George Bush Meets Putin With Hat In Hand

Apparently Dubya has finally accepted that he has been mishandling foreign policy, especially with Putin. Dubya has ignited a new cold war by one by one dismantling the foundations of partnership that has colored the past 20 years. Dubya has for the first time in six years invited his father to advise him.
Duh!
Independent Online Edition

Tomorrow's summit between George Bush and Vladimir Putin raises the intriguing question of whether the shadow of the father can help the son bring an end to the frostiest period in ties between the United States and Russia since the Cold War?


For the first time in his six-and-a-half years in power, Mr Bush is inviting a foreign dignitary not to the White House, or the Camp David retreat, or his ranch in Texas. This meeting takes place at the home of Mr Bush's father in Kennebunkport, Maine. The former president's deft handling of US-Soviet relations was a hallmark of his term in office.


The White House confirmed yesterday that the 41st president will be at the house while his son entertains Mr Putin. Although he will not take part in the official talks, the elder Bush is bound to be involved informally as the two leaders address the host of grievances that divide them.


These range from the planned US missile defence system in eastern Europe to the independence of Kosovo - both fiercely opposed by the Kremlin.


[...]Few breakthroughs are expected, and no formal agreements will be announced. The most realistic goal is to defuse mutual suspicions, and restore personal relations.


The bracing surrounds of George Bush Snr's home at Walker's Point, a rocky promontory on the Atlantic coast, was where the former president used to oil the wheels of top-level diplomacy with fishing trips and games of horseshoe.


Tomorrow and Monday, his son will be hoping to do the same. "What the President wants ... is the ambience and the background and the life out here just as it is when our family is here," Mr Bush Snr told a local radio station yesterday. "You sit down, no neckties, in a beautiful house looking over the sea and talk frankly without a lot of strap-hangers and note-takers."


Perhaps tactfully, the 41st president did not mention the deeper symbolism of the venue, a reminder of the moderate and multilateralist foreign policy he pursued, so conspicuously abandoned by the 43rd. The century-old stone and shingle house breathes the old East Coast Republican establishment - similarly rejected by the defiantly Texan son.

New Poll Finds That Young Americans Are Leaning Left

New York Times article today expresses a breath of fresh air. The youth of America have made a decided shift to the left. They are more likely to embrace universal healthcare, gay marriage, even legalization of marijuana. And surprisingly, they believe their vote counts. I expect a big youth turn out for the Dems Nov 08 where a Democrat is swept into power. This may be the year of the dark horse candidate for both parties. No one has surged ahead into a lead, all candidates have some baggage.
My hope resides with Edwards.

Young Americans are more likely than the general public to favor a government-run universal health care insurance system, an open-door policy on immigration and the legalization of gay marriage, according to a New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll.


[..]They have continued a long-term drift away from the Republican Party. And although they are just as worried as the general population about the outlook for the country and think their generation is likely to be worse off than that of their parents, they retain a belief that their votes can make a difference, the poll found.


More than half of Americans ages 17 to 29 — 54 percent — say they intend to vote for a Democrat for president in 2008. They share with the public at large a negative view of President Bush, who has a 28 percent approval rating with this group, and of the Republican Party. They hold a markedly more positive view of Democrats than they do of Republicans.


[..]At a time when Democrats have made gains after years in which Republicans have dominated Washington, young Americans appear to lean slightly more to the left than the general population: 28 percent described themselves as liberal, compared with 20 percent of the nation at large. And 27 percent called themselves conservative, compared with 32 percent of the general public.


Forty-four percent said they believed that same-sex couples should be permitted to get married, compared with 28 percent of the public at large. They are more likely than their elders to support the legalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana.


[..]More important, though, at least for Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama is the impression this group has of them. In the poll, 43 percent of respondents said they held an unfavorable view of Mrs. Clinton, a number that reflects the tide of resistance she faces nationwide. By contrast, only 19 percent said they had an unfavorable view of Mr. Obama.

The Drum Beat For War Against Iran

Everyone seems ready to demonize Iran. While it is certainly true that Iran supports Hezbollah and Hamas, I doubt very much that Iran can control either entity. Certainly they are arming them and applaud their efforts, but they aren't directing the show.
Concern about the Shia cresent through the Middle East by US Arab allies is pushing for methods to contain Iran. It seems unlikely that Egypt and Saudi Arabia would sanction war with Iran, they would hardly stand in the way.
The Daily Star

Iran played a "big role" in Hamas' seizure of Gaza from Palestinian security forces earlier this month, Palestinian Intelligence Chief Tawfiq al-Tirawi charged on Sunday. Both Iran and Hamas swiftly dismissed the accusation as "lies." "Iran has played a big role in what happened in Gaza. Dozens of members of Hamas have been trained in Iran, and Hamas smuggled in weapons through tunnels not to fight Israel but against the Palestinian Authority," Tirawi said. "The whole plan has been carried out in coordination with Iran, and Iran has been informed of every step."


Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas previously accused "foreign elements" of orchestrating Hamas' takeover, but it was the first time that a senior official explicitly blamed Iran.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri retorted that "Tirawi's accusations are lies," while acknowledging that Hamas enjoys good relations with the Islamic Republic as well as other Muslim states. "Hamas is proud that it enjoys ... strategic depth in the Arab and Islamic world at a time when Tirawi's friends are vaunting their relations with the [Israeli] occupation and the United States."


Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas previously accused "foreign elements" of orchestrating Hamas' takeover, but it was the first time that a senior official explicitly blamed Iran.

So is Israel readying it's airforce for a strike at Iran?
The Daily Star

Israel's air force is training for long distance missions, after agreeing to a timetable with the United States for sanctions against Iran's nuclear program to work, a report said on Friday. Israel's Maariv daily, which said the military censor had authorized its report, said the training included long-range strikes as well as in-flight refueling.


The newspaper said Israel and the United States would hold joint assessments at the end of the year on the effectiveness of economic sanctions against Iran.


A new package of tougher sanctions was drawn up in Tuesday's talks between Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert and US President George W. Bush, including pressure on European governments to cancel guarantees worth $22 billion a year to firms trading with Iran, the paper said.


The draft package also includes sanctions against banks working with Iran and measures to stop the OPEC cartel's number-two producer of crude from maintaining its oil infrastructure, the paper added.


After the White House talks, Bush said he hoped to resolve the Iran nuclear dispute diplomatically but insisted that all options, including military action, remained on the table.


