Very Important New Article by Richard Falk

In the first number of the International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies there is a must-read article by Richard Falk on the Bush administration/neo-con/Israeli strategy to dominate the entire Middle East. (You can get a free PDF copy of the article by registering.) This is one of the best articles I've read because it ties together the neo-con, pro-Israeli right's plans--by emphasizing the 1996 Clean Break document as well as the Project for the New American Century document of 2000--with the Bush administration's war in Iraq and current threats toward Iran and Syria.

There REALLY is a plan by extremist neo-cons who are rabidly pro-Israeli (not just pro-Israel but aggressively supportive of the most expansionist right-wing Likud agenda) to see the US and Israel dominate the Middle East and get rid of any Middle Eastern governments of which they disapprove. As Falk points out the Iraq War was to be merely the first step in this strategy. Falk writes that even though the Iraq War has gone catastrophically these people have not at all given up and the Israeli attack upon Lebanon last summer was another step in this strategy which now turns to trying to drum up support for some kind of attack upon Iran. I suspect that the saber rattling of the Bush administration toward Iran in the last few days shows that they are trying to set the stage for either an American attack upon Iran--justified as part of 'hot pursuit' of alleged Iranians across the Iraqi-Iranian border--or an Israeli attack upon Iran's nuclear plants. As Falk writes:

But rather than abandon geopolitical ambitions, it appears from recent developments that Israel is testing the waters for an all-out regional war, with strong encouragement by the US government taking a variety of overt forms: a public build-up of deployed air strike forces backed by war plans for the destruction of up to 10,000 targets in Iran (See Plesch 2006); unconditional diplomatic support for Israel’s responses, including blocking for several weeks in the UN Security Council and elsewhere widely favoured calls for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon; and the undisguised provision to Israel in the midst of the war of large quantities of aviation fuel and a rushed shipment of additional bombs.

This, unfortunately, is an EXTREMELY SERIOUS matter to which too few Americans are paying attention. Given what I know about the extremism of Bush and Cheney and their extremist pseudo-conservative advisors I believe there is a very significant chance that Bush/Cheney will either do something to initiate war with Iran or support the Israelis in attacking Iran. As Falk says, this risks the chance of a regional Middle Eastern war which could have devastating consequences domestically (oil prices and our whole economy) and internationally.

Another Set of Conservative Principles

While I'm trying to define the basic principles of genuine conservatism here is an attempt to do something similar by one of the most famous of the New Conservatives of the 1950s, Russell Kirk; click here for his "Ten Conservative Principles."

While I don't have much problem with his ten conservative principles I do believe Kirk took positions, under the influence of Goldwater, Buckley and others, that were contradictory to a genuine commitment to his abstract principles. For example, Kirk says nothing here about what has been justified in the name of American nationalism, 'defense' and 'security.' But many of the things advocated by pseudo-conservatives would significantly conflict with at least these Kirkian principles:

the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions.

conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence.

conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism.

As Claes Ryn demonstrates repeatedly in America the Virtuous, there are no apparent restraints upon the nationalistic passions of most of today's so-called 'conservatives'. And 'involuntary collectivism' is enforced by the Patriot Act, NSA spying, and attacks upon the 'patriotism' of any who disagree with the increasingly dictatorial George W. Bush administration.

Read Jay Rosen on Bush's "Retreat from Empiricism"

Jay Rosen has written a very thoughtful and important article about how little respect for 'reality' or facts the Bush administration has; they are about manipulating the beliefs of the press and public and otherwise 'reality' can take a back seat. As Stephen Colbert insists "truthiness" is what counts:

the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.

Or, if you prefer, 'reality is just a crutch.'

Remember When America's Biggest Worry Was Fellatio?

So the press wanted to elect the guy they'd rather have a beer with, eh? Well you've got him and you've had him for six years. Had enough yet? Bill Clinton had a few very circumspect foreign initiatives in Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo; in none of them were we bogged down in some horrendous mess.

What exactly are the 'accomplishments' of the Bush administration? A Medicare Drug Benefit which is so expensive that the guy who was going to tell us how much it cost had to be threatened so he'd shut up. A benefit which truly seems to be more for the drug companies and insurance companies offering the benefit than for seniors. A Katrina emergency effort that finally convinced the American people that this administration is truly incompetent. Massive tax cuts that pissed away surpluses that Bill Clinton wanted to use to "Fix Social Security First" and saddled our kids and grandkids with a huge federal debt. If you thought 'Tax and Spend' was bad you didn't really compare it to 'Borrow and Spend'.

