Iraqi Tribal Chief: Iraq ‘Groaning’ Under Two Occupations»

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

Sheikh Majid Abdul-Razzaq Soliman, chairman of the Iraq Chieftans and Notables Council, was in Cairo over the last few days. In an interview summarized here, he made clear his plea – “The Arabs have to join hands to stop Iran’s influence in Iraq.” Sheikh Soliman, the head of the Dulaim tribe, talked about how his country is “groaning” under two occupations – referring to the United States and Iran. The council’s board, which includes “39 chieftains and 19 notables,” has set up its headquarters in the Jordanian capital of Amman.

Soliman and his colleagues might have to wait a long time for any support – most countries in the Arab world have done the bare minimum on Iraq and aren’t likely to do anything significant while the United States maintains an open-ended commitment. The best way to motivate Iraq’s neighbors to actually do something is to announce that the United States plans to redeploy its troops from Iraq within a specific time frame.

The Silence Of The Clerics»

Al Jazeera reports that “an aide to Muqtada al-Sadr has lashed out at Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most revered Shia cleric, for keeping silent over clashes that have killed hundreds in Baghdad”:

Speaking at Friday prayers, Sheikh Sattar Battat, an aide to al-Sadr, said he was “surprised” that al-Sistani had failed to condemn the violence.

“We are surprised by the silence in Najaf where the highest Shiite religious authority is based,” he said, referring to al-Sistani.

For 50 days Sadr City is being bombed … Children, women and old people are being killed by all kinds of US weapons, and Najaf remains silent.”

Battat said the al-Sadr movement has not seen any “reaction or fatwa [religious decree] from Najaf” criticising the government assault on Shia fighters in Sadr City.

“For us this means that Najaf accepts the massacre in Sadr City,” he said.

Much of Muqtada al-Sadr’s legitimacy is based on the legacy of his father, Grand Ayatollah Sadeq al-Sadr, who built his movement in the 1990s among Iraq’s poorest Shia, and was assassinated by Saddam’s regime in 1999.

One of the central elements of the elder Sadr’s program (and now of Muqtada’s) was a distinction between the “silent clerics” (represented by Sistani and the Najaf establishment) — bookish sorts who stay remote from the lives of their people — and the “speaking clerics” who take part in the suffering and struggle of the Shia, as Sadeq did. And here the “silent clerics” once again stayed silent while Shia were crushed in Sadr City, of all places, while medical care, food, and shelter are being doled out in Muqtada’s name. It doesn’t require any math to see that Sadr benefits politically from this.

‘Special Groups’: A ‘Useful Fiction’»

In a story on the continuing fighting in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood, the LA Times reports that “the U.S. military has tied itself into a verbal knot as it tries to avoid further inflaming tensions with Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr while confronting members of his Mahdi Army militia.”

U.S. forces battle almost daily with Shiite militiamen in Sadr City, including Sadr loyalists, but commanders are careful to avoid blaming the Mahdi Army for the violence. […]

The military still insists that Sadr’s Mahdi Army is not its main problem, saying it is “special groups” that have broken away from Sadr’s control. Those groups are trained and armed by Iran and not bound by Sadr’s directives.

However, military officials acknowledge that mainstream Mahdi Army elements took part in the initial fighting that erupted March 25 against an offensive launched by U.S.-backed Iraqi security forces.

Abu Muqawama’s Dr. iRack notes rightly that “the notion of ’special groups’– JAM factions that supposedly have close ties to Iran’s Quds force –is, in many respects, a useful fiction,” as it allows U.S. forces to move against elements of Sadr’s militia without appearing to directly challenge Sadr’s wider political movement, which is the largest in Iraq. But, as iRack notes, the U.S. military has “made a habit of describing all JAMsters who violate the ‘freeze’ on armed activities declared by Moqtada al-Sadr last August as ’special groups.’ ”

[This] creates a false impression that the majority of JAMsters fighting U.S. forces take their orders directly from the mullahs in Iran (much as the use of the label “Al Qaeda in Iraq” as a catch all term for a disparate and very loosely aligned collection Sunni insurgent groups creates the false impression that most Sunni insurgents take their orders from Bin Laden or the foreign leadership of AQI).

The Bush administration has consistently tried to blame outside actors for violence in Iraq in order to avoid facing the unpleasant truth that the U.S. occupation is opposed by a substantial majority of the population who the U.S. is ostensibly there to support. In seeking to defend a continued U.S. presence in Iraq, the administration and its supporters have drawn a deeply distorted picture of the political struggles currently taking place within various Iraqi communities.