So far, this uranium has only been enriched to the level needed to run civilian nuclear power stations. But if Iran chooses to enrich it to 84 per cent purity, the uranium would reach weapons-grade level. Iran would need 50 kg of weapons-grade uranium in to make one atomic weapon of the kind that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945. By storing twice this quantity of low-enriched uranium, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime is widening its options.


It could keep the stockpiled uranium in reserve and then enrich it to weapons-grade level at an opportune moment - perhaps after formally withdrawing from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). This would involve rejecting all international safeguards and expelling the United Nations inspectors who still monitor Iran's nuclear plants.

British newspapers have had a series of what looks like planted articles about Iran. Who would plant these? Certainly this has Bush written all over it.
Telegraph

Iran moved significantly closer towards acquiring the essential material for a nuclear bomb yesterday when the regime claimed to have stockpiled 100 kg of enriched uranium.


But observers are sceptical about whether this is Iran's plan. Paul Cornish, the head of the international security programme at Chatham House, said: "What's extraordinary is that they're telegraphing to the world that they have decided to make a bomb. It's almost as if they are trying to invite a response. Ahmadinejad seems to be goading outsiders, the West and Israel, to strike Iran perhaps because this would put him in a strong position against the ayatollahs. He would be able to rally the people as the leader of a nation under attack."


Uranium is enriched using centrifuges. These have been installed in Iran's nuclear plant at Natanz. A snap inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency last month found that 1,312 centrifuges were operating. But Mustapha Pourmohammedi, Iran's interior minister, told the official news agency that 3,000 were in action. In theory, these centrifuges could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one bomb in about a year.

ArmsControlWonk seems to doubt the accuracy of the reports.

But I would judge the claim that Iran has stockpiled 100 kilograms of LEU to be plausible, though not likely.


[...]Of course, Iran will eventually have a stockpile of 100 kilograms of LEU, certainly within another month or so.


The real magic number is, or should be, about 550 kilograms of UF6, which the ol’ URENCO SWU calculator reminds me would from the basis of a so-called breakout capability to produce 25 kilograms of HEU from 16 cascades in about two months.

The Great Biofuel Hoax

AlterNet has a must read article about the many myths propagating around the world about biofuels.

Industrialized countries have unleashed an "agro-fuels boom" by mandating ambitious renewable fuel targets. Renewable fuels are to provide 5.75 percent of Europe's transport fuel by 2010, and 10 percent by 2020. The U.S. goal is 35 billion gallons a year. These targets far exceed the agricultural capacities of the industrial North. Europe would need to use 70 percent of its farmland for fuel.


The United States' entire corn and soy harvest would need to be processed as ethanol and biodiesel. Northern countries expect the global South to meet their fuel needs, and southern governments appear eager to oblige. Indonesia and Malaysia are rapidly cutting down forests to expand oil-palm plantations targeted to supply up to 20 percent of the European Union biodiesel market. In Brazil -- where fuel crops already occupy an area the size of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg and Great Britain combined -- the government is planning a fivefold increase in sugar cane acreage with a goal of replacing 10 percent of the world's gasoline by 2025.


The rapid capitalization and concentration of power within the agro-fuels industry is breathtaking. From 2004 to 2007, venture capital investment in agro-fuels increased eightfold. Private investment is swamping public research institutions, as evidenced by BP's recent award of half a billion dollars to the University of California. In open defiance of national anti-trust laws, giant oil, grain, auto and genetic engineering corporations are forming powerful partnerships: ADM with Monsanto, Chevron and Volkswagen, BP with DuPont and Toyota. These corporations are consolidating research, production, processing and distribution chains of our food and fuel system under one colossal, industrial roof.

Myth #1: Agro-fuels are clean and green
Biofuel will not be green because much of the worlds forests will be burned to make way for biofuel crops. Petroleum fertilizers will be used routinely.
Myth #2: Agro-fuels will not result in deforestation
It's already happening, plans for more rainforest burning is underway.
Myth #3: Agro-fuels will bring rural development
The same multi-national companies that own the world's food and fuel will own biofuel. Rural jobs will decrease, pay will drop, and migration to the cities will increase. Cheap fuel will no longer exist to allow revitalization of the cities.
Myth #4: Agro-fuels will not cause hunger
People without jobs, or low paying jobs will be cash poor. Much of the aerable land in the world will be used by biofuel crops, the hungry will continue to be hungry or become more so.
Myth #5: Better "second-generation" agrofuels are just around the corner
With the multi-nationals buying up all the aerable land in the world, second generation agrofuels will change nothing.

Bush's Damage to Rule of Law

Never before in the US history I'm aware of, has been rule of law so undermined by a President. Clearly, Bush and Cheney believe the President and Executive branch is above the law. Here is a must read editorial from the New York Times.

President Bush is notorious for issuing statements taking exception to hundreds of bills as he signs them. This week, we learned that in a shocking number of cases, the Bush administration has refused to enact those laws. Congress should use its powers to insist that its laws are obeyed.


The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, investigated 19 provisions to which Mr. Bush objected. It found that six of them, or nearly a third, have not been implemented as the law requires. The G.A.O. did not investigate some of the most infamous signing statements, like the challenge to a ban on torture. But the ones it looked into are disturbing enough.


In one case, Congress directed the Pentagon in its 2007 budget request to account separately for the cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a perfectly appropriate request, but Mr. Bush issued a signing statement critical of the rule, and the Pentagon withheld the information. In two other cases, federal agencies ignored laws requiring them to get permission from Congressional committees before taking particular actions.


The Bush administration’s disregard for these laws is part of its extraordinary theory of the “unitary executive.” The administration asserts that the president has the sole authority to supervise and direct executive officers, and that Congress and the courts cannot interfere. This theory, which has no support in American history or the Constitution, is a formula for autocracy.


Other presidents have issued signing statements, but none has issued as many, or done so with the same contemptuous attitude toward the co-equal branches of government. The G.A.O. report makes clear that Mr. Bush’s signing statements were virtually written instructions to executive agencies to flout acts of Congress. Senator Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, has said that the report shows that Mr. Bush “is constantly grabbing for more power” and trying to push Congress “to the sidelines.”


Members of Congress have a variety of methods available to make the administration obey the law. They should call the agency heads up to Capitol Hill to explain their intransigence. And they should use the power of the purse, the authority the founders wisely vested in the people’s branch, as a check on a runaway executive branch.


When the Bush presidency ends, there will be a great deal of damage to repair, much of it to the Constitutional system. Congress should begin now to restore the principle that even the president and those who work for him are not above the law.

