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Iraq: Looking Ahead to Five Policy Challenges on the Horizon

By Guest Blogger on Dec 10, 2009 at 9:00 pm

Our guest blogger is Brian Katulis, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

The Iraq conference I attended last week in Europe brought together an interesting mix of Iraqi thinkers and leaders, and I already mentioned the former Iraqi national security adviser’s personal views on the Afghanistan surge and the current acting national security advisor’s concerns about civilian control over the military, among other issues. Last week’s conference provided food for thought about some of the emerging challenges in Iraq. Here are five key issues as they are discussed today, with a brief analysis of how Iraqis are starting to look beyond these immediate questions to longer-term issues.

1. 2010 elections and Iraq’s emerging politics. Which parties will emerge on top in next March’s election? What governing coalition is formed between Iraq’s diverse political groups, who will lead the coalition, and will the losers accept their defeat peacefully?

As we’ve previously argued, the 2007-2008 “surge” has not yet delivered on bridging fundamental political divisions in Iraq — Iraq’s political transition and reconciliation remain stalled, and basic questions about how to share power left unanswered in the 2005 constitution are still unresolved. In the election debates, will political actors in Iraq create a new spectrum of thinking in Iraqi politics, or will they remain entrenched in their current positions? Or will more political actors simply offer up vague platitudes about unity, as happened in last January’s provincial elections?

2. Arab-Kurdish divisions. What are the security measures necessary to manage and resolve the Arab-Kurdish tensions in Kirkuk and the disputed territories? How will Iraq move forward with the proposed population census?

The census has been discussed for a long time, and immediately after the March 2010 elections there may be some steps taken to move forward on the census. Getting an accurate count of which Iraqis live where — more accurate than exists with the food ration card — could become even more sensitive as the possibility of a census approaches.

3. Oil production. Will Iraq attract the foreign investment necessary to increase its production and will the Iraqi government pass the oil and revenue sharing laws? How will other major oil producing countries, particularly neighboring Saudi Arabia, react to the very real possibility in the coming decade that Iraq reemerges as a major producer?

Some analysts at the conference indicated that one implication of increased Iraqi oil production is that it could increase tensions within OPEC countries, an issue raised in this article last week.

4. Security forces in Iraq. Will Iraqi security forces be able to take control as U.S. forces depart in the next two years? What does Iraq’s overall security apparatus look like and how integrated is that system into a broader regional security framework?

As Iraq’s acting national security adviser mentioned, the size and capacity of Iraqi security forces have increased to the point where some are raising sustainability questions and what impact those forces have on Iraqi society. A related question is how coordinated and integrated Iraq’s security apparatus is with the rest of the region — a question complicated by continued uncertainties such as the role of Iran and how Arab Gulf countries react to both Iran’s moves and Iraq’s reemergence in the region.

5. U.S.-Iraq bilateral relations. Will U.S. forces depart according to the timetable outlined in the security agreement? Will the United States and Iraq move forward with the strategic framework agreement, and what does the U.S.-Iraq bilateral relationship look like in 2012 and beyond?

Mowaffak al-Rubaie made the case at the conference that the security agreement and the separate strategic framework agreement signed between the United States and Iraq last year were designed as linked together – the strategic framework agreement outlines a comprehensive plan for diplomatic, economic, cultural, and institutional development cooperation between the two countries, where as the security agreement outlined the rules governing the presence of U.S. forces starting in 2009.

Many Iraqis at the conference expressed concern that their country had faded as a priority in the United States. As a result, the implementation of the strategic framework agreement was weak, and some Iraqis at the conference made the point that this lack of follow through could lead Iraq to look elsewhere for partners. Where Iraq fits in the broader strategy of the United States in the Middle East remains an unanswered question, in large part because the Obama administration has not yet presented a comprehensive regional strategy.

Politics

In Attempting To Justify Her Denier Op-Ed, Palin Lies About Her Past Climate Change Views

By Lee Fang on Dec 10, 2009 at 8:15 pm

Yesterday, the Washington Post published a “falsehood-laden” op-ed by Sarah Palin attacking the science underpinning climate change. In her piece, Palin cast doubt on the science of global warming, stating that she “recognize[s]” global warming as merely “cyclical environmental trends” that are unrelated to the burning of fossil fuels. Responding to Palin’s misinformation about climate change science, Al Gore said yesterday:

The deniers are persisting in an era of unreality. The entire North Polar ice cap is disappearing before our eyes. What do they think is happening? [...] It’s a principle in physics. It’s like gravity, it exists.

In turn, Palin responded on her Facebook, writing incredulously:

However, he’s wrong in calling me a ‘denier.’ As I noted in my op-ed above and in my original Facebook post on Climategate, I have never denied the existence of climate change. I just don’t think we can primarily blame man’s activities for the earth’s cyclical weather changes.

