New president inaugurated in Lebanon. Can Bush keep his hands off?

As this report/analysis makes clear, Lebanon is not out of the woods, by a long shot. The opposing sides remain armed and intent on asserting themselves. Also telling here will be whether the Bush administration, which indeed suffered a defeat with Hezbollah's vindication in this deal, will take a clue, lie low, and let the Lebanese and interested regional parties try to work out a modus vivendi, or try to shake things up in its insistence that its war against "terrorists" (i.e., Hizbollah, Iran, Syria) takes precedence.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/25/AR2008052501135.html
General Takes Office As President Of Lebanon
Vote Marks Symbolic End Of Government's Crisis

By Anthony Shadid and Alia Ibrahim
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 26, 2008; A12

BEIRUT, May 25 -- Lebanon's parliament elected the army commander, Gen. Michel Suleiman, as president Sunday, filling a post vacant for six months and bringing a symbolic if tenuous end to the country's worst crisis since the 15-year civil war ended in 1990.

The vote for Suleiman was virtually uncontested, already agreed to in a deal negotiated in Qatar last week that ended an 18-month confrontation between forces allied with the government and the opposition led by the Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah. Postponed 19 times, the election marked the first step in reconstituting what had looked more and more like a failed state in past months: an unfilled presidency, a cabinet deemed illegitimate by the opposition and a parliament that had not met since 2006.

After Suleiman's election, by 118 votes of 127 possible, a flag-waving crowd that had gathered in his home town of Amchit erupted in cheers. Fireworks detonated over Beirut, cars blared their horns and church bells tolled. Staccato bursts of celebratory gunfire rattled across a capital that, less than two weeks ago, witnessed pitched gun battles redolent of civil war.

"I call upon all of you, politicians and citizens, to begin a new stage that is called Lebanon and the Lebanese," Suleiman, who forewent his military uniform for the civilian suit of a politician, told parliament. To repeated rounds of applause, he said the country had paid dearly for what he called national unity. "Let us preserve it hand in hand."

The deal that brought Suleiman to power represented another setback in the region for the United States, which has long sought to isolate Hezbollah, a group backed by Syria and Iran. Under the agreement, Hezbollah and its allies will have veto power in the coming cabinet -- the group's demand since the crisis began after a war with Israel in 2006 -- demonstrating its clear role today as the single most powerful force in Lebanon.

The vote represented a rare moment of consensus across the political, social and ideological divide that still fractures Lebanon -- from the country's posture toward Israel to which foreign patron will play the greatest role in Lebanese politics, long vulnerable to regional crises. The foreign ministers of Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and France attended the parliamentary session, as did the emir of Qatar, who was seated at the podium of parliament in recognition of his government's role in the negotiations, which nearly collapsed twice. In a telling sign, the United States was represented only by a congressional delegation.

"This last crisis ended with a winner and a vanquished," said the emir, Sheik Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani. "The winner is Lebanon, and the vanquished is the feud, and this needs to be clear to all -- today, tomorrow and forever."

Streets in the capital and elsewhere Sunday were awash in Lebanese flags and posters celebrating Suleiman's presidency. "The leader, the president," one read. "Congratulations, Lebanon," said another. Weary of almost continuous crises that have beset Lebanon since former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri was assassinated in a 2005 car bombing in Beirut, many residents, regardless of their stance on the crisis, have greeted the agreement and election of Suleiman with relief that the country averted civil war, consolation perhaps muted by frustration that the confrontation lasted as long as it did.

Reservations have surged at hotels here, the stock market has rebounded and life has returned to a downtown paralyzed by an 18-month opposition sit-in.

Often heard in Lebanon, though, is the idea that the country has embarked on a truce, and no more. The question of Hezbollah's arsenal remains pressing for government supporters, who tried to address the issue in the Qatar talks. Suleiman is expected to lead a dialogue over the issue with rival leaders.

The cabinet will remain in power through next summer, when parliamentary elections are expected to again enshrine in power the same leaders, some of them veterans of the civil war with almost-feudal influence over their followers.

Suleiman, 59, was appointed army commander in 1998, when Syria still exercised tutelage over Lebanon. He rose through the ranks of an army that, particularly in the 1990s, worked closely with Syria and Hezbollah, which fought a guerrilla war against Israel in southern Lebanon until its withdrawal in 2000. He emerged as a candidate of the opposition, then drew on the backing of government supporters to fill a post vacant since the term of Emile Lahoud, a Syrian ally and former general, ended in November.

