in the study of civil wars say that most of their number are in agreement that Iraq’s conflict is a civil war", and one of the very important scientific indicators of that is what he calls with clinical precision the "spiraling bloodshed". We are at the forefront of something very important here, because "Scholars say it is crucial that policy makers and news media organizations recognize the Iraq conflict as a civil war." Why? A Stanford professor provides the answer: "There is a scientific community that studies civil wars, and understands their dynamics and how they, in general, end. This research is valuable to our nation’s security."

I have news for everyone. This is pseudo-science in the interests of maintaining US military involvement in Iraq on alleged humanitarian grounds. Suppose the Chinese take over California and the Stanford professors take up arms, but so do the local bikers. The professors fight the bikers, and other groups join in too in a pattern of "spiraling bloodshed". The Chinese say: Our experts say California is in civil war, and we must prolong our military involvement there until they work this out, which our scientific research tells us could mean years.

To put it another way, when the neocons were in power, the Social Scientists were nowhere to be seen. They weren't needed. Now that the Democrats are going to require a rationale for continued military involvement, they feel their moment has come. And like Sattar abu Risha, when they need a spokesperson, they know where to look.

Or as Azmi Bishara put it in the piece summarized here on Friday: "As befits a great nation, the lies and deceptions are never without a theoretical pseudo-scientific basis to rely on..."

US still trying for talks with the resistance

Al-Quds al-Arabi says Iraqi president Talabani had to postpone his trip to Tehran because the Baghdad airport was closed as a result of the Baghdad curfew, which is still continuing. He said if the airport is open on Sunday he will go then.

Al-Hayat says it doesn't know whether it was Damascus, Baghdad, or both, that rejected the idea of a three-country summit in Tehran, which had been proposed by Iran, but in any event it isn't going to happen.

As for the planned meeting between Prime Minister Maliki and Bush in Amman, Al-Hayat has the following comments: First, (presumably relying on its Washington sources) it says this is in the context of American efforts to expand the range of solution-talks to include those countries it has up to now accused of supporting the violence (Syria and Iran), without explaining how a meeting with Maliki and the King of Jordan is supposed to help with this.

Next, the Al-Hayat reporter says this:

Iraqi government sources talked about expected meetings in Amman between Maliki and representatives of armed groups, whom Akram al-Hakim, minister of national dialogue described as prepared to join in the political process.
However, it appears the choice of Amman for the Maliki-Bush meeting was unrelated to the moves by the [Iraqi] government people and Americans to set up meetings with leaders of armed groups and former Baathists. It was undoubtedly the facts on the ground and the security collapse, which hasn't spared the Green Zone, that led to the choice of Amman as a substitute location for the Maliki-Bush meeting, which will also include King Abdullah of Jordan.

The implication here is that the Americans and Maliki are continuing to try for meetings with armed resistance groups. The journalist's point is that it is just a coincidence that the expected meeting place for coming meetings of that type is also Amman.

Abdulbari Atwan, writing in Al-Quds al-Arabi this morning, also takes as a basic assumption that the Americans are trying to get talks of that nature going. Atwan writes:

The noble Iraqi resistance, which has brought about the failure of the American occupation project and discouraged its collaborators, should not enter into negotiations with the American representatives who are currently making efforts in this direction, except on the basis of complete withdrawal; or [into negotiations] with the government except on the basis of their recognition of their direct responsibility for what has happened to Iraq, preparatory to their being turned over to [a court of] justice as war criminals...

Al-Quds al-Arabi's US press summary

A reporter for Al-Quds al-Arabi summarizes two US-media stories that appeared on Thursday, relating to the military picture in Iraq, reading them as two signs of the approaching US withdrawal. The NY Times piece said the Iraqi resistance, "suspected of having ties to AlQaeda in Mesopotamia" has begun well-organized training operations near Baghdad that have resulted in their ability to mount sustained battles against US forces, as opposed to the traditional hit-and-run methods. The training camps appear to be well-supplied, and their graduates are fanning out to other regions around Baghdad, including Diyala province to the north. The Times quotes American commanders to the effect the battle-discipline they are seeing in these groups is something they haven't seen before.

The Al-Quds reporter continues: "With the development of these new methods by the Iraqi fighters, the American military has begun a return to the old methods that were used in Vietnam, flooding the Iraqi army with [American military] advisers, and attempting [to speed up] transfer of security operations to the local forces, the methods which ultimately led to their gradual withdrawal from Vietnam." The reporter then reports at length on the LA Times account of discussions in the US about military strategy. The gist of this is that in Vietnam Creighton Abrams is described as having overturned prior strategy in order to concentrate instead on Vietnamization of the war, and in the same way John Abizaid is described as promoting what this Al-Quds al-Arabi reporter describes as a "vietnamization of Iraq", which is his shorthand for the end-game strategy turning over direct military operations to the local forces.

And the Al-Quds reporter is careful to include the LA Times observations to the effect that some are still touting the new strategy as correct but "too little too late", the main flaw being insufficient patience on the part of the American people, an approach echoed in the recent Bush-Cheney statements to the effect victory is still possible.

Superficiality of the US debate suggests a worse catastrophe could be coming

Al-Hayat printed yesterday (Thursday November 23) an opinion piece whose argument goes like this:

Everyone recognizes that the Iraq policy was based on lies (AlQaeda, WMD and so on), but what is now under discussion is merely how to extricate the troops, and not the formation of a policy freed from those lies.

In fact there is another swindle going on, namely that lying and lawbreaking of the type that the Bush administration indulged in is nothing more than what you can see in the Dirty Harry pictures where the heroic detective breaks the law in order to catch the criminal. (In this case, in order to replace dictatorship with democracy).

Not only that. As befits a great nation with an intellectual infrastructure, the lies are anchored to a quasi-scientific set of arguments. (Terrorists are bred and thrive mainly because they live under dictatorial regimes, etcetera) . Naturally there isn't any point in refuting these assumptions and arguments, because their proponents don't let reality bother them. We know that AlQaeda came to Iraq with the occupation and achieved unprecedented expansion thereafter, but that doesn't matter.

And then suddenly and without prior warning or justification, the great nation then shifted to a polarizing, cold-war model, justifying its alliance with any regime, of any character whatsoever, based only on its contribution to the "war on terror". The enemy are "nazis and fascists", and the war against them is a world-wide affair. And this wasn't just some momentary reaction to a threat, which would naturally lack a certain degree of precision. Rather, his was a deliberately created framework usable to justify any number of things, just as you would expect in a world war against naziism and fascism.

So what started as a story of toppling a dictator in order to fight terror, became a story of the "war on terror" justifying alliances with dictators.

What makes this more than just another irritating piece of doubletalk is the fact that the US continues its efforts to topple regimes it doesn't like on the basis they lack democracy and foster corruption, even at the very time when occupied Iraq is making its mark in the world-corruption league-tables.

[The argument so far: US policy is based on no consistent foundation at all. It is a shifting structure of quasi-scientific gibberish, for instance on the "roots of terror in dictatorships"; mixed with world-war grade propaganda. These are the foundations of existing policy, if you can call them that. And now, with all the talk about new directions and new policies, and so on, what do you get].

If you need someone to propound new policies without any critique of the old, without conscience, and without even any reference to coherence in logic or in morality, you have just the man: Henry Kissinger. This pupil of Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss doesn't see the need for coherence of any kind when the aim is to crush the enemy.

Going through the LA Times interview linked to, you can pile up the inconsistencies and the instances of gibberish. But what is really the most extraordinary part of this, is the failure to ask him: If your world involves the choice between either stability or democracy, how is it possible you support a war that brought about neither democracy nor stability? Putting it another way, Kissinger says the US should have concentrated on fighting Islamic jihadi fundamentalists instead of holding elections, failing to recall the fact that there weren't Islamic jihadi fundamentalists in Iraq to fight until the US troops arrived. And when Kissinger says the US should have immediately installed a military strongman instead of promoting elections, [the mind boggles]. Then there are his thoughts on promoting federalism and the involvement of neighboring countries. Public opinion in Israel and the US thinks all the US needs to do is express its needs and Syria and Iran will comply. Which however is not the generally accepted view in those countries.

America, which has failed in Iraq, now demands proof of good intentions from Syria and Iran, which until very recently American planned to subject to the same fate as Iraq. Clearly what is in question is the good intentions of America, not Syria and Iran.

In times like these, you naturally get a proliferation of committees, for instance one in the Pentagon and another emanating from Congress. Some are for taking the hit and withdrawing. Some are for another military push and then a gradual withdrawal. Some are for confederalism with the assistance of neighboring countries. Some are for not involving the neighboring countries. And for each there are the pros and cons. In all of this,

There is no guarantee that the result will not be catastrophic just as was the result of the discussions preceeding the 2003 attack, and the dissolution of the [Iraqi] army, and the dissolution of the [Iraqi] state, and the opening up of the gates of hell for the destruction of the country.

And the American papers are swarming with discussions of this and interpretative efforts, given the escalation in the vehemence of the opposition and of the sectarian violence and that of the occupation troops.

In fact the only thing that is diminishing in all of this is common sense: The common sense to realize that 40% of Iraqis live in what are called mixed areas of Shiites and Sunni, and to realize that separation will mean massive slaughter and migrations.

And yet: Kissinger lives on, with his interviews and his advice to presidents.

The author of this opinion piece is Azmi Bishara, who if I am not mistaken is the same Azmi Bishara who is a Palestinian Israeli and a member of the Knesset, and author of books on the histories of Jewish and Arab philosophy and other topics.

At risk of ruining a good read with unnecessary comments, I would like to mention something. One of Bishara's points is that the whole American debate is dishonest because it is limited to extricating America from a situation, while continuing to leave unexamined and uncritiqued the propaganda and the quasi-science that got them there. If you did that examination and that critique, what would you come up with? Maybe that is a secondary question. Maybe he's right and the only point worth making right now is that since basic attitudes in Washington haven't changed, there is a real risk this could turn into an even bigger catastrophe than people can currently imagine.

End-game in the Green zone

Bashir Nafie writes in Al-Quds al-Arabi: The recent attack on the reputation of Harith al-Dhari, head of the Muslim Scholars Association of Iraq, was triggered by his political activities in the region, and not by anything he said. He had been saying the same things about the illegitimacy of the occupation since 2003. What was new, and what so alarmed the Green Zone people, was his visit to Saudi Arabia and the fact he had a discussion with the Saudi King. This was shocking, because since 2003 the Arab regimes in the region have left Iraqi affairs up to their friends the Americans, prefering not to get involved themselves. Their confidence in this hands-off approach had been weakening with the reports of escalating Iranian influence in Iraq ("real or imagined" Nafie adds); then with the hit they took from their early criticism of Hizbullah in the Lebanon war; and most of all the gradual collapse of any semblance of Iraqi internal security. That isn't to say there are going to be any concrete short-term results from the King Abdullah-Dhari conversation, but it hit a nerve in the Green Zone nonetheless.

Nafie targets Iraqi president Jalal Talabani as the character who led the attack on Dhari, writing at length on Talabani's history, and not in a very flattering light either. His point is that the whole idea of arresting Dhari smacks of fear and desperation. Talabani and his associates were acting defensively, as they always do, and they were completely blind to the depth of support for Dhari, not only as "the representative of the Iraqi conscience", with considerable Shiite support as well as Sunni; but also throughout the region, citing for instance the Arab League support for him throughout this. Dhari, Nafie says, represents probably the most powerful voice of denunciation of the American occupation and its enablers.

But the miscalculations respecting Dhari are only a symptom of the way Talabani and his colleagues have lost their grip on reality. After all these years of propaganda, Nafie says, the Green Zone inhabitants are unable to grasp the fact that the resistance is at the gates.

With that as background, Nafie says the Americans have several options left: They could try "another push" in Iraq. Alternatively, we shouldn't rule out the possibility they could decide arm one set of armed sectarian groups to fight against another, as part of an overall stratgegy to divide the country into sectarian regions, no matter what the cost to the Iraqi people. Or, he says, they could decide to push the situation to total violence, "in order to teach the Arabs a lesson they will never forget," as he puts it.

(The New York Times hit-piece on Dhari isn't mentioned in this article. But if the Dhari arrest-warrant episode is a milestone in the collapse of the Baghdad government and perhaps a sign of desperate things to come, then surely that NYT piece deserves its miserable place in history too).

Miscellaneous updates

Al-Hayat publishes a lengthy account of statements by Sattar abu Risha (or Rishawi), head of the Al-Anbar Salvation Council, the main point being the following: Abu Risha said he now has a plan to bring together tribal leaders from all over Iraq in a council which will be called the Unity Assembly, with the aim of applying traditional tribal methods to the problems of sectarian violence. His next task in this, he said, will be to travel through central and southern Iraq to convince tribal leaders in those regions to join. He said the idea is his own "personal" one, will be under tribal auspices, and there won't be involvement by any other parties, governmental or non-governmental. The reporter doesn't offer any comments, either his own or those of anyone else.

In other comments, Abu Risha rejected offers by some other leaders to negotiate a settlement of his lawsuit with Harith al-Dhari of the Association of Muslim Scholars, insisting on a public apology first. On another issue, he said there has now been issued an official document by the Interior Ministry relating to the battalions of the Salvation Council, without indicating what that document says. Presumably it is some sort of acknowledgement of their legality in the eyes of the Interior Ministry. He discussed at length the question of what the battalions will be wearing, noting this is something he is responsible for personally, "although their other requirements will be supplied by the Ministry". He said a uniform resembling that of the current police forces was rejected on the basis it "lacks dignity", and he has chosen instead the uniform that was worn by the Special Forces under the prior [Saddam] regime. Abu Risha also made remarks about what percentage of various regions of Anbar his group already controls, and promised a statement soon about the complete freeing of the province from AlQaeda.

Meanwhile, Harith al-Dhari, head of the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq, is in Cairo, where he made statements that the Iraqi newspaper Azzaman takes up as its front-page top story this morning (Thursday November 23). Unfortunately, it appears "missing links" has itself missed a link or two here, resulting in my inability to make it crystal clear what al-Dhari is talking about. Nevertheless, in the expectation we will be able to fill in any gaps later, here is what today's report said:

"[Al-Dhari] said he was cutting off any participation-links with the Accord Council which is expected to meet next year bringing together the different Iraqi groups, saying 'We met with them twice and we agreed with them, but the other parties are not comitted'". The problem here is the Accord ("wifaq") Council: What is it?

In any event, the reporter observes: Efforts to arrive at a meeting of the minds between the various groups that oppose the political process while the occupation continues, have failed all year long, which would seem to imply that the Accord Council is an attempt to unify the resistance to the occupation, or one of the attempts.

Moving on to another topic, the reporter says Al-Dhari included in his statement something that appears to represent a change of position. He is a person who has been known for his absolute rejection of the presence of foreign troops in Iraq. But in yesterday's statement he called for foreign troops not to be withdrawn before there is a national Iraqi security force that isn't accused of being under the control of the governing political parties.

Finally, Al-Dhari accused Maliki of working for the separation of Iraq [into regions].

The Big Three: Talabani rejects the three-country summit idea after meeting Khalilzad and Hakim

Elaph.com says US ambassador Khalilzad met on Wednesday with Iraqi president Talabani and SCIRI head Abdulaziz al-Hakim, and the commemorative photo published by Elaph shows a room with the curtains drawn, with from left to right the ambassador, a fruit-bowl, Talabani, an Iraqi flag, another flag that is mostly dark green with what appears to be a map in the center, possibly not a map of Iraq, and Hakim himself. Following the meeting Talabani's office issued a statement that said the three of them studied the political and security situation in Iraq, and procedures for calling a future meeting of the national political-security committee. The statement also said in his meetings with heads of neighboring countries, Talabani will try be discussing economic and security issues, and will be trying to convince them to stop the infiltration of terrorists.