In this podcast, New York Times reporters Alissa Rubin and Stephen Farrell discuss the situation on the ground in Sadr City. Farrell characterizes the current fighting as part of an intra-Shia struggle between “the haves and have nots, the establishment and outsiders.”

You have the people who rule the street and the people who run the government. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find many Iraqis who would wholeheartedly side with the idea that somehow the official democratic clean honest wonderful government is bringing law and order to an undisciplined rabble. I think most people, certainly most Sunnis that you talk to, would see this as a fight between a militia [ISCI/Badr] which happens to have turned itself into the government army and a militia [Sadr’s Mahdi Army] which hasn’t. The insiders and the outsiders.

Since very early in the occupation of Iraq, the United States has been willing to work with ISCI because it was willing to work with the U.S. That is, they recognized, for the moment, the authority of the U.S. occupation. The Sadrists did not, which resulted in the U.S.’s freezing them out of a political process which the Sadrists in any case viewed as illegitimate. This allowed ISCI to establish itself within the Iraqi government to a far greater extent than its relatively small political base could reasonably justify, and to incorporate large numbers of its (Iranian trained and supported) militia into the security services.

To put it simply, the U.S. is opposing Sadr because he opposes the U.S. occupation, and the U.S. is supporting ISCI because ISCI supports the occupation. As Brian Katulis and I noted in an op-ed several weeks ago, the irony of this strategy is that it has allied the United States with Iran’s primary proxy in the Iraqi government, against what is arguably the most potent nationalist political force in the country.

Jeffrey Goldberg Still Fighting The Last War»

Only six posts into his new blog, and Jeffrey Goldberg is back up to his old tricks, pushing bad intel on Iraq:

The energetic Reihan Salam has an interesting, and sane, post about the widely-ignored Institute for Defense Analyses study on possible connections between Saddam’s regime and Islamist terror organizations. Among other things, the report disproves the orthodox CIA view that ideological and theological differences between Ba’athists and Islamists kept them from cooperating. You can read Eli Lake’s story about the report here.

Goldberg is referring to this study, “Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights From Captured Iraqi Documents,” which examined “more than 600,000 Iraqi documents, audio and video records” captured by U.S. forces after the 2003 invasion.

A more accurate rendering of the study’s findings is that, despite the many assertions to the contrary by the Bush administration and its media spear-carriers like Jeffrey Goldberg, an exhaustive review revealed no evidence of a meaningful relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. The report’s abstract states that the “documents do not reveal direct coordination and assistance between the Saddam regime and the al Qaeda network,” though they did indicate some contacts between members of Saddam’s regime and groups affiliated with Al Qaeda.

A Google search reveals Goldberg’s contention that the IDA study “was widely ignored” to be nonsense. In fact, the study was widely discussed and interrogated both in the mainstream media and in the blogosphere, including on this blog. What has been ignored, and rightly, are the rather pathetic attempts by neoconservatives to spin the report into a vindication of their views, which is where Eli Lake’s article comes in.

Lake’s article in the NY Sun, which has been relentlessly and repeatedly referenced by the right-wing blogosphere (a phenomenon which, while certainly revealing of how low conservatives’ standards of evidence fall when they get desperate, neither lends the article credibility nor accuracy) provides a classic example of attempting to derive capabilities from intentions.

No one denied, then or now, that Saddam Hussein wanted to hurt America; what the IDA report confirmed, however, was that, as of 2003, Saddam Hussein had neither the competence nor the capability to do so. This was cause for vigilance, but certainly not for an American invasion and occupation which continues to this day. Goldberg’s continuing effort to carve out a small island of vindication on the point of “Baathist-Islamist cooperation” while deflecting blame for his own role in getting up the Iraq invasion by acting as a conduit for pro-war propaganda, indicates that he still doesn’t get this.

John McCain’s Buffet-Style Foreign Policy»

A few unforced errors from John McCain on the campaign trail. At a town meeting in Denver, trying to build suspense for the upcoming roll-out of his energy plan, McCain assured an admiring audience:

My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will — that will then prevent us — that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East.