And a war in Iraq that threatens to be worse for America than the war in Vietnam. Costs heading toward $1 trillion, deaths of American kids heading toward 3000 (plus tens of thousands of kids injured), Iraqi deaths of between 400 and 900 thousand, a horrible black eye for American prestige around the world, another quagmire that we can't get out of because our leaders can't contemplate 'defeat' (John McCain) or 'failure', etc.

What else do you need to know to realize that these crazy pseudo-conservatives can't govern? Remember the nearly constant fuss pseudo-conservatives were making about Bill Clinton? How he had to be impeached for fibbing about fellatio? Ah, now those were the good old days.

Bush Considering Three Iraq Strategies

The Washington Post reported that the Bush administration is rushing to come up with their own Iraq strategy, i.e., NOT the Baker-Hamilton recommendations, for a speech by Bush before Xmas:

The major alternatives include a short-term surge of 15,000 to 30,000 additional U.S. troops to secure Baghdad and accelerate the training of Iraqi forces. Another strategy would redirect the U.S. military away from the internal strife to focus mainly on hunting terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda. And the third would concentrate political attention on supporting the majority Shiites and abandon U.S. efforts to reach out to Sunni insurgents.

I'll bet they choose option 1 because it is the closest thing to 'Stay the course'. They'll boost troops in Baghdad, say its a 'new' strategy and buy more time to try to pull off a 'victory'. Unless the Congress is VERY watchful this 'new' approach could drag on for another year before national discouragement sets in again and we are currently rapidly approaching 3000 American troops dead. As the WaPo said:

While one of the options involves a surge of U.S. troops, there is no agreement on what the mission of those forces would be, sources say. Discussions center on accelerating the training of Iraqi forces and helping secure Baghdad before turning it over to the Iraqis. The goal generally could be to improve Iraq's defense capabilities so U.S. combat troops could begin to withdraw faster.

But of course the usual 'blame the victims' strategy is being used too:

But the growing undercurrent of discussions within the administration is shifting responsibility for Iraq's problems to Iraqis. Sources familiar with the deliberations describe fatigue, frustration and a growing desire to disengage from Iraq. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the deliberations.

Option 2:

The second idea is the "al-Qaeda option," which would transform the U.S. mission to focus on fighting terrorism and would disengage forces from domestic aspects of the multisided conflict. U.S. troops would take a backseat on the Shiite-Sunni conflict and instead hunt down al-Qaeda operatives, the sources say. On the ground, for example, that could mean a shift away from operations in Baghdad's volatile Sadr City slum, or from efforts to stop car bombs and sectarian attacks. The administration is increasingly resigned to the fact that it can neither prevent nor intervene in Iraq's sectarian war, which has begun to supersede both the Sunni insurgency and al-Qaeda's operations, the sources say.

Option 3:

On the political front, the administration is focusing increasingly on variations of a "Shiite tilt," sometimes called an "80 percent solution," that would bolster the political center of Iraq and effectively leave in charge the Shiite and Kurdish parties that account for 80 percent of Iraq's 26 million people and that won elections a year ago. Vice President Cheney's office has most vigorously argued for the "80 percent solution," in terms of both realities on the ground and the history of U.S. engagement with the Shiites, sources say. A source familiar with the discussions said Cheney argued this week that the United States could not again be seen to abandon the Shiites, Iraq's largest population group, after calling in 1991 for them to rise up against then-President Saddam Hussein and then failing to support them when they did. Thousands were killed in a huge crackdown.

Does Cheney or anyone else realize that this option simply increases Iran's influence and alienates our Sunni allies in Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia? I guess it's foolish to expect rationality from Cheney. See my previous posts on this tilt to the Shia, e.g., Tilting Toward SOME of the Shia.

A Cogent View of Why Iraq Is So Divided

Laura Rozen cited some writing from Anthony Cordesman that is, I think, quite accurate:

the Iraqi government is weak as much because of US action as Iraq's inherent problems. The US destroyed the secular core of the country by disbanding the Ba'ath. The US created a constitutional process long before Iraq was ready, and created an intensely divisive document with more than 50 key areas of "clarification" including federation, control of oil resources and money, control of security, the role of religion, the nature of the legal system, etc. The US created an electoral system that almost forced Iraqis to vote to be Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Kurds and divided the nation on sectoral and ethnic lines.

