#Iraq — US doubles down on nation building round 2?

Apparently Barack Obama has learned nothing from George W. Bush. It might be one thing to passively stand aside while Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki gets overthrown, or fights off attempts at that.

It's another to actually meet with his potential replacements. What if he's overthrown, but not by one of "our" guys? In that case, we're facing blowback. 

And, Maliki's indicated he's immune to public pressure. If we felt we had to meet with potential replacements, any idiot would know that doing this on the QT would have been much smarter than a public embrace.

Also, the threats of withholding materials? That usually doesn't work either. If the other party does eventually knuckle under, it's with petulance. That petulance includes questions of why didn't you do this to the other side? See "Palestinians and Israelis." 

And, if we're trying to pick winners and losers, sending "advisers" is also stupid; good way for them to get caught up in some sort of crossfire. And, the actual 300 (for now but counting?) is worse than the expected 100.

Hell, six months from now, Iraq might make Afghanistan look stable.

To riff on the old Colin Powell "Pottery Barn rule" — If you broke something at a store, don't try to fix it inside the same store.

Maliki doing Clintonesque “triangulation”?

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appears to be listening to some US advisors and expanding his political base.

Question is, can distancing himself from some “harder-core” Shi’ite parties position his Dawa to attract more secular Iraqis of both Shi’a and Sunni persuasions, as well as pick off a few Kurds in the north, too?

Why Obama should release Abu Ghraib 2.0 pix – out of Iraq

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki reportedly told Washington that Iraq would erupt in violence and he would ask US troops to leave a year early if the pics came out. Maliki reportedly said “Baghdad will burn.”

Best argument yet for releasing them. Get us out of there.

If Obama were a real liberal, he’d find a way to either dun KBR or force it to stay behind a couple of years, to boot.

Karzai follows Maliki onto Obama bandwagon

Just after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said, it’s time for an Obama-style 16-month deadline for U.S. troop withdrawals, Afghan President Hamid Karzai says Obama would be “a strong partner.”

It wasn ‘t a cutdown of McCain; Karzai said either candidate would be a “strong partner.” Nonetheless, it helps Obama’s foreign policy chops.

At the same time, four years ago, John Kerry was practically getting official endorsement from several world leaders, so don’t read much into this.

U.S. backtracks on Iraq timelines opposition

In exchange for agreeing to timelines (which are not that set in stone anyway), BushCo gets a trade-off from Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

His agreement to a more temporary arrangement than a full-blown status of forces agreement. He likes this because it doesn’t require a two-thirds vote of the Iraq Parliament. BushCo has to like it because it’s the best it’s going to get.

The agreement would last through the end of 2009.

Oh, and on a related topic? Barack Obama, if you’re elected president, and Gen. Petraeus, as head of CentCom, resists your suggested speed of drawdown?

You ARE the Commander in Chief. You CAN reassign him.

Maliki gives Obama chance to reclaim liberal cred

Obama should IMMEDIATELY jump on the Iraqi government’s rejection of a status of forces agreement without a timetable.

Obama could say something like this:

Any “refining” of my Iraq withdrawal plans include a firm timetable for withdrawal satisfactory to the Iraqi government, as part of a larger status of forces agreement. My administration will fully respect the sovereignty of Iraq’s government.

Obama, as a politician, not an idealist, could then privately hold close to his vest any “conditions-based” reservations he has.

And also, he could hold close to the vest his continued vagueness (deliberate,IMO), about just what defines “combat” vs. “noncombat” U.S. troops in Iraq.

Obama has shown he has no problems being that type of politician.

He has, though, shown that he still has trouble actually articulating the nuances of being that type of politician at the presidential level.

Maliki has given Obama a big ladder down into his self-dug hole. But, will he take it? I doubt it.

That’s because, in my opinion, Obama also still has trouble admitting that he still has trouble with those aforementioned nuances.

Sistani may give Moqtada al-Sadr green light

The incomparable Juan Cole points out that Iraq’s Shi’ite Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani is under pressure to issue a fatwa against the presence of American troops in Iraq.

Ironically, Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s claim that Iraq troops would be ready to “stand up” by the end of this year gives Sistani this leeway. The U.S. presidential election is a background factor, of course.