Osama Bin Laden To Be 'Honoured'

The Bush Administrations relationship with Pakistan is symptomatic of their lack of contact with reality. Pakistan is called an "ally in the war on terror" while it harbors, arms, trains and recruits for our enemies in Afghanistan and India's enemies in Kashmir. It has exported illicit nuclear technologies to rogue regimes while building it's own bomb. Now, it's religious leaders honor Osama bin Ladin as "Sword of God" - for "serving Muslims by waging jihad against infidels".
Meanwhile, Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, Pakistan's religious affairs minister, Musharraf hand picked man, says he's never heard of this group. After stating the Knighting of Rushdie justifies suicide attacks, he back tracks and will instead visit Britain to counsel Muslim clerics on religious tolerance.
Musharraf is his own man. He has given Bush little more than lip service. And Bush has no choice but to help him cover up his own behavior and obvious intentions. Musharraf is no ally. The only effective action he took was to round up Jihadis who were trying to assassinate him.
Al Jazeera

A group of Pakistani clerics led by a pro-Taliban hardliner have said it would bestow a title upon al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in response to Britain's decision to grant knighthood to Salman Rushdie.


Allama Tahir Ashrafi, head of the Pakistan Ulema Council, said on Thursday that the group would give bin Laden the title "Saifullah" - which means "Sword of God" - for "serving Muslims by waging jihad against infidels". "If Britain can give a knighthood to Rushdie, we too have the right to make awards to our leaders and heroes," Ashrafi said. He said that while he was not in contact with bin Laden, the reward would reach the fugitive al-Qaeda chief "at an appropriate time". Ashrafi, who has campaigned for the release of jailed Islamic fighters, said his group represented over 3,000 clerics.


However, Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, Pakistan's religious affairs minister, said he was not familiar with it.


Ul-Haq has stirred tensions by suggesting the knighthood could justify suicide attacks and undermine Pakistan's effort against terrorism. On Thursday, he said he would travel to Britain soon to meet with Muslim clerics and promote interfaith harmony.

Iraq Conflict Looking Like a Religious War

Yesterday Juan Cole in Informed Comment gave a good decription of the religious undertones of the violence in Iraq between Shia and Sunni. There is a bizarre convergence of apoloclyptic thought among the Shia and Christian fundamentalists who want to see the Middle East conflict as a sign of the coming end of the world.

On Tuesday, a huge truck bomb in Baghdad blew up a Shiite mosque dedicated to an important religious figure and killed 87 persons, wounding 214. This site was dedicated to Muhammad bin Uthman bin Sa`id al-`Amri, the second of at least four Deputies (wakil) who Shiites believe acted as intermediaries between the Hidden Twelfth Imam and believers during his first or "minor" Disappearance. Shiites believe that the Prophet Muhammad should have been succeeded by his close family and descendants. The 12th Imam, a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, they say, went into hiding as a small child in 874 AD after the death of his father, Hasan al-Askari, who had been put under house arrest by the Abbasid Caliphate. During the "minor disappearance" the Twelfth Imam was said to send letters to the Shiite community, and for many years sent them, they say, through Muhammad b. Uthman.


Many Iraqi Shiites, poor, bewildered, under siege by multiple political and military forces, have become millenarians and believe that the hidden Twelfth Imam will now come back any day as the Mahdi, the apocalyptic Guided One, who will restore the world to justice in preparation for the Judgment Day.


[..]Hope for the coming of the promised one is all most Shiites have left, and the desecration of sacred sites associated with the Mahdi (analogous to the return of Christ for Christians) is especially likely to set off reprisal attacks against Sunnis. Since the guerrilla strategy in Iraq is to provoke a Sunni-Shiite civil war as a way of making the country ungovernable and forcing the Americans out, attacks on symbols of the Twelfth Imam are especially effective.


One unfortunate side effect of this shrine-destruction strategy is that the shrines are revered in Iran, as well, and President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is a millenarian especially devoted to the cult of the Twelfth Imam. Sentiments of the Iranian public are also being stirred by these attacks (not to mention Hizbullah in Lebanon, and Shiites in Pakistan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, who increasingly blame the US for the desecrations). Religious politics is politics, and the US is being wrongfooted in a major way here.


The signs of the coming of the Twelfth Imam in Shiite tradition are as follows:

'The Sign consists of the following traits: the people will neglect prayer, squander the divinity which is conferred on them, legalize untruths, practice usury, accept bribes, construct huge edifices, sell religion to win this lower world, employ idiots, consult with women, break family ties, obey passion and consider insignificant the letting of blood. Magnanimity will be considered as weakness and injustice as glory, princesses will be debauched and ministers will be oppressors, intellectuals will be traitors and the reader of the Koran vicious. False witness will be brought openly and immorality proclaimed in loud voices. A word of promise will be slander, sin and exaggeration. The sacred Books will be ornate, the mosques disguised, the minarets extended. Criminals will be praised, the lines of combat narrowed, hearts in disaccord and pacts broken. Women, greedy for the riches of this lower world, will involve themselves in the business of their husbands; the vicious voices of the man will be loud and will be listened to. The most ignoble of the people will become leaders, the debauched will be believed for fear of the Evil they will cause, the liar will be considered as truthful and the traitor as trustworthy. They will resort to singers and musical instruments...and women will horse ride, they will resemble men and the men will resemble women. The people will prefer the activities of this lower-world to those of the Higher-World and will cover with lambskin the hearts of wolves."

Muqtada al-Sadr has alleged that the entire point of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq was to keep this decadent situation in place and to forestall the coming of the Mahdi by planting military bases around Iraq and the Persian Gulf. He says that the US Pentagon has an enormous file on the Mahdi.


In orther words, the US and militant Sunni Arabs are felt by many Iraqi Shiites to be playing the role of Dajjal or "Anti-Christ", a figure whose purpose is to forestall the coming of the Imam Mahdi. Shiite tradition holds that the Mahdi will come together with the Return of Christ, and that the returned Christ will kill the Dajjal. (Ironically, some of the US troops fighting the Shiite millenarians may be evangelicals who also believe that the Return of Christ is near; Iraq is a wonderland for apocalytpicism).


Ideologically, the shrine bombings of the past week and a half are far more important than any mere military maneuvers. If the US cannot arrange for the shrine of the Imam Mahdi's Deputy in Baghdad itself to be protected better than that, it will never succeed in Iraq's religious politics, no matter how many ink spots it creates.


[..]There is also heavy fighting between Mahdi Army forces and Iraqi government troops in Nasiriya in the south, with British troops allegedly giving some support to the government side. Typically the 'Iraqi government' forces are actually drawn from the Badr Corps and so this is in a way two Shiite militias fighting one another.