This is bad on a couple levels. There’s the obvious gaffe in suggesting that the U.S. is fighting the Iraq war over oil (something which many already believe). Then there’s the fact that the U.S. already gets the majority of its oil from regions other than the Middle East. Finally, regardless of how much oil the U.S. does or does not get from the Middle East, other countries will certainly still be getting it from there, developing economies such as China’s absolutely depend upon it, and thus securing and ensuring continued access to Middle East oil will be a central element of any global economic and security framework for the foreseeable future. One would hope that anyone running for president understands this.

At a different event, McCain tried again to distance himself from the “100 years” remark, and offered this bit of straight talk about America’s future presence in Iraq:

After we win the war in Iraq … then I’m talking about a security arrangement that may or may not be the same kind of thing we have with South — with Korea.

In 2005, McCain rejected the South Korea model for Iraq, saying that he “hoped we could bring them [the troops] all home.” Last August, McCain said that the Korea model was “exactly” the right idea. Then in November he changed his mind again, saying the he didn’t think the South Korea analogy was a good one. Then in January, he was back in favor of the South Korea model, offering it in support of his “100 years” remark.

Now it appears that McCain has settled on a little from column A, and a little from column B.

UPDATE: Here’s the video of McCain’s oil comments:

Welcome Back Sunnis»

Our guest blogger is Peter Juul, a national security consultant at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Good news everybody! The main Sunni Arab parliamentary bloc, Tawafuq, is rejoining the Maliki government after a nine month long boycott. The bloc cited the favorable implementation of the recently-passed amnesty law and the crackdown on Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia as the main reasons for its decision to re-up with Maliki. Tawafuq’s justification is especially ironic given the fact that it partnered with Sadr’s parliamentary bloc to pass the amnesty law.

While Tawafuq’s return is a positive development in Iraqi politics, it remains to be seen whether it will have any long-term impact. After all, Tawafuq was a member of the Maliki government during the worst of the sectarian violence during 2006 and 2007. Its presence seemed to do little to move toward meaningful political progress then, and as noted key legislative initiatives were passed when it was outside government.

More important, however, is the extent to which Tawafuq actually represents Iraq’s Sunni Arabs. With the rise of the Awakening movement, Sunni politics have become more fractured. These tribal and insurgent groups are not answerable to the bloc and are seeking to enter politics on their own terms, if at all. Members of the Anbar Awakening have even threatened to fight members of the Tawafuq bloc. So Tawafuq’s return to the Maliki government does not augur full-blow Sunni-Shi’a reconciliation.

Tawafuq’s primary motivation in returning to government may be to politically outmaneuver the Awakenings, who are poised to take power in provincial elections later this year. In this respect, Tawafuq’s return may lead to heightened intra-Sunni tensions as the bloc seeks to consolidate its power at the national level and the newly-empowered Awakenings seek increased devolution of authority to local levels.

Petraeus Must Now Answer The Question He Dodged»

Our guest blogger is Peter Juul, a national security consultant at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, has been promoted by the Bush administration to take charge of Central Command, or CENTCOM. For those unfamiliar with the military lexicon, CENTCOM is a geographical command that encompasses the greater Middle East from Egypt in the west to Pakistan in the east and the Horn of Africa in the south to Kazakhstan in the north.

Petraeus replaces Admiral William Fallon, who resigned in March over disagreements with the administration’s regional strategy. During his tenure as CENTCOM commander, Fallon argued for greater attention to the mission in Afghanistan, increased diplomacy with Iran, and a faster drawdown in Iraq. This last view put Fallon into conflict with both Petraeus and the White House, who both saw Iraq as the top priority. As a result, Petraeus had the ear of the White House and Fallon was marginalized in the eyes of observers.

Petraeus’ appointment as CENTCOM commander seemingly confirms the suspicion that Fallon’s resignation was due to his disagreements with the overly Iraq-centric administration regional strategy. Now, the argument goes, the White House has a commander more in tune with its own strategic priorities.

While this view may be valid, it is entirely possible Petraeus may shift his views upon taking responsibility for the entire region. During previous testimony before Congress, he has dodged questions of regional strategy by reminding congressional inquisitors that his responsibility was Iraq, not the region. But as the old bureaucratic politics chestnut goes, “where you stand depends on where you sit,” and Petraeus’ new chair may give him a new perspective.

The big question of this appointment, therefore, is whether Petraeus’ views will change as a result of wider responsibilities. It is imperative that Congress ask the broader regional strategic questions of Petraeus in confirmation hearings to get answers on this score. Petraeus cannot now avoid these questions given his additional duties as CENTCOM commander.