I believe this is somewhat overlooked: the US actually inadvertently exacerbated the sectarian strife in Iraq by decisions it made regarding the political process in Iraq. Thus the Bush administration didn't simply bungle the post-war but it positively contributed to the problems that are rending Iraq today. How much evidence do our policymakers need that intervening in a foreign culture is an extremely difficult thing to do with any success; there are just too many unintended consequences and unforeseen outcomes.

Bad Signs Concerning Iraq War

We know al Maliki is saying the US troops should remain in Iraq. Now we have another significant Shia leader, al Hakim, saying the same thing. Al Hakim is also telling Bush to hit Sunni guerrillas harder so apparently no reaching out to Sunnis there. Apparently al Hakim does not want a regional conference of Arab nations on Iraq because he is close to Iran, Iran already has strong influence in Iraq, and a regional conference would mean Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other Sunni regimes would gain control and Hakim opposes that.

To me this sounds like Vietnam all over again: our government leaders have become entwined with local leaders with their own local interests, the latter make them want to encourage us to keep our troops there while also opposing other potential paths to peace because these threaten their local power ambitions. The Bush administration can play these forces to keep us there till he leaves in 2009. Only a strong, courageous American leader determined to extricate us could get us out. And there are so many essential things we could do with the money being squandered in Iraq that would truly strengthen us here at home. This makes me think again of Paul Kennedy's warning in his The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000:

Most of the historical examples covered here suggest there is a noticeable ‘lag time’ between the trajectory of a state’s relative economic strength and the trajectory of its military/territorial influence…. An economically expanding power… may well prefer to become rich rather than to spend heavily on armaments. A half-century later, priorities may well have altered. The earlier economic expansion has brought with it overseas obligations (dependence upon foreign markets and raw materials, military alliances, perhaps bases and colonies)…. In these more troubled circumstances, the Great Power is likely to find itself spending much more on defense than it did two generations earlier, and yet still discover that the world is a less secure environment—simply because other powers have grown faster, and are becoming stronger…. Great Powers in relative decline instinctively respond by spending more on ‘security,’ and thereby divert potential resources from ‘investment’ and compound their long-term dilemma (emphasis added).

I believe there is a likelihood that the United States today is a "Great Power in relative decline" that is "spending more on ‘security,’ and thereby divert[ing] potential resources from ‘investment’."

There is a good chance our pseudo-conservative 'tough' leaders are running this country into a ditch and few will notice until it's too late. Through policies of failing to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, starting a terrorist-producing war in Iraq, spending vast sums of money on useless war and starving investments that need to made at home (see Jacob Hacker's The Great Risk Shift), increasing the resources of the wealthy while advising working Americans to 'eat cake'--these pseudo-conservatives are destroying a great country while at the same time succeeding in convincing many that they are the true patriots. They are certainly masters of Madison Avenue PR, 'packaging', propaganda and 'spin'; you have to give them that.

So You Don't Believe in the Authoritarian Personality Huh?

This just in from the New Haven Advocate thanks to Bill Christensen: a study "found a correlation between the severity of a person’s psychosis and their preferences for president: The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.... 'Our study shows that psychotic patients prefer an authoritative leader,' Lohse says. 'If your world is very mixed up, there’s something very comforting about someone telling you, ‘This is how it’s going to be.’”

Juan Cole on What Maliki Wants from Bush

Today Juan Cole helps us understand some of the details often left out of criticism of al Maliki's performance: "Al-Maliki has been pressing Washington for some time to give him the authority to order much bigger battle units into action without securing permission first from the US military. The PM has been frustrated that he isn't allowed to set security policy but then is blamed for not achieving security." Hmmmm. That's typical of nearly all our performance in Iraq: we jealously guard the power but criticize them if things go wrong; and scapegoating the Iraqis has recently become the US power elite's favorite tune.

What Will Bush Do About Iraq?

