Iraqi Election Update

The newspapers are reporting a big win for Prime Minister Maliki in the provincial elections, and predictably are leaving out the nuance that such a victory entails. First of all they are claiming that this win for Maliki is a "loss for Iran," as if Iran doesn't have major ties to the Dawa Party and Maliki himself.

Second, while everyone is focusing on the Shiite Maliki/Sadr split - and really, Maliki had all the guns, so his victory was sealed when the US military helped him raid Basra - it's the marginalization of the Sunnis in Baghdad that could spark outrage and unrest, much like the apparent electoral fraud in Anbar:

The conventional wisdom has been that the provincial elections would redress the sectarian imbalance in the Baghdad Council -- which had only one Sunni, a Communist, out of 57 seats because of their boycott of the 2005 elections. Sunnis (many of whom continue to believe themselves a majority) expected to capture a significant share of the Baghdad council this time. Most U.S. analyses shared that expectation, which was the basis for hopes that the provincial elections would lock in the incorporation of Sunnis into the political process.

But a dramatic increase in Sunni representation (commensurate with their aspirations) was always unlikely for one big reason: the clearly visible refusal to take serious measures to allow refugees or internally displaced persons to vote. IDPs were technically enfranchised, but the rule that they vote in their place of origin and the inefficiency of the bureaucracy ensured that few actually would. In September, Brian Katulis and I warned that failure to deal effectively with the IDP problem would "essentially ratify the country's new sectarian map" created by the bloody sectarian cleansing of 2006-07. According to IOM's authoritative surveys, about 64% of Iraqi displaced come from Baghdad -- and it is in Baghdad where the effects of their disenfranchisement are most being felt. With less than 10% (or even 20%) of the seats in the Baghdad council, Sunnis may well feel that this warning has come true. How will they react?

The unexpectedly strong showing of Maliki may reflect a popular yearning for a strong central government. But add on the unexpectedly strong showing of the Islamic Party in Anbar, and it is difficult to not wonder whether there is more to the strong showing of the incumbent parties than their popularity. Months of "shaping operations" and state-funded patronage may have had something to do with it as well. But either way, the provincial elections seem likely to shift attention to exactly the question we worried about last fall: how will frustrated challengers react to their failure to obtain the share of state power that they had expected? Ahmed Abu Risha, head of the Iraqi Awakening Conference and a key American ally in Sunni Iraq, has already proposed one answer: "We will form the government of Anbar anyway...An honest dictatorship is better than a democracy won through fraud." That beats the "Darfur" and "graveyards" and "streets running with blood" of which others speak, I suppose... but none are quite what the cheerleaders for this process seem to have had in mind.

The Sunni Awakening was predicated on hopes that they would get a share of power somewhere down the line. If they are shut out of the political process, who's to say they won't turn to other means?

...It looks like some thumbs were placed on the scales in Anbar, giving the election to a third party and not the Awakening coalition or the Iraqi Islamic Party. Lynch:

I never expected the provincial elections to solve all of Iraq's problems, and they didn't. The elections have created new problems that need to be recognized and dealt with -- especially Sunni frustration in Baghdad, intra-Sunni strife in Anbar, perceptions of electoral fraud in support of incumbents, IDP and refugee disenfranchisement, and the impact of the election of a strongly anti-Kurdish front up north. But that doesn't mean that disaster is lurking around every corner -- with luck, these new problems can be dealt with constructively.

Lest my coverage appear too negative, let me say that I'm very pleased to see the collapse of ISCI across much of the country and hopefully the end of its designs on creating a Shia super-region. And I'm happy with the strengthening of forces calling for a stronger central state -- since I've been arguing for years that the consolidation of a Weberian Iraqi state is the key to establishing the conditions for successfully extracting the U.S. military. With luck, the coalition-building phase can allow points of entry for some of the potentially frustrated challengers.

I'm sincerely hoping that all the parties involved can work out their conflicts peacefully and that the results are accepted as broadly legitimate -- both of which require frank, honest looks at what really happened and why. And then with the elections out of the way, the U.S. should move on to the business of starting its troop withdrawals and setting a new course.