Both claims — that she’s never denied climate change and that she’s always doubted anthropogenic causes — are untrue. As early as last month, she was indeed denying the existence of climate change. Unable to understand the science, she asked Rush Limbaugh: “Are we warming or are we cooling?” And merely 15 months ago, Palin told voters during the 2008 campaign that human activity is contributing to climate change:

PALIN: I belive that man’s activities can certainly be contributing to the issue of global warming and climate change.

Watch it:

While warming temperatures — caused by the burning of fossil fuels — are prompting the bark beetle to devour a chunk of forest the size of Connecticut in Alaska, Palin is more interested in throwing political bombs. Like her phony “death panels” designed to kill health reform, Palin is making a mockery of science in order to stop clean energy reform.

Climate Progress

A case of classic Swift-Boating: How the right-wing noise machine manufactured “Climategate”

By Climate Guest Blogger on Dec 10, 2009 at 8:03 pm

The tale of the timeline

This is an excerpted Wonk Room repost.

In mid-November, thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit webmail server “” a top climate research center in the United Kingdom “” were hacked and dumped on a Russian web server. Polluter-funded climate skeptics, along with their allies in conservative media and the Republican Party, sifted through the e-mails, and quickly cherry picked quotes to falsely accuse climate scientists of concocting climate change science out of whole cloth. The skeptics also propelled the story, dubbed “Climategate,” to the cover of the New York Times and newspapers across the globe. According to a Nexis news search, the Climategate story has been reported at least 325 times in the American press alone.

The hacked e-mails do nothing to change the scientific consensus that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use are raising temperatures and making oceans more acidic. As the right attempts to use the Climategate story to derail the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference this week, arctic sea ice is still at historically low levels, Australia is still on fire, the northern United Kingdom is still underwater, the world’s glaciers are still disappearing and today NOAA confirmed that not only is it the hottest decade in history, but 2009 was one of the hottest years in history. But how did the right-wing noise machine hijack the debate?

The methods for the right-wing political hit machine were honed during the Clinton years. Columnist and language-guru William Safire, a former aide to actual Watergate crook President Nixon, attached “-gate” to any minor post-Nixon incident as a “rhetorical legerdemain” intended “to establish moral equivalence.” (See phony manufactured scandals “Travelgate,” “Whitewatergate,” etc.) A right-wing echo chamber “” including the Rev. Moon-funded Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, talk radio, and the constellation of various conservative front groups and think tanks “” would then blare the scandal incessantly, regardless of the truth. But the more troubling aspect of this gimmick is the increasing willingness for traditional media outlets, from the Evening News to the Washington Post, to largely reprint unfounded right-wing smears without context or critical reporting.

One of the most successful coups for right-wing hit men was the “SwiftBoat” campaign, a well financed effort orchestrated by lobbyists and Bush allies to smear Sen. John Kerry’s (D-MA) war record. But “Climategate” is no different, with many of the same conservatives actors playing their respective roles — as this timeline shows:

Read more

Health

Washington Post Goes Rogue On Medicare Buy-In, Calls It ‘Dramatic Step Toward A Single-Payer System’

By Igor Volsky on Dec 10, 2009 at 7:10 pm

Sarah Palin and Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of The Washington Post

Sarah Palin and Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of The Washington Post

Having written an editorial on the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen for yesterday’s Washington Post, Sarah Palin couldn’t very well pen another critique of health care. But, Palin-style knee-jerk conclusions still found their way into today’s op-ed section.

In its editorial about the Senate’s public option compromise and the Medicare-buy in for Americans between the age of 55 and 64, the paper concludes that “the last-minute introduction of this idea within the broader context of health reform raises numerous questions, not least of which is whether this proposal is a far more dramatic step toward a single-payer system than lawmakers on either side realize”:

Once 55-year-olds are in, they are not likely to be kicked out, and the pressure will be on to expand the program to make more people eligible. The irony of this late-breaking Medicare proposal is that it could be a bigger step toward a single-payer system than the milquetoast public option plans rejected by Senate moderates as too disruptive of the private market.

But the irony is just the opposite: despite heated rhetoric about the public option and a government takeover of health care, health care reform would actually expand private coverage and reverse the current trend of Americans losing private insurance.

According to the latest Census, as the rate of uninsured Americans balloons, the number of people with individual coverage and employer-sponsored private coverage is decreasing. Between 2007 and 2008, the percentage of Americans enrolled in all private insurance decreased from 67.5% to 66.7%, and that number is expected to fall even further without reform. The Senate health bill will move a large number of the uninsured population into a private plan within the state-based exchanges. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that approximately 18 million uninsured Americans would enroll in private insurance. It may be the greatest expansion of private coverage in the nation’s history!