Both sides had their grievances with Suleiman: The opposition was critical of the military for shooting on protesters in January; government supporters were angry at what they saw as the military's acquiescence in allowing fighters of Hezbollah and its allies to enter predominantly Muslim West Beirut this month, where they routed government-backed militiamen in hours, forcing the government into the eventual compromise.

"The gun should only be pointed against the enemy," Suleiman said. "We will not allow it another direction."

Rebuilding US foreign policy

The new president come 2009 will be faced with a monumental task in rebuilding America's role as a significant player in Middle Eastern developments, not to mention international relations in general, thanks to Mr. Bush and his pals. On the other hand, much of the world may welcome a new US approach that stresses global cooperation over Bush's unilateralism (which boiled down to US-firstism, as it were) especially in a new era blooming with possibilities of massive instability that may have global repercussions: global warming, the threat of food shortages, intense (potentially violent?) competition over increasingly scarce and costly resources like petroleum and natural gas, as well as the ongoing threat from groups like al-Qaeda.

But what will the US be able to bring to the table if the world wants to sit down and work out consultative, cooperative means of dealing with crises? Because of the world's awe of the US's military might, trust in the stability of the US economy (and dollar), and confidence in the efficacy of the US's diplomatic outreach and experience, the US had traditionally been counted on as both leader and ultimate enforcer - the "backstop," as it were, to keep crises in the ballpark. But now, the US economy is being pummeled onto the ropes: foreclosed mortgages, plummeting dollar, skyrocketing fuel prices (which, in my own home area, are contributing to a new round of teacher layoffs and possible school closings), US automobile manufacturers on life-support (Ford Motors just yesterday announced a cutback in US production; nobody's buying those Explorers and Expeditions anymore), national assets being gobbled up by China and the new "sovereign wealth funds" of petrodollar-rich nations.

As Strobel's essay (below) suggests, the confidence in US diplomacy is toast - thoroughly scorched toast, at that - thanks to the idiocy and arrogance of Mr. Bush's policies (and the sense of divine mission that impelled them), with a major assist from Condi Rice, who (as Elizabeth Bumiller's recent biography of her makes clear) has likely been the least qualified, least substantive (as opposed to stylish), and least effective national security advisor and secretary of state in the modern era. As for its military might, the US still possesses overwhelming firepower and technology-based weaponry, as well as a massive nuclear deterrent. But its land forces are in crisis: overstretched to the point of recruiting undereducated social and psychological misfits (and worse) to fill its ranks, and demoralized by the effects of multiple combat tours, stop-loss measures by its Pentagon commanders, and the refusal of increasing numbers of the Army's field and non-commissioned officers to re-enlist. Meanwhile, residents of Iraq's cities and villagers in Afghanistan and Pakistan (and now the world, thanks to the testimonies of "Winter Soldiers" and countless journalists) have learned that soldiers and contractors from the United States of America - a country long respected around the world for its democratic, humane values - have the prerogative of inflicting on them and their families sudden, indiscriminate murder, be it by an overreacting Marine patrol, the cowboys of a Blackwater security squad, an Air Force pilot in his (or her) F-16, or even a soldier, in a comfortable chair with a cup of coffee at the ready, obliterating them and their families with a drone-borne Hellfire missile by pushing a button on a console on an air base in Colorado. The brutal termination of their lives is chalked up as "collateral damage" in the fight to eliminate the "bad guys" (many of whom are, after all, nationalist resistance fighters whose chief aim is simply to expel foreign occupiers - and their allies - from their homeland); their killers remain unknown or, if identified, largely unpunished. The US military is indeed still feared, and because of that fear, respected, but the larger point is that, where it once was seen as the agent of a nation that used its military might to fight for the Good, it now is perceived across much of the globe (and increasingly, here at home) as that nation's avatar of wanton destruction and domination.

As the world faces a terribly uncertain future as a new president is inaugurated in 2009, then, what reason has it any longer to look to the US for leadership, even with the promise of a new president in January, 2009?

http://www.sacbee.com/111/v-print/story/963571.html

Analysis: In week of dramatic Mideast developments, Washington was largely reduced to watching

By Warren P. Strobel - McClatchy Newspapers
Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, May 24, 2008

WASHINGTON – In a week of dramatic developments in the Middle East, the most dramatic of all may have been the fact that the United States, long considered the region's indispensable player, was missing in action.