Thomas Powers writes on intelligence and has an interesting Op-Ed in today's New York Times. It points to the past stubborness of presidents faced with bad war options like Johnson in Vietnam. It points to Robert Gates' role in facilitating the secret war against the Contras even after Congress had passed the Boland amendment trying to stop it and how Gates proved a loyal CIA soldier for two presidents. Powers concludes:

Today the choice facing Washington is not quite as stark as the one that confronted Lyndon Johnson in 1965, but it is close. Mr. Gates has spent the last nine months working as a member of the Iraq Study Group, whose much awaited recommendations will be revealed next Wednesday. Getting out is the simplest remedy, but no one wants to shoulder the blame for what follows. Staying the course has already been rejected by the president. That leaves only some kind of altered or renewed effort to postpone the day of reckoning. Defeating the insurgents is only half of the challenge; harder will be finding some way to restrain or disband the Shiite militias without bringing them into the war against us. Down that road would lie a spiraling conflict as protracted and unwinnable as the war in Vietnam. The Republicans may have lost the midterm elections, but to my ear, on the subject of Iraq, the president has never sounded ready to accept anything that might be called defeat. Iraq is not Vietnam, but we are the same. We find ourselves, at a parallel moment, militarily committed to a policy on the verge of conspicuous failure. The American people, now as then, are unsettled by the phrase “cut and run” and reluctant to put their judgment ahead of the president’s. Above all, American presidents are the same. Bad news from Baghdad and opposition at home may point to a lowering of expectations, at the very least, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Presidents take failure personally, can lift their voices above the din of opponents, and can use the immense power of their office to force events in the directions they choose. The verdict of the elections was clear. The public wants to let Iraqis handle their own troubles from here on out, while we start bringing our soldiers home. But that’s not what President Bush has said he wants, so there will very likely be a series of fights over Iraq that will extend to the president’s last day in office. Robert Gates is smart, quiet, dogged and loyal: a well-considered choice for defense secretary by a president determined to bring home that “coonskin on the wall,” to borrow a phrase made memorable by an earlier president in a similar fix, Lyndon Johnson.

I agree with Mr. Powers that this is indeed the most likely outcome. The one possibility I hadn't thought of is that our actions might bring the Shia into the war against us; oh my, and I thought I was pessimistic.

Perhaps Iraq Study Group Might Make a Difference

This is an important article from the New York Times. It sounds like although the Baker-Hamiliton Iraq Study Group did come up with a compromise at least it recommends "a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq but stop[s] short of setting a firm timetable for their withdrawal."

The compromise includes a recommendation for "pullback" which means redeployment and would presumably take a substantial number of our troops out of daily combat and thus limit casualties: "The report leaves unstated whether the 15 combat brigades that are the bulk of American fighting forces in Iraq would be brought home, or simply pulled back to bases in Iraq or in neighboring countries. (A brigade typically consists of 3,000 to 5,000 troops.)" By not insisting on a timetable and not telling the administration how to achieve this pullback it allows maximum flexibility to the administration and increases the likelihood the administration can more comfortably adopt the recomendation; very cagily diplomatic that Baker. (But I will NEVER forgive James Baker for being responsible for bullying George W Bush into the presidency in Florida in 2000; he foisted this ignorant, stubborn incompetent on us.)

The recommendations also agree with what I have previously argued is perhaps the key to getting out: "Committee members struggled with ways, short of a deadline, to signal to the Iraqis that Washington would not prop up the government with military forces endlessly." We have to put real pressure on the Iraqis to take over themselves and, I would add, offer to help the Iraqis when requested. Then we get out of the 'occupier' position and become an invited helper.

Finally, "the bulk of the report by the Baker-Hamilton group focused on a recommendation that the United States devise a far more aggressive diplomatic initiative in the Middle East than Mr. Bush has been willing to try so far, including direct engagement with Iran and Syria. Initially, those contacts might be part of a regional conference on Iraq or broader Middle East peace issues, like the Israeli-Palestinian situation, but they would ultimately involve direct, high-level talks with Tehran and Damascus."

This is to the good and perhaps it will help the administration get over its allergy to negotiation. What is not so clear to me is precisely how Damascus and Tehran can actually affect the situation in Iraq. However, if there is an increased and serious effort to make progress upon the Israeli-Palestinian conflict I suspect this would have manifold benefits.

It's Looking Like Laura Rozen Was Right

Laura Rozen reported on a possible tilt toward the Shia and against the Sunnis within the Bush administration. I'm coming to the conclusion she was right about this at least as a backup plan or a threat. Plan A seems to be to lean on the Iraqi Sunnis to give more support to the al Maliki government while also leaning on al Maliki to disarm Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi militia. I think there are a number of reasons this isn't likely to succeed (see my What Next post).