Hypocrisy, Democracy, War and Peace

Here is an excerpt of a dinner keynote address by Gareth Evans, President, International Crisis Group, to Harvard University Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Conference on Democracy in Contemporary Global Politics, Talloires, France, 16 June 2007. The topic is about the wisdom promoting democratic government vs human rights.
International Crisis Group

It is interesting to ponder just which of our sins it is that – in the league tables of most admired professions – puts politicians down there with used car salesmen and child molesters. I don't think it is any of the familiar seven deadlies: we know from recent US history that electorates can live with lust, and – if my experience in Australia even begins to match that elsewhere – gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride don’t seem to be show-stoppers either.


My own judgment, for what it's worth, is what people most associate with politicians as a class, and most hate about them as a result, is hypocrisy, and all the familiar variations on that basic theme: double-standards, unprincipled inconsistency, saying one thing and doing another. And it's on the dangers and risks of hypocrisy, not just in domestic politics but in international relations, and in a number of different contexts, that I want to focus this evening, Far from consistency being the hob-goblin of small minds, it's something that voters take rather seriously – and so do states in their assessment of each others' international behaviour.


[..]There are quite a few things we've learned about democracy promotion over the last few years, and most of them have emerged pretty clearly in course of discussion at this conference, so I will not labour too long over familiar ground.


First, it is obvious now to just about everyone that democracy – or at least liberal democracy, the only kind that means anything – is about much more than holding elections. Protection of human rights, especially minority rights and those related to freedom of expression, and respect for the rule of law, are indispensable concomitants.


Secondly, it is rather obvious now to everyone, except perhaps those most capable of doing it, that bombing for democracy – trying to deliver it on the tip of precision guided missiles, as my Crisis Group colleague Chris Patten puts it – is not, on the whole, a very good idea.


Thirdly, and maybe not so obviously, democracy promotion can be rather bad news for democrats. I am thinking in particular of the cries of anguish we have been hearing recently from civil society and human rights activists in Iran, who have – following the US announcement that large dollops of democracy funding will be headed their way – been subjected to a rapid increase in state repression. Maybe it's possible for this kind of external support to distinguish between promotion of regime change and support just for building the preconditions of democracy (voter rights, better information flows, transparency and the like), but at the very least we should be asking first those in whose interests we are supposed to be acting. Fighting for our principles to the last drop of someone else's blood is never very edifying.


The fourth big thing we should have learned about democracy promotion, which directly leads into my main theme, but doesn't seem to be at all obvious to most US and European policymakers, is that inconsistency is totally counterproductive: it is wholly damaging to the cause to advocate the case for democracy only when you are sure the that democratic process will produce an outcome you like.


It has not been a pretty sight in this respect to watch the almost universal Western disavowal of Hamas after it won the Palestinian election that the West had so enthusiastically supported. An International Crisis Group report shortly after that election argued strongly that the international community needed to focus on encouraging Hamas to govern responsibly, not to force it out of government or make the government unworkable by imposing conditions that nobody believed could be immediately met, and we summarised the Hamas response as we found it as 'let us govern or watch us fight'. Events since then have done nothing but reinforce the accuracy of that assessment – with the outbreak of civil war-level violence, the complete collapse of the strategy to arm and support Fatah at Hamas’s expense, the takeover of Gaza by Hamas, the collapse of the government of national unity, and the evaporation once more of hopes for resuming any kind of Israeli-Palestinian peace process for the foreseeable future.


[..]
This is another area of international relations where double standards are completely counterproductive, but unfortunately still in evidence. We may be past the Cold War days when political leaders could say openly and shamelessly of a given counterpart that 'he is a tyrant, but he's our tyrant, so what's your problem'? And we do, as an international community generally now accept that, after Rwanda and Srebrenica and Kosovo, that sovereignty is not a license to kill: that when a country's shamelessness reaches the point of a government being engaged in the large-scale killing or ethnic cleansing of its own people, or allowing others within the country to do so, then it’s the responsibility of the rest of the world to do something about it.


[..]
The point I am making is that just as it is part of the essence of liberal democracy that the rule of law prevail, there be no arbitrary decision making and that so far as possible like cases be treated alike, so too it is the essence of a rule-based international order, as distinct from a wholly anarchic order, that like cases be treated alike, that rules and principles be developed and applied to cover the kind of situations that will go on arising, and that those rules and principles be observed, by the great and small alike, consistently, without double standards and without overt hypocrisy.


My own favorite line on exceptionalism – the dangers inherent in applying different standards to oneself than others, and thinking not in terms of creating and applying rules but of exercising raw power – comes from Bill Clinton, speaking a few years ago (and before the understanding of the scale and speed of China's rise was anything like as acute as it is now):

America has two choices. We can use our great and unprecedented military and economic power to try and stay top dog on the global block in perpetuity. Or we can seek to use that power to create a world in which we will be comfortable living when we are no longer top dog on the global block.

Iraq: US Arming Sunni Insurgents

It's been apparent since the beginning that the US got into Iraq on the wrong side of it's interests. Somehow belatedly, the Bush Administration seems to becoming aware of this and is shifting it's alliances. Now, in some strange deparate move, the US is arming the Sunni insurgency. All they have to do and swear off any alliance with Al Qaeda. Needless to say, the Shia and Kurds are screaming!
washingtonpost.com

Shiite and Kurdish officials expressed deep reservations on Sunday about the new U.S. military strategy of partnering with Sunni Arab groups to help defeat the militant organization al-Qaeda in Iraq.


"They are trusting terrorists," said Ali al-Adeeb, a prominent Shiite lawmaker who was among many to question the loyalty of the Sunni groups. "They are trusting people who have previously attacked American forces and innocent people. They are trusting people who are loyal to the regime of Saddam Hussein."


Throughout Iraq, a growing number of Sunni groups profess to have turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq because of its indiscriminate killing and repressive version of Islam. In some areas, these groups have provided information to Americans about al-Qaeda in Iraq members or deadly explosives used to target soldiers.


The collaboration has progressed furthest in the western province of Anbar, where U.S. military commanders enlisted the help of Sunni tribal leaders to funnel their kinsmen into the police force by the thousands. In other areas, Sunnis have not been fully incorporated into the security services and exist for the time being as local militias.


Some of these groups, believed to be affiliated with such organizations as the Islamic Army or the 1920 Revolution Brigades, have received weapons and ammunition, usually through the Iraqi military, as well as transportation, food, handcuffs and direct assistance from U.S. soldiers. In Baghdad's Amiriyah neighborhood, a local group of Sunnis who call themselves the Baghdad Patriots were driven around earlier this month in American and Iraqi vehicles and given approval by U.S. forces to arrest suspected al-Qaeda in Iraq members.