As its closest allies cut deals with their adversaries this week over the Bush administration's opposition, Washington was largely reduced to watching.

More painfully for President Bush, friends he has cultivated – and spent heavily on – in Lebanon and Iraq asked the United States to remain in the background, underlining how politically toxic an association with the United States can be for Arab leaders.

Over the past few days:

• The Lebanese government, which has received $1.3 billion and political support from the Bush administration, compromised with the Hezbollah-led opposition, giving the Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim group, which Washington considers a terrorist organization, a greater role in running the country.

• Israel ignored U.S. objections and entered indirect peace talks with Syria through Turkey, another longtime U.S. ally.

• The U.S.-backed Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki deployed military forces to Baghdad's Sadr City slum under an agreement that specifically excluded U.S. troops.

• Saudi Arabia, a crucial oil supplier and long a major buyer of U.S. weapons, is quietly closing what could be a multibillion-dollar arms deal with Russia, according to a U.S. defense official.

State Department officials scoffed at the notion that the United States has been relegated to the sidelines.

Private analysts and some foreign diplomats, however, said leaders in the Middle East, both friend and foe, are now calculating with an eye to the era after President Bush – who visited Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt this month with little visible effect.

Others said that by refusing to talk to adversaries and using bristling "with-us-or-against-us" rhetoric, Bush has cut his administration out of the game. Under Bush, U.S. diplomats have had few substantive discussions with Iran, Syria, Hezbollah or the militant Palestinian group Hamas, which in 2006 won elections that the White House had pushed for.

"In that sense, we've dealt ourselves out of the picture," said Richard Murphy, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Syria and an assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration.

Three years ago, Lebanon was a symbol of the kind of Arab democracy the Bush administration envisioned. A Western-backed reform movement, spurred by the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005, drove out a generation-long Syrian military presence and made electoral gains against Syrian-backed factions such as Hezbollah.

But every year since Hariri's death, America's sway in Lebanon has diminished and Hezbollah's has increased.

An 18-month political stalemate erupted in violence this month, with Hezbollah and its allies taking over much of Beirut but stopping short of laying siege to the government.

The strategy paid off this week, when Arab mediators in Doha, Qatar, negotiated a peace agreement that fulfilled Hezbollah's three main goals: keeping its vast arsenal intact and untouchable; winning veto power over all government decisions; and tweaking election laws to better reflect the growing Shiite population.

U.S. and European powers could do little but watch. Murphy, referring to Lebanon, said: "Maybe we didn't do quite enough, and said too much."

Similarly, in the talks between Israel and Syria, it was Turkey that stepped into the role of "honest broker" once played by the United States.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Bush were aware of Israeli-Syrian contacts in recent months, U.S. officials said. But they made little secret of their deep skepticism about the worth of talking to Syria, which Bush has shunned far more than any of his recent predecessors.

"It's like I'm from Missouri. … Show me," the State Department official said.

Israel, though, appears to have decided that it's worth trying to peel Syria away from its larger patron, Iran, which is also Israel's principal adversary. For its part, Syria seeks to retrieve the strategic Golan Heights, which it lost to Israel in the 1967 Mideast War.

Into the vacuum stepped Turkey, a large, pro-Western Muslim nation that has strong ties to Israel and Syria. It gained credibility in the region for refusing to allow U.S. troops to use its territory to invade Iraq in 2003.

"Turkey has carved out the middle ground," said Paul Salem, the director of the Carnegie Endowment's Middle East Center in Beirut. "It's a success story."

The proposed arms deal between Russia and Saudi Arabia is yet another example of a country trying to make inroads on traditional U.S. turf. Russia's state-controlled arms exporter, Rosoboronexport, has been marketing aggressively in the Arab world, according to a senior State Department official. News reports from Moscow value the deal at $4 billion, although U.S. officials said it might be smaller.

---

Go to: Sacbee / Back to story

Dana Milbank's excellent piece on neocon darling Doug Feith

IMHO, on-target assessment of the failings of the execrable Mr. Doug Feith. Frankly, I was disappointed when Georgetown gave him a faculty spot. It's somehow reassuring that they've chosen to dump him. He'll probably wind up making deals as a lobbyist - maybe for AIPAC? - or as a new "resident scholar" at the American Enterprise Institute.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/24/AR2008042403481_pf.html
Iraq War Is Everyone Else's Fault, Feith Explains

By Dana Milbank
Friday, April 25, 2008; A03

Mistakes were made. But not by him.