UPDATE: This Anthony Zinni story is completely weird. He was offered the Ambassador job in Iraq and then never heard anything until he found out he was replaced by Christopher Hill (who ran the North Korea diplomacy)? How could they do that? Zinni is a valuable asset for Democrats on national security. Is the Obama team going to disrespect every Democratic general one by one?

Munthadar Al-Zaida=Gavrilo Princip?

I think there's reason to be very concerned about the fallout from the shoe throwing incident in Iraq. It's fun to joke about and all ("Bush hasn't dodged anything that fast since the draft!"), but the consequences are likely to be grave. The act of defiance at an American President has galvanized opinion in the Middle East. I don't want to call him Munthadar the Plumber, but that's the basic dynamic.

Arab and Iranian TV stations have gleefully replayed the clip, sometimes in slow motion, of an Iraqi reporter calling Bush a "dog" and throwing his shoes at him -- the Middle East's tastiest insults -- at a Baghdad news conference on Sunday.

The affront was a twisted echo of the triumphal moment for Bush when joyous Iraqis used their footwear to beat a statue of Saddam Hussein toppled by U.S. invading troops in 2003.

"It indicates how much antagonism he's been able to create in the whole region," former Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher told Reuters, adding that the incident was regrettable.

Bush had harmed America's reputation and the friendship many had felt for it. "Despite past mistakes in its policies, there was always a redeeming factor. In this particular case, there doesn't seem to have ever been a redeeming factor," Maher said.

Now we're learning that this guy, seen as a hero by a non-trivial segment of the Arab world, has been charged with assault (on the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, not Bush), thrown into Camp Cropper prison and tortured.

Albaghdadia, the TV channel where the Iraqi Journalist Montather Al-Zeidi works, reports that an Iraqi MP (Ms. Zainab Al-Kanani) informed them that Montather’s hand was broken in jail.

This confirms a lot of reports and rumors about Montather being subject to torture while the Iraqi authorities are interrogating and detaining him in some unspecified location.

The BBC confirmed this. There have been two days of mass demonstrations calling for Al-Zaidi's release. The news that he's being tortured will only exacerbate matters.



The fact that the charge against Maliki actually worries me most. To the extent that the central government is blamed for torturing and detaining Al-Zaidi, the Sadrists, already full-throated in their support, may see their anger turn to violence. This is an unstable country without full popular support for the ruling leaders. If a mass movement erupts around Al-Zaidi, the result would be complete chaos. And the Sunni insurgents, even the Kurds, may find an opening to resume hostilities.

It's made worse by the rumblings that the US won't stick to their withdrawal commitments as outlined in the status of forces agreement. Maliki and the US will be blamed for scamming the Iraqi people and keeping them under permanent occupation. This silencing of dissent will become a powerful symbol. There aren't a lot of steps from there to violence.

This is why Bush must forgive Al-Zaidi and work to get him removed from prison. It won't restore his public profile in the Middle East, but it would quell a threatened riot and at least put some weight behind the principle of free expression. Thers says it best:

Mr. President, please publicly forgive Muntadhar al-Zeidi for throwing shoes at you, and please state, unequivocally, that the Iraqi journalist should not face charges or endure official harassment for his actions. If American values mean anything at all, this is the right thing to do [...]

In the United States, "insulting a visiting head of state" is not a crime. Nor should it be. Throwing a shoe could certainly be illegal, and hustling a shoe-thrower out of a press conference would certainly be understandable. But pressing charges?

We value vigorous dissent in this country. So much so, that even when objects are publicly hurled at controversial speakers, we do not necessarily prosecute, and if we do, we do not consider the "insult" the specific crime at issue. Property damage as a result of such an incident might be a felony, but never an "insult." [...]

President Bush, you need to avoid this "big problem." Do this one thing, this one small thing, for the sake of peace. Forgive Muntadhar al-Zeidi and call for his immediate release, and call for him to be protected against all forms of official harassment.

Do this one right thing before you leave.

Let me second the call. Do not listen to know-nothings calling this man an "ingrate" for not appreciating American sacrifice. That's nonsense. We have invaded this country under false pretenses, killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions, allowed 70% to live without access to water or electricity, and brought a once-great society to rubble. It is perfectly human to feel frustration and rage.