The Elaph reporter adds: Talabani said we have no intention of holding a three-country summit (Iraq-Iran-Syria), as had been reported in various places. He said he will be going to Damascus after his trip to Tehran; the Damascus invitation was a prior one, and Syrian foreign minister Moallem [also] conveyed it during his recent visit to Baghdad.

Also yesterday, the White House said Bush will be going to Amman on Wednesday November 29 for his own version of a three-country summit, to include himself, Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, and King Abdullah of Jordan. Al-Hayat quotes Steven Hadley to the effect major topics will be the condition of the Iraqi armed forces, their training and development, the speeding up of that, and so on. But the reporter stresses the unhappiness of the US administration with Maliki's handling of the militias, noting a Time magazine story critical of Maliki's "leniency" in that regard.

The Al-Hayat reporter says Hadley mentioned that "the discussions will be limited to generalities, and there won't be a final communique." Which, when you dress it up for American consumption in the New York Times, comes out like this: "But White House officials appeared to play down expectations for the meeting, with Mr Hadley telling reporters, 'We're not looking for big, bold announcements'".

The hand of fitna

Sometimes what you hear or read is so different from your expectations that it makes you stop and listen more closely.

I turned to the Joseph Samaha column in Al-Akhbar this morning (Thursday November 23) because I expected he would explain the post-assassination details, what happens next, why this, why that. Instead, what he writes this morning is something completely different. First he says there was a sense of foreboding leading up the assassination, a sense that Lebanon had formed into two equally-matched groups, with equally matched sense of self-confidence, headed for a confrontation with frightening speed. People thought the danger lay in what could happen during street demonstrations. Then he writes this:

"But the hand of fitna was faster than that. It wanted to take the public mood and turn it to its advantage. It understood the fragility of the situation and it knew that the fire would catch and spread. ... The hand of fitna aimed to cut the road to what had been about to be, no matter what, overruling the citizens."

The hand of fitna. I was expecting "Who did this" or "What should we do right away to cope with this". Reading on:

"Another way-station of blood. But this one a way-station with a special character, because Pierre Gemayel was assassinated at a moment of dangerous national division, representing a new crisis-point in the process of disintegration which began some time ago, and which the Lebanese people have not been able, and still are not able, to stop. [At the moment of the assassination] the crisis was growing, and the solutions were becoming ever more difficult and more complicated and more in need of historic decisions, something that was beyond the technical abilities of an administration of the traditional type".

Here was a process that even though people realized what was happening, they were unable to stop it. Reading this is quite a different experience from, say, reading NYT columnists telling us in their technocratic way what needs to happen. We are definitely in a different realm. Reading on:

"And when the Israeli attack came, some said the Lebanon that emerges from this will not be the same Lebanon they attacked, and to be sure there was [after the war] a different and deeper crisis, there was increased foreign pressure, but there was also a greater range of possible solutions. But unfortunately, at the same time, the Lebanese receptivity [to the new situation and the new possibilities], or at least that of some Lebanese, was lacking in wisdom and lacking in responsibility. And what happened yesterday was the shudder of awakening. It seemed as if there was a person looking into the abyss, trying not to throw himself in, but really the whole fear is just this shudder that comes when you realize that the parties are going to continue their struggle which was stopped only under pressure of the crime and of the requirements of condolences".

Finally, Samaha turns to the question what to do.

"After the grief and the condemnations of the crime, perhaps there are a couple of things we should focus on that could bring some comfort. First of all, there isn't a traditional solution to something that isn't a traditional problem. Lebanon is not in need of 'statesmen' in the usual sense of that expression. Lebanon needs historic leadership, it needs people of stature, someone able to look up first, and look to his base only secondarily. Statesmen improve the administration of the state, but what he need is someone who can invent the state. Secondly, there isn't any solution available from outside. Either there is a Lebanese solution or there isn't any solution. [For instance agreeing to the international court isn't a comprehensive solution]. Because Lebanese society, in this troubled region of the world, and in this pressurized international environment, isn't going to be stabilized via any formula of coexistence that doesn't include satisfactory solutions to the legitimate requirements of each segment of the population, and that doesn't include those solutions in the structure of the government".

"Being realistic in Lebanon today means being pessimistic. The question for every Lebanese person is going to be their ability to not lose sight, in the face of this pessimism, of those social requirements that they know to be just and that they wish to be able to implement."

That's it. The hand of fitna. The way-stations of blood and the demonic processes that the Lebanese themselves have been unable to stop. The abyss and the shudder of awakening. And finally, the legitimate requirements of each segment of the population, and not losing it in the face of pessimism.

You might say: What the hell is he talking about. The simple answer is he is talking about culture. He is saying: These are our experiences, this is what we have been through, which others may or may not understand, this is what we haven't had the stature to do, this is what we need to do.

For us non-Lebanese, it takes a little listening to.

Joe Biden our point-man in Damascus ?

Al-Hayat this morning (Wednesday November 22) says a senior person from the office of Senator Joe Biden is in Damascus trying to figure out what's going on.

What has ruffled important feathers is the idea of a three-way meeting between Ahmedinejad, Talabani, and Assad, subject of news reports two days ago, that said this was planned for Tehran on Saturday November 25. Al-Hayat says a source in Damascus rules out the possibility of a three-way meeting "within two days" (which would be Friday), adding this was a pre-existing proposal that is "still under study". The Baghdad newspaper Al-Mada says (1) Talabani's office confirms he will be in Tehran on Saturday, at the head of a big Iraqi delegation, for talks with his Iranian counterpart; and (2) an Iranian report published by AFP says Assad has been invited to come to Tehran on Sunday, implying this has been accepted. (3) Since the Talabani visit is expected to last for three days, there is a good chance of the three of them getting together during that period of time. But Al-Mada says there isn't confirmation or denial from Damascus about the Assad part of this. Al-Mada says a US State Dept person welcomed the Talabani visit to Tehran, but this part of the Al-Mada piece doesn't mention Assad.

Joe Biden's office only returns calls originating in the great state of Delaware, but who knows, maybe he won't be taking Delawarians into his confidence either.

Absent a miracle, the focus should be on damage-control: Al-Quds

Al-Quds al-Arabi editorializes: The question who was behind the Pierre Gemayel assassination shouldn't be the main preoccupation at the moment, for two reasons. First, because none of the putative suspects is likely to see this evolve the way they presumably had in mind. If this was done by people wanting to halt the establishment of an international tribunal into the Rafiq Hariri assassination, clearly the effect will be the opposite, and proponents of the tribunal will be all the more determined. If, by contrast, this was done in order to break the momentum of Hizbullah which was about to bring its supporters into the streets to press for a new Cabinet with more representation for them, at most this will be postponed for a few days or a week.

What is far more important than finger-pointing is coping with the danger. The Al-Quds al-Arabi editorialist talks about the possibility of retaliatory operations leading to civil war, "if not immediately, at least in the near future". For one thing, he says, some will be using this to try and "reorganize the Lebanese street according to the old sectarian model", prevalent in pre-Taif times (meaning during the Lebanese civil war that ended with the Taif agreement in 1989, which was supposed to be a first step in ending the sectarian model), with extremist Christians on one side, and extremist Muslims on the other. But he stresses no one can really imagine at this point where this will lead.

Hopefully, he adds, the calls for calm by Pierre Gemayel's father and others will create "an opportunity to save what can be saved", but really, he says, we will need a miracle, and unfortunately we are not living in the age of miracles.

Cronica de una muerte anunciada

The Pierre Gemayel assassination was probably the most quickly solved murder in history. In fact, even before the trigger was pulled, the Israeli intelligence groupies at MEMRI issued a report (dated November 21, the same day as the assassination) dramatizing the Hizbullah decision to hold street-demonstrations in support of their demands for bigger representation in Cabinet, under the scary heading "Lebanon on the brink of civil war". MEMRI added: "It should be noted that these statements and threats are supported by Syria and Iran."

And when the assassination news broke, the Western news outlets, as if with a single voice, referred to the victim as the anti-Syrian cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel. Knowledgable people everywhere "hinted" at the involvement of Syria in this. Or at least they referred to people who did, including Israeli foreign minister Livni, US ambassador to the UN John Bolton, and Saad Hariri. Quite a broad cross-section, in other words, of informed opinion.

Naturally, the guilty verdict against Syria isn't based on any forensic evidence in the traditional sense of the word. It is all based on motive, namely a supposed Syrian motive for destabilizing the Lebanese political process.

Which is surprising, since it seems clear that Syria stood to benefit from the current directions in political development, not only in Lebanon, but in the Mideast region as a whole. Hizbullah has been intent on exploiting the opportunity to advance its position domestically, and it is hard to see how any gains it made would have been upsetting to Syria. Meanwhile, the Bush administration had quietly asked the Syrian administration to help out in the pacification of Iraq, and this was reflected in the highly-publicized visit to Baghdad by the Syrian foreign minister on the weekend. Any such US request would have involved some degree of US concessions to Syria, and this would probably have involved an easing of direct US pressure on the Syrian regime, and a lighter US hand in Lebanon. Hardly the kind of environment that would make the Syrian regime anxious to stir up an international outcry over an assassination.

On the other hand, there are a couple of regimes that could well have felt they were losing control of the regional political evolution. Unexpectedly, the visit to Baghdad by the Syrian foreign minister was quickly followed up by the news about a three-country summit in Tehran next weekend. Maybe it's just me, but if I were in charge in Tel Aviv or Washington, I would have been more than a little upset to hear that. This was supposed to be a controlled process for the strictly-limited purpose of pacifying Iraq, and suddenly it was turning into a Syrian-Iraqi-Iranian summit. Without the US, and where none of the participants was particularly friendly to Israel.

Which is merely to say that if all there is to go on is motive for upsetting the card-table, I don't think the finger points that decisively at Syria. Quite the contrary.

Of course, once you realize that Western news media didn't point out to people the dramatic shift in the US-Syria dynamics, or the regional implications of the Tehran-summit idea, perhaps you can being to understand the Syria-is-guilty mentality. All you have to do is recall that for the entire six years of the Bush administration Syria has been the embodiment of evil. So I guess after all it wasn't that hard to pick them out of the lineup.

Bush: I would understand if Israel decided to bomb Iran

Haaretz reported yesterday (Monday November 20) that Bush told French president Chirac in a recent conversation that his administration "would understand" if Israel decided to launch an attack on Iran. It is a remark that French officials passed on to Israelis in discussions during the past few days, and the Israelis passed it on the Haaretz. The French officials told the Israelis they thought this would not be a good idea. In fact (according to the Haaretz account) the French officials said it would be a catastrophe that would (1) only set back the Iranian nuclear program by two years at most; (2) ensure Iranian exit from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty; (3) probably trigger a broad Iranian military response that would target more than just Israel; (4) cause enormous uproar in the Arab world; and so on.

The funny thing is that this Haaretz item doesn't seem to have been picked up by any US news organizations, but it was picked up by Al-Quds al-Arabi on its front page this morning (Tuesday November 21), adding to the above-outlined information the following: Rice subsequently made more ambiguous remarks about the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran, telling European diplomats the US lacks the necessary intelligence to launch such an attack itself; Iran announced further progress in its nuclear program; and the White House denied the existence of a US intelligence report that said there is no evidence of any secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program. The latter report had been referred to in a New Yorker article by Seymour Hersch.

As the world turns

Abdulbari Atwan offers his thoughts on the sudden, friendly Syrian involvement in Iraq, and where he thinks it fits in the evolving drama of American regional defeat.

In Al-Quds al-Arabi this morning, Atwan first reviews a couple of background points. The first is that the Syrian involvement is in response to a change in attitude in Washington, something that was brought about partly by the Baker commission leaks, but also partly by the recent Syria-Britain rapprochement, Britain being one of the access points "to the White House and its occupant". Atwan stresses this point, namely that the speed and timing of the Syrian move could well reflect its quick and opportunistic response to this US-British agreement on a new strategy.

The second point is that this change in attitude in Washington (and its decision to ask Syria for help) has an important corollary, and that is that Washington finally realized that it wasn't going to get anywhere with its first regional plan, which was to rely on the "moderate regime" Saudi-Egypt-Jordan trio, because this would be like herding cats. (Which doesn't mean the moderate trio won't be useful if other efforts fail and this ends up as a US-Israel confrontation with Iran, he adds). Washington has also realized that the Maliki government's many attempts to bring the internal security situation under any semblance of control have all failed, and that by contrast the resistance has grown in strength, and controls much of the country, pinning the government down in the Green Zone. All of which led to pinning hopes on Syria.

What does Syria expect in return? Atwan says the first installment would likely be an easing in the pressure on Syria and its allies in Lebanon, in a variety of areas: including dialing down the recent "impetuous support" for the Syrian-opposition alliance between the Muslim Brotherhood and former vice president Khaddam (the so-called "Salvation Front", and likewise a toning down of US enthusiasm for the Lebanese government and its support for an international court to deal with the Hariri assassination. More in the future, Atwan says Syria will be hoping for a resumption of negotiations with Israel on the return of the Golan Heights, with a prearranged conclusion involving their complete return to Syria.

But Atwan's main point is that the US expectations for help from Syria, and Iran too for that matter, are likely excessive. Syria, says Atwan, can damage US efforts insofar as it opens its Iraq-border to inflows of fighters and weapons, but that isn't the same as being able to influence the situation in the other direction, via influence with the resistance, or control of the security situation, or any other actual help to the Green Zone government. Moreover, even if it could help in these positive ways, any Syrian efforts at helping the Americans control the situation could have negative reprecussions in Damascus (implying it is a little unlikely Syria would actually try to do that). And Atwan says he thinks US estimates of Iranian capacity to control the internal situation in Iraq are likewise exaggerated.

The US administration is confused and uncertain at the moment, Atwan writes, and this is reflected in the search for help first from the moderate-regime trio, and now from Syria and maybe later Iran, all of which represent looking for help in the wrong places. Far more promising, he writes, would be to actually negotiate with the domestic resistance directly. This would involve agreeing to most if not all of their prior conditions (including timetable for withdrawal). But in the tough situations, this is the approach that has actually worked, he says, citing the US experience in getting out of Viet Nam, and the British experience with the IRA.

The one constant in the recent US efforts is the idea of separating Syria from Iran in an effort to isolate the latter. But that has become almost impossible. The current Syrian flirtation with Washington is basically a question of playing for time, given the Syrian conviction that the countdown to the collapse of the American empire and its regional influence is picking up speed.

US promoting an international conference on Palestine, to strengthen Abbas and weaken Hamas

The Israeli newspaper Maariv reported yesterday (Sunday November 19) that there are secret talks going on between Washington and Tel Aviv aimed at setting up an international conference to try and revive the Palestinian peace process, based on the "road-map". The following is from a summary in Al-Quds al-Arabi, which it in turn attributes it to the Tel Aviv bureau of UPI.

A major US aim is to improve its image in the Middle East. The conference would include Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, in addition to the Palestinians and Israelis, and the overall concept for the US is to make this part of its hoped-for alliance of "moderate Arab states and Israel". For road-map fans, the technical aim of the conference will be implementation of phase two of the read-map, involving establishment of a Palestinian state with temporary borders. This would be followed by more "convergence" (getting rid of Israeli settlements outside the proposed borders), and eventually a Palestinian state with permanent borders.

The report says this is going to involve additional efforts to fend off Hamas and Hizbullah, and to strengthen Abbas with "abundant financing and power". The report says Saudi Arabia has already agreed not only to attent the conference, but also to provide a lot of financing for Abbas.