Doug Feith, the No. 3 man at the Pentagon before, during and after the invasion of Iraq, has come in for his share of blame for the failures there -- in large part because he led the Pentagon policy shop that badly misstated the case for war and bungled the planning for the aftermath. Gen. Tommy Franks called him "the dumbest [bad word] guy on the planet." George Tenet of the CIA called his work on Iraq "total crap." And Jay Garner, once the American administrator in Iraq, deduced that Feith is "incredibly dangerous" and, "He's a smart guy whose electrons aren't connected."

Now Feith, whatever the state of his electrons, is showing just how dangerous he can be. He's written a book designed to settle the score with his many opponents in the administration, and in a book-launch event last night at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, he pointed his finger every which way but inward.

He argued that former secretary of state Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, were the ones who failed to challenge the logic of going to war -- not him. He suggested that Powell, Armitage, Franks, former Iraq viceroy Jerry Bremer and even Feith's old boss, Donald Rumsfeld, should be blamed for the postwar chaos in Iraq -- not him. He blamed then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice for the way she operated ("fundamental differences were essentially papered over rather than resolved"). He accused the CIA of "improper" and unprofessional behavior. And he implicitly blamed President Bush for not cracking down on insubordinate behavior at the State Department.

Yet at the same time, Feith told the CSIS crowd that he disapproved of the "snide and shallow self-justification typical in memoirs of former officials," or what Feith cleverly called the " 'I-was-surrounded-by-idiots' school of memoir writing." Feith pointed out that he supported his account with 140 pages of notes and documents. And yet, in his hour-long panel discussion, Feith seemed to be of the impression that he had, in fact, been surrounded by idiots.

There was, for example, the question of the campaign waged by Feith and his section of the Pentagon against the CIA when the agency argued that there was no evidence of al-Qaeda having ties to Saddam Hussein. "The CIA and the intelligence community should not be shading intelligence," Feith lectured. But the self-justification missed the obvious point: The CIA was correct.

As he has promoted his book this month, Feith has continued to say things that suggest an ongoing electron disconnect. On "60 Minutes," he made the straight-faced claim that "I don't think we needed to" make weapons of mass destruction part of the case for war with Iraq.

And he assigns blame freely. Disbanding of the Iraqi army? He blames that on Bremer and Rumsfeld. "The first time I heard the idea, it came from Ambassador Bremer when he was on his way to Baghdad. I didn't sign off one way or the other."

His main regret, he told National Public Radio, was that Rumsfeld and Franks did not take seriously his wise and prescient memo warning about the need to preserve law and order in Iraq. He should have "pushed harder to get it onto General Franks's radar screen, to get it onto Secretary Rumsfeld's radar screen," he said.

Pointing so many fingers in so many directions, a man is bound to get confused -- as happened when Steve Kroft asked him on "60 Minutes" about his claim that the lack of troops contributed to looting in Baghdad. "I don't believe I raised the troop-level issue in that connection," Feith replied. Then Kroft presented him with the passage. "That's a fair point," Feith amended.

The title of Feith's book, "War and Decision," is printed across a blood-red cover. At last night's forum, moderator Ray DuBois of the CSIS pointed out that Feith, admirably, is donating all proceeds from the book to a foundation he's creating to help veterans and their families. Of course, money is not the object in this book; the 54-year-old son of a Holocaust survivor is eager to rebuild a reputation that continues to suffer for his role in starting the war. After his appointment to the Georgetown foreign-service school caused a ruckus among the faculty, the school decided not to renew his spot.

CSIS's Fred Ikle, one of the panelists, admired Feith's ability to point out, "honestly and delicately," that "this was not Rumsfeld's finest hour," and he praised the author's "subtle disclosure of the chronic insubordination in our government." But there was nothing subtle about Feith's blame-casting.

"The most serious analysis of the downside and risks of war was produced in the Pentagon by Rumsfeld and his top advisers, not by Colin Powell, Rich Armitage, George Tenet or other officials who are reputed to have been the voices of caution," Feith argued.

Then there was the "plan for political transition in post-Saddam Iraq" -- the lack of which caused the American occupation to unravel. "It was a plan that my office drafted, Powell and Armitage tried to delay, President Bush approved, Jay Garner began to implement and L. Paul Bremer buried."

It must have been very difficult being Doug Feith: correct all the time, and surrounded by idiots.

More birth pangs, Condi?