And if you refuse to open your mind enough to think of that, think about Baghdad on fire for the last month of your Presidency. Think about security gains lost. I'd ask you to think about the dead, but you won't, so think about your legacy.

I don't usually think calling the White House is worth a hill of beans, but give it a shot in this case. 202-456-1111 is the White House switchboars, and the Iraqi Embassy is at 202-742-1600.

These things have the tendency to quickly spiral out of control. The safety of perhaps tens of thousands of people is at stake. Please, Mr. President, you have the power to fix this.

...well, at least the President is not insulted. That's the IMPORTANT thing. Also, this is a mess:

Clearly, one of the most important parts of my job because of 9/11 was to defend the security of the American people. There have been no attacks since I have been president, since 9/11. One of the major theaters against al Qaeda turns out to have been Iraq. This is where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand. This is where al Qaeda was hoping to take ...

Raddatz: But not until after the U.S. invaded.

Bush: Yeah, that's right. So what? The point is that al Qaeda said they're going to take a stand. Well, first of all in the post-9/11 environment Saddam Hussein posed a threat. And then upon removal, al Qaeda decides to take a stand. And they're becoming defeated and I think history will say, one, the world was better off without Saddam, two, along with the Iraqi troops we have denied al Qaeda a safe haven because a young democracy is beginning to grow, which will be an important sign for people in the Middle East.

I don't even know what to say there. He's admitting that he invaded Iraq for no reason and doesn't seem to care.

The Dog Won't Eat The Dog Food

If the Iraq debate wasn't over in this country, you would think that this new pact giving the US a pretty firm deadline for withdrawal from the country by the end of 2011, only slightly less accelerated than Barack Obama's own withdrawal plan, would be significant. After all, it's a complete repudiation of the deeply held strategy of the Bush Administration and John McCain, that firm deadlines would be disastrous for America because the terrorists will "wait us out." There's also the matter of giving the Iraqis jurisdiction over their own country, by taking the military out of the prison business and subjecting US soldiers to prosecution, which at one time was anathema to the Bushies.

Iraq said it had secured the right to prosecute U.S. soldiers for serious crimes under certain circumstances, an issue both sides had long said was holding up the pact [...]

On the immunity of U.S. forces, Dabbagh said: "Inside their bases, they will be under American law. Iraqi judicial law will be implemented in case these forces commit a serious and deliberate felony outside their military bases and when off duty."

None dare call it treason except maybe all conservatives.

But the bigger story here is that the Iraqi Parliament, who unlike the Congress actually gets a chance to ratify this thing, appears to be balking:

BAGHDAD — Hopes that a security agreement between Iraq and the United States could be concluded swiftly receded Sunday as several of the leading Iraqi political parties, including some that had negotiated the agreement, appeared to back away from quick approval.

In a public statement posted on semiofficial government Web sites, the United Iraqi Alliance, which represents several powerful Shiite parties that back the government, said it could not endorse the pact as written and wanted amendments. It formed a committee on Saturday to survey alliance member opinions.

“The alliance asked the prime minister to reopen the negotiations with the Americans and try to modify the pact until it becomes acceptable to us,” said Sami al-Askari, a leader in Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s Dawa Party, which is a member of the Shiite alliance.

Whether the agreement will be signed “will depend on the American side,” he said [...]

The largest Sunni bloc in Parliament, Tawafiq, also hesitated to endorse the agreement. The hesitation came as a surprise because until recently Sunnis had been supportive of the American presence since they viewed the troops as a bulwark against a repetition of the sectarian violence that forced many from their homes in and around Baghdad.

Can we face facts? The Iraqis don't want the Americans there. Maliki might, because he's using the US military to project power against his enemies. But the other parties really don't. The Sadrists really don't. The Sunnis, sensing Maliki's use of the military to crush them, also don't. And the Iraqi people are massively opposed. This is reflected by every single representative of the people hesitant to do anything in concert with the Americans.

Political analysts agree that the elections are making it difficult for Mr. Maliki to stand with the Americans, especially on an agreement that allows troops to stay. The election is likely early next year, and Mr. Maliki is worried about maintaining power.