One of the main unanswered questions for American commanders leading these efforts has been to what degree the Iraqi government would support their plans to fashion local Sunnis into these neighborhood defense forces.


In an interview Friday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told Newsweek that some American field commanders "make mistakes since they do not know the facts about the people they deal with." Maliki went on to say that arming the tribes is appropriate in certain circumstances "but on the condition that we should be well aware of the tribe's background and sure that it is not connected with terror."

Robert Dreyfuss has a particularly apt description of the confusion.

It's long past the time for the United States to pretend that it has solution to the Rubik's Cube in Iraq, though it's still possible for administration to make things worse. So, now we are arming the Sunni resistance, or at least parts of it. Only last year, the entire focus of the U.S. counterinsurgency operation in Iraq was to crush the resistance. It didd't work, and Khalilzad started talking about how the main enemy was the Shia militias and sectarian killings. Then, around February, he switched, and started saying that the bad guys were the Sunnis again -- thus, the surge, aimed at ending Sunni resistance to the occupation. Now, the bad guys are Al Qaeda, and we're arming the Sunnis.

Prospects of Turkey Invading Iraq

Joshua Partlow's article in the Washington Post this Sunday while it does review the recent history of border incidents between Turkey and the Turkish Kurd rebel group PKK, he misses completely the Turkish perspective. Juan Cole, in his blog Informed Comment, outlines what he over-looked about public opinion in Turkey.

the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq will certainly annex Kirkuk later this year, and that there may be as a result clashes between the Kurds and the Turkmen minority. Iraqi Turkmen, some 800,000 strong, have been adopted by the Turks of Turkey as sort of little brothers. I can't imagine the Turkish public standing for a massacre of Turkmen, and hundreds of thousands of people in the street could force Buyukanit to act decisively.


My colleagues universally agreed that the potential was there for an escalation of the crisis under such conditions. No one said I was exaggerating the risks. One former official who is an expatriate said that before he arrived in Ankara last week, he did not know just how angry people there were over this issue. He is now convinced that the situation is serious.


Partlow points out that if Turkey did take on the Iraqi Kurds over the haven they have given the PKK, the US would likely be forced to support Turkey, a NATO ally acting against a terrorist threat.


Partlow quotes Massoud Barzani as saying that Turkey has a problem with the existence of Kurds. This is a vast exaggeration. The status of Kurds in Turkey has substantially improved over the past two decades. Barzani neglected to mention the 35,000 dead in PKK's dirty war, or that he is actively harboring 5,000 PKK guerrillas. He recently went so far as to imply that if Turkey intervened on the Kirkuk issue, it would result in terrorism in Diyarbakir (a city in Turkey's eastern Anatolia). It was a shameful performance.


So I don't think Partlow's sanguine conclusions are justified. I think the situation in the north has entered a phase of continual crisis in which things could spiral out of control at any moment.


I continue to be just amazed that no one in authority in Iraq is taking any steps to try to avert such a crisis. I earlier suggested a partion of Kirkuk province before the referendum as a way of defusing the tensions. But it seems like that the referendum will be held in the whole province and that the whole of it will go to Kurdistan. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul has said that this development would be a cause for war in and of itself.

Comments are working!

Templates, I hate templates. But I got comments working again. Disabled trackbacks to cut the spam.
To comment you will have to register with TypePad, but they are confidential and good guys.
Hope to see more comments!
Dave

Protect Free Speech

Incredibly, the FCC is considering locking up the final market place of ideas that drives our great democracy. With conservative corporations controlling all of our news media, giving them the final frontier of freedom, the Internet, to lock down to serve their own interests. This is unconscionable. You have two days to speak out.
ACT NOW!

Big corporate communication companies, AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast are petitioning the FCC to allow control of the Internet. They think companies that can afford to pay steep fees should be able to travel in the “fast lane” on the Internet.


Those who can’t afford those steep fees will be stuck in the slow lane – from blogs and non-profits to small business and campaigns – most of us will suffer in an internet traffic jam.


If the FCC won’t protect Net Neutrality now, our right to free speech will be impinged and the Internet as we know it will cease to exist.


The FCC is accepting public comments until June 15 – just 2 more days.


Email the FCC now and tell them to Protect Net Neutrality.

Civil War In Palestine?

United Press International - International Intelligence - Analysis
Islamic Hamas militants have reportedly seized control over many areas in the Gaza Strip routing their Fatah rivals, some of whom have fled to Egypt.
The Islamic victories aroused fears that the area would become a radical "Hamastan" backed by Iran and Syria, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas were trying to halt the clashes.
Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades seized control over large areas in the northern and southern Gaza Strip as well as in Gaza City while Fatah's security forces were "quickly disintegrating," an Israeli intelligence report said. Fatah is militarily inferior and lack an effective command, the intelligence report said.
Tuesday Hamas reportedly seized Fatah-affiliated security forces headquarters in Jabaliya, in the northern Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Media Center, affiliated with Hamas, said that more than 70 members of a family affiliated with Fatah's strongman Mohammad Dahlan, and who live nearby, have surrendered to Hamas. Dahlan is in Egypt recovering from an operation. Hamas reportedly met very little resistance when it occupied the National Security's main headquarters in the central Gaza Strip, Haaretz reported. Further south, in Khan Yunes, militants blew up a tunnel underneath the headquarters of the Preventive Security and destroyed it. Fighting then spread to Rafah, beside the border with Egypt, and militants blew up a building there, al-Jazeera TV reported.
An al-Jazeera correspondent said 52 Palestinian national security servicemen had fled towards the Egyptian border. According to another report they blew up part of the border wall and crossed.
Hamas stationed snipers atop high-rise buildings while combatants moved against buildings that Fatah-affiliated militants controlled and attacked them with rocket propelled grenades, the Ma'an news agency reported.
Fatah's stronghold is in the center of Gaza City where the Preventive Security, the Intelligence, National Security and the Presidential Guard units are located. Abbas' offices are in that area.
President Abbas nominally commands the large National Security forces but has not ordered them into action, possibly to avoid civil war.
A report carried by al-Jazeera said those forces were ordered to remain in their positions but "defend the security headquarters with all your might."
Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades have reportedly given all Fatah-affiliated security services until Friday evening to turn themselves in and surrender their arms, Ma'an reported.
Abbas appealed for a cease-fire. He reportedly contacted Hamas' Damascus-based leader Khaled Mishaal but failed to reach an agreement and then talked to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, whose house was attacked Monday night. According to Ma'an news Abbas stated the necessity of "stopping the cycle of violence in the Gaza Strip."
The report said that the two, who spoke on the phone, confirmed that "efforts must be exerted in order to reach a cease-fire agreement. They called on all parties to cease hostilities, resume dialogue ... in order to protect national unity."
However it is unclear how much of an impact such a call might have. Palestinian leaders have concluded numerous cease-fire agreements, but many were short lived. Moreover, Haniyeh apparently does not have much influence over Hamas militants.
Fatah is more powerful in the West Bank, has threatened to attack Hamas men there and sporadic clashes including a short-lived kidnapping in Nablus were reported.
Countering Hamas' apparent upper hand in Gaza, Fatah Al Aksa Brigades brought out its people in the West Bank town of Nablus. A leader, who was not named, said they were giving Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades and Executive Force "12 hours to stop the aggression against Fatah members and the security bodies in the (Gaza) Strip and return to their bases. If not, we will hit Hamas in the West Bank," they reportedly said.
Meanwhile there were appeals for Arab involvement to stop the fighting.
Abbas called several Arab and other leaders including the Egyptian and Yemeni presidents, the German chancellor and EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana. They discussed the situation, the official Wafa news agency said.
These calls had some effect. The president of the Islamic Conference, Ihsdan Addin Oghlo, reportedly phoned Haniyeh, expressed concern over the continued clashes and called for an immediate cease-fire. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh reportedly did the same.