McCain will be hard put to rationally defend any sort of longer-term occupancy if Sistani pulls the trigger.

Fat chance on Sunni Awakening being accepted in Baghdad

Odierno has had a series of lengthy and intense meetings with Iraqi officials to sell them on the idea and said last month that the two sides have agreed to a series of "very strict" requirements to temper Iraqi concerns.

Among them are restrictions on the citizens groups operating outside the control of the U.S. military or Iraqi government and a limitation on the number of group members who will be moved into the formal security forces.

Iraqi officials have raised concerns that citizens groups have been infiltrated by hard-core insurgents, a possibility U.S. officials have openly acknowledged.

"Are there people trying to infiltrate them? Yes," Odierno said. "But we can sort through that. The majority of them just want to be part of the government of Iraq. Before, there was no avenue for them to become part of the government of Iraq."

So much for the Anbar Awakening

All that has awakened, among Sunni Muslims in Anbar and elsewhere in Iraq, in the longer term is a new round of intra-Sunni violence, which will surely only intensify now that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s “assault” against Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army in Basra has flopped, plus subsequent Iraqi Army desertions as U.S. forces tried to cordon off Shi’a areas of Baghdad.

A vicious civil war is now being fought within Iraq’s Sunni Arab community between al-Qa’ida in Iraq and al-Sahwa (the Awakening Council) while other groups continue to attack American forces. In Baghdad on a single day the head of al-Sahwa in the southern district of Dora was killed in his car by gunmen and seven others died by bombs and bullets in al-Adhamiya district.

U.S. spokesmen speak of a “spike” in violence in recent weeks but in reality security in Sunni and Shia parts of Iraq has been deteriorating since January. The official daily death toll of civilians reached a low of 20 killed a day in that month and has since more than doubled to 41 a day in March. The US and the Iraqi government are now facing a war on two fronts.

Not “spike,” but “surge” in violence, Mr. Gen. David Petraeus. This is something we cannot “win.” Be honest. Your puppetmaster/idol is leaving office in nine months from tomorrow anyway.

Latest backfire from Maliki US move against Sadr

It was Iran that brokered the ceasefire between the American-backed, American-pushed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malki and Moqtada Sadr and his Mahdi Army.

Result?

Iran is in the catbird seat as an intra-Iraqi Shi’ite power broker, notes CNN’s Nic Robertson:

“There’s a broad alliance of Shia parties here in Iraq that have been sort of struggling and struggling to hold themselves together over the recent months,” Robertson stated. “That alliance essentially broke down with this recent fighting, and it appears that Iran has wanted the Shias to remain united here, that they don't want massive violence right on their own doorstep.”

“It also shows how weak the prime minister is here,” Robertson continued. “He went to war against Moqtada al-Sadr’s militia, failed to defeat them ... decisively, and the Iranians have stepped in to help him save face as well.”

“The Iranians here are in a very strong position, influencing the government,” concluded Robertson. “I think we can expect more of the same.”

No doubt our Preznit is asking Maliki to help him look for his pony as we speak.

I doubt purple fingers will be on display in October

With Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s fizzled attempt to suppress Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army by silence, Sadr and his followers are probably right about this:

The Sadrists believe the goal was to weaken their movement before provincial elections this fall. Al-Sadr's followers expect to make major gains in the regional voting at the expense of al-Maliki's Shiite partners in the government.

So, if politics by other means didn’t work, expect Maliki to practice politics by yet other means in the fall —

• Voter intimidation;
• Ballot-box stuffing;
• Ballot-box tampering;
• Pre-emptive disqualification of candidates, a la Iran.

I can probably think of more if you give me enough time.

Since the provincial elections are scheduled for before our general elections, Preznit Bush, Uncle Fester and others will probably pull their fingers out of their asses or Dutch Boy dikes, dip ’em in purple, and loudly hail “democracy” meaning we need to stay in Iraq for John McCain’s 100 years.

Maliki forces being routed by Mahdi

In both Basra and Baghdad, the BushCo myth of “Iraqis standing up” is showing itself to be amongst the more vapid of his long list of brainlocked ideas. In battles between the Iraqi army militia of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and elements of the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr, government forces are turning tail and running.