“I think the main thing is that Maliki is worried about the provincial elections, and he doesn’t want to be seen as making concessions to the Americans,” said Joost Hiltermann, a senior Iraq analyst at the International Crisis Group office in Istanbul, which oversees Iraq. The Iraqi resistance “is positioning,” he said. “But what is the endgame?”

This is also why Maliki criticized the top US general very strongly for suggesting that Iran played a role in the security agreement. It is positioning, but of course you have to recognize that all the positioning demands a move away from any American occupation presence.

So the national security functionaries can peddle around some draft document all they want, and very serious Villagers can talk about 6 more months to dig in for the big victory, but at some point you have to take a glimpse at reality: we are being told, politely, to leave Iraq, by pretty much everyone who matters. And so leave we must. With a far bigger disaster looming in Afghanistan, a country where the Taliban can behead dozens on any roadway, it's just completely absurd to hang on in Iraq where every major player is rejecting the occupation. I don't believe in "surging" into Afghanistan, for the record, and that's another failure of not heeding the truth of the situation on the ground. But nobody wants to see the truth in Iraq that is plainly visible - it's time to go.

World Report

Because I'm almost out of here, I'll just mash these together, but they're all important, and would all merit a post of their own.

• So the ruling party in Pakistan chose Benazir Bhutto's widow, Asif Ali Zardari, to be their President. Of course, when Bhutto was Prime Minister, she and Zardari bilked the country for millions upon millions. Zardari doesn't want to reinstate Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the head of the Supreme Court, because Chaudhry might then arrest him. So this is cutting a wedge through the fragile coalition. The former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, wants to slash the Presidential power before Zardari accedes to the position. Sharif's Muslim League also wants Chaudhry back on the bench. Pakistan is a mess, and a mess we can't afford right now.

• While George Bush finally came around on a withdrawal timeline, he's still not all the way where Muqtada al-Sadr needs him to be:

The debate over a deal that would chart the future of U.S. troops in Iraq has reignited the rhetoric coming from Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr, who denounced the plan Friday for not setting a firm date for American withdrawal [...]

Iraq's government spokesman, Ali Dabbagh, reiterated Friday that any departure of U.S. troops was "subject to Iraqi national security" and that the dates were hypothetical. The final departure date "will be jointly set" by Iraq and the United States, he said, downplaying suggestions that the draft was the final deal.

At the weekly prayer service in Sadr's Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City, chants of "No to the agreement!" rang out through loudspeakers positioned along the street. Worshipers responded with applause and repeated the chant as the service ended and people drifted away [...]

At prayer services across the country, Sadrist preachers said any deal struck with the Americans was a blow to Iraq's sovereignty. In Sadr City, listeners agreed.

"Everyone is talking about how it will really serve the interests of the Americans, not the Iraqis," said Mohammed Fadim, whose well-stocked grocery store overlooks the wide avenue where worshipers knelt side by side in prayer. "Everyone knows the U.S. administration. Once they occupy a country, if they want to make an agreement to stay, 80% of the terms will fulfill their interests."

This is bad news. Sadr leads a cultural movement regardless of who holds the guns, and Maliki was pushed to a timeline in the first place because of pressure from the Sadrists. If Sadr turns against a deal pushed by the Parliament, Maliki's team will be crushed in the provincial elections. Just the act of getting this ratified (Maliki is going through the Parliament) could rip the country to shreds. Not good.

• In a neglected corner of the "war on terror," Somalia is going to crap.

Islamic militants said Saturday they had seized control of Somalia's third largest city after three days of fighting that left about 70 people dead and saw thousands flee Kismayo.

The Islamic courts movement, which controlled the capital, Mogadishu, and much of the south for six months in 2006, said it wrested control of the southern port city of Kismayo from clan militias.

The ICU never really stopped fighting, as the US paid little or no attention, despite the fact that Somalia, with almost no real government and extreme poverty, is a hotbed for extremism. This goes down as another failure of Bush-era foreign policy.

• Russia is leaving Georgia. Mostly leaving. Georgia is apparently disputing the checkpoints Russia has set up in Georgian territory. It's a bit dodgy, but to characterize it as the greatest crisis since the Cold War is king of nuts.

Iraq In Fragments

Because some of us are still paying attention.