In the event Petraeus modifies his views on the strategic equation, will the White House listen? Or will he be marginalized like Admiral Fallon? Given the close relationship between Washington and Petraeus, this turn of events seems unlikely. But recent history should give Congress reason to engage in deep and incisive questioning at confirmation hearings.

O’Hanlon Delivers A Message Tehran Would Love»

Our guest blogger is Peter Juul, a national security consultant at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Michael O’Hanlon has yet another op-ed in the Washington Times today arguing that Iran is “seeking to establish itself as the region’s hegemon,” primarily by “stoking violence in Iraq.” Iranian involvement in Iraq has thus become another rationale for O’Hanlon’s open-ended policy of “strategic patience” in Iraq. To prevent Iran from becoming a regional hegemon, the argument goes, “all [the United States] can do is be patient, keep fighting in Iraq… and keep trying to prove we are the reasonable ones.”

O’Hanlon chides proponents of engagement with Iran as failing to “understand the real nature of the situation we face.” As usual, though, it’s O’Hanlon who doesn’t understand the real nature of the situation the United States faces in Iraq and the region more broadly.

As the New York Times reported today, the United States and Iran increasingly find themselves on common ground in Iraq as a result of the open-ended commitment of U.S. forces favored by O’Hanlon and the Bush administration. Iran’s ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi Qumi, gave strong support to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s offensive against Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Basra: “The idea of the government in Basra was to fight outlaws. This was the right of the government and the responsibility of the government. And in my opinion the government was able to achieve a positive result in Basra.”

The Iranian ambassador’s words could have come out of the mouth of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In an unannounced visit to Baghdad yesterday, she praised Maliki’s “very good decision by the Iraqis to not let Basra continue to be under the control of criminals and militias.” Read the rest of this entry »

Rice: ‘Badr Has Decided To Be An Organization, Not A Militia’»

During a press conference in which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mocked Iraq Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr for issuing threats from Iran (unlike Rice’s bosses, who bravely issue threats from the trenches of Washington, DC), Secretary Rice and Ambassador Crocker were asked about distinctions between a militia like the Badr Organization, the militia wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), and Sadr’s Mahdi Army. Here’s what was said:

QUESTION: What is the distinction that all of you make between groups like the Badr Organization, which his for all intents a militia and in the past has been involved in events here that have been troublesome, even in 2005, 2006, not at the same level as the Jaish al-Mahdi, but clearly involved? So what’s the distinction you make between the Badr Organization? Why are they now different to the Jaish al-Mahdi?

AMBASSADOR CROCKER: The Badr organization made the choice a while back that they were going to step away from a militia identity and move into politics. That’s why it’s the Badr Organization. It used to be the Badr Brigades. They have opted to be, again, part of mainstream politics here. That’s the choice that’s now in front of the Sadr movement.

QUESTION: When would you say that they really changed to that? Because in 2005, there was the Jadriya bunker incident which was clearly linked to the –

SECRETARY RICE: We’re three years past that. And –

QUESTION: So when was the transition? In 2007, there was a case of a member of the Badr Organization threatening Hussein Kamal when he was here –

SECRETARY RICE: Look, I don’t think you can say that there won ‘t be an individual here or there who may break this — that decision to move in that direction. But Badr as an organization has decided to be an organization, not to be a militia.

Okay, glad we got that cleared up. The Badr are no longer considered a “militia” because they have decided to redefine themselves as “not a militia,” and the U.S. is apparently satisfied with this. Now, if only Muqtada al-Sadr would cease his opposition to the U.S. occupation of Iraq and get on board with the U.S.’s plans to use his country as a base from which to project power throughout the Middle East, he would be amazed at how fast the U.S. would be willing to redefine his militia in a similar fashion.

The truth is that, despite this transparent attempt to redefine these militias in a way that reflects “progress” in Iraq, they remain militias. Badr and Da’wa militiamen have been incorporated into the “Iraqi army” in Baghdad and southern Iraq, just as units of the Kurdish peshmerga have been incorporated into the “Iraqi army” in Kurdistan, but despite the new uniforms, these fighters remain loyal to, and continue to commit violence on behalf of, the political factions with which they originated. This is what is known as “success” in Surgeland.

McClatchy News Service Baghdad bureau chief Leila Fadel was interviewed on Bill Moyers’ program last Friday, and explained how silly these word games are.

Watch it:

Transcript below: Read the rest of this entry »