Of course, the Senate bill is not without its public components like Medicaid and now Medicare expansion. But past analysis of Medicare expansion proposals estimate that the plan would not undermine the private health care system. The proposal could attract roughly 3-4 million new enrollees, on par with the CBO’s estimates for how many Americans would enroll in an opt-out public option. And under that scenario, the CBO concluded that the government’s commitment to health care expenditures would remain roughly the same.

The number of Medicare enrollees could certainly grow over time, but the theory behind inserting a public component into health care reform has always relied on competition, not dominance. It’s the idea that private insurers can compliment the public health system and that each sector can use its inherent advantages to lower costs, improve the delivery of care, and expand coverage. It’s the yeong – yang, the push and the pull and the understanding that private health insurers are not entitled to new customers. They have to earn them by providing quality care more efficiently.

But, the Washington Post can actually see single-payer from its editorial headquarters. It’s gone rogue.

Politics

Forty-four lawmakers sign onto Christmas resolution, despite Boehner’s tirade against frivolous bills.

By Amanda Terkel on Dec 10, 2009 at 7:00 pm

Yesterday, Steve Benen noted that 19 House Republicans had signed onto H. Res. 951, a resolution to honor Christmas and “strongly” disapprove of attempts to ban Christmas references. Today, ThinkProgress obtained an e-mail sent around to Republican and Democratic legislative directors by Rep. Henry Brown’s (R-SC) office, asking them to have their bosses sign onto the legislation. Brown’s chief of staff, Chris Berardini, wrote:

We have added 44 cosponsors in just the first 24 hours since H. Res 951 was introduced and we would love to have your boss join us.

Co-sponsors include Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Phil Gingrey (R-GA), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), and Jack Kingston (R-GA). The only Democrat on the list is Danny Davis (IL). All these GOP co-sponsors come despite House Minority Leader John Boehner’s (R-OH) tirade against a Democratic resolution recognizing the Chinese philosopher Confucius, which he called “unacceptable” during an economic crisis. Notably absent from the list is Rep. Steve King (R-IA), whose office confirmed to us that he’s not yet a co-sponsor. In 2007, King introduced a similar measure after voting against resolutions honoring Diwali and Ramadan.

Update

In California, the Redding Tea Party Patriots are pushing an initiative to “require schools to provide children the opportunity to listen to or perform Christmas carols, and would subject the schools to litigation if the rule isn’t followed.”

Economy

GOP Falsely Claims Reg Reform Bill Creates A ‘Permanent Bailout Fund’ Paid For By Taxpayers

By Pat Garofalo on Dec 10, 2009 at 6:20 pm

Yesterday, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) appeared on C-Span and laid out his main reason for opposing H.R. 4173, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009, which is the regulatory reform legislation that the House has begun to debate. Evidently, Bachus has a problem with the proposal to implement a “too big to fail” tax on financial giants, which would build a fund that would be tapped in the event that a large financial institution fails and needs to be unwound.

This fund (officially known as the Systemic Dissolution Fund) is meant to ensure that taxpayers stay out of the bailout business, by providing a pool of money — put up by the Wall Street behemoths themselves — that would be used to facilitate the orderly dismantling of a failed institution. This would correct for some of the problems that arose when AIG and Citigroup got into trouble (and to head off the sort of chaotic collapse exhibited by Lehman Brothers).

Republicans though, made it clear on the House floor that their opposition will be based on calling the fund “permanent TARP” and a “permanent bailout fund,” while falsely claiming that taxpayers and non-financial companies will have to pay for it. Watch a compilation:

Unless the “schoolteachers in Mesquite, Texas” that Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) referenced have more than $50 billion in assets and have taken to hawking credit default swaps in the cafeteria, this tax will not affect them. And as far as the levy hitting “small businesses,” unless Goldman Sachs is now a small business in the eyes of the GOP, there is no truth to this.

Instead of enshrining bailouts, the bill quite clearly stipulates on page 397 that the dissolution fund can only be used “to facilitate and provide for the orderly and complete dissolution of any failed financial company or companies that pose a systemic threat to the financial markets or economy.” The fund cannot be employed to turn companies into zombies like Citigroup, which is wise, as Treasury is still struggling with how to dispose of Citi.

As Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) said on the floor in response to the GOP’s rhetoric, “there is no bailout. As much as my friends on the other side of the aisle would like to be on message and continue to repeat that, there is no bailout.” Though they dress it up in populist language, the GOP is endorsing the regulatory approach that led to AIG’s repeated infusions of taxpayer money and the market shock that was felt in the wake of Lehman Brothers’ collapse. But what more should we expect from the party that is huddling with financial services lobbyists to decide how to best kill regulatory reform?

Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on Dec 10, 2009 at 6:14 pm

Don’t you stop; everybody wants you, but you can’t say no:

— Eric Cantor takes on the big issues.

— Will Henry Waxman kill the BCS?

— Jamelle Bouie, “Sanctimony is a Force that Gives us Meaning”.

— BooMan Tribune observes that senators have agency.

— What do philosophers believe.

— Tom Coburn’s list of allegedly wasteful ARRA projects includes a complaint about “Money for Lighthouse Repairs on Uninhabited Island.” Oklahoma is landlocked, so I guess Coburn doesn’t understand what a lighthouse is.

— Hasids versus hipsters on Brooklyn bike lanes.

Song of the day in honor of Senators Lieberman, Collins, Snowe, and Nelson is “Can’t Believe a Single Word” by VHS or Beta.

Politics

After voting against debating health reform, Republicans demand Senate ‘stay in’ to debate this weekend.

By Igor Volsky on Dec 10, 2009 at 6:00 pm

When the Senate voted to proceed on the health care reform bill, not a single Republican voted to begin debate. Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) claimed that “the American people are going to be surprised at the time that we waste when we could be solving jobs and the economy.” Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) said, “I would suggest we put aside the health care debate until next year.” But today, Republicans took to the floor to urge Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) — who announced yesterday that Senate may adjourn for the weekend — to continue debating health care:

– SEN. BOB CORKER (R-TN): “I hope to be with you all weekend, discussing with you amendments that are important, voting on those amendments — I can’t imagine a better place for all of us to be.”

– SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ): “We need to stay in, we need to know what the proposals are, we need to have votes on it and we need to tell the American people what’s going on behind closed doors.”

- SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): “We need to be here, and more importantly than being here, equally important than being here, is to vote…we must stay here and do it and we’re prepared to be here and vote.”

Watch a compilation:

Climate Progress

Copenhagen, Day Four: Saving Forests as the Clock Ticks for Tuvalu

By Climate Guest Blogger on Dec 10, 2009 at 5:39 pm

The Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson is reporting on the scene from Copenhagen during the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

Deforestation

Fighting Deforestation

President Barack Obama “made his first public intervention in the Copenhagen climate summit” by supporting the Norway-Brazil plan to allow rich countries to fund the protection of rainforests. “”I am very impressed,” Obama said after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, “with the model that has been built between Norway and Brazil that allows for effective monitoring and ensures that we are making progress in avoiding deforestation of the Amazon.”

International approval for the Norway-Brazil proposal for a Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) mechanism still has a ways to go, especially as targets for reductions of deforestation have not yet been determined. In a possible breakthrough for the integrity of such programs, Google presented tools for the accurate monitoring of the rates of deforestation via climate satellite data.

Read more

Yglesias

Why Two Parties?

By Matthew Yglesias on Dec 10, 2009 at 5:28 pm

elephant-donkey-boxing 1

Reader NS asks “can you recommend any good works about why the two party system is so entrenched here? There doesn’t seem to be any good constitutional reason — just historical tradition.”

I think it’s the confluence of three different elements of our institutional structure:

— The first element is Duverger’s Law, which explains that when you have single-member constituencies and victory-by-plurality you tend to get two-party competition. Once it becomes clear to voters that the winner of a contest is overwhelmingly likely to be either Candidate A or Candidate B, then people who may like Candidate C or Candidate D better will tend to vote tactically for A or B.

— Second, there’s the presidency. Even if most races decided by plurality wins should come down to two parties, you could still have a bunch of parties across the face of a country. Thus in the UK you have some seats where Labour and the SNP are the major parties, some seats where the Tories and the Liberal Democrats are the major parties, lots of seats where it’s Labour and the Tories, plenty of safe seats where one party dominates and nominal opponents divide the residual minority, and relatively few genuinely three-sided races. But in America we have a presidential election which creates incentives to try to construct a national coalition in a way that discourages that dynamic.

— Third, there’s weak party discipline. If the House Blue Dogs were subjected to the kind of very tight party discipline that exists in many countries, they would have a strong incentive to try to form some kind of independent political organization. But since US politics features weak discipline, it’s easier to stay within a party coalition and then form an intra-party factional organization.

— Fourth, there’s lock-in. Election rules are made by Democrats and Republicans. Consequently, the rules disadvantage anyone who’s neither a Democrat nor a Republican.

One of the main trends in American politics is the diminishment of factor three and the emergence of tighter party discipline. The Republican Party is still laughably undisciplined by international standards, and the Democratic Party even less disciplined, but the trends are pointing toward stronger parties. There’s a lot to be said for strong parties, but they don’t necessarily suit the rest of the American political system very well. It’s hard to have a party that’s both tightly united and also tries to appeal to a majority of voters in a continent-sized country of 300 million people.

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