• First the really good news: this report in the Guardian that Muqtada al-Sadr is going to urge his forces to completely disarm, and transform the organization into a political and social movement. This would be the greatest hope for stability in Iraq, although the final outcome may end up with Sadr in power. It seems to me that this shift goes hand-in-hand with this report that a tentative deal has been reached with the US on a status of forces agreement that would set a timeline of withdrawal of US forces from Iraq by 2010 or 2011, provided that conditions remain the same on the ground. Sadr's Mahdi Army had a goal of driving the Americans from the country, and with that on its way to being achieved, he is free to change his movement into one that is expressly political.

• When those political skills will be able to be used is unclear, as the Iraqi Parliament adjourned without agreement on a provincial election law, which pushes the next round of elections into next year, in all likelihood. This means that the politics is still at a complete gridlock in the country, with looming explosions like Kirkuk still unsettled. So the good news always comes with the uncertain and potentially catastrophic in Iraq.

• Parliament did provide $21 billion dollars in supplemental reconstruction funding for the country. However, that's just a portion of the projected $79 billion budget surplus that has resulted from oil revenues in Iraq (how sad that Iraq's economic future is brighter than our own?). I believe that we owe it to the Iraqi people to rebuild their country, but at the same time these surpluses in a government that has a poor track record on corruption invites concern.

• Back to the deal on a withdrawal timetable, which has not been announced in the US press, it's a complete contradiction of George Bush, who said this just yesterday:

"I talk to him all the time, and that's not what I heard," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post aboard Air Force One on the start of a trip to Asia. "I heard a man who wants to work with the United States to come up with a rational way to have the United States withdraw combat troops depending upon conditions on the ground, that's all."

That rational way happens to be a timetable remarkably similar to Sen. Obama's, and Bush apparently just signed onto it as well. Also in this reported deal, the US military cannot arrest Iraqis without government approval.

• A very strange argument was put forth by the axis of Pollack/O'Hanlon yesterday, that ethnic cleansing was not the chief cause of the reduction in violence in Baghdad, because casualties went up there in 2006. Yeah, that's what they call ethnic cleansing, guys. Meanwhile, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad visited Baghdad and cites the giant prison cell-like walls as a chief cause of security gains.

What I found contradicts all the official reports: Baghdad is a city where one street is at war with the next, where the people are more desperate than I've ever seen them. It has been transformed into a city of walls. There are twenty miles of walls slicing up the Sunni and Shia ghettos, each wall over 12 feet high. They are the main reason why the casualties have fallen, not because peace is on its way. In Adhamiyah, I meet a member of the Sunni militia, and he tells me, “I cannot move behind that square over there. If I did, I would be killed. It's a prison here.”

• Finally, there's no KFC in Fallujah. That I had to write a sentence that dippy just shows the complete dishonesty from the right wing about anything in Iraq.

Some Context For The Iraq Timetable Remarks

Now that Iraq's national security adviser has joined the Prime Minister in calling for the US-Iraq status of forces agreement to include a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops, it's time to place these remarks in context.

Nouri al-Maliki is trying to win an election. He wants to outflank the Sadrists who have been resisting the US occupation for some time. There have been massive demonstrations among the Shiite community to drive the occupiers out. It's significant that the NSA, Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, made his comments in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, and after discussions with the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, no less.

But the actual withdrawal proposal put forth by Maliki and the Iraqi government is far less than it seems.

The Iraqi proposal stipulates that, once Iraqi forces have resumed security responsibility in all 18 of Iraq's provinces, U.S.-led forces would then withdraw from all cities in the country.

After that, the country's security situation would be reviewed every six months, for three to five years, to decide when U.S.-led troops would pull out entirely, al-Adeeb said.

The proposal, as outlined by al-Adeeb, is phrased in a way that would allow Iraqi officials to tell the Iraqi public that it includes a specific timetable and dates for a U.S. withdrawal.

However, it also would provide the United States some flexibility on timing because the dates of the provincial handovers are not set.

That's the key. This is a positioning document for al-Maliki, who wants to consolidate control in provincial elections. He's trying to prove that his rule has been successful and that he is not a puppet to the Americans. The other day he said that terrorism has been defeated in Iraq - it was his "Mission Accomplished" statement - as proof that he has been able to increase security all by himself.