Tomorrow's NY Times quotes Condi Rice and Ryan Crocker with remarks that I'd find ludicrous, even comical, if their deceptiveness weren't masking with happy-talk the ramping-up violence in Iraq, specifically in Baghdad and Basra - and quite probably, as the LA Times indicates, Najaf. Ms. Rice is chirping up in a manner that has me afraid she's going to start making remarks a la her famous "birth pangs of a new Middle East" comment during the Israeli demolition of much of Lebanon's infrastructure (and hundreds of its people) when it went after Hezbollah there in summer of 2006. Specifically, she quotes Iraqi PM al-Maliki as referring to the heightening violence in Baghdad's Sadr City as a "political spring." She perhaps is channeling her putative expertise as a Sovietologist (by any academic standard, she was a very minor one) to associate what's happening in Baghdad with the famous "Prague Spring" of 1968. That, some of us remember, was a short-lived political liberalizing in Czechoslovakia that ended tragically when the USSR invaded the country. Or perhaps she sees US troops about to do the same thing if the Iraqi Shia nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr calls up his Mahdi Army forces to resist the US forces and the "Iraqi army" on the streets of Sadr City. Muqtada, by the way, now threatens full-out war. Condi, when so informed, said that she wasn't sure whether to take him seriously. This is the same Condi, of course, who was taken completely by surprise when democratic elections in the Palestinian territories brought Hamas to power in 2006.

My use of quotation marks around "Iraqi army" is deliberate, if you hadn't already guessed - and this is where I take issue with ambassador Crocker, whom the NYT also quotes as saying that to be a serious political player like the ISCI party, Muqtada needs to forswear his Mahdi army militia. After all, says Crocker, ISCI's Badr Force militia have largely joined up with the supposedly nationalist, sect-unaffiliated Iraqi Army - which in Crocker's eyes (or at least for public consumption for the compliant mainstream media, not to mention his bosses in the White House) seems to mean that, but, of course, they've renounced any ties to the leadership and agenda of ISCI.

I want to scream, "Who do you think you're kidding?!!" Unfortunately, thousands of Americans who are too pre-occupied with keeping their houses and/or their jobs, or maintaining their Facebook pages, will take some comfort from Rice's and Crocker's public optimism - and Sen. McCain will likely seize on their comments to bolster his candidacy.

I fear, though, that the bottom may be about to fall out, and I fear that thousands of Iraqis - and a lot of US troops - are going to pay the price. But if the bottom is indeed about to fall out, how fitting that it happen on Mr. Bush's watch.

Iraq troops in control of Basra?

So says the NY Times, which reports that Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered his Mahdi Army forces to withdraw following attacks by Iraq army troops (remember, many of them are members of the Badr Force militia of Sadr's rival Abdul-aziz al-Hakim) and pounding by US and British artillery and air forces. In fact, the headline in the London Times is "British Guns Pound Basra". When I first spotted it I wondered if they were running one of those "On this date 91 years ago" kind of stories.

Meanwhile, US and Iraqi troops are savaging Sadr City in Baghdad, and Muqtada is threatening an all-out campaign if Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki doesn't rein in his forces. Very noteworthy here is the Iranian official reaction, which sides with Maliki vs. Muqtada, even though Iran has been providing support to the militias of both sides. However, Muqtada is - much more than al-Hakim - an Iraqi nationalist who wants to see a strong central government in Baghdad, which makes him a greater threat down the line to the Iranian regime's hopes of maintaining a strong influence over Iraq affairs. al-Hakim is much more interested in a loosely federated Iraq with a Shia super-state in the south that would have very close ties to Iran's mullahs.

Bush says no more troop cuts in Iraq

Mr Bush and his “legacy”
By John Robertson, War in Context, April 6, 2008

According to Britain’s Daily Telegraph our war-hero “Decider” president has decided that he will pull no more troops out of Iraq. According to the report, which cites Pentagon sources, he feels that showing such “resolve” will cement his legacy - which, he obviously assumes, is going to be an honorable one that will burn his glorious presidency indelibly into the pages of our national memory. A major contributor to his decision, moreover, seems to have been a report from another of our war-hero stalwarts, Fred Kagan, American Enterprise Institute all-star and an “intellectual” godfather of the “Surge.” Kagan is also a frequent contributor to William Kristol’s Weekly Standard (required reading for the - one would have hoped by now - discredited neocon faithful), where right up to the recent Basra humiliation he was serving up self-congratulatory pieces about the success of the Surge and declaring Iraq’s civil war to be “over.” Sorry, Fred, but most of the real experts (people like Juan Cole, Nir Rosen, and Patrick Cockburn - that is, people who know the country intimately, have lived there, and can read its newspapers) who’ve been reading the tea leaves suggest that, in the inimitable words of an American showman whose name I can’t recall, we “ain’t see nuthin yet.”