Turkey Sees Many Incentives to Invade Iraqi Kurdistan, Few Deterents

The final straw to invade Iraqi Kurdistan may have already been broken. Recent attacks by the PKK on targets in Turkey near the Iraqi border come in the context of a election campaign that threatens to unseat the moderate Islamic Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Dar Al Hayat

Turkey fought a bitter war against the PKK from 1984 to 1999 which resulted in 35,000 dead and the displacement of some 2 million. On both sides, memories of this war are very fresh, and there is great reluctance to see it break out again. The argument on the Turkish side is that a decisive campaign against the PKK is the best way to prevent its recurrence.


What seems certain, however, is that a Turkish assault on northern Iraq would deal a serious blow to Turkey's already frayed relations with the United States, further destabilize the fragile American-backed government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad, and possibly put Turkey's own economic growth at risk.


On the other hand, a war against the PKK could yield political benefits for Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he prepares for general elections on 22 July. It could heal tensions between his moderately Islamic government and the army chiefs, who are eager for a showdown with the PKK. It could also blunt the attacks on him from the ultra-secular and ultra-nationalist Kemalist opposition.


A key legacy of Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic, was the defence of the 'territorial integrity' of the new Turkey, which he rescued in the early 1920s from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire defeated in the First World War. Ottoman domains had suffered repeated and large-scale plundering by the Great Powers throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Ataturk was determined that no one would ever again be allowed to take a bite out of Turkish territory.


[...]An autonomous Kurdish 'statelet' has already taken shape. It is now actively seeking, by an official plebiscite, to incorporate Kirkuk and is rich oil-rich region, into its domain. For Turkey, this is a red rag to a bull, because the absorption of Kirkuk would give the Kurds the economic means for full independence.


Erdogan's immediate dilemma is this: whether to authorize a military attack on the PKK in Iraq and risk a breach not only with the U.S., but also with the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government of northern Iraq under its president Mas'ud Barzani and with the Maliki government in Iraq; or fail to attack the PKK and face damaging accusations from the armed forces and from secular nationalists of capitulating to Kurdish 'separatism.'


Many observers believe the odds are that he will in the coming weeks authorize an attack. Some 150,000 Turkish troops with tanks and artillery have been massing on the border with Iraq. Mine-clearing operations on the Iraqi side of the border have been underway for several weeks, while Turkish Special Forces, often in civilian clothes, are said to have penetrated some 20 to 40 kilometers inside Iraq to prepare the ground for an attack and seal off PKK escape routes in the mountains.

PM aides fear talks with Syria could harm U.S. ties

Amid reports of a Syrian and Israeli military build up on their shared border, both countries are making peacemaking jestures as well. Apparently, the Israelis have decided that either there will be a peace settlement or there will be war with Syria.

The Cabinet met a day after the military staged war games, including a simulated attack on a Syrian village and another that simulated a surprise attack by Syrian commandos on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israeli media has reported a Syrian troop and missile build-up along its borders.


"The Syrians are making very concrete preparations but these are defensive," Major General Amos Yadlin, Israel's military intelligence chief, told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday. "They are preparing more for a war than they have done before, but that does not mean they will be ready tomorrow."

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's advisors have warned him that the Bush Administration might not look kindly on peace talks now that an UN Tribunal is looking into Syrian involvement in the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, the popular multi-billionnaire Lebanese Sunni prime minister of Lebanon.

Some of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's advisors are concerned that an initiative to renew peace talks with Syria might undermine Israel's relations with the United States. The Bush administration is not keen on reviving the Syrian track, as it considers Bashar Assad's regime problematic and harmful to regional stability. However, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi strongly supports renewed talks with Syria, with the goal of distancing Damascus from its alliance with Iran and contributing to a new regional order in which Syria would forge closer relations with moderate Arab states.


[..]According to the Israeli government source, the "evaluation" that Olmert is currently conducting via a third party is aimed at trying to determine the "strategic return" that Syria will offer Israel in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights. "We wish to know whether the border overlooking [Lake] Kinneret will be quiet, or whether there will be Hamas outposts and Iranian forces," the source said. This question is at the crux of the "evaluation," along with the transmission of messages aimed at preventing the outbreak of a war between Israel and Syria due to a "miscalculation" in Damascus.


Intelligence assessments received by Olmert emphasize Syria's central role in the "axis of evil." The prime minister would therefore like to ensure that Syria will cool its relations with Iran and reintegrate into the group of moderate Sunni states - Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia - as part of any peace deal. According to the government source, a withdrawal from the Golan Heights would be a mistake if Syria's alliance with Iran, and the support Damascus offers to Hezbollah and Hamas, continue.

Sunni/Sadr Alliance Pass Binding Resolution to End US Occupation

An alliance of Sunni and Shia legislators in the Iraqi government passed a binding resolution that if signed by Malaki will require the government to come back to the legislature before 2008 to get authorization to renew the UN Mandate that allows the US occupation of Iraq. As Nassar al Rubaie, the head of Al-Sadr bloc in Iraq's Council of Representatives explains it,

This new binding resolution will prevent the government from renewing the U.N. mandate without the parliament's permission. They'll need to come back to us by the end of the year, and we will definitely refuse to extend the U.N. mandate without conditions.... There will be no such a thing as a blank check for renewing the U.N. mandate anymore, any renewal will be attached to a timetable for a complete withdrawal."