The practical effect of the agreement described above is negligible. We've only handed over security responsibility in 9 of the 18 provinces to date. There's enough flexibility in this statement to hold off withdrawing all combat troops for potentially up to a decade. And 10 years is a long time and lots of things can change. This is an election-year "peace is at hand" statement that Maliki can wave around to the Iraqi public.

I wouldn't be surprised if Bush jumped at it, actually. It's certainly a good deal for him - he gets to pretend to leave while locking in for a long-term arrangement. He helps Maliki consolidate power and break the back of the Sadrist movement. It perpetuates the myth that we aren't seeking permanent bases - there's nothing in the withdrawal document about after-action forces - and that Iraq has some form of soveriegnty.

So let's not kid ourselves - even with such an agreement in place it will be very important who is in the White House implementing the policy, which could result in a gradual withdrawal or no discernible change for decades. If Sen. Obama wanted to clear up confusion about his Iraq policy that the brain-dead media seeks to muddy, he could come out strongly endorsing this concept of a phased withdrawal and the right of the Iraqis to self-govern. And he could specifically explain that this document wouldn't necessarily do that, and that it would be up to the policymakers to determine the next course.

Everybody Stop Talking About How The Surge Is Working

Because you look unbelievably stupid once inevitable violent events reappear. If nothing has been done to deal with the root causes of violence in Iraq, which is the case, then all the paint on all the schools in Baghdad isn't going to mean a thing. Extremists and militants are still capable of spectacular attacks, and the three-front war (Sunnis v. Shiites, Shiite militias v. Shiite militias, Mahdi Army v. US military) remain in place. The Sadrists are still a social and electoral force within Iraq, the Dawa elements still want to crush them, the Sunnis still don't trust the Shiites, the unity "government" is still non-functional.

McSame and his cast of characters are content to go down with this ship, but every time they put on the rose-colored glasses and sing the praises of the surge, something like this happens. And it's not abstract - 51 people DIED today. For no reason. Because of an unnecessary invasion and occupation.

Death To America! No no no, VIOLENT Death To America!

Kevin Drum is right, the fact that Nouri al-Maliki and Muqtada al-Sadr are both trying to prove who the most anti-American Iraqi politician is makes it, shall we say, difficult to continue having a presence in Iraq.

"All the politicians are trying to prove that they care more about Iraqis than they do about Americans -- otherwise they know the people and the voters will not support them," said Ala Maaki, a senior lawmaker with Iraqi's largest Sunni political party. "I think we could see al-Maliki and Moqtada Sadr trying to one-up the other today and see who can take the strongest stand against the Americans."

All of this would vanish if we simply, you know, left Iraq, instead of demanding permanent bases.

Can The Iraqis Save Iraq?

A unified front is forming in Iraq among Sunnis and Shiites, opposed to the terms of the draft of a long-term security agreement to keep US forces in the country. Muqtada al-Sadr tapped into a populist rejection of the US occupation and the Iraqi government, for now, is playing hardball.

Iraq's chief spokesman acknowledged differences with the United States over a proposed long-term security agreement and pledged yesterday that the government will protect Iraqi sovereignty in ongoing talks with the Americans.

Chief government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said that the Iraqi negotiators have a "vision and a draft that is different" from the Americans' but that the talks, which began in March, were still in an early stage.

"There is great emphasis by the Iraqi government on fully preserving the sovereignty of Iraq in its lands, skies, waters and its internal and external relations," Dabbagh said. "The Iraqi government will not accept any article that infringes on sovereignty and does not guarantee Iraqi interests."

If we reach December without an agreement, the US presence in Iraq would actually be illegal. And this is not just a Sadrist movement - Shiite clerics from Maliki's own party are publicly opposing the agreement.

While US negotiators claim that they have no interest in permanent bases in Iraq, the contract proposals that have been signed in recent weeks show the desire for a continuing presence, and it's not too hard for the Iraqis to catch on to this.