Please forgive me if I sound callous or flip by putting it that way, but by now it ought to be clear that the unfortunate people of Iraq have a long road to travel - and probably many years of suffering ahead - before they will be able to enjoy an existence graced by any consistency of peace, prosperity, and security. Surge notwithstanding, the Sunni Arabs of Anbar and elsewhere are no closer to being included in the governing of the Iraqi state than they were during the proconsulship of L. Paul Bremer, who marginalized them from the outset of the American occupation. The much-touted Sunni sahwa (”Sunni Awakening”) - to which the Bush-Petraeus “Surge” owed so much of its putative success - now seems, at best, to be hitting its collective snooze alarm while the US tries to keep these new militias, which are completely outside the control of the central government, paid off. Despite its ongoing entreaties, the Bush administration has been unable to convince the Shia-dominated Maliki government to incorporate them into the Iraqi army. Nor is that government making any appreciable effort to find them jobs to divert their attention and secure them some livelihood, and paychecks. It is likely only a matter of time before they bug out altogether and turn their newly obtained arms, equipment, and training on the people against whom so many of them were originally most intent on fighting in the first place: the US occupation forces and their Shia Badr Force allies.

Meanwhile, the sun seems to be setting on the hope-filled halcyon days of the Kurds’ autonomy in Iraq’s northeast, in which they were able to bask only because (after years of being sheltered and nurtured under a US-enforced no-fly zone) they supported the US invasion right down the line, while the US could point to them as Iraq’s model of stability and potential. But now the US has shown itself all too willing to sell them out when a stronger, more potentially useful ally, Turkey, put its marker down in this new “great game.” Notwithstanding the protests of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Turkish forces only recently completed major incursions into Iraqi Kurdistan to go after the PKK; only days ago, for the umpteenth time, Turkish warplanes flew bombing sorties into the region; and the Turkish republic’s leaders have reserved the right to violate the sovereignty of the KRG (and, by the standards of anybody’s interpretation of international law, the sovereignty of the state of Iraq) when and if they deem it necessary (which, given the current turmoil in the Turkish government, also translates to “politically expedient”). And as if the threat from Turkey weren’t enough, the future stability of Kurdistan faces what is perhaps an even direr threat: the possibility of civil war among Kurds, Arabs, and Turks over the ultimate control of the city and region of Kirkuk.

And speaking of civil war, it’s pretty safe to say that the violence of late March in Basra and Baghdad was only a taste of what might be in store for Iraq’s largely Shia south and center, where the scions of the powerful and prestigious al-Hakim and al-Sadr clerical lineages (along with smaller groups like the Fadhila party in Basra) are vying for political control (and in Basra, control of Iraq’s vital oil exports) as provincial elections, scheduled for October, approach. Their respective leaders - Abdulaziz al-Hakim and Muqtada al-Sadr - control well-armed and inspired militias (respectively, the Badr Forces and the Jaish al-Mahdi, or “Mahdi Army”) that fought each other viciously in the holy city of Karbala only a few months ago, and in Basra and Baghdad only recently. Thanks largely to the intervention of Iran (which was spearheaded by a “terrorist” Revolutionary Guard general), Muqtada agreed to a truce, not to be mistaken for a peace treaty. Simply put, the two militias hate each other. Add then to this very combustible mix that Muqtada is the leader of a huge popular political movement that claims the support of hundreds of thousands of the poor Shia of teeming slums like Sadr City in Baghdad, and of hundreds of thousands more in Iraq’s second largest city, Basra. He has called upon his followers - and other Iraqis who want the US occupation out of Iraq - to come together next week for a million-man march. That march was originally set for the holy city of Najaf, a stronghold of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), the Shia political movement led by Abdulaziz al-Hakim. Now, however, Muqtada has decided to stage the march in Baghdad.