Finally, according to this summary, the US is described as concerned about weakness in the regimes of Prime Minister Siniora in Lebanon and president Abbas in Palestine, and this was a motivating factor for the Palestine-conference initiative.

Syria and Iran said to be ready for three-party talks with Iraq

NOTE: For updated information on three-country meeting arrangements, see the paragraph at the end of this posting.

After mentioning the bilateral-cooperation aspects of talks yesterday between Syrian foreign minister Moallem and Iraqi foreign minister Zebari, Azzaman adds: "Iraqi sources close to the talks said there is a Syrian-Iranian understanding about having a three-way summit meeting that would include [Assad, Ahmedinejad and Iraqii president Talabani] probably in Damascus. But the same sources were quick to add that the fate of this [idea of a] summit will be determined by the results of the talks yesterday (Sunday) between Moallem and the Iraqi foreign minister, and by the results of the visit scheduled for tomorrow (Tuesday) by president Talabani to Iran".

And Azzaman adds: Just ahead of his Baghdad visit, Moallem held a series of discussions with James Baker in Washington, where they discussed the Iraqi situation (citing the Syrian ambassador in Washington). And the reporter says: These Baker-Moallem talks came just at the time when Kissinger was ruling out any possibility of an American military victory in Iraq, and said an international meeting will be necessary.

The above-mentioned sources elaborated on what Moallem seemed to have in mind. "He proposed a three-country political and economic partnership, and the carrying out of a true national reconciliation in Iraq that would include ending the De-Baathification Law and permitting former Baath party members that aren't accused of crimes to participate in the country's political life, [and that would also include] control of borders."

Talabani, for his part (the sources continued) will be telling the Iranians that before there is a three-part summit, the Iranians should deal with the presence of AlQaeda in Iran, and border-control; while the Iraqis would expell the Mujadeen al-Khalq (MEK; armed opponents of the Iranian regime) from Iraq.

The sources also said something about a unified three-country policy vis-a-vis the countries of the Gulf, but I can't really follow the thread of what they are saying, so I won't try to summarize. (Something to do with "substituting Syria for those countries [of the Gulf]" in a sense I don't understand).

The journalist's next point is that someone close to the Egyptian foreign ministry said any talks about Iraq should include not only the neighbors, but also the main Arab regimes, naturally including Egypt.

UPDATE:
Later in the day, Elaph.com offered this summary of the latest three-country meeting arrangements. Its reporter Osama Mahdi said Talabani will be going to Tehran next Saturday, November 25. And he said a member of Prime Minister Maliki's political party confirmed an Iranian report that Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad has also been invited by the Iranians to attend, and will be there too. The reporter says the Talabani visit had originally been scheduled for November 8, adding "it appears the reason for the delay was to allow time to prepare for the three-country summit", suggesting that this isn't some last-minute decision by the Iranians.

Separately, the Iraqi semi-official (meaning pro-government and pro-occupation) newspaper Al-Sabah reported on Saturday that "High-level sources told Al-Sabah that Washington has invited the leaders of the United Iraqi Alliance, Abdulaziz al-Hakim, and of the Iraqi Accord Front, Adnan al-Dulaimi, to visit it (meaning Washington)." The reporter doesn't say anything about a suggested date for this visit. But he adds: "The sources said this is in the context of US efforts to help bring about a convergence of views in the process of the National Reconciliation meetings". And he says vice president Barham Saleh is trying to organize a meeting of the main political-coalition leaders for the same purpose.

Badger's Sunday Magazine

Extremists loyal to the US-sponsored regime in Baghdad took control of a major American newspaper yesterday, and sources pointed to an article by Edward Wong as a bare-knuckle warning of what is to come.

This no-nonsense piece said a Sheikh dressed up in flowing white robes swept into the Mansour Hotel in Baghdad yesterday, where Wong and a colleague were sitting. The man in white was surrounded by three gunmen, and a number of other Sheikhs. According to Wong's lede, the man in white proceeded to denounce the head of the Muslim Scholars Association as a "thug", apparently because of something he said, but we never actually find out what he said.

The head of the Muslim Scholars Association, Harith al-Dhari, is an opponent of the US-sponsored regime in Baghdad. The man in white is a supporter of the US-sponsored regime.

Eventually, by the fifth graph, we get the man in white's name. He is Sheikh Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, described as leader of the Rishawi tribe of al-Anbar province. He was accompanied by colleagues from Anbar, and also three Sheikhs from the south, Shiites, "in a show of sectarian unity". Sectarian unity is big right now, but since none of these other individuals were named, the depth of the cross-cultural warmth at this event wasn't entirely clear.

"The Sheikhs", Wong tells us, are the "founders of a group called the Anbar Salvation Council", formed in September to combat the proponents of the Iraqi Islamic Emirate in al-Anbar province. Actually there was some disagreement among the founders of this group on the question of the relationship to the Iraqi government and the US occupation, and al-Rishawi heads the pro-US wing. It may be the main wing, it may not. It was not necessary to go into this.

Dhari is called a thug in the lede to this story, and the Times says this reflects Dhari's "support for Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia," something that is not supported anywhere in the story. "The sheikhs", Wong writes, "were reacting to statements that the cleric, Harith al-Dhari, had made in interviews last week in which he criticized Sunni tribal leaders who had recently decided to take a stand against Al Qaeda". Wong doesn't tell us what interviews, or what he actually said. And there is a good reason for that. A reader given any facts at all would immediately realize that the issue between Dhari and the Sheikh isn't support or non-support for AlQaeda. It is support or non-support for the US-sponsored government in Baghdad.

Here's what I wrote last month about the formation of the Anbar Salvation Council and Abu Risha (or Rishawi), summarizing an Al-Hayat piece dated October 21.

On the one hand, the person described as the leader [of the Salvation Council], one Abu Risha, says the tribal people, former army officers, and others, are all available, and in fact already control the outskirts of Ramadi, but they are waiting for the necessary material and armaments support from the Iraqi government. But others say Abu Risha isn't the man to organize the tribes because too many of the urban leaders object to him. Moreover, some oppose the idea of accepting any support from either the Iraqi government or the US. Finally, relations with the existing armed resistance groups, including Islamic Army of Iraq and others, is completely unclear.

According to remarks to Al-Hayat published in the Saturday October 21 edition, the leader of the Salvation Council, or perhaps better described as the would-be leader, Abdul Satar Abu Risha, said all of the tribes and former army officers and current government police and army personnel are standing by waiting to hear from the office of Prime Minister Maliki the government's final answer to their request for assistance in the form of vehicles and arms. Abu Risha says the group as it now stands lacks the "material military capability" to sustain a military operation on the scale that taking back Ramadi would require. The group controls the area surrounding Ramada and all access points, he said, but lacks the wherewithal to go into the city proper.

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 [this was just after the disputed vote in parliament on the federalism-procedures law]. 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.

This morning (Sunday November 19), Al-Hayat again mentions Rishawi, describing him not as one of "the founders of a group called the Anbar Salvation Council", but merely as a prominent person in the Anbar tribal grouping, who has filed a complaint against al-Dhari for calling his group "a gang of thieves and highway robbers." Nothing about a dramatic performance at the Hotel Mansour. Nothing about calling al-Dhari a supporter of AlQaeda. That's all New York Times exclusive.

There you have it. Fitna or all-out civil war, not just in Al-Anbar, but everywhere. And the Times is there, should you need to smear an opponent in the international press and pour additional oil on the fire.

But the journalistic excitement! The ballroom of the Mansour Hotel in Baghdad; the silent observer Wong, his sidekick Khalid al-Ansari, the white-robed al-Rishawi, the sinister thug al-Dhari!

And how are things going in al-Anbar? Well, let's see. About a week ago, US forces appear to have massacred over 30 civilians in al-Ramadi during the night from Monday to Tuesday of this week. No Times reporting there.

And the military activities of Al-Rishawi's group? Another good question.

Al-Dhari's offence: He had been in talks with five heads of Arab states and the Arab League

The Iraqi newspaper Azzaman leads its Iraq-crisis story this morning (Saturday November 18) with this: "The Association of Muslim Scholars asked the Arab League to intervene with the government of Iraq and to halt the arrest warrant against Al-Dhari...and a number of Arab governments have asked Prime Minister Malaki to calm the situation by rescinding the warrant, which has caused a storm of protest in Baghdad and in other Arab capitals."

The Azzaman account also tells us some of the activities Al-Dhari had been involved in just prior to this arrest-warrant being issued. "[He] had been having conversations about the political process in Iraq with Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, the Jordanian king Abdullah II, the president of Syria Bashar Al-Asad, the Emir of Qatar Hamad bin Khalifa, and the president of the UAE; and also he had discussions in Cairo with a number of Egyptian authorities and also with Arab League secretary-general Amr Musa. And this [series of high-level talks] was what stirred up the resentment in Baghdad."

Azzaman adds: A reliable source said there were even efforts to scuttle Maliki's recent visit to Ankara, where Al-Dhari has a close relationship with Prime Minister Erdoghan. As it turned out, the announcement of the arrest warrant came while Maliki was in talks with Erdoghan.

The ultimate effect of the warrant-issuance was to make Al-Dhari appear as the leader of the Iraqi Sunnis, the newspaper says. The major Iraqi Sunni political parties lined up in solidarity with him, including those that had had public differences with him as recently as last month, including the Dialogue Front (Saleh al-Matlak), Islamic Party (Hashimi) and the National Accord (Dulaimi).

The big London dailies, Al-Quds al-Arabi and Al-Hayat, for their part, display countervailing spins on the fallout from this: Al-Quds quotes a number of leaders of the parties that are components of the Iraqi Accord alliance, threatening to exit the political process. (For instance, the Islamic Party called the warrant the "bullet representing the coup de grace for the National Reconciliation process," putting it out of its misery). Al-Hayat, by contrast, quotes extensively from remarks by an official spokesman for the Iraqi Accord itself urging a resumption of the political process based on the original multi-party agreement that was the basis for the formation of the Maliki government, and a document the Accord has prepared, which includes something the Accord spokesman called a "road-map for an exit from the crisis".

And the Americans, what are they hearing about this? Juan Cole cites the Azzaman story this morning, leaves out the main point about talks with Arab heads of state, notes that a couple of Shiites support Al-Dhari, and takes care to remind us that Al-Dhari is "accused of inciting to terrorism". (Actually he isn't, if the government spokesman is correct and this is merely an investigation warrant). But you get the picture.

First indications of the regionalization of the Iraq civil war

Al-Hayat reports this morning (Friday November 17) on the escalation in sectarian violence in Baghdad then adds this sentence: "With the rise in the ferocity of separation, particularly in Baghdad, which has witnessed in the recent period of time campaigns of Shiite-Sunni separation (in particular neighborhoods respectively), the head of the Iraqi Accord Front [Sunni; 44 seats in parliament], Adnan Dulaimi, in a speech he delivered in Amman on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Hasan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, called on the Sunni people to rescue Iraq from the Persian incursion, before Baghdad becomes a Safavid city." And the journalist immediately returns to a recitation of the Baghdad sectarian violence. There isn't any elaboration of Dulaimi's remarks, but the point clearly is that the Sunni leadership has started thinking of the Iraqi civil war in regional terms, and is starting to appeal to Sunni populations in the surrounding region for help.

Without getting into the question of authenticity or otherwise of the document, it is worth noting that one of the "incriminating documents" collection that Elaph.com referred to yesterday is purportedly a Badr organization analysis and action-advisory to all Shiites in Iraq, and it includes in its analysis what could well be considered background for the above-noted Dulaimi remarks.

The document describes the Sunni leadership as unhappy about their inability to achieve anything "through their comical participation in the political process", as a result of which the political and military leadership of the Sunnis has now decided on a "desperate attempt to break the blockade [that has been imposed on them] by means of alliances and treaties with neighboring governments (described as heretical Wahabi and 'propped up') particularly Saudi, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen and the Emirates, to change the political map-boundaries in Iraq and in the region, in coordination with the Anglo-American forces..."

It is for this reason, namely prospects of a pan-Sunni attack coordinated with the Americans, that the Badr organization calls for mobilization and closing of the Shiite ranks, in this document (which I repeat hasn't been confirmed as to authenticity). But my point is that whether this is a document composed by the Badr organization, or by parties pretending to be the Badr organization, doesn't alter the fact that what is assumed is this framework of Shiite anxiety about Sunni-regional cooperation with the Americans.

ADDED NOTE: Al-Dhari made remarks in an Al-Jazeera interview this morning, and among the points summarized by their website are the following: Al-Dhari said the Maliki government was trying to concoct a crisis with him in order to cover their blatant internal-security failures. In addition to that, Al-Dhari said, the government had tried to block him from visiting various Arab countries and forming relationships, in order that they (the Shiite government) could try and monopolize those relationships. This underlines the new (at least largely unreported) factor, namely the question of regional alliances.

There are some who think the issuance of the arrest warrant (now understood to be merely an investigation-warrant) was a Maliki ploy to prevent the Baker commission from promoting a tilt to the Sunnis in furtherance of a revival of the National Reconciliation. That is a somewhat Washington-centric view, where the situation is still seen as amenable to discussion. Naturally the Maliki administration wants to prevent any American tilt to the Sunnis, but the anxieties are now military ones, and the timing of the Dhari warrant seems clearly motivated by the desire to impede the current Sunni drive for alliances with the neighboring Sunni regimes.

Signs of a broader conflict in Iraq: And please note: The occupation is the enemy of both sides

Osama Mahdi had a busy evening in London on Thursday. At 6:30 he filed a piece for Elaph.com about the proliferation of attack documents in the Baghdad newspapers and web-sites, purportedly showing Shiite and Sunni leaders respectively preparing for broad-based sectarian attacks on the other side. One of them was a document purportedly issued by the Association of Muslim Scholars calling on people in Sunni neighborhoods to house displased Sunni families in houses recently vacated by Shiites. The purported statement called the Shiites "rejectionists". This is the expression used by the so-called takfiiri ("excommunicator") jihadi groups who consider Shiites among their top enemies. Mahdi says the newspapers that published this said that was tantamount to the AMS calling of Sunnis to kill Shiites. The purported statement also said the advisory (about housing) also included what it called "our brothers the Arab mujahideen". He said the AMS hadn't yet confirmed or denied the authenticity of the document.

Then at 11:45 he filed a story that said the Malaki government had issued an arrest warrant for Harith al-Dhari, head of the AMS, accusing him of fomenting sectarian violence. Al-Dhari is currently in the UAE.

As it happens, Tareq al-Hashimi, vice-president of Iraq and head of the Islamic Party, is also in the UAE, as is another Sunni leader, Adnan Dulaimi, head of the Iraqi Accord Front (44 seats in Parliament, the biggest Sunni group there). Reports have said the three have met in the UAE, and have discussed among other things the idea of the Iraqi Accord Front withdrawing from parliament and from the political process. And Mahdi adds: It is well known that the AMS and its leader Harith al-Dhari are opponents of the Maliki regime, which they describe as an agent of the occupation. The Maliki government is described as having asked Interpol to arrest al-Dhari.

Mahdi refers to remarks Al-Dhari made on Monday of this week (possibly interview remarks), in which he attacked the Maliki government and its current programs. He said federalism isn't the solution, but will make matters worse. And he said the National Reconciliation program, the way the Maliki administration is running it, is designed to get everyone into the political process without opposing the occupation, making it more of an appeal to criminals than to the resistance. He said the wave of killings and kidnappings are being carried out by the Americans, the Israelis, the British, the militias of the governing political parties, and by criminal gangs. But he said he doesn't thing there will be Sunni-Shiite civil war in Iraq. He said the proponents of civil war are those that arrived with the occupation, and have been trying to foment civil war to serve their particular interests since the first year. But they will not be in power for long, he said. Mahdi doesn't say exactly what statements of Al-Dhari triggered the arrest warrant, but you get the picture.