The contracts call for new spending, from supplying mentors to officials with Iraq's Defense and Interior ministries to establishing a U.S.-marshal-type system to protect Iraqi courts. Contractors would provide more than 100 linguists with secret clearances and deliver food to Iraqi detainees at a new, U.S.-run prison.

The proposals reflect multiyear commitments. The mentor contract notes that the U.S. military "desires for both Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense to become mostly self-sufficient within two years," a time outside some proposals for U.S. combat troop withdrawal. The mentors sought would "advise, train [and] assist . . . particular Iraqi officials" who work in the Ministry of Defense, which runs the Iraqi army, or the Ministry of Interior, which runs the police and other security units.

The mentors will assist an U.S. military group that previously began to implement what are described as "core processes and systems," such as procurement, contracting, force development, management and budgeting, and public affairs.

Mentors would have to make a one-year commitment, with options for two one-year contracts after that. As a reminder of what they are getting into, the mentors must supply their helmets, protective body armor and gas masks, according to the announcement.

The marshals service would be organized by the State Department's bureau responsible for developing rule of law programs in Iraq. It "has plans to create an Iraqi service to be known as the Judicial Protection Service (JPS), modeled to some degree after the U.S. Marshals Service, that will ensure the safe conduct of judicial proceedings and protect judges, witnesses, court staff, and court facilities," a notice published last month said.

State's plan is to hire a contractor as a judicial security program manager, who would work out details of how such a service could be put together for the Iraqis. That person or group would develop not only the mission, size and structure of an Iraqi JPS service, but also the personnel, budgeting and training materials necessary, plus "all other aspects of creating the new organization so that the project can be contracted out."

In short, State wants a contractor to put together all the elements so the department can contract the project to another contractor.

The occupation is big money. All these middlemen and contractors and sub-contractors are getting rich. Byron Dorgan is running a one-man crusade to try and put an end to the waste and the profiteering, but if the United States remains in Iraq, there will be big pots of money to be had by corporate interests. And in addition, there's clearly an effort to pry open Iraq's natural resources and allow the oil companies to come in and add to their fortunes. The only entity committed to putting a halt to this seems to be the Iraqi people.

US officials still expect to wrap up the negotiations by July, and I'm sure the cheerleader-in-chief is whispering entreaties like "Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!" in their ears. It's kind of sad that the Iraqis are standing in their way instead of the supposed opposition party in this country, which has slightly more ability to oppose.

Freedom - And Proselytizing - On The March

This is simply unbelievable. And pointless - nothing good can come of it, only rage from the local population. This isn't Papua New Guinea we're walking into, it's a country with an ancient religious culture that isn't going to be swayed by a bunch of missionaries.

Fallujah, the scene of a bloody U.S. offensive against Sunni insurgents in 2004, has calmed and grown less hostile to American troops since residents turned against al Qaida in Iraq, which had tried to force its brand of Islamist extremism on the population.

Now residents of the city are abuzz that some Americans whom they consider occupiers are also acting as Christian missionaries. Residents said some Marines at the western entrance to their city have been passing out the coins for two days in what they call a "humiliating" attempt to convert them to Christianity.

In the markets, people crowded around men with the coins, passing them to each other and asking in surprise, "Have you seen this?"

The head of the Sunni endowment in Fallujah, the organization that oversees Sunni places of worship and other religious establishments, demanded that the Marines stop.

"We say to the occupiers to stop this," said Sheikh Mohammed Amin Abdel Hadi. "This can cause strife between the Iraqis and especially between Muslim and Christians . ... Please stop these things and leave our homes because we are Muslims and we live in our homes in peace with other religions."

Eventually, we're going to be kicked out of Iraq. Muqtada al-Sadr is already demanding a referendum on future joint operations between the Americans and the Iraqi government, and the signs are that Sistani agrees with him. And the reason we're going to be kicked out is that you cannot run a counterinsurgency campaign and an occupation at the same time. The occupation is fueling the insurgency and at the very least fueling resentment toward the occupiers. And incidents like this, inevitable when you have 140,000 troops performing the counterinsurgency and the occupation simultaneously, trying to be nice and forceful at the same time, and thrust into a situation where they are not equipped, only increase the anger.

There's almost no question in my mind that Sadr will be the Supreme Jurisprudent of Iraq in five years. A bold prediction, but I'm sticking to it.