Malaki is expected to veto the resolution.
Contrary to US disinformation campaigns that insisted that Moqtada al-Sadr was hiding in Iran, he was in fact building his coalition with the Sunnis and negotiating with insurgents who sought to isolate Salafi insurgents associated with Al Qaeda. Wouldn't it be interesting to see the future of a united Iraq come together through the efforts of Sadr, a man who the US has worked hard to isolate and discredit.
The following article that purports to give a history of Sadr's coalition building efforts, while apparently at least partially true, appears to contain elements of another attempt to discredit Sadr, this time alleging the Mahdi Army might join the insurgency. I find that part highly unlikely. But, all the negative attention that the US has given Sadr has only strengthened his political position and served to recruit more Shia to the Mahdi Army. While I suppose it is possible that US intelligence sought to strengthen Sadr by villifying him, I just don't give them that much credit. Shrewd moves is not what the Pentagon is known for these days.
Financial Express

Nationalist Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's bid to unite Sunnis and Shiites on the basis of a common demand for withdrawal of U.S. occupation forces, reported last weekend by the Washington Post's Sudarsan Raghavan, seems likely to get a positive response from Sunni armed resistance.


An account given Pentagon officials by a military officer recently returned from Iraq suggests that Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province, who have generally reflected the views of the Sunni armed resistance there, are open to working with Sadr.


Sadr's aides say he was encouraged to launch the new cross-sectarian initiative by the increasingly violent opposition from nationalist Sunni insurgents to the jihadists aligned with Al Qaeda. One of his top aides, Ahmed Shaibani, recalled that the George W. Bush administration was arguing that a timetable was unacceptable because of the danger of Al Qaeda taking advantage of a withdrawal. Shaibani told Raghavan that sectarian peace could be advanced if both Sadr's Mahdi Army and Sunni insurgent groups could unite to weaken Al Qaeda.


[..]The talks with Sunni resistance leaders have been coordinated with a series of other moves by Sadr since early February. Although many members of Sadr's Mahdi Army have been involved in sectarian killings and intimidation of Sunnis in Baghdad, Sadr has taken what appears to be a decisive step to break with those in his movement who have been linked to sectarian violence. Over the past three months, he has expelled at least 600 men from the Mahdi Army who were accused of murder and other violations of Sadr's policy, according to Raghavan.


[..]Sadr's decision in mid-April to pull his representatives out of the al-Maliki government also appears to have been aimed in part at clearing the way for an agreement with the Sunni insurgents. Leaders of those organisations have said they would not accept the U.S.-sponsored government in any peace negotiations with the United States.
U.S. officials have been quietly trying to counter Sadr's approach to the Sunni insurgents by discrediting him. Sadr went underground in February, fearing an attempt by U.S. forces to capture or kill him, and the U.S. official line on Sadr since then has been the persistent claim that he has left Iraq to take refuge in Iran. That appears to be an attempt to feed into Sunni suspicions of all Shiite leaders as agents of Iran.
Sadr's aides have repeatedly denied that Sadr has left the country. The speed with which Sadr's strategy has unfolded in recent months suggests that he has remained in close contact with his organisation. Relying on electronic communication with Sadr outside Iraq would be highly risky, given the well- known capability of U.S. intelligence to intercept any such calls.


[..]The officer also reported that Sunni tribal sheiks have explicitly disavowed the notion that Sadr is a pawn of the Iranians, insisting instead that he doesn't like either Iran or the newly-renamed Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq, which was created in Iran and supported by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.


They said Sadr hopes such provocative United States actions will ultimately result in a new Shiite resistance war against U.S. forces, and they urge swift withdrawal to avoid that outcome.


Sadr's project for a Sunni-Shiite united front against both Al Qaeda and U.S. occupation offers a potential basis for an eventual settlement of the sectarian civil war in Iraq as well as for U.S. withdrawal. But it could also be the basis for a new and more deadly phase of fighting if Sadr returns once more to military resistance.

Turkey Shelling Kurdish Iraq

Turkish paramilitary police are the target of a suicide bomber. Turkey strikes back with bringing tanks to the border and shelling Kurdish positions in Iraq.
Al Jazeera English

At least eight Turkish paramilitary police have been killed after Kurdish fighters attacked their headquarters in eastern Turkey, security sources say. Monday's attack, blamed on the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), came amid speculation that Turkey may send troops into neighbouring Iraq to attack Kurdish separatists based there. The US has pleaded for Turkey to avoid military action. Three people thought to belong to the PKK drove into the gendarmerie complex in the eastern province of Tunceli, opened fire and threw a grenade, killing eight and wounding six more. One fighter was also killed, the security sources said. The gendarmerie is a paramilitary force responsible for security in rural areas of Turkey.

Everyone wants to know if Turkey will invade Iraq. The answer is embedded in this article. Turkey has troops in Iraq and they have routinely engaged in hot pursuit engagements. They will continue with perhaps a bit larger incursion. Indeed, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul asserted it's right to take all measures necessary to deal with the PKK.
The Daily Star

Turkish forces shelled a mountain stronghold of Turkish Kurd rebels in northern Iraq on Sunday, shortly after US Defense Secretary Robert Gates cautioned Turkey against sending troops into the area. The latest attack also comes a day after Iraq's prime minister and the president of the country's northern region hit back at Turkish invasion threats, and called for diplomacy to solve the problems.


Sunday's shelling targeted Haji Umran, a mountainous area which fighters of Turkey's separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) use as a springboard to carry out attacks in Turkey.


Residents told Reuters the attack lasted about 30 minutes and caused no casualties.


"There were some strikes from Turkish forces on areas next to the Turkish border, but until now there has been no Turkish military invasion of Kurdish lands in Iraq," Massoud Barzani, president of Iraq's Kurdistan region, told a news conference Sunday.


Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, also a Kurd, told the same briefing that "we do not accept interference in others' affairs and we do not accept interference in our affairs."


Last week, Turkey moved tanks near to the Iraqi border after bomb attacks killed 12 Turks. Ankara swiftly blamed the PKK for the bombings and said its troop movement was routine.


US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, on a trip to Asia, urged Ankara not to resort to military action to solve the crisis. "We hope there would not be a unilateral military action across the border into Iraq," Gates told a news conference.