Back to the incriminating-documents story.

As it happens, vice-president Hashimi (who is also in the UAE) has been another topic in the incriminating-documents story. A Shiite website supervised by Shiite members of parliament, published a document purported on the presidency of the republic letterhead and signed by Hashimi, calling on the head of the Sunni Waqf (religious endowments) Agency to quit ignoring the Shiite attacks and promote "an Iraqi Arab campaign" to confront these attacks. Hashimi's office called this a crude forgery, noting mistakes in terminology and so on, in addition to poor printing. Hashimi's office described this as the work of someone not familiar with Iraq, maybe not even living in Iraq.

But the big item in the incriminating-documents story is a lengthy analysis and advisory purportedly issued by the Badr organization, part of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Mahdi says it has been published on Sunni websites. It warns Shiite factions to close ranks and prepare themselves for a possible attack by Sunni forces coordinated with the occupation, to be diligent in opposition to any proposals that could result in the return of the former army or former security officials. Mahdi says the authenticity of this document hasn't been confirmed or denied by the Badr organization.

Authentic or not, what the document shows is the prevalence of ideas of a coming broader conflict. And more important, that no matter which side you are on, "the occupation" is a major opponent. The Badr scenario envisages an attack by Sunnis coordinated with the occupation. And the Al-Dhari remarks illustrate the Sunni theory that the Shiite proponents of civil war are creatures of the occupation.

Resistance says Izzat rejected Yemeni president's proposal for US-resistance talks in Sanaa

Al-Quds al-Arabi publishes today, Thursday November 16, a statement by the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance, IPA (or Iraqi National Alliance, the umbrella group for the domestic resistance) that says Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Salah offered to host in Sanaa talks between the resistance and the Americans, a proposal which has been rejected by the resistance.

The statement says Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri deputized one of his people to go to the leadership of the IPA and discuss with them a variety of issues, including what transpired with respect to the Yemeni proposal. The IPA statement says the al-Duri delegate told them al-Duri had received a proposal from Ali Salah to host talks between America and the resistance in Sanaa, and that al-Duri had rejected the proposal, in keeping with the resistance position is that there will be no talks and no contacts with the Americans until they plainly and clearly agree to the prior demands of the resistance, which include a commitment to complete troop-withdrawal.

In any event, al-Duri is said to have added, he will not travel outside Iraq until the last of the occupation soldiers has left. When and if the Americans agree to the prior conditions, al-Duri is said to have replied, then the resistance will be ready to come to the table with a unified position.

The statement added that the al-Duri delegate repeated that there is no truth whatever to repeated rumors of contacts and/or talks between elements of the resistance and the Americans, describing these as part of PR and mukhabarat disinformation campaigns.

The Book of Condoleeza

According to the UAE newspaper al-Khaleej (Wednesday November 15), Syrian officials report progress in the direction of talks with the US. Muhammad Habash, a member of parliament and head of the Center for Islamic Studies, said official and quasi-official efforts by American, British and Syrian officials in that direction will likely result in the start of official talks by March. Habash said he had just completed a round of talks in that sense with a group of US religious institutions (surely indicating these talks are getting close to the heart and soul of the Bush administration). Habash said: "I'm not saying the Democrats are going to be friends of Syria, but at least they will be better able to understand what is in the interest of the United states, and distinguish it from what is in the interest of Israel." Another member of the Syrian parliament, George Jabour told the paper he too thinks Washington is backtracking on its isolate-Syria policy, having come to realize that Syria has a constructive role to play in the region. Jabour said the experience of sudden enlightenment on the road to Damascus is a tradition going back to St Paul.

On the other hand, the big American Syria blog toes the State Department line and says "US dialogue with Syria ruled out for now", actually repeating verbatim from the Book of Condoleeza where it says: "As Syria challenges the United States and its March 14 allies in Lebanon through continuing support of Hizbullah, Washington will refuse to reward it with dialogue on Iraq or the Golan". And the host professor backs this up with a half-dozen English-language analyses all leading to the same conclusion, topped off with a quotation from a right-wing blog about the devil Nasrullah, where you can read at the bottom: "Cross-posted to Right-wing Nuthouse".

There you have it. In the English language, you will not find anything about progress in the direction of US-Syria talks. In the Arabic language, you will not find anything about America shutting out the Syrians. That's because in the region of the world where this isn't a game, people tend to rely more on reality and logic.

"The Israeli concept"

Al Khaleej, the UAE newspaper, devotes its lead editorial to to an explanatory concept that separates Bush and Condoleeza Rice on the one side from Baker and others who are trying to help him on the other. It is "the Israeli concept". For Israel, the editorialist says, the world is simple. The more countries that can be made to submit to, or better yet be occupied by, the Americans, the easier it will be for Israel to ignore the rights of the Palestinians. And so they push for solving the problems of Iraq, and Iran, and Syria, before dealing with the Palestinians, because each element of American pressure on, or occupation of an Arab nation makes the Israeli position vis-a-vis the Palestinians that much easier to easier to maintain. It doesn't matter to the Israelis if the Americans get bogged down in new quagmires and is weakened strategically for the future, just as long as it serves Israeli interests in evading its legal responsibilities vis-a-vis the Palestinians. American policy, known for its pragmatism, completely abandons pragmatism and reason itself, when it goes along with this.

Condoleeza Rice has specifically denied that a Palestinian solution would help in Iraq, telling reporters that "Iraq is facing a fight that is peculiar to itself". To say that, the editorialist says, you have to go out of your way to abjure any knowledge of pre-invasion Iraq, which for all the despotism of the prior regime, was not subject to chronic chaos, not susceptible to fragmentation, or civil war. His concluding point is that certainly as long as there is the occupation, then in Condoleeza's phrase there "isn't any magic solution". But the point is that if you end the occupation, then there are many solutions. And you certainly don't bring a solution closer by multiplying the number of wars and occupations even more, which is what he calls the "Israeli concept".

Interestingly, a writer in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz puts this in the form of a nice aphorism. She notes that in 2004, Robert Gates (with Z. Brzezinski from the Carter era) chaired a Council on Foreign Relations study that said Palestine is the core issue in dealing with the Iranian issue and should be solved first, taking the wind out of the Iranians' anti-Americanism. And she describes Gates' approach this way: "He is of the school that thinks if you can't solve a problem with force, then you aren't going to be able to solve it with additional force."

And she says of Gates: "Like Baker, he believes that ending the occupation and the Arab-Israeli conflict are vital to the United States' Middle East agenda".

But as the Al-Khaleej editorialist says, "the American political mind is closed, and only Israel holds the key".

Massacre in Ramadi ? LA Times says there is still no comment from the US

The part of Al-Anbar province around Ramadi is where, at last report, local tribal leaders with the help of the domestic resistance were organizing to throw out the proponents of the "Islamic Emirate" from their Ramadi headquarters. I may have missed something, but the only subsequent reports I have seen had to do with sporadic American military operations. Now this.

During the night from Monday to Tuesday (Nov 13 to 14), according to US officials in Baghdad, there were three US military operations in the vicinity of Ramadi, killing 11 insurgents, with no reports of civilian casualties. Reuters, for its part, said that during that time medical officials at the Ramadi hospital said they received 30 bodies of persons killed, (others reported over 30) and another 17 injured. And Reuters quoted local residents to the effect the dead were civilians. The Quds Press person in Ramadi, for his part, said the American forces attacked several residential areas with heavy artillery and tanks, and the area of al-Dubbat in particular, where about 20 homes were destroyed, the attacks there including attacks from the air. Another report said families were trapped inside houses that were leveled, having been ordered to stay indoors by an American curfew, and heavy equipment operators were refusing to come to the area to help with the rescue operation, fearing repetition of the attacks.

The LA Times on Wednesday November 15 said its correspondent in Ramadi confirmed there were over 30 dead, including women and children, that houses had been pulverized and people were seen digging through the rubble with their bare hands, and that rescue-vehicle access was impeded by the Americans. Comments by relatives of the victims included: "The national reconciliation is a fiasco"; and the "Salvation committee is useless, they are calling for peace when it is a time for jihad". The LA Times correspondent saw a large group trying to flee Ramadi fearing further attacks. The paper said the US military still has no comment beyond its initial announcement about 11 insurgents killed in three incidents, with no reports of civilian casualties.

(Today, a website that could be described as either resistance- or jihadi-oriented, or a little of both, said eye-witnesses reported the US evacuating a major base on the grounds of the University of Al-Anbar, west of the city. They said they saw vehicles and materiel being evacuated, and reported that the high cement fence, barbed wire and surveillance cameras were also being dismanteled).

Bush will accept the regional-conference idea, but strictly limited to the Iraq crisis

A Washington reporter for Al-Hayat says Washington insiders Dennis Ross and Vali Nasr predict Bush will accept recommendations of the Baker group for talks with Iran, and will in fact recommend a regional conference on Iraq, but they stress that the proposal will be that these talks be strictly limited to Iraq and include nothing else. Nasr is said to have likened the proposed conference to the Taif conference of 1989 that laid the groundwork a realignment of the sectarian forces in Lebanon, ending the civil war there. Ross was a special Mideast representative between 1989 and 2000, working for both Bush I and Clinton. Nasr is an Iranian specialist said to be currently advising the White House.

Both Ross and Nasr have been careful to stress first and foremost that the proposed talks won't go beyond the question of Iraq. Ross said this is because the Iraq crisis is the most pressing, and also because the current Bush administration has no interest in opening any new files in the region, such as for instance the question of peace (Israel-Palestine), or that of Lebanon. Nasr, however, says that if the Iraq talks are successful, this could lead to an additional set of talks respecting other issues, including Iran-nuclear, Hamas, and Lebanon.

The reporter refers to "former US officials and current advisers", but it isn't clear whether this relies on others besides Ross and Nasr, or not. But in any event, the points seem well firmed-up: Talks will be proposed, but not in any context where there could be quid-pro-quo concessions to Iran or others in exchange for their help. This will be excluded in principle. The reporter is merely telling us what seems to be in the cards. She doesn't get into the question why on earth anyone would expect free and uncompensated help from these regimes.

The bad scenario

Abdulbari Atwan, writing in this morning's Al-Quds al-Arabi, says the mass kidnapping at the Education Ministry (following on earlier assassinations of intellectuals and others) is an indication that the destruction of the country now includes a concerted plan to stultify the coming generation and set back the country for decades to come. He says this is happening in an environment where neighboring countries, first and foremost Iran, are developing nuclear programs. Given the complete collapse of security in Iraq, he says it wouldn't be surprising to see Bush withdraw his troops ignominiously to minimize further losses, and to prepare for the next war, against Iran. Atwan adds that it was the Jewish lobby in Washington that promoted the war against Iraq, and it is the same group involved in the current run-up to war in Iran.

Tony Blair, for his part, hoping to avoid having to join Rumsfeld in the war-criminals department, has started touting the idea of asking for help from Syria and Iran.

Atwan scratches his head and wonders: Iran is looking to regional advantage, and Syria to having the US bogged down in Iraq and too busy to topple the Syrian regime, and there is little they could do to add to the advantages the US and its allies have already handed them. So what would induce these axis-of-evil countries to send troops to Iraq at the US request to try and pacify the place, and would it really serve that purpose anyway?

He runs through the main aims of Syria and Iran, the former looking for the return of the Golan and Israeli withdrawal from "most of the occupied lands", restoration of its political role in the region generally, and its particular influence in Lebanon; the latter looking to be recognized as a major nuclear power in the region. A deal will not come about, and the reason is Israel. It would not voluntarily agree to any of this; and the the chances of the US forcing it to do so are "probably less than one in a million".

Having disposed of the theory of Syrian-Iranian assistance, Atwan adds: In any event, it isn't possible at the moment to see how there is any honorable exit possibility for the Americans, because unlike the Vietnam end-game, the Iranian situation doesn't offer any counterparty representing all or most of the country, with which to negotiate. At least not unless the Americans were willing to turn the clock back to the pre-invasion situation, which "isn't conceivable at least not at the present moment", Atwan says.

The worst scenario, and one that seems to be crystallizing rapidly and frighteningly, would be for Bush to flee from Iraq and turn his attention to a new war with Iran, and the Jewish lobby will embellish for him the advantages of such a war, just as they beautified for him the idea of a war on Iraq.

That would become an unprecedented Third World War, Atwan says, resulting in the end of America as a great power, and possibly the end of Israel too.

Olmert a weak negotiator?

An opinion piece in Maariv on Monday November 13 by Menachem Benn (via the Arabic translation in Al-Quds al-Arabi) gave voice to fears by Israeli conservatives that Prime Minister Olmert perhaps doesn't grasp firmly enough the correct principles of negotiating, and might end up giving away the store. Benn begins with two examples: First the case of negotiating the return of the Israeli soldier, noting that Olmert has already said Israel is ready to release "many" Palestinian prisoners, just not to Hamas but only to Abbas: "As if we were in kindergarten," writes Benn, expressing the additional fear that probably the release of the fighter Bargouthi has also been already committed to.

Benn's second example of Olmert's bad negotiating technique has to do with his defensive reaction to the question of negotiating with Syria. I'm not exactly sure what Benn is saying in this connection, except that he thinks Olmert's refusal to negotiate isn't principled enough, and that he is too close to agreeing to negotiate, which in turn would involve preparations for giving up the Golan Heights. In any event, for Benn, this is another case of negotiating weakness.

But his biggest beef is on the question of the Palestinians' "right of return", something Palestinians always insist on and Israel traditionally rejects, but Benn says he detects a creeping infiltration of the idea into the Israeli negotiating posture. For instance, an Israel cabinet minister reacted favorably to the Saudi peace initiative, which included the right of return; then there was more recently favorable Israeli reaction to the Palestinian so-called "prisoners document" (a cross-faction Fatah-Hamas statement of agreement on basic principles) which was also based on the idea of the right of return. This has gone so far that when Abbas recently said in a statement that the Palestinians would absolutely not give up the right of return, no one in Israeli public life ventured to criticize that.

What has happened, says Benn, is that instead of Israel saying loud and clear that it sticks to the justice of its position against the rejection of the Arabs and the Palestinians, and instead of saying whoever talks about the right of return is ruling out the possibility of peace--instead of doing that, Israelis have started to differentiate between the "bad Arabs" who want to do away with Israel immediately, and the "good Arabs" who would do away with Israel in the longer term, via the right of return. It has come to this, says Benn that people think: "Peace is now; who cares if Israel is abolished later."

On the right of return, Benn doesn't accuse Olmert of any specific missteps, but clearly he is worried about a general lack of firmness.

Iraq-Saudi security fence

Iraqi newspaper Al-Mada reports remarks by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naef bin Abdulaziz, one of the top members of the ruling family, on the topic of the planned Saudi-Iraq security fence. Prince Naef said this is a fence that will run the full 900 km of the Saudi-Iraq border; administrative work has already begun, and construction will start next year. It could take five or six years to complete. The journalist explains he is concerned about "Islamist extremists" who came from Saudi Arabia to join armed groups in Iraq, many of whom have been captured and sentenced either to death of prison, but others of whom will be trying to re-enter Saudi Arabia at some point. The fence is to keep them out. Prince Naef said all of Iraq's neighbors are concerned about spillover security issues, "because in a situation where the international forces are fighting a bitter war against the terrorist organizations, and at the same time trying to stave off a civil war, they aren't [also] able to control the borders."

The point about five or six years to completion is one indication, if any were needed, that this is being treated in the region as a long-term problem.