Keeping a lid on the tensions that will be bubbling in Baghdad next week will be the job of the Maliki “government.” This is, of course, the same Maliki government that was recently humbled by its failure in Basra and that appears ever more dysfunctional, hunkered down in the “Green Zone” (beyond which it exercises little real control) and confronted with a divided, often absentee parliament. The army Maliki commands has proved itself largely unreliable and ineffective, often including members of the Badr militia whose loyalties to the state are suspect or forced to rely on Kurdish peshmerga who are loath to be involved in inter-Arab conflicts. But it’s this army with which Maliki is entrusted with keeping a damper on the situation as Muqtada’s march approaches. Can we really believe they’re up to it?

No. Which is why US troops, air power, and special forces will be on the scene aplenty next week - and why, Mr. Bush has now decided, and why Gen. Petraeus will insist next week, they will need to be there for the foreseeable future. And it’s also why Mr. Bush will feel it justifiable and necessary to hand off the Iraq tinderbox to his successor. Given the current mood of US citizenry (of whom, a new poll indicates, more than 80 percent believe that the country is headed in the wrong direction), that successor will likely not be a member of Mr. Bush’s political party. But with a level of military effort no longer sustainable (as almost all of the top brass have insisted), and with the national economy swirling the bowl, that successor will most certainly have to begin to disengage the US from Iraq - and be left to hold the bag for the hubris, incompetence, and catastrophe of his predecessor.

Because, as US forces pull out, Iraq will most certainly fall apart even more, its misery and violence ratcheting up by several notches. With much more justification than Mr. Bush did last week, many across the world will proclaim it a “defining moment.” Some will proclaim that the American behemoth has been vanquished once and for all. Others, perhaps more reflectively, and dishearteningly, may surmise that whatever fires America might have lit for insisting on goodness and justice on the planet lie in cinders, if not altogether doused.

But Mr. Bush’s glorious page in our national memory will be completely up in smoke, wisps on the wind of history.

John Robertson is a professor of Middle East history at Central Michigan University and has his own blog, Chippshots.

About that "defining moment" in Iraq

Mr. Bush's claim last week that Iraqi PM al-Maliki's decision to take on the Mahdi army in Basra was a "defining moment" is coming back to haunt him. First, Maliki's own party, without his knowledge, undercuts him by sending emissaries to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general (and evidently a "terrorist" as defined by the US) in Qom to arrange a truce with Muqtada al-Sadr. Then, even though by all accounts his army did not do well against the Mahdi army, Maliki vows to keep going after them. Now, today, Maliki is telling his army to stand down.
A defining moment indeed.

Basra's aftermath

Very revealing story in today's Financial Times about the performance of the Iraqi army during the recent fight against the Mahdi army in Basra. It seems that as many as 1000 officers and men refused to fight, and now Mr. al-Maliki is threatening to prosecute and/or discipline them all. Meanwhile, he is now signing up Shia tribesmen by the dozen to enlist in the Iraqi army. US ambassador Ryan Crocker sees this as a measure of Maliki's strong leadership, and as evidence that the Shia tribesmen are moving to support his government in what Crocker seems to view as some major shift in the tide. Fortunately, the reporter (so unlike so many of his colleagues in the US mainstream media) does not restrict his reporting to stenography for US military and diplomatic spokesmen, but inquires into other possible reasons for this shift, to learn that a - perhaps the - major incentive here is a job, and a paycheck.

Meanwhile, the Sunni sahwa ("Awakening") forces, who've been demanding that they be incorporated into the Iraqi army, remain out in the cold - and they aren't happy about it. That, of course, spells even more trouble for Mr. Maliki, who seems determined to keep Sunni Arab elements from acquiring any significant influence in either the government or the military. Given the long years of Sunni domination and abuse of the Shia in Mesopotamia/Iraq, especially under the Baathist regime of Saddam, his reluctance in this regard is to be expected. But without some measure of significant Sunni inclusion, Iraq's current state cannot improve for more than the few months that band-aid solutions such as the "Surge" made possible.

And Mr. Muqtada al-Sadr still plans to have his million-man march on Najaf next week . . . .

Muqtada's million-person march

Reports today that Muqtada al-Sadr is calling for a million people to march on the Shiite holy city of Najaf next week, both as a show of political force and as a demonstration against the US occupation. The US-sponsored Maliki government is saying that it is more or less OK with it (even as its forces continue to surround Sadrist neighborhoods in Baghdad and US warplanes bomb Sadrist neighborhoods in Basra). But I fear that this proposed march has the potential to be the flashpoint that sets off the tinderbox. Najaf is controlled mostly by the forces of ISCI (Islamic Supreme Council in Iraq, led by Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim) and its militia, the Badr Force, which are extremely hostile to the Sadrists. Only a few months ago they came to blows in the other shrine city, Karbala, and the recent battles in Basra pitted the Mahdi Army of the Sadrists against the Iraqi army (with US ground and air support), many of whom were also members of the Badr militia. We can expect the feelings between the Sadrists and ISCI to be very raw when the march takes place.