When and if this fails, Plan B could be to forget about reconciliation between Sunnis and Shia, forget about 'national unity government, and side with the majority Shia against the Sunnis. The Shia could probably drive the Sunnis out of Baghdad and perhaps isolate them in the Sunni Triangle. (There was a report today that our troops are admitting defeat in Al Anbar province, which, if I'm not mistaken is much of the Sunni triangle. What if all troops from Al Anbar went to Baghdad?) Of course if the administration sided with the Iraqi Shia, Sunni governments in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan would be very upset. At least the Saudis would worry about political mobilization of their Shia minority. The Shia Iranians and Shia Hizballah would of course be very much strengthened.

That such a Plan B is being considered, at least as a threat to pressure Iraqi Sunnis to compromise and cooperate with an Iraqi Shia-dominated government, comes from Laura Rozen's piece, from this video of an MSNBC interview with Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post who has superb Pentagon sources, as well as other hints. The other hints include: 1) this line from a New York Times article, "'There’s been some discussion about whether you just try to deal first with the Sunni insurgency, but that would mean being seen to be taking just one side of the fight, which would not be acceptable,' the administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity under normal diplomatic practice." Obviously "taking one side" against the Sunni insurgency is being considered. 2) this other snippet from Laura Rozen re Cheney, "The fault lines going into that meeting included Cheney's office and some in the NSC arguing for more aggressively backing the Shias, and in particular, Hakim. Note the Hadley memo's recommendation to press Hakim/SCIRI to support Maliki, and the overall concern about whether Maliki is up to the task."

Since there are such significant downsides to Plan B I wonder if it isn't more in play as a threat with which to pressure moderate Sunnis to support al Maliki's government. My overall reading leads me to the hunch that the administration will send some more troops to Baghdad as a last ditch attempt to stop sectarian violence and disarm the Mahdi militia and that as usual there will be no benchmarks to judge whether this plan is succeeding and this will simply extend Bush's 'stay the course' stance in Iraq indefinitely. Bush and Cheney absolutely hate to compromise or admit they have been wrong so they'll do something that they package as a 'new' approach and keep on keepin' on. Never forget that 'packaging' is their longest suit and they'll say anything to 'sell' their latest gambit.

What Next for Bush in Iraq?

In the jockeying for power preparatory to any change in Bush administration policy in Iraq there has been a flurry of reports. As I noted in prior posts Laura Rozen is hearing that the administration may be tilting toward the Shia against the Sunnis. Tom Hayden reported a scenario that suggested a tilt toward the Sunnis against the Shia. The New York Times reported this yesterday:

When Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice arrive in Amman on Wednesday, they will try to enlist help from Sunni Arab leaders to try to rein in the violence in Iraq by putting pressure on Sunni insurgents…. Specifically, the United States wants Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt to work to drive a wedge between the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, and the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army has been behind many of the Shiite reprisal attacks in Iraq, a senior administration official said. That would require getting the predominantly Sunni Arab nations to work to get moderate Sunni Iraqis to support Mr. Maliki, a Shiite. That would theoretically give Mr. Maliki the political strength necessary to take on Mr. Sadr’s Shiite militias. “There’s been some discussion about whether you just try to deal first with the Sunni insurgency, but that would mean being seen to be taking just one side of the fight, which would not be acceptable,” the administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity under normal diplomatic practice.

This report suggests a two-prong strategy of putting pressure on Iraqi Sunni insurgents, using the Saudis, Jordan and Egypt to help with this while at the same time pressuring al Maliki to break with Moktada al-Sadr and disarm the Mahdi militia associated with al-Sadr. In an earlier post I mentioned Barbara Walter’s book on civil wars, Committing to Peace. One of the most difficult steps in negotiating the end of a civil war is getting each side to lay down its arms and trust that promises made in negotiations will be honored. To me it seems like this would be nearly impossible in Iraq because there are not yet even open negotiations between the al Maliki government and the insurgency much less any promises made. However, the Sadrist walkout of the parliament today and suspension of support for al Maliki’s government does show new stress on the relationship between al Maliki and the Sadrists.

This leaked memo of Stephen Hadley’s does seem to suggest that an important prong of the administration’s policy is to attempt to split al Maliki from al Sadr and to somehow get the Mahdi militia disarmed. This will be extremely difficult to do. My reading of the New York Times article on this leak suggests that it was planned by the administration. Why? Perhaps to place pressure on al Maliki just prior to Bush’s meeting with him tomorrow. Bush’s history suggests he likes to put pressure on people to get them to lean more his way.