Troglodytes on the move (with two supplements from the comments)

Reuters in Araic reports today (Tuesday November 14) that the Jordanian government is studying the possibility of sending to Palestine "the Badr forces, which are part of the Palestine Liberation Army" to help anchor stability in Palestine. Got the date wrong by a couple of decades, you say? Not at all! Government spokesman Nasr Jawda said this is under discussion right now in the Jordanian government. He said Jordan supports any and all efforts to strengthen the security and stability of Palestine, in order to create an appropriate environment for pushing the peace process ahead. Jordan, he said, "will not spare any efforts in aid of our brothers the Palestinians", (short of doing anything that might anger Israel or the US).

Reuters explains that the Badr forces were founded in Jordan in 1964 (sixty-four) as part of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Jordan. They are currently around 1500 strong, and a member said they are in constant state of training. There isn't any further elaboration.

(In the comments, the erudite Non-Arab Arab enlightens us: These are Fatah-loyal forces. This is part and parcel of the US-Israeli support for "moderates", meaning to "stoke civil war against the results of democracy whenever they don't suit US-Israeli plans").

And for those who, like myself, aren't completely up to speed on the new and the old in US coup-promotion, Compulsive Reader suggests in the comments we take a look at this article by Columbia U. professor Joseph Massad called "Pinochet in Palestine". He says Ramallah is currently functioning as a Green Zone for the Fatah and their band of supporters.

This isn't the only manifestation of the new Jordanian dynamism available in the Arab press today. Al-Hayat prints a lengthy piece by Jordanian writer Rana Sabbagh, based mostly on private conversations with unnamed Jordanian authorities, of somewhat uncertain import, but whose theme is that while Jordan certainly is "maintaining its distance" from the Palestinian situation, in undisclosed ways it is planning to become more proactive.

Everyone has heard of "the Quartet", which includes the US, the UN, the EU and Russia. But how many of us have heard of the "baby" or "perinatal Quartet", which consists of Amman, Riyadh, Cairo and Abu Dhabi? Rana Sabbagh tells is this new Arab quartet is quite involved in the Palestinian situation, in fact they have arranged for a "distribution of roles", according to which, for instance, Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman got involved in Hamas-Fatah negotiations, and King Abdullah II is tasked with visiting Washington soon to talk to newly-elected Congressmen and so on, to urge the US to get moving again on the peace process. This, she says, is cleverly timed to correspond to Bush's advice to Olmert: "Military operations are fine, but you need to use political operations too". Naturally much of this is still hush-hush, but her point is that what she calls the "pessimism" on the Jordanian street about an aimless Jordanian position on Palestine isn't justified at all.

A lot of the argument in this piece has to do with Jordanian regime fears about what could happen if it got prematurely or too openly involved in Palestine. There is a reference to fears of pressure for some kind of a "confederation" or "federalism" involving the West and East Banks of the Jordan. The background for this isn't explained. She refers in conclusion to certain constitutional and legal features of the current Jordanian system, in connection with this issue, which apparently the regime would like to do away with. Hopefully someone somewhere will be able to explain what this is all about.

Self-help fronts reported to be forming to fight the Iranians

So far there have been reports of provincial-level self-help "salvation councils" in Al-Anbar province (originally in response to the AlQaeda/Islamic Emirate presence in Ramadi); and then in Ninawa province (which includes Mosul, in response to Islamic Emirate activities in that city). Today the news service Quds Press reports on something similar in Diyala province, directly north of Baghdad. There have been reports of AlQaeda/Islamic Emirate activity in that region, but this effort is described as a defence not against AlQaeda or the Islamic emirate, but rather against the Iranian influence.

The report says: "Ten political and civic groups have formed a broad front to protect Diyala from Iranian influence, which has turned the city of Diyala into one of the most violent in the country, after Baghdad". The announcement said the new coalition "will take upon itself the protection of Diyala from Iranian control".

The coalition is called "Patriotic (Wataniy) Front for the Salvation of Diyala". The member-groups include: Arab Socialist Movement; Iraqi Front for National Dialogue; Islamic Party; Independent Patriotic Notables Group (?); Turkmen Justice Party; Diyala section of the Iraqi Commission for establishment of a Civic Assembly; and others. The initial announcement said the security situation in the province is intolerable, with problems including killing of patriotic citizens by both the forces of the Interior Ministry and the Defence Ministry of the government, so that not only has civic life has for all intents and purposes come to a halt, but people are frightened even in their own homes.

This news item doesn't say anything about concrete security or military plans of this group, focusing instead on the background.

The group's statement describes Diyala as strategically the gateway to Baghdad [from the north and east], making it fertile ground for the foreign elements to organize themselves, and in particular the Iranians. It said the national and local governments have proven themselves incapable of defending against this, and instead have in effect opened the gates to an inundation of agents and destroyers moving from Iran to Iraq via this province.

And it said these views about Iranians coming to Iraq, and Revolutionary Guard people and Iranian intelligence people penetrating the Iraqi law-enforcement agencies, has started to be taken up by politicians too, citing a recent accusation made by one Saad al-Janani, head of something called Iraqi Republican Assembly, who said the Iranians are behind the collapse of security in Iraq.

And this item concludes by noting something similar is happening in Basra, where an armed group calling itself "Southern Brigades" has formed to fight what it describes as agents of the Iranian regime in Basra. This is mentioned as something similar to the Diyala project, but it isn't elaborated on at all.

Western news sanitized following the US veto

Today (Monday November 13) Al-Quds al-Arabi reports the same basic facts as the Western press about Arab reaction to the US veto of the Security Council resolution criticizing the Beit Hanoun killings, but with a couple of points that the Western press leaves out.

The first point is that the Arab foreign ministers' decision to "lift the financial blockade" against Palestine, supposedly to express their outrage or something like that, was hypocritical in the extreme, for instance given the fact that Egypt continues to keep the Rafah crossing closed for fear of angering the Israelis. In fact the decision was taken only after the ministers assured themselves that the decision on a new Palestinian government will result in American and international lifting the blockade anyway, so this wasn't courageous at all. On the contrary, it was another manifestation of their total submission to the Americans.

The second point is that four Palestinian armed factions issued a statement calling on mujahideen everywhere to attack American interests, in retaliation for what the Americans have done in Iraq and Palestine. The four groups are the Salahadeen group affiliated with the Popular Resistance Committees; the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade; a group named after Ahmad Abu al-Reesh the Sword of Islam; and the Fatah Fighters, Unitary Brigades, or some such name. Al-Quds said the statement comes in response to the US veto of the UN resolution criticising Israel for the Beit Hanoun killings. The statement called on all free people of the world, and all the mujahideen of the Islamic ummah to "satiate the Americans with attacks..." adding that what the Americans have sown with their guns and their airplanes, this is what they should reap. Traditionally, there has been a very strong inclination on the part of the Palestinian resistance to keep their struggle strictly domestic. It is possible that as a result of Beit Hanoun and the US veto, something has snapped.

Iraqi Patriotic Alliance to be invited to visit Venezuela

The Iraqi Patriotic (or "National") Alliance, which is the umbrella group for for the domestic, mostly Sunni resistance, including its Baath wing and many others, says a delegate has had three meetings with a high-level representative of the government of Venezuela, (this is reported in Al-Quds al-Arabi and datelined London) and has passed on to the Venezuelan leadership a personal message from Izzat Ibrahim expressing the high esteem of the Iraqi resistance and the Iraqi people for the courageous and just attitude of Venezuela and all the governments of Latin America against the American and Zionist occupations of Iraq and Palestine.

The body of this item tells how the delegate explained the exploits of the resistance and the invalidity of the Saddam trial, after which the Venezuelan representative expressed his country's unconditional support for the resistance, adding that an invitation for a Patriotic Alliance delegation to visit Venezuela will be prepared after the December presidential elections.

Al-Quds for all your Israel news

Local leaders of Israeli northern villages bordering Lebanon commemorated the passage of three months since the end of the Lebanon war with a warning. During these three months the Israeli government has ignored them and has failed to follow through on promises of compensation for war-damages. If this continues, they say they will sever all links with the Israeli government, and study ways of cutting through the border and ask the Lebanese government to look after them.

I came upon this in an Arabic version in Al-Quds al-Arabi, which was datelined UPI and cited the website of the Israeli paper Yehdioth Ahronoth (I'm going to call it YA, if you don't mind). Unable to find any trace of the UPI story, I went to Ynet.com which is YA's English-language site. The piece is there in an English version, but you'd never find it there either, because it's slotted into their "Money" section.

I mention all of this as a buildup to something: Unlike the US media, papers like Al-Quds al-Arabi go out of their way to present a full rendition of those views that are the opposite of their own, and this includes, in the case of Al-Quds, a full page every day of Arabic translations of Hebrew-language articles from the Israeli papers.

Taking the major Israeli papers from left to right, Haaretz in puts all or most of its content into an English version on its Haaretz.com website, apparently in more or less timely fashion. Ynet.com reproduces only some of its content in English, and Maariv offers none. So in the case of the last two, if you know a little Arabic, your best bet for the news from Israel is Al-Quds al-Arabi.

Bringing me to the next point, which is that Alex Fishman, military reporter for YA wrote an important piece that appeared, I guess, on Friday, and which Al-Quds reproduced on the weekend in Arabic. He said the Beit Hanoun "errant shelling" incident was a gift from heaven for Hamas, and it places the incident in the context of the broader Mideast picture. The gist of his argument is summarized in the post just ahead of this one.

Hamas to Israeli Defence Forces: Thank you for the lovely gift

NOTE: Please read the next post, "Al-Quds for all your Israel news" first. The order of these two posts got reversed.

The weekend Al-Quds al-Arabi carried a lengthy translation of a piece that appeared Friday by Alex Fishman, military correspondent for Yedioth Ahronoth, which is worth paying attention to, because it represents a mainstream Israeli view of how the US election, Iraq, and the "errant mortar fire" in Beit Hanoun will likely work together to spell increased political and military difficulties for Israel.

The main points are fairly easy to understand. Now that the election is over, Bush is able to ease his fundamentalist "no truck with terrorists" line. Moreover, to provide political cover in the region for an Iraq-withdrawal plan, he needs among other things to be seen as helpful in easing the Palestinian crisis. What the Israelis have been trying to do, Fishman says, is to very carefully and gradually move back into Gaza in order to try and prevent a gradual rearmament of Hamas and thus prevent another Lebanon. In that Israel has up to now been supported by Bush. And it has been supported by Bush in the political side of that, which has been to try and topple Hamas. In fact, writes Fishman, before the Beit Hanoun catastrophe, Fatah and Hamas were at loggerheads, and a civil war seemed imminent. But Beit Hanoun and the "Autmn Clouds" operation of which it was a part, altered the mood entirely.

Fishman's main point: In the new Washington political environment, it was already going to be somewhat difficult to get automatic renewals of the "green light" for these military re-occupation operations, and now, with the Beit Hanoun incident fresh in everyone's mind, it is going to be very difficult. And the same goes for the all-out political attack on Hamas. Now, says Fishman, it is much more likely that Bush will switch to a policy--unannounced of course--of indirect recognition of Hamas, in the form of a new government of technocrats, which however will still be mostly under the influence of Hamas.

Hamas should be sending the Israeli military authorities flowers, Fishman writes.

Two new Iraqi-nationalist proposals that you might not hear much about (with additional information from the comments)

There have been a couple of potentially important political developments in Iraq in the last few days, which, since they don't fit any of the prevailing media or academic themes or hobby-horses, stand a good chance of passing completely unnoticed in the mainstream.

First, there was a report in Al-Quds al-Arabi in its weekend edition on the formation by nine local political parties and/or movements in Basra of a coalition called "National Movement in Basra" (Tayyar al-Watanii fii al-Basra) to do what the official city council (provincial council actually) has, it says, been unable to do, namely face up to the deteriorating security and public-services conditions in the city. The initial statement says the parties that control council, hampered by internal bickering, have been unable or unwilling to get together and reach out for help from the wide range of groups that you would need in orcer to be effective.

The names of the participating parties and/or movements: National Accord Movement; National Movement of Intifada Insurgents; Popular Democratic Gathering; National Democratic Party; Gathering for Democracy; Iraqi Communist Party; Socialist Arab Movement; Movement for Iraqi National Unity; Gathering of those Committed to Democracy. (A shorter and less-informative piece on this in the Sunday Asharq al-Awsat says there are eight parties in this group, but it doesn't list them).

Not a religious or a separatist or a federalist party among them. Instead this appears to be a group of secular Iraqi nationalists. There is a long tradition of secular Iraqi nationalism in Basra, but it is not a trend that has found favor with the North American political science community, as Reidar Visser notes in his book "Basra, the Failed Gulf State: Separatism and Nationalism in Southern Iraq (Berlin, 2005). If you can't get the book you could take a look at the review in the Al-Ahram Weekly earlier this year.

The other important thing to note about the initial statement by this group is that its immediate concerns have to do with local conditions in Basra. Although the orientation of the participating groups is clearly Iraqi-nationalist, this is not a manifesto relating to national politics. There is enough to do in Basra. But the theme, overcoming sectarian in-fighting, is a nationalist one.

(From the Comments: Reidar Visser says the biggest weight in this local Basra alliance is the Iraqi National Accord ("Wifaq"), the secular group which is also present on the national level. Together with another four of the component groups, they got around 75,000 out of the 700,000 votes cast in the latest provincial-council election. Which might not be terribly impressive as an electoral result, but Visser notes these are mostly militia-less groups, so considering the intimidating environment, real popular support could be higher).

Separately, there has been another new-coalition proposal made recently, this one on the national level, initiated by something called the "organization of proponents of the Call" (Tanziim al-Ansar al-Dawa), clearly a relative of some kind of the Dawa Party which is a major component of the governing UIA coalition. The new coalition it is proposing is called the National Iraqi Gathering. A fairly detailed report about this proposal is published in Asharq al-Awsat this morning (Sunday November 12).

We are a little late to this proposal, which the paper says was first made a few days ago, the big news today being that one of the Najaf religious authorities the ayatollah Yaqubi, spiritual authority of the Fadhila Party (also a UIA member, with 15 seats in parliament), has endorsed the plan. Mazan Makiya, Dawa spokesman for this project, said the Yaqubi endorsement is their first from any of the Najaf authorities, but he said they already have cross-group support from various members of the Sadrist movement, the [Iraqi National] Accord, the [National] Dialogue [Front], along with some from the Iraqi List (Allawi's group). In other words, this appears to be an attempt to formalize the relationship between the main "nationalist" (in practical political terms, opponents of federalism) groups on the national political scene.

Makiya said: The Iraqi experience since the American attack in 2003 has demonstrated the inability of the existing political parties to go beyond their "narrow special interests, and their ideological sacraments" in a way that could save Iraq from the fate that appears to be awaiting it. To make a long story short, he says the elected political parties have ended up abdicating their responsibility to the nation as a whole, and giving in to the temptation sectarian in-fighting.

Of particular interest to American readers should be his analysis of the "the new American strategy" in Iraq, which he describes as focused on extricating America from a situation that is "distressing [to America] both domestically and globally, even if that [extrication] is at the expense of the democratic experiment in Iraq, which has cost us so many victims." The appeal, which is not only to political parties, but to other groups and tribes and so on as well, refers to the risk currently facing Iraq of being "dispersed and [the various parts] snatched up".

The first and most obvious points to make about these two proposals are (1) that they are two different proposals, not the same proposal. (Juan Cole today, depressingly, thinks they are the same proposal); and (2) although one is focused on the local level, and the other on the national level, both have a common theme, namely the overcoming of sectarian in-fighting in order to avoid the fate that American policy seems to have in store for the country, namely an exit without consideration for the Iraqi national welfare.