[..]Turkish commandos occasionally stage so-called "hot pursuits" of the rebels, who operate in small bands, carry little food and know fresh water sources in the region. Those pursuits are limited in time and scope.


Turks accuse Iraqi Kurds, who once fought alongside the Turkish soldiers against the PKK in Iraq, of supporting the separatist rebels and worry that the war in Iraq could lead to Iraq's disintegration and the creation of a Kurdish state in the north.Turkey also is concerned that Iraqi Kurds' efforts to incorporate the oil-rich city of Kirkuk into their self-governing region in northern Iraq could embolden rebels seeking self-rule in southeast Turkey.


Turkey already has more than 1,000 troops deployed mainly in the Suleimaniyya area in northern Iraq, since the last major incursion a decade ago. The troops run several liaison offices in the region from where they collect intelligence and monitor rebel activities in the region. On Friday, Iraqi Kurds questioned some Turkish officers in civilian clothes at gunpoint, according to the Turkish military.

The News Americans Never See: Iraq is Near Collapse

The hype you hear from Washington via mainstream media is just propaganda these days. Iraq is near collapse. The federal government in fact only governs the US guarded and walled "green zone" and very little more.
Update: US Military says 3/4 of Baghdad out of control.
The Daily Star

Iraq's government has lost control of vast areas to powerful local factions and the country is on the verge of collapse and fragmentation, a leading British think tank said on Thursday.


Chatham House also said there was not one civil war in Iraq, but "several civil wars" between rival communities, and accused Iraq's main neighbors - Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey - of having reasons "for seeing the instability there continue."


[..]"It can be argued that Iraq is on the verge of being a failed state which faces the distinct possibility of collapse and fragmentation," the group's report said. "The Iraqi government is not able to exert authority evenly or effectively over the country. Across huge swathes of territory, it is largely irrelevant in terms of ordering social, economic and political life."


The report also said that a US-backed security crackdown in Baghdad launched in February has failed to reduce overall violence across the country, as insurgent groups have just shifted the focus of their activities outside the capital.


While cautioning that Iraq might not ultimately exist as a united entity, the 12-page report said a draft law to distribute Iraq's oil wealth equitably among Sunni Arabs, Shiites and ethnic Kurds was "the key to ensuring Iraq's survival."

Tension increasing on the border between Turkey and Iraq

Tensions are rising in and around Iraq. Mosul, Kirkuk and Baghdad, large cities in Iraq, are seeing daily ethnic cleansing. Basra is in virtual anarchy with the Brits packing to leave and hunkered down while the Madhi Army and Badr Corps fight for supremacy. Saudi Arabia is funding and arming the Sunni insurgency with the tacit approval of the Bush Administration, while the US Military engages them.
Turkey, concerned about chaos in Iraq and it's border with it and terrorism in it's Kurdish minority is building troops on the border and announced it's intention to do hot pursuit of PKK fighters across the Iraqi border. An incursion into Iraq by Turkey is just a matter of time.
Al Jazeera

Turkish troops have killed two Kurdish fighters in clashes in the southeast overnight, the regional governor's office said, bringing the number killed this week to at least 16. The separatists, meanwhile, attacked a Turkish military vehicle near the border with Iraq on Friday, injuring eight soldiers, the governor's added. The overnight clash, near the town of Tunceli, was part of a series of large-scale offensives that the military has launched against separatists who cross into Turkey from bases in northern Iraq to stage attacks.


Turkey's military has been deploying troops near its border with Iraq, but says it is a routine precaution against separatist infiltrations. The massing of troops, however, coincides with debate over whether to stage an incursion into Iraq to try to eradicate separatist bases there. Turkey's military chief said on Thursday that his army was prepared to attack Kurdish fighters in a cross-border offensive but such action would need to be order by the government.


Turkey last carried out a major incursion into Iraq to chase fighters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, a decade ago. Separatist Kurdish fighters, taking advantage of a power vacuum in northern Iraq, have escalated attacks on Turkish targets. Turkey complains that the United States and Iraqi Kurds have done little to stop them. The United States opposes a Turkish military incursion into northern Iraq, fearing it could destabilise what is one of the most stable regions of the country.

The Daily Star

Turkey sent more tanks to its border with Iraq on Wednesday in a military build-up that is fueling US concern about a possible incursion into northern Iraq against Kurdish rebels.


The move came on the day that US forces handed over responsibility for security in Iraq's three Northern provinces to the Kurdish regional government.


A group of 20 tanks loaded on trucks emerged Wednesday from army barracks in Mardin near Syria and headed toward the Iraqi border in southeastern Turkey, already the scene of a major army offensive against rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).


"The PKK must be eliminated as a problem between Iraq and Turkey," Turkey's special envoy to Iraq, Oguz Celikkol, told CNN-Turk television on Wednesday after visiting Baghdad this week.


Asked whether Turkey could take unilateral action, Celikkol said: "Our expectation is that this issue is resolved before it comes to that point."

And as TomPaine.com aptly points out, it's all because of "crackpot realism", an ideological world view that has little connection with the real world, more connection with the biases and preferences of those in the Bush Administration who feel the need to act.

I’m talking about his concept of "crackpot realism," a tough-talking, no-nonsense, power-driven line of thought and action that invariably leads to disaster. Mills was particularly concerned with looming nuclear war, but his analysis holds fine in today’s non-nuclear (so far) conflict.


“In crackpot realism,” he wrote, “a high-flying moral rhetoric is joined with an opportunist crawling among a great scatter of unfocused fears and demands. ... So instead of the unknown fear, the anxiety without end, some men of the higher circles prefer the simplification of known catastrophe.”


You might think he was reporting on the planning of the Iraq invasion when he wrote, “... They know of no solutions to the paradoxes of the Middle East and Europe, the Far East and Africa except the landing of Marines... In place of these paradoxes they prefer the bright, clear problems of war—as they used to be. For they still believe that ‘winning’ means something, although they never tell us what.”


[...]On May 23, John Edwards told the Council on Foreign Relations, "By framing this as a war, we have walked right into the trap the terrorists have set—that we are engaged in some kind of clash of civilizations and a war on Islam."


First we framed the Middle East conflict as a war when it wasn’t, then we initiated a full-scale war to match our language. Then, we lost.


The response to Edwards was either to attack the messenger, as the RNC did, or to dismiss it as fantasy, as the right-wing blog world did. Hard-headed realists like Dick Cheney simply continued to push the war, and the Congress continued to fund it. Apparently, a majority of federal legislators fear being identified as traitors to a war that was crackpot from the get-go. Mills would understand.