One part of this program is to demonize Moktada al Sadr and it is remarkable what an unseemly rush the main stream media is to jump on this bandwagon. The news in the last few days has suddenly seemed to be filled with dramatic stories about this “most dangerous man in Iraq” (next Monday’s cover story in Newsweek!). I don’t have enough knowledge of al Sadr to make a strong judgment about him one way or the other but the way the press supinely presses the administration line of the moment is deplorable. They are so anxious to jump on the bandwagon and scapegoat someone. In their knee-jerk demonization of our opponents they fail in their duty to clarify and inform our public about reality and instead they encourage a soap opera version of the news.

The weakness in the administration’s blame al Maliki and demonize al Sadr move are pointed out in another article in the New York Times:

[It appears] American military and political leverage in Iraq has fallen sharply…. American fortunes here are ever more dependent on feuding Iraqis who seem, at times, almost heedless to American appeals, American and Iraqi officials in Baghdad say. They say they see few policy options that can turn the situation around, other than for Iraqi leaders to come to a realization that time is running out. It is not clear that the United States can gain new traction in Iraq with some of the proposals outlined in a classified [leaked] White House memorandum…. Many of the proposals appear to be based on an assumption that the White House memo itself calls into question: that Prime Minister Maliki can be persuaded to break with 30 years of commitment to Shiite religious identity and set a new course, or abandon the ruling Shiite religious alliance to lead a radically different kind of government, a moderate coalition of Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish politicians…. Against these judgments, some key passages in the Hadley memo seem at odds with the reality on the ground, as if the steady worsening of America’s prospects here has driven the White House to reach for solutions that defy the gloomy conclusions of America’s diplomats and field commanders, not to mention some of Mr. Maliki’s closest political associates…. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most powerful Shiite cleric, has been clear… that the Shiites must subordinate their differences to the cause of consolidating Shiite power. So it is hard to imagine Mr. Maliki approaching Ayatollah Sistani to win approval “for actions that could split the Shia politically,” as the Hadley memo suggests. Shiite leaders, who are tiring of Mr. Maliki, appear to be thinking of replacing him with another Shiite religious leader, and not of sundering the alliance and surrendering the power the Shiites have awaited for centuries. But if recent interviews in Baghdad with senior American and Iraqi officials are a guide, a bigger problem for the administration in effecting change here may be that the United States, in toppling Saddam Hussein and sponsoring elections that brought the Shiites to power, began a process that left Washington with ever-diminishing influence.
One reason for the declining American influence lies in policies that, for various reasons, alienated the political class, most of them former exiles like Mr. Maliki who rode back to Baghdad on the strength of American military power. Many Shiite leaders resent the Americans for compelling them to share power in the new government with the minority Sunni Arabs — a policy, the Shiites say, that guaranteed paralysis for the government. Sunni leaders still resent the American invasion, and the imposition of an electoral process that ended centuries of Sunni dominance. Just as much, they fume over the pervasive influence of neighboring Iran, which backs the Shiite parties. And secular politicians, marginalized by the Shiite and Sunni Islamist politicians who dominate the government, say they, too, have lost faith in the Americans, for failing to protect Iraq’s secular traditions. “Politically, their position is weaker in all aspects,” Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish leader, said of the Americans. “They just got weaker and weaker, and many more people who were supporting them are supporting them less.”

Flailing of the Bushies

Juan Cole observed that the Bush administration is panicked and hasn't much idea what to do in Iraq and thus is flailing around. Something like this does seem to be true.

This process sounds so muddled because Washington is flailing around without the slightest idea of what could be done, practically speaking, in Iraq, according to Time: "Several officials who are in touch with commission members said that with violence appearing to spiral out of control in Iraq, the group has been flummoxed about finding a solution. "There's complete bewilderment as to what to do," one official said. "They're very frustrated. They can't come up with anything. For the last couple months, they've been thrashing around, calling people, trying to find ideas."

I think this flailing around for a solution after the elections has also activated the various groups in Iraq to jockey more aggressively for power.

Guard Against Post-Election Over-Optimism About Iraq?