Al-Duri calls for an "open front" in the war against the occupation; more signs of political collapse

Al-Quds al-Arabi publishes a summary of a statement by Baath resistance leaderIzzat Ibrahim al-Duri denouncing the recent AP-originated story about laying down their arms, and attributing it to the occuption's disinformation campaign. Al-Duri writes: "Let the dogs of Rome (meaning the empire), and before them the Safavid dogs of Persia know, crouched in their Green Zone fortress, that the coming days will be darker for them than a moonless night..." which is his way of saying they haven't laid down their arms. Moreover, Al-Duri goes out of his way to deny that there are any contacts at all between the Baath resistance and the Americans, in Amman or anywhere else. And he says there won't be until the conditions that were originally laid down have been met (timetable for withdrawal, restoration of the Baath, and so on). Which suggests that at least from the Baath point of view, any contacts there may have been in the past have not led to any continuing contacts.

Also, al-Duri calls on supporters for a high degree of cooperation between the Baath resistance and other armed anti-occupation groups. He called on "members of the [Baath] party to participate in facilitating the entry of Arab and Islamic mujadideen, in order that they can join the ranks of the fighters against the occupation, and so that the land of the Rafideen will become an open front for retaliation against the American and British occupation, and those who cooperate with them."

In another report on the same page, Al-Quds cites remarks by Sheikh Ali al-Abeidi, head of the Abeid tribe in central Iraq, who said: "The leaders of the Abeid tribe understand that the American occupation and the Maliki government have ignored their demands" in connection with reconciliation, presumably made in the recent talks in Amman. And he added that "the death-sentence for Saddam was imposed by order of Bush." In a similar vein, Sheikh Hamid al-Ajili, speaking for a number of tribes around Baiji, Tikrit, Samara and Balad, north of Baghdad, said his group had a quick meeting to discuss ending all discussions with this sectarian government, for which, they are convinced, the Saddam sentencing will prove to have been the "beginning of the end" for it (the government).

And the reporter quotes Fawaz al-Dulaimi, representative of the leaders of the Dulaim tribe in al-Anbar, who said: "Let the dogs of Rome in the White House know that the execution of Saddam will cause a reaction in Iraq in general, and in al-Anbar in particular, involving more death for the soldiers of the aggression".

Finally, to round out this page of news about the decline of the political and negotiating process, Al-Quds prints a summary of a statement by two groups that are part of the Iraqi Accord Front (44 members out of 275), National Dialogue Council, and Coalition of Independents, calling on the IAF as a whole to withdraw from the political process. The statement accuses the government of extremism and lack of power-sharing, using the state-or-emergency law to faciliate violence, and so on. Participation by the IAF in the government has become nothing but a legal cover for government attacks on the Iraqi people, the statement says.
The statement said "the civil war has already begun, but for political reasons this has not been ackowledged."

First hints of an actual policy-change proposal: Crackdown on the militias in exchange for a withdrawal-start in 18 months

Al-Hayat assigned two Washington reporters to write about prospects for a changed US stance in Iraq, but the result is disappointing. They start us off with the point about "expectations of fundamental change" in Iraq policy, particularly because the new Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, is also a member of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group, and also because of the pressure of the election-results. And the headline itself says "Bush willing to work with Congress", which would also be a change. But it is downhill from there.

The reporters note Bush has also been repeating his usual phrases about "central front in the war on terror"; "victory"; and so on, suggesting change isn't a sure thing, and reminding everyone of his presidential authority.

With that as preface, the reporters cite recent interview remarks with a senior US intelligence official who told them the Baker commission "won't necessarily be recommending what is best for Iraq or for the region, but rather what is best for America and its withdrawal with the least possible losses." And they said the official seemed reluctant to confirm already-leaked points relating to recommending talks with Syria and Iran. Not much there.

Then they talked to David Mack, former deputy assistant sec'y for mideast affairs, who was involved in the 2002 Iraq Future study in the State Department. But Mack couldn't tell them that much either. He talked about correcting errors, including reversing some of the excessive de-Baathfication measures. His main point was merely that Bush's personal influence will probably be diminished, and the gist of the new policy will likely come from the Baker commission.

Michael Rubin, a former Defence Department person, disagreed even with that. He said the last word still belongs to the president, or words to that effect.

The exasperated reader scrolls down and sees he has only one paragraph left. He grips the keyboard, white-knuckled. Yes! The journalist says they asked one other question of Mack, about the exact details of any withdrawal. Well, said Mack, Democrats and Republicans are both agreed that stability has to come first, before any thought of withdrawal. But probably there will be a gradual draw-down of troop levels in the two remaining years of the Bush administration. That's it.

Azzaman has been able to come up with a little more, in its Saturday edition by combining Washington with Baghdad reporting, and focusing on any likely immediate effects in Baghdad. Their story goes like this: Peter Pace, head of the joint chiefs of staff, said a group of generals is preparing a package of recommendations for Bush on changes to Iraq strategy following the Rumsfeld departure. The rest of what Pace said was argle-bargle, but the Azzaman team wasn't deterred by that. Talking to Iraqi politicians, they found that the Iraqi parties, particularly those with militias, have been meeting secretly for two days straight, trying to figure out what the Rumsfeld departure might mean for them. And one result, Azzaman says, has been an all-points order to the various militias to hide their weapons, limit the locations at which they appear publicly, and generally prepare for the possibility of surprise attacks. Switching back to Washington, the story quotes US sources as saying the changes could include "more pressure on the Iraqi government to disarm the militias", and that in exchange for that, there could be agreement on a "timetable for withdrawal". "And the sources didn't rule out that the withdrawal could begin within 18 months, or in other words prior to the end of the Bush administration. But the sources added that this issue could still be unresolved at the time of the next presidential election..." In other words, there is talk of a promise to start the withdrawal within 18 months, but that wouldnt necessarily mean that Bush's successor won't face issues respecting this. And it seems that at least part of the quid pro quo would be disarming the militias (or launching a US attack on them).

One point worth noting is that what Azzaman heard about a timetable for withdrawal starting within 18 months doesn't contradict what Al-Hayat has heard about a gradual draw-down in the coming two years. But it isn't clear what if anything this recommendation of the generals (if that is what it is) has to do with the Baker commission.

Whither barbarism (A moderate view in Al-Quds al-Arabi)

David Grossman, the famous Israeli author who lost a son in the recent war with Lebanon, gave a speech at the Rabin memorial recently (November 5, full text here and some comments here). He said Israel and Zionism are in a crisis, deeper than any could have imagined in earlier times, and he called on the government to drop the posturing, negotiate with the Palestinians, and end the suffering of both sides. Many found it a very moving speech. Among them Subhi Hadidi, a Syrian writer, best known until recently as a critic of the authoritarian Syrian regime, and now a regular columnist for al-Quds al-Arabi. Hadidi's column today is called "Beit Hanoun in the New Middle East: the disclosure of contemporary barbarism."

The "new Middle East" is a reference to Condoleeza Rice and her famous statement just before the recent Lebanon destruction, to the effect that we will be seeing the birth-pangs of a new Middle East. Hadidi notes that from that day to this, Ms Rice has swallowed her tougue each time she might have been tempted to explain what the phrase means. Quite understandable, writes Hadidi. And quite understandable too the fact that she and her government have had nothing to say about the Beit Hanoun massacre. (By way of background: On the same page, Al-Quds writes in its main editorial that we shouldn't be surprised if Olmert ordered the massacre, because it wouldn't be out of character for someone who has made the racist politician Avigdor Lieberman the deputy prime minister in his government. On Lieberman in historical context, see this). In any event, Hadidi's particular point is that Ms Rice, not surprisingly, has done nothing to restrain the Israeli government as it descends into this type of action. Rather, he notes, the restraint, insofar as there is any, is in the common conscience and collective memory of the Israelis. He cites Jewish scripture. And he cites David Grossman, linked above. The tone is borderline prophetic: "They have forgotten the holocaust, except to mention it from time to time..."

While on a human level Hadidi and Grossman, and surely their readers too, can come to a meeting of the hearts and minds on the horror of this and the need to call a halt, his point is that the US government is working in the opposite direction. It supports the Israeli government in all that it does, even in this. Hadidi's concluding rhetorical point, much appreciated judging from the reader-comments the Al-Quds appends to all its articles, is that Ms Rice's unconcern is in a way appropriate. Would it have been fitting for her to express a greater concern that that of her boss in the White House? Or for that matter, Hadidi adds as an afterthought, would it have been fitting for her to express any greater concern that that of the great kings an emirs of the Arab world?

A post Beit Hanoun sampler

The Gaza-based newspaper Al-Samidun ("those who resist") says in its edition of Thursday November 9 that a number of armed factions are calling for a resumption of suicide operations inside Israel in response to the Beit Hanoun massacre--"technical error", I beg your pardon--which it says brought the death toll of Palestinians to 5557 since the beginning of the intifada in September 2000, citing figures compiled by Agence France Presse. The paper quotes a Hamas leader Nazar Riyan calling on "mujahideen everywhere to resume martyrdom operations within Palestine-48, in Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jaffa and elsewhere, in response to the Israeli crimes and massacres." And the paper says the same appeals were made by the military wings of Fatah and other factions. Palestine-48 is a name for Palestine as it existed prior to the creation of Israel in 1948.

Another Palestinian paper, Al-Quds (not the UK paper) cites a statement by Khaled Meshaal, the Damascus-based political leader of Hamas, in which he echoes in more general terms the call for each of the resistance factions to resume its resistance programs. Meshaal didn't mention the silence of the Arab regimes, but he called on ordinary Arabs to step up to their shared responsibility in this. He said the Palestinians would like to see "the street bestir itself, in Cairo, Damascus, Beirut, Amman and the Gulf", and elsewhere from South Africa to Indonesia. Finally he added the Palestinians would like to see "the clerics of the ummah, and in particular Yusuf al-Qaradawi, join in with us..." Qaradawi hosts the very popular "Shariah and Life" program on Al-Jazeera.

Al-Quds also quotes Hasan Nasrullah, the leader of the Lebanese Hizbullah, calling for the sending of "money and arms and medicine to the defiant ("samid", same word as the name of the Gaza newspaper) Palestinian people, who are capable of repeating the kind of victory that has occured in Lebanon." Then in a prophetic tone, Hasrullah asks: "Where are the Arabs? Where are the rulers of the Arabs, and their proud people?..."

Finally, Abdulbari Atwan, editor and publisher of Al-Quds al-Arabi in London, but himself a Palestinian, has had it with asking where are the Arabs. Today he writes: "It grieves me when the bereaved mothers ask about the Arabs and their armies, these calls for help which they perhaps know that no one is listening to, or if they are listening they turn aside, or they turn off the television, or they look for another channel with music and dancing to soothe them..." because the Palestinians know what the Iraqis have also learned, that their blood means nothing to the leaders of the Arab regimes. The regimes are complicit in the oppression of the Palestinians, he says, and it is useless to try to deal with them. It would make more sense, Atwan says, "to look for help from leaders of Asia, or of Africa, or of Latin America like Ortega and Chavez; or Ahmedinejad, or Vladimir Putin. Because the chances of a positive response from them are far greater than [the chances of any help] from the majority of the Arab leaders."

Policy-change for dummies

Sunni political parties in Iraq continue to move away from the political process and into more of an alignment with the armed resistance. And the Baath wing of the resistance threatens to go beyond straight nationalism to a policy of bleeding the American empire on Iraqi soil. Similarly with respect to Palestine, the most widely-read Palestinian, Abdulbari Atwan, publisher of Al-Quds al-Arabi, renews his call for a dissolution of the pretend Palestinian Authority and a return to square one, meaning popular resistance,while the military wing of the Hamas movement for the first time calls for reprisals American assets everywhere. (There is a long tradition of keeping the Palestinian resistance limited to Palestine, and Haniya and others said yesterday that is still the case; the point is this is another sign of change).

These trends away from politics toward national resistance, and beyond that from national resistance to policies of reprisal, are not the result of natural causes in the way that the phases of the moon affect the tides. They are the result of US policy. The Bush administration stood out yesterday for its failure to condemn the Israeli slaughter of 20 unarmed residents of Beit Hanoun in the worst round of civilian killing by the Israeli occupation forces in a number of years, lending support to Atwan's argument that any engagement in a so-called "political process" in these circumstances is a sham. There is no point.

The same logic is taking hold among the Sunni political parties in Iraq. At the most delicate point in the national reconciliation process, the symbol to many of an independent Iraq is sentenced to death by hanging. It was a gratuitous act, and probably there is no one of the age of reason in Iraq, or children either, for that matter, who doesn't realize the Bush administration was behind this, and that the logic seemed clear. Those who make the real decisions are against national reconciliation. What point is there in pretending.

Following the Democratic gains in Congress, there will be talk of a "change in policy" for the Bush administration, but if the owner/operators of the smoke machine have their way, there won't be any discussion what the strategy has been up to now, thus ensuring that any "changes" will be of the cliche-ridden, half-baked variety.

The strategy up to now has been highly aggressive demonization of any group associated with national resistance to foreign occupation. From the Cheney stump-speech: "This is not an enemy that can be ignored, or negotiated with, or appeased". In this view, there is no functional difference between national resistance and AlQaeda. This is becoming self-fulfilling, and people should be worried about that.

What to change in the "change in policy"? Eight words: National resistance to foreign occupation can be legitimate.

News for kids !

Remember Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri ? Vaguely ?

A Saddam crony, with his likeness on one of those most-wanted playing cards, he was captured on September 5 2004. But it wasn't him! Then to top that, he died on November 11, 2005. But not really! The reports of these events were what they call in the business ...actually I'm not sure what they call these reports. There is probably a technical name. They are reports of what should have happened. The news agencies that reported these events only meant that he should have been captured and he deserved to die. You have to know how to read these things.

Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri was back in the news yesterday. AP said four unnamed people told its reporter that al-Duri had issued a secret order to the armed Baathist resistance groups to lay down their arms following the Saddam death-sentence. Actually, he didn't. But he should have. That was all they meant. You have to know how to read these things.

You have to understand context and mood. What the AP reported was a collection of three very gratifying events following the sentence of death by hanging for Saddam. First, Saddam told everyone to shake hands. Actually he told the Arabs and the Kurds to shake hands, no mention of anyone with Persian blood like a lot of Shiites in the south, but you know, he should have, he probably meant to. Next was the al-Duri story, which as you can see fits right in with the new softer mood. And finally, the AP reporter noted the announcement on Monday of a "major concession to insurgents and the Sunni community..." Whereas the de-Baathification program had put 30,000 government and quasi-government workers on the street in 2003, this was now going to be scaled back so that all but 1500 of them could return to work or at least get a retirement pension. Maybe. The newspaper Azzaman, had a few questions about this on its Tuesday front page. If this is actually going to happen, why wasn't there an announcement by someone more senior in the government than the number two person in the de-Baathification council? What kind of work would these people be permitted to return to? Would military personnel be included? And then they really threw cold water on the whole nice mood with this: They headed the story "Liquidation of 1556 Baathists in the south of Iraq since the beginning of the year: Promise of permission to retire accompanies murders and the expulsion of families", citing a recent report that also reported there have been no prosecutions in connection with these 1556 liquidations.

When the AP talked about a "major concession to insurgents and the Sunni community", they did not really mean such a thing occurred, only that it should occur. They suggest you might like to imagine it happening. Just like the capture, death, and then the surrender yesterday of Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri.