Some government forces have defected. The Basra police chief was almost assassinated. In Baghdad, Mahdi forces simply took over neighborhoods by ordering police to leave their checkpoints, which many of them did.

One witness saw Iraqi Shia policemen rip off their uniform shirts and run for shelter with local Sunni neighbourhood patrols, most of them made up of former insurgents wooed by the US military into fighting al-Qaeda.

Other southern Iraq cities besides Basra, like Kut, are starting to fall under Mahdi control.

It’s no wonder that retiring Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel called President bush’s latest detached from reality speech on Iraq “another episode of ‘Alice in Wonderland’” (with video clip).

Maliki-Mahdi fight affects oil prices – $120/bbl next

An oil pipeline in the Basra area was attacked and damaged as part of battles between the Iraqi army militia of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Mahdi Army of cleric-in-training Moqtada al-Sadr.

Oil prices hit $107/bbl today after the attack reduced Iraqi oil output almost 25 percent, from 1.56 million barrels per day to 1.2 million

“We’re going to be getting less oil because of the explosion,” said James Cordier, founder of OptionSellers.com, a Tampa, Fla., trading firm.

For traders, the big factor is that Iraqi oil supplies were cut by a deliberate act of terrorism, Cordier said. That raises the prospect of more attacks, and less oil.

That’s despite unnamed “oil officials” denying such a cutback happened.

No word yet on the severity of damages or how long repairs will take, but Corder says to expect the worst:

“I think crude oil is easily going to be testing $120 (in coming weeks),” Cordier said. Crude futures rose to a trading record of $111.80 early last week before retreating.

Well, that negates much of the IRS stimulus checks.

Does the Iraq parliament believe it’s sovereign or not?

Even if it refuses to pass a draft oil law, why don’t Maliki or parliamentary leaders talk about getting it to overrule the 2004 contractor sovereignty regulation imposed from above by the U.S., and then put some Blackwater folks on trial?
That’s why I have never favored the “I support the troops” me-too-ism of some antiwar people. Even if immediately qualified with a statement such as “I support getting them home,” it still seems a no-win proposition. It’s arguing on war supporters’ turf.

Maliki steals page from Bush

Says criticism of his administration helps the terrorists. Watch for color-coded “terrorist” alerts, based on the degree of U.S., or U.S. surrogate (that’s you, Ayad Allawi) criticism of Iraq, to hit the streets of Baghdad any day now.

Of course, Maliki may be right.

According to Allawi's published program, the parliamentarians would not only appoint a new government but also suspend the new constitution, declare a state of emergency and make the restoration of security its priority.

Given Iraq’s state of disarray, I can’t see how suspending the constitution would do anything but eliminate the final remnants of trust in a central government, thereby fueling people’s allegiance to various insurgencies.

Maliki government looking more shaky in Baghdad

Samarra bombing leads to top resignation, again bring its viability into question.

Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a senior Shiite politician often mentioned as a potential prime minister, tendered his resignation last week in a move that reflects deepening frustration inside the Iraqi government with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Other senior Iraqi officials have considered resigning in recent weeks over the failures of their government to make progress after more than a year in power, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.

Abdul Mahdi said he was provoked by the second bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra on June 13, in which he said corrupt police abetted Sunni insurgents. “The two minarets were as important to us as September 11, and we should be accountable to the people,” Abdul Mahdi said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “We should be doing more to move in a positive direction — on corruption, accountability and defending the important sites.” …

Maliki’s political benefactor, radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, has again withdrawn his followers in parliament in the wake of the Samarra bombing. The leader of Sadr’s legislative bloc, Nasar al-Rubaie, said that “the Maliki government will surely collapse if the situation continues as it is right now.”

I don’t think it’s a question of “if” the center can hold any more, but “how long.”

From the BushCo point of view, Maliki continues to dilly-dally on things like the draft oil law. Now, he’s president, not a prime minister, but especially with his veep just resigning, don’t doubt that Bush, Condoleezza Rice and Ambassador Ryan Crocker aren’t sniffing around for some way to not only fill Mahdi’s vacancy but “lean on” Maliki at the same time — or perhaps even trying to run the table with a “two-fer.”