Here are some excerpts from Seymour Hersh's latest New Yorker piece, The Next Act:

“Iraq is the disaster we have to get rid of, and Iran is the disaster we have to avoid,” Joseph Cirincione, the vice-president for national security at the liberal Center for American Progress, said. “Gates will be in favor of talking to Iran and listening to the advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but the neoconservatives are still there”—in the White House—“and still believe that chaos would be a small price for getting rid of the threat. The danger is that Gates could be the new Colin Powell—the one who opposes the policy but ends up briefing the Congress and publicly supporting it".... [A] former senior intelligence official said[:] “Cheney knew this was coming. Dropping Rummy after the election looked like a conciliatory move—‘You’re right, Democrats. We got a new guy and we’re looking at all the options. Nothing is ruled out.’ ” But the conciliatory gesture would not be accompanied by a significant change in policy; instead, the White House saw Gates as someone who would have the credibility to help it stay the course on Iran and Iraq. Gates would also be an asset before Congress. If the Administration needed to make the case that Iran’s weapons program posed an imminent threat, Gates would be a better advocate than someone who had been associated with the flawed intelligence about Iraq. The former official said, “He’s not the guy who told us there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and he’ll be taken seriously by Congress.”

Hersh reminds us that it would be dangerously naive to assume that Gates' replacement of Rumsfeld and the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group will get us out of Iraq or devise a better solution to Iran's nuclear ambitions (whatever those are) than a U.S. military attack on Iran. Hersh also correctly notes that Israeli hawks are pushing hard to get us to either attack Iran or give them the go ahead to attack. Our Middle East policy continues to hurtle toward the abyss; instead of trying to minimize Muslim hatred toward the U.S. and Israel we are engaging in policies that will make our terrorism problem worse. This is one of the most remarkable ironies of the Bush administration: while trumpeting their concern to fight terrorism and protect the American people they are increasing terrorism and making us less safe.

Bush not only exacerbates our problems with Iraq, Iran and Syria, but his "malign neglect" worsens the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Pulitzer prize winner Bill Gallagher is correct: "More than any other measure, more than 10 million airport-security officers, more than walls and sealed borders, a resolution to the Palestine issue will do more to stem terrorism, help pacify the region and protect U.S. security than anything else."

A Last Desperate Gambit to 'Save' Iraq War?

Yesterday Laura Rozen wrote in the LA Times that the Bush administration was considering a tilt toward the Iraqi Shiites. Today the same newspaper reports that the Shiite-dominated al Maliki government has issued a warrant for the arrest of a popular and prominent Sunni cleric, Shaikh Harith al-Dhari, the leader of the Association of Muslim Scholars. Juan Cole today wrote: “This arrest warrant, coming after the attack by Interior Ministry Special Police Commandos on the Sunni-led Ministry of Higher Education and recent kidnappings by the Sunni Arab guerrilla groups of Shiites-- all this activity points to a war among Iraq's major parties, many of whom have parts of the government under their control.”

Let us speculate by connecting some dots: 1) the election has placed great pressure on the administration to change its Iraqi policy; 2) Bush is very stubborn and may make a last stab at ‘saving’ his Iraq war policy; 3) Laura Rozen reported: “This past Veterans Day weekend, according to my sources, almost the entire Bush national security team gathered for an unpublicized two-day meeting. The topic: Iraq. The purpose of the meeting was to come up with a consensus position on a new path forward”; 4) today the al Maliki government issues an arrest warrant for a prominent Sunni opponent.

Virtually all of the Bush administration’s policies in the Middle East have been extremely risky and ill-advised. Laura Rozen wrote: “A U.S. tilt toward the Shiites is a risky strategy, one that could further alienate Iraq's Sunni neighbors and that could backfire by driving its Sunni population into common cause with foreign jihadists and Al Qaeda cells.” Recall that al Qaeda is a Sunni group. Although Bush’s favored ‘reason’ we can’t withdraw is that there would be “chaos” and “civil war” if we left, siding with the Shiites against the Sunnis would be likely to further enflame civil and sectarian war. We must never be surprised by such apparent contradictions. Most of the public pronouncements of the Bush administration are propaganda aimed to emotionally manipulate public opinion, not sincere revelations of their true motives. (Recall that Karl Rove's favorite book is Machiavelli's "The Prince".) What they say about their ‘reasons’ almost never accurately reflects their true thinking. That’s why Bush could say he was keeping Rumsfeld a couple of days before the election and fire him the day after. He blithely assumes that public statements can be false if he deems it necessary to influence the public.

I believe this again underlines why we must end our occupation of Iraq and only do those things we are called upon to do by the Iraqi authorities. (See my How to Get Out of Iraq.) We must stop trying to influence their affairs and only function as a helpful resource. If we engage in risky strategies to influence Iraq then we put ourselves in position to be blamed for any bad outcome and put ourselves at further risk of blowback.