National Reconciliation process seen as another victim of the death-sentence decision

Al-Quds al-Arabi leads its post-Saddam-sentencing coverage with the following: "Iraqi politicians said it was improbable (or "ruled out" the idea) that the project for National Reconciliation would come to fruition, in the wake of the collapse of the security situation in Iraq, the warning by the Iraqi Accord Front that is is studying withdrawal from the political process, and [in the wake of] the sentence of death by hanging for the former president of Iraq Saddam Hussein, which is going to result in additional political differences in Iraq."

"The politicians explained that [already] the plan for holding the third National Reconciliation meeting (the one for political groups) at the end of this month is in trouble, with leakage of information to the effect that talks between the National Reconciliation committee and the parties it spoke to in Amman recently ended up unable to set a date for the next meeting, or to agree on a [hoped-for] common plan that could be promoted in support of the national reconciliation."

The result, says the reporter, is that the next National Reconciliation meeting has again been put off without a new date, adding: "And this is what has led to predictions that this meeting will never happen, particularly after the issuance of the sentence of death by hanging for the former president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein."

There is also a somewhat unclear reference to talks Iraqi president Talabani had begun with similar groups, and those talks are also described as likely at an end as a result of the sentencing decision.

The journalist adds that prospects for the National Reconciliation process aren't going to get any better, given the escalation in violence, and he quotes National Dialogue Front leader Saleh al-Matlak as particularly critical of the timing of the sentencing announcement, just at the time when politicians were trying to sort out issues standing in the way of the national reconciliation.

The journalist adds that there is one politician who asked not to be named, who said he thinks the death-sentence can be used as a card in negotiating with the Baathists, the "trade" being the life of Saddam for concessions, but the journalist adds immediately it is hard to see how that could lead to a successful conclusion, if the Baathists felt that the good faith of the Americans was in question.

The journalist concludes: If in fact the authorities are unable to schedule this third National Reconciliation meeting, the result would be a dangerous collapse in the whole reconciliation idea. This would be particularly dangerous considering all the other current conditions including escalating violence, forced sectarian migrations, recent government decisions including the closing of two TV stations that were associated with Baath supporters (the stations Zawra and Salahaddin, closed for showing pro-Saddam demonstrations following the death-sentence), and [other government decisions like] the launching of broad arrest campaigns in cities that have seen particular opposition to the occupation, including Diyala and Salahaddin and Mosul.

Sunni politics polarizing as a result of the Saddam sentencing

Iraqi vice president Tareq al-Hashimi was in Doha, capital of Qatar yesterday, for talks with the Emir Hamad bin Khalifa, about the Iraqi situation. Hashimi told al-Hayat that one of this big concerns is the intervention of various countries, which he did not name, in the internal affairs of Iraq, describing this intervention as "targeting the Arab and Islamic identity of Iraq".

It is particularly noteworthy that this is an Iraqi vice-president talking publicly with a Gulf-state leader about a threat to the Arab identity of Iraq, clearly referring to Iran, in the immediate aftermath of the Saddam sentencing. (Iran enthusiastically supported the death sentence for Saddam).

The paper notes that this visit overlapped with another visit to Doha by Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the Iraqi Accord Front, the biggest of the Sunni coalitions in parliament. Dulaimi said the current situation is one where the Iraqi security forces persecute, torture and kill Sunnis just on account of their identity as Sunnis, and he added a widely-reported remark to the effect the current government is attempting to turn Baghdad into a Shiite city. And he said "we" (the Sunni parties) "call on the government" to deal with an iron hand with any who try to spread chaos and killing among the people of Iraq.

Dulaimi added that as far as the Sunni parties are concerned, security and stability are a precondition for democracy. He added that his group has drawn up what he described as a new proposal for unifying the Sunni population, which he will announce as soon as consultations with other Sunni groups are completed.

Neither Hashimi nor Dulaimi agitated the question of the Saddam death-sentence during their visits to Doha, the reporter notes, but clearly they are harshly critical of it. And the headline for this item spells out the idea that these are post-Saddam-sentence developments.

Meanwhile, back in Baghdad, another Sunni party in parliament, the Iraqi People's Congress, in a written statement, threatened to withdraw completely from the political process, citing two days of unprecented attacks on Sunni locations, including a number of mosques which are named, during the last two days, adding that it would be impossible to move such large numbers of attackers from one neighborhood to another, during a curfew, without the connivance of the government.

Baath resistance views for the post-Saddam period: A more global, AlQaeda-like world-view

Al-Quds al-Arabi publishes the full text of the Baath party statement on the sentencing of Saddam Hussein, and there are a couple of important points about resistance strategy, in addition to the two points highlighted by Al-Hayat and summarized in the prior post.

The statement is divided into seven background points, then another series of points relating to plans for action. The claim that Saddam refused to bargain with the occupation is point number 5 of the first list. It is followed by a point emphasizing the relationship of the judgment against Saddam (Nov 5) to the US congressional elections (Nov 7). Then in the seventh and final background point, the statement outlines the Baath party view that what the US is aiming for in Iraq is not necessarily partition, but first and foremost a weak Iraq, without a strong enough central government to be able to resist caving in to US and other foreign pressure.

The argument goes like this: The Americans condemned Saddam to death just before their occupation project fails completely, because they know that with Saddam at the head of the government, restoration of security, stability and services would be a matter of hours, not of years. And one result of that would be that Iraq would again have a voice in the affairs of the region, stronger in fact that before. And for that reason the Americans are against a rapid restoration of stability, favoring rather the creation of "an Iraq free but weak, susceptible to external pressure and to the dictation of conditions, incapable of responding or warding off the return of American colonialism via the window of governmental weakness, after having been expelled by the door of armed resistance. The American plan now, having become convinced that the coming freedom is a certainty (meaning: US forces will be expelled by force), is to agree to the establishment of a national government, but a weak one, and one lacking the polarizing element necessary to unify attitudes, and take the required bold and historic decisions necessitated by the absense of Saddam..."

In other words, the US on the verge of being expelled will be too weak to partition the country, so the next best thing will be make sure that the government is a weak one. (As an assessment of American strategy, this is worth noting quite apart from question whether the net effect of executing Saddam would actually be to make an eventual government stronger or weaker).

In the second series of points, relating to future actions, there is an interesting combination of traditional nationalist positions with a more global view. For instance, point number two of the second list is a call for "complete and unconditional withdrawal" of the US troops. But then point number three warns that if Saddam is executed, the hardliners will have the upper hand in the councils of the resistance, and that means switching to a strategy of attrition against US and actually barring the troops from leaving. Here the focus shifts from merely freeing Iraq, to bringing down the American empire by bleeding them in Iraq. This is a view much closer to the global near-enemy/far-enemy long-term analysis of AlQaeda than to traditional national resistance.

Finally, it is worth noting that the Iraqi Baath party is reaching out to the Baath and other parties and intellectuals in the region. This isn't just the problem of one party or one country, the statement says: "Rather, before all of that, it is a question of the fate of the ummah faced with annihilation and change in its national identity. Because on the day when Iraq is destroyed amid the silence or the collusion of intellectuals and national parties, the next day they will see that it is their turn..."

Cheney faction recaptures US Iraq policy

Leadership of the banned Arab Socialist Baath Party issued a statement commenting on the death-sentence for Saddam, the gist of which is reported by Al-Hayat this morning, (TuesdayNovember 7). The statement said "America and its ally Iran have detonated [with this action] a bomb whose shards will bring down each and every cooperator and agent of theirs in Iraq and outside of Iraq. Their (America and Iran's) idea is that this judgment will cause the Iraqi people to submit."

That's the prologue. There follow at least two main points. The first: "This judgment is nothing but a foolish attempt to halt the spread of the resistance, and to influence its national-liberating course". Specifically: "[This judgment comes just at the time when] there had crystalized a national Iraqi consensus that the return of president Saddam Hussein to the government was the quickest and surest way to restore order and stability and independence". The statement added: "The death-sentence is the result of the president's refusal to bargain with the occupation, and his refusal to return to government on conditions that would have infringed Iraqi sovereignty and national independence".

Let's not at this point try to assess this idea that there may have been a "Saddam card" in someone's deck in the run-up to US talks with the resistance, and move on to the second point.

The second point: If Saddam is in fact executed, then "America should know that there will be absolutely no further negotiations and no new contacts," and that the party will "concentrate its efforts on the support and victory of the policy-line within the party that says that the job of the resistance is the destruction of the American empire on Iraqi soil, by not permitting the American forces to withdraw, and by continuing [America's] economic and human attrition leading to destruction and collapse within America."

Al-Hayat, for its part, focuses its headline on the second point, heading this item as follows: "Baath: Execution of Saddam will cause the rejectionist view to predominate within the resistance."

Needless to say, this whole statement reflects the fact that there have been initial contacts between the resistance and the Americans in Amman, and that these contacts had gotten far enough for the resistance to plan the formation of a common-front committee to participate in them. The banned Baath party was a participant, but not the only participant, in these contacts. See the prior posts here, here and in various other recent posts.

In a seemingly unrelated development, the UK newspaper The Independent reports this morning that US ambassador Khalilzad will be leaving his post in a few months, citing a senior US administration official. Included in this report is the following observation: "While willing to open talks with some Sunni insurgent groups Mr Khalilzad found the most powerful ones wanted to expel the US, not negotiate."

In other words, the sequence of events was apparently this: Khalilzad supports talks with "some" resistance groups (but this would naturally have been opposed by the Cheney faction and others); Saddam is sentenced to hang two days before the Congressional elections in order to give the Republicans a bounce in the polls, but reducing the "some" willing to engage in talks to probably close to zero; Khalilzad resigns.

The conclusion seems inescapable: Recently there have been two US policies, not one, but now there is only one again.

The root cause of the silence of Western media on this whole issue is the following: It isn't permissible to talk about the Iraqi "resistance", it is one of those words we don't use. Hence the initial contacts weren't reported, and now, with superb timing, the question of contacts and negotiations doesn't matter anyway.

"Saddam's oppression was political, it is the Americans who are pushing sectarianism"

Reuters in Arabic published an interesting analytical piece following the Saddam sentencing announcement, by Saad al-Qarsh or Qarash, citing Mideast analysts in support of the idea that judgment is part of a strategy by certain Iraqi and non-Iraqi forces to build sectarianism into Iraqi government and society, for their own ends. Saddam's oppression, according to this view, was not sectarian but rather political, his motivation being preservation of his regime by eliminating threats from whatever group. His targets included Sunni as well as Shiite groups. It is the current US policy to do precisely what they illogically accuse Saddam of having done, namely weaken the nation by fomenting sectarianism. And the Saddam sentencing is part of that US-led strategy. Here the writer cites a recent book by Bashir Nafie called "Iraq: Unity and Division".

The other point is that the American invasion has had the effect not only of inflaming Sunni-Shiite antagonism, but also helped ignite latent inter-Shiite antagonisms as well. This part of the argument is fairly subtle and full of history. (But also current events: There is an indication of Chalabi having played an important role in trying to pin the murder of Imam Abdul Majid al-Khoei on April 10, 2003, on Moqtada, the two being inter-Shiite rivals.) The writer cites a recent book by Saif al-Khayat called "The Covenant and the Faith: The story of the Shiites in Iraq". (Both of these books are in Arabic; I am just giving my own version of the titles and the spelling of the authors' names).

Bashir Nafie is the Palestinian historian whose views on the two stages of the American occupation (first using the Shiites to suppress the Sunni opposition; now resurrecting the Sunni opposition to help combat the Shiite-Iran threat) was summarized briefly in the prior post here dated November 2 (second half of that post).

AFP's main point in its press summary is that European and other press reactions to the sentencing were generally in lockstep with the stance of the respective governments on the US invasion. (The Sun in the UK gloating; Figaro in France pointing to the illegality of the occupation; Tehran overjoyed; and so on).

Azzaman, for its part, digs a little deeper and notes that in at least one country (Egypt) where the US is supported by the government, the reactions didn't fit the government position at all. The point about the illegality of such a judgment under the US occupation was stressed, not only the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood (Mohammed Akef), but also be a leader of the liberal opposition Wafd party, who said Iraq is living under the horrific conditions imposed on it by the American neo-colonial policy, and any such judgment as this should wait until the occupation ends and the Iraqi situation is normalized. A spokesman for the biggest Egyptian human-rights organization made basically the same point. He said the Saddam trial was "political from beginning to end", and he added that the timing vis-a-vis the US congressional elections is obviously a part of that.

Chalabi down but not out; NYT airbrushes his bio for him

It is peculiar. Both AP and Al-Quds al-Arabi say the famous Ahmed Chalabi still heads the National De-Baathification Commission, but Dexter Filkins in the NYT Magazine cover story on Chalabi says flatly he doesn't hold any positions, and in fact Filkins doesn't mention De-Baathification at all. De-Baathification was an American policy, executed with a vengeance (to say the least; Chalabi's lawyers deny allegations his methods included blackmail) by Chalabi, resulting according to some reports in the dismissal of 35,000 senior people in government and quasi-government positions, including universities and so on. This makes it doubly peculiar that Filkins doesn't mention it. And to top it off, Filkins would have had a great human-interest angle had he pursued this, because Chalabi is in fact making plans to head a new political party his friends are describing as "liberal in nature and orientations", and these friends have told him that in all conscience, if he is to head one political party, he should not at the same time be head of a government agency whose mission is to dismantle another political party, so he should resign as head of the De-Baathification Council. AlQuds also note he might as well quit because things are not going so well. The Commission's work is described as paralyzed because Ministries and other government agencies refuse to carry out its orders.

Hard to see why Filkins would have left all this interesting stuff out? Consider: De-Baathfication doesn't fit his story-line, which is that the fault for what happened in Iraq lies not with the Americans or American policy, but with Iraqi society itself.

Notice how Filkins slips these little interpretive items into the text. He says Chalabi's electoral failures reflected the decline of the secular parties, leaving the field to "the clerics and the populists". Can you feel the vast respect for Iraqi society and Iraqis generally? And in case you missed the point, Filkins floats this one past you: Voting patterns in the January 2006 election, he writes, showed that "democratic politics no longer mattered."

Badger's Sunday Arts Section (with an interesting update)

A Lebanese journalist, noting the US State Dept's ringing endorsement of a democratic and prosperous Lebanon, commented: There isn't only bombast, there is farce too. The US supports the starvation and killing of Palestinians and the toppling of their elected government, but accuses Hizbullah of illegality for planning a peaceful demonstration. In fact, there is hardly a group of thugs, charlatans or buffoons, writes Rami Khouri in the Daily Star who aren't eligible for US financial and military support provided they promise the harrassment or overthrow of one of the evil governments in the region, such as that of Hamas in Palestine, Syria, or Iran. The Daily Star is a pro-US newspaper.

On the topic of arming thugs, Aluf Benn of Haaretz has been reporting on US arming and training of special Fatah forces for an expected armed confrontation with Hamas, for instance here, and in earlier reports. History tells us these types of US interventions should be covert, and maybe this was supposed to be covert too, who knows? With the Bush team it is often hard to tell.

For instance, John Negroponte, following his discussions with Maliki in Baghdad about bringing Saddam-era agents back into the Iraqi security service, went on to Tel Aviv for discussions with Olmert, where he seemed particularly interested in hearing Israeli ideas on how to topple the elected Iranian regime. Benn reports: "Negroponte met with Olmert and the heads of the intelligence services, and asked them for their assessments of Iran's domestic situation and how to influence it. He was reportedly particularly interested in ideas on how to use Iran's domestic policies to weaken the regime, and whether it was possible to influence Iran via minorities such as the Azeris, who have ethnic affiliations with other states. The issue of Iran's nuclear program, in contrast, received less attention during these talks."

Somehow I feel we can expect human-interest feature writing in the NYT about the colorful and interesting Azeri people and their "complex relationship" with the ethnic Persians, maybe in the Sunday magazine.