And add to that the fact that the Sunni al-Qaeda forces will likely be planning attacks against the Shiite marchers . . . and that US forces will likely be nearby, on alert . . .

Crisis unfolds in Iraq

I'm afraid that the people of Baghdad and Iraq's south, especially Basra, are in for a horrible time. Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army is rising to fend off the forces of the Iraq army (many of whom are also members of the rival ISCI militia - the Badr army - of al-Hakim) and the US forces supporting them. At least 100 people have died, and the fighting seems far from over. Meanwhile, Mr. Bush is reverting to his prep-school-cheerleader persona, touting the courage and leadership of Iraqi prime minister Maliki as well as the effectiveness of the "Surge" - which, he says, is a big part of the reason for the current "progress" (as if the poor Shia - and by that I mean impoverished as well as unfortunate Shia - are seeing the destruction of Basra as "progress").

Actually, Bush may be scared to death, deep down, because a lot is riding on the success of the Iraqi army in this battle and on the outcome of this conflict. The Iraqi army seem committed to eliminating the Mahdi army as a military threat, and unless Muqtada al-Sadr orders the Mahdi army to stand down (and it may be too late for that, nor may he even be able to get them to stand down if he so orders), the damage to Basra and Baghdad (where lies Sadr City, the teeming Shiite slum that is Muqtada's home-base) is going to be much more severe that it already is. Many more civilians are going to die. If the Iraqi forces are unable to have their way (and early reports had significant numbers of them running away), will Bush feel compelled to have Petraeus send in US troops in Sadr City to eliminate the Mahdi forces? Will the British be compelled (they're already being pressured by General Keane) to send troops back into Basra - or might Bush feel compelled to send US forces south? Bush is likely telling himself - and his commanders - that the Mahdi army cannot be allowed to win, because if it does, the Surge will have proven to be bogus, the "progress" that the Republicans have been touting will be proven likewise bogus, and McCain's chances will be toast.

And remember - the Iranians are deeply entangled in what's happening in Baghdad and Iraq's south. It would take very little for the US to point the "provocateur" finger at Iran as this mess heats up. If Cheney wants to push Bush into a military strike against the mullahs (and Bush may not need much pushing, and the Israelis will look on approvingly), this could be his chance.

Basra's turmoil

I very highly recommend that you visit the links I'm providing to the missing links website, which provides from-the-scene reports on the situation in Basra, where Iraqi forces (with US air cover and attacks) are taking on the Mahdi Army - and evidently having some setbacks. The death toll is rising, including among civilians, with some civilian neighborhoods being hit by US warplanes.

A new monkey-wrench in the works? (or stick in the spokes? Pick your metaphor)

Word today that Hamas and Fatah have signed what's being termed the Sanaa (Yemen) declaration, which looks toward reconciliation and common cause. This is a real smack in the puss to Cheney and Condi, who've just come from meetings with Palestinian Authority (=Fatah) prime minister Mahmud Abbas to push talks with the Olmert government - which, of course, will brook no talk of working with Hamas.

Meanwhile, the US has suffered its 4000th combat death in Iraq, the Sunni Awakening (upon which so much of the "success" of the "Surge" was predicated) seems to be turning out to be the short-sighted, but politically useful fix that many observers have thought it was indeed going to be, and the Mahdi Army seems to be raising its head again. Remember that the cease-fire that Muqtada al-Sadr, the Iraqi Shia leader who supposedly controls the Mahdi Army, declared (and recently extended) was one of the other legs upon which the Surge was able to rise up.

General Petraeus today says that Iran was behind yesterday's Green Zone shelling, which is a very serious allegation. Scary, actually, because it gives the Bush administration one more bullet in its magazine of alleged Iranian provocations to seize upon if it indeed decides, on its way out the White House door, to launch a military strike against Iran

Check out the Recommendations on this blog-page as well - especially the Washington Post piece on Fallujah.

And don't forget the PBS Frontline special - "Bush's War" - that begins this evening. Given the usual quality and incisiveness of Frontline's programs, this ought to be pretty special.