(UPDATE: Commenter Annie is a step ahead of me. In the comments, she links to a recent piece in the SF Chronicle where the Azeris' situation is described as "worse than that of the Palestinians").

Funny stuff, this bombast about supporting democracy. Funnier still is John Burns in the NYT yesterday on the Maliki-US relationship. He writes: "The paradox of their [Maliki and the US] animosity is that the primary beneficiary of the rift is likely to be their common enemy, the Sunni insurgents". The paradox of their animosity. Actually the rehabilitation of the Sunni resistance is not "the paradox of their animosity", it is the current aim of US policy. Burns and the NYT ignore the fact that the US is getting ready to negotiate with the Sunni resistance; and that Negroponte is proposing bringing Baathists back into the Iraqi intelligence service, the idea being to bring Iraq into the "axis of cooperation" against the Iran-Shiite threat. By ignoring these key facts, available via the simple expedient of what we call "reading the local newspapers", the regime elements at the NYT are able to present US policy aims as if they were some kind of a "paradoxical" result of irrational behavior by the Iraqis. Maybe funny isn't the right word. Certainly it is an art-form.

Negroponte proposes putting Saddam-era intelligence officials back to work under the new US strategy

The Bush administration is in the process of changing sides in the Iraqi struggle, but it is an embarrassing process, and as you would expect, the smoke-machines are going full blast.

The news yesterday in Al-Hayat was that the armed Sunni resistance groups are setting up a common-front structure, because they expect to be in formal negotiations with the Americans. And the news today, on the front page of Azzaman, is that John Negroponte, head of US intelligence, proposed to Malaki earlier this week the establishment of a new Iraqi intelligence service, to replace the existing one, and the newspaper adds: "The sources [close to the Negroponte-Malaki talks] said Negroponte will not object to the inclusion in the new intelligence service of agents who were in the former [i.e., Saddam-era] Iraqi intelligence agency, who are highly qualified. Several parties in the governing coalition oppose this tawajjuhu (course, or orientation, or patronage)". And what is wrong with the existing Iraqi intelligence service? The answer, in simple terms, is that it is an agency set up by the CIA to use Shiite sources to track down the Sunni resistance. Now that US policy in the region is to establish a Sunni alliance against the Iran-Shiite threat, Iraq policy is undergoing a 180-degree shift, which will require a whole new intelligence regime, this one designed to use Sunni sources to track down Shiite resistance. Hence the expectation of US talks with the Sunni resistance; and hence also the Negroponte proposal for a new Sunni-oriented intelligence service that "could" include Saddam-era officers.

In appropriately mysterious fashion, Azzaman says the current Iraqi intelligence chief, Muhammad Abdullah Muhammad al-Shehwani, has "reached the end of his contract period". In a way that is true. The US had to airlift him recently to Amman for safekeeping following assassination threats against him, according to Al-Quds al-Arabi. It would have been a little clearer to say that he "reached the end of his usefulness" as a Shiite-allied Sunni-hunter, now that the Sunni are going to be the US strategic favorites.

(For what it is worth, the Israeli intelligence-related Debka-file web site had an interesting piece on Shehwani back in 2004, when the US was gearing up for a no-holds-barred attack on the Sunni resistance, starting with Falluja. The piece (you have to scroll down to Section 3, "CIA's secret Iraqi protege tipped as Iraqs next ruler") said Shehwani had been a CIA protege for a long period of time in the US, adding in their inimitable way the following: "According to our sources, the CIA did a lot more than provide the Iraqi exile [Shehwani] with a safe haven. While out in the open, the Pentagon and State Department were busy preparing rival exiled leaders like Ahmed Chalabi and Adnan Pachachi for high office in post-Saddam Baghdad, the CIA's best instructors and mentors secretly coached the former major general [Shehwani] for eventual accession to the top post in Baghdad.")

In any event, whether it was Shehwani's contract or his usefulness that had expired, what is clear is that Shehwani, as the head of Iraqi intelligence since the Bremer era, was the covert face of the US war on the Sunni resistance, and now that the Sunni are going to be allies, the US is going to need not just a new head of Iraqi intelligence, but a whole new agency, which "could" include Saddam-era intelligence officers. And guess what: As the Azzaman piece notes, this idea is opposed by Shiite parties in the governing coalition.

The point here is not just the 180-degree shift in the Bush-administration strategy. The most important point is on a different level: It is that from the very beginning the US strategy was sectarian, pitting Shiites against Sunnis. Now that Iraqis can sense the coming 180-degree shift in the US strategy, is it any wonder that the political and security situations continue to collapse?

Maliki unhappy with progress toward US talks with the resistance

A week ago Al-Quds al-Arabi reported on the formation of a 25-person council to bring together the various parts of the national resistance, including Islamic Army, leaders of the National Patriotic Alliance and so on. Today Al-Hayat reports on the establishment of what appears to be an even broader version of the common-front idea. It says that as a result of intense discussions in the last few days, culminating in talks in Amman that included Iraqi and American officials as well as armed opposition groups, Baathists, tribal people and others, the collection of opposition groups has agreed on the necessity of forming a unified "political council" in order to get ready for the start of "official negotiations with American officials".

The report adds that Prime Minister Maliki has been unhappy with this process, because it involves the Americans opening channels of communication with the resistance that doesn't include the government. And the reporter said it was this dissatisfaction that led Maliki recently to order the lifting of various blockades and checkpoints, not only the (highly-publicized) case of Sadr City, but also in the Karradah district of Baghdad and elsewhere. These were areas thought to be harboring death-squads and the like. A source close to Maliki told the Al-Hayat reporter that Maliki made these decisions unilaterally, contradicting reports that said this was coordinated with the Americans.

Separately, the Islamic Army reported on its website the successful testing of a grount-to-ground rocket with a range of 20 km and capacity to carry 20 kg of explosives, adding it has named the rocket Abir, after the girl from Mahmudia who was raped and killed by American soldiers.

Self-help concept in fighting AlQaeda could be catching on

Ninawa province lies north of Al-Anbar province, and it includes Mosul. Independent newspaper Al-Mada reports interesting remarks at the recent meeting of the provincial council, by provincial governor Darbad Kashmula who is also a leader of one of the tribes of the province. He proposed that the tribes of Ninawa, on the model of those of Al-Anbar, should form a Ninawa Salvation Council in order to fight armed groups and anyone who tries to disrupt public safety and stability. He was referring in particular to recent events in Mosul, in which proponents of the "Islamic Emirate" distributed handbills and threatened in particular members of the provincial police force. Kashmula said he is disappointed that some tribes are still supporting armed groups. He said restoration of order is going to depend on all of the tribes standing together with the official law-enforcement forces.

Provincial police chief Watheq Hamdani referred to the recent incidents in Mosul including distribution of handbills by supporters of "the so-called Islamic State" and threats to the provincial police, dismissing the handbills as full of false information and "mean nothing on the ground", and repeating the readiness of the police to combat any terrorist group.

Al-Mada heads up this item: "On the model of Al-Anbar: Governor of Ninawa proposes creation of a Salvation Council to combat the armed groups".

(Separately, Al-Hayat reports on a meeting between the Al-Anbar Salvation Council with the ministers of Defence and Interior, and US ambassador Khalilzad, in order to make plans for re-taking Ramadi from AlQaeda. The distribution of tasks differs a little depending on who is talking, but at a minimum, there will be coordination with the American forces that are in Ramadi so that they don't clash, and there will be at least material support from Defence and Interior, but the main fighting force will be the provincial police and the "special forces" of the Salvation Council, regular members of the two together coming to 6300 fighters).

How US intellectual fads mirror, in a dream-like way, the military "strategy"

When in late 2003 the rose-petals-and-candy theory of the occupation was starting to lose its appeal, Iyad Allawi and a colleague travelled to Langley to plan with the CIA for the establishment of an Iraqi intelligence service. Its first head was Muhammed Shehwani, an associate of Allawi in his Iraqi National Accord group. (This and the Chalabi-led group called Iraqi National Congress were the two main US-sponsored pro-invasion groups).

A related initiative, also taken in December of 2003, was described by the Washington Post as follows: "Two weeks ago, the U.S. occupation authority decided to form a paramilitary unit to track down insurgents. The unit, composed of Iraqi militiamen from the country's five largest political parties, will work with U.S. Special Forces soldiers, and their operations will be overseen by U.S. military commanders. Since the summer, the CIA has recruited and trained some former Iraqi intelligence agents to help identify the insurgents."

The reason: ""The intelligence community doesn't understand what's going on in Iraq and has decided to put a whole bunch of analytical manpower on it," one intelligence official said. "They definitely didn't think this would happen as it has," the official said, referring to the resilience of the insurgency."

And what was this insurgency, which the "intelligence community" was having such difficulty understanding? A substantial part of it was probably coordinated by the Iraqi National Alliance (post 2003 known as the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance) headed by Abdul Jabar al-Kubbaysi, who described his group in a 2002 interview as in agreement with the Saddam regime in broad Arab-Nationalist terms, but differing on the issue of freedoms. Unlike the Allawi and Chalabi groups, this Iraqi National Alliance opposed the invasion, in fact leaders of the mostly ex-pat group came to Iraq to try to coordinate with Saddam measures to protect the country against the US attack in 2003, then devoted themselves to the resistance--I beg your pardon, the insurgency.

In the very broadest terms, what was evolving was a covert confrontation between the US and the mostly Shiite militia on the one side, and the largely Baathist but not Sadaamist resistance on the other. And calling the shots for the American side was its famous "intelligence community." The declared enemy: Sadaamist dead-enders. The US allies: Local militias, mostly Shiite.

Fast-forward to late 2006, and people in the US and Britain are losing patience with the occupation, which leads to speculation about withdrawal of the occupation troops. In America, where the "intelligence community" is out of favor, the new source of authority is the political- and social-science community. Where the US had once fomented the Shiite attack on the mostly-Sunni "insurgency", and anchored this in the supposed expertise of the "intelligence community", the position has now shifted. Now the US struggles to justify its troop-presence as a bulwark against a Sunni backlash (the "civil war"), and now the case is anchored in scientific studies by the political-science community.

The nutshell history: The initial perceived task for the US as it evolved in 2003 was to assist the Shiite militias against the unexpectedly strong Sunni resistance to the invasion. Now that the fun is out of that, the assignment is going to be to protect the country against the Sunni backlash, for basically humanitarian reasons. Troops will still be needed. And just when they are needed, a "community" of experts emerges to provide a conceptual underpinning. Of sorts. Just to give you the flavor, a recent contribution to this by one Jim Fearon, a political scientist at Stanford University, says US troops could be useful in keeping the peace during an interim period of what the social-science community is calling "ethnic demixing". There will be many variations on this theme.

What is striking is the way this shift in US intellectual and media fads mirror in a dream-like way the actual Iraqi situation. In a lengthy opinion piece in Al-Quds al-Arabi, Islamic historian Bashir Nafie divides the US adventure in Iraq into two main parts: The first was the attack on the Sunna by Shiite groups under the protection and sponsorship of the Americans, and the second, now beginning, the fear-mongering, as he sees it, about a Sunni-backlash threat. His main point is that the "common consciousness" of the Sunni community as a whole, is nationalist and not sectarian. The Baath party had substantial Shiite participation. A lot of problems that the Americans painted in Sunni-Shiite sectarian colors were fundamentally political and not religious-sectarian. There was never chronic Shiite-Sunni violence until the Americans arrived and triggered it. It is true that some Sunni individuals have fallen into the trap of revenge. But by and large, the Sunni community has been responsible, and will continue to be so. The US justification of troop-presence based on guarding against a Sunni backlash is as divisive and spurious, he says, as was the original decision to help Shiite groups go after the resistance.

From an American academic perspective, what is remarkable is the sudden emergence of the social-science community to prominence at just the right time. I do not recall social scientists warning against the invasion, or warning against the evolution of the Shiite-versus-Sunni character of the occupation thereafter.

Bashir Nafie? Recently a professor of Islamic history at Birkbeck College of the University of London. Here's how the Al-Ahram weekly described him in connection with an interview in 1999: Bashir M Nafi is a half-Palestinian, half-Egyptian academic who was educated in Cairo, London and Reading. He lives in England, where he is a senior lecturer in modern Islamic history. Professor Nafi has published extensively on the modern history of Islam, the Arab world and the Palestinian question, both in Arabic and English. His book Arabism, Islamism and the Palestine Question, 1908-1941: A Political History, was published by Ithaca Press last year, while his study The Rise and Decline of the Arab-Islamic Reform Movement, is to be published by the SISS Press this year.

(John Ashcroft, the distinguished American patriot and singer-songwriter, was not impresssed with these credentials, and named Nafie a co-conspirator with Sami al-Aryan in a terrorism case for which the British refused to extradite Nafie, and the case ended in aquittal anyway.)

Different readings of the Hadley visit

Iraqi newspapers interpreted the Hadley-Maliki talks in different ways.

Azzaman, in its Wednesday November 1 edition, says Hadley wanted to know why there have been delays in implementing the National Reconciliation process, and why there hasn't yet been an announcement of a general amnesty including those who have fought the Americans and those who have fought other Iraqis. And the newspaper said Hadley wanted a guarantee from Maliki that he wouldnt work for a partition of the country, because that would be dangerous from a lot of points of view. The newspaper also talks about the option of sending more troops to Baghdad, and refers to the Elliot Cohen comments as illustrative of the military-government option. But the striking thing about the Azzaman coverage is the implication that Hadley was indicating an American switch to the Iraqi-nationalist position. The headline over the article begins: "Hadley demands guarantee from Maliki not to partition Iraq". The newspaper cites "Iraqi and American sources close to the talks", in addition to quoting from the New York Times.

Al-Mada, (pdf version, article at the lower right) another independent newspaper, interprets the gist of the meeting (and the ambiguous NYT comments) differently. Having mentioned the proposal for more troops to Baghdad as the main point of the meeting, the Al-Mada reporter continues: "[The NYT] also said Hadley will offer a proposal to permit self-government to the Shiites and the Sunni and the Kurds, as long as [bi shakli] this doesn't allow the division of the country into mini-states, [and the proposal was also for] study of the issue of the distribution of wealth [meaning division of oil revenues under federalism], and an amnesty for groups that fought the Americans. But [the NYT] didn't expect this to lead to anything substantial [i.e., to any agreement], given the Iraqi differences respecting the issue of the division of authority [under federalism] and [the division of] wealth."

In other words, where the Azzaman piece sees an American switch to nationalism, Al-Mada more prudently notes that the remarks can be taken as merely a warning against the chaotic effects of the federalism project, not against the project itself.

Finally, the newspaper New Sabah reports that Maliki met on Tuesday morning with a delegation from the Council for the Salvation of Anbar, and made remarks strongly supporting them and promising all necessary government assistance to them. (Last we heard from the Anbar Salvation Council, they were mobilizing people, mostly from the local tribes, in preparation for a campaign to dislodge AlQaeda from Ramadi. And there was some concern whether or not the government would come up with the necessary support in terms of arms and vehicles and so on). On Tuesday morning, the newspaper says, Malaki said yes. And he praised the group as an exemplary case of supporting the Iraqi nation against terrorists.

Possible tentative conclusion: While Hadley didn't indicate any switch in Washington to a straight nationalist (anti-federalist, anti-regional self-government) position, he probably did indicate an understanding of the chaotic effects of the federalist scheme so far (increased violence in the South, and preemptive Islamic Emirate announcement by AlQaeda), and one effect of this was to give Maliki the confidence to back the Anbar coalition (which some reports have said includes officers in the pre-2003 army and Sunni resistance groups).