Sistani Offers Fatwas Allowing For Armed Resistance To US Troops

We have the potential for a major problem in Iraq. As Shiites jockey for power, the most prestigious cleric in the country is sensing the value among the population of fighting the US-led occupation, and very quietly permitting the targeting of US troops. It may have as much to do with internal politics as anything else, but it makes Iraq incredibly dangerous for any American, and reinforces the need to take our men and women off the front lines and out of gun sights and back home where they belong.

The AP story, based on information from Shiite officials, suggests that the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has been out of the spotlight of late, is issuing under-the-radar fatwas to his followers:

Iraq’s most influential Shiite cleric has been quietly issuing religious edicts declaring that armed resistance against U.S.-led foreign troops is permissible - a potentially significant shift by a key supporter of the Washington-backed government in Baghdad.

The edicts, or fatwas, by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani suggest he seeks to sharpen his long-held opposition to American troops and counter the populist appeal of his main rivals, firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia.

So far, al-Sistani’s fatwas have been limited to a handful of people. They also were issued verbally and in private - rather than a blanket proclamation to the general Shiite population - according to three prominent Shiite officials in regular contact with al-Sistani as well as two followers who received the edicts in Najaf.

There is a lot at work here.

• Sistani is ill and has been out of the public spotlight for many years. In the meantime, popular resistance to the occupation from the Shiite community has been led by Muqtada al-Sadr. So there may be some reassertion of control here in the wake of attacks on Sadrist strongholds in Basra and Sadr City. However, Sadr and Sistani are essentially on the same side here, and this may be a signal to top deputies of the Sadrist movement that Sistani is behind them and just waiting for the right moment to call for, as Sadr put it, "open war."

• It would be hard for Prime Minister Maliki to continue to legitimately work with the US government if such a fatwa were made more public. After the 2006 sectarian violence it was Sistani who was most instrumental in keeping order and turning the situation around from the Shiite perspective. It would be hard for US troops to maintain safe havens inside Iraq under a Sistani edict to leave, and much harder for them to have any kind of visible role in maintaining security. This is already being shown to be the case - in the Sadr City offensive, US troops were put to the sidelines and even the Sadrists appreciated it. This begs the question of how, in such an environment, there could possibly be a role for US troops at all.

• However, this could be more like a "sense of the Senate" resolution than a call to murder - essentially putting a nail in the coffin of the idea that any permanent bases would be tolerated by the Iraqi population. I think this is ultimately about the SOFA agreement that Iraq and the US are currently negotiating. Today Barbara Lee (D-CA) got her amendment demanding Congressional authorization over any agreement passed the House, and basically Sistani just vetoed the whole thing.

• Maliki is acknowledging, through aides, that there's nothing he can do about this, and in the end he'll side with the will of the Iraq people:

A senior aide to the prime minister, al-Maliki, said he was not aware of the fatwas, but added that the “rejection of the occupation is a legal and religious principle” and that top Shiite clerics were free to make their own decisions. The aide also spoke on condition of anonymity.

As Cernig says, "Sadr now has a free hand from Sistani as long as he plays nice with Maliki. He won't shoot himself in the foot by openly opposing Sadr." Conservative gasbags may be gloating about Sadr's imminent demise, but he still holds all the cards and the support of a substantial part of the Shiite community. Maliki knows this and will not get in the way of resistance against Americans. That's because he understands that the occupation is massively unpopular and opposing resistance to it would be a death sentence.

This makes me extremely uneasy. I feel like there's a Beirut bombing in the future if we don't start planning an exit. We don't have much time:

“(Al-Sistani) rejects the American presence,” he told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment to media. “He believes they (the Americans) will at the end pay a heavy price for the damage they inflicted on Iraq.”

Juan Cole, a U.S. expert on Shiites in the Middle East, speculated that “al-Sistani clearly will give a fatwa against the occupation by a year or two.” But he said it would be “premature” for the cleric to do so now [...]

“Changing the tyrannical (Saddam Hussein) regime by invasion and occupation was not what we wished for because of the many tragedies they have created,” al-Sistani said in reply to a question on his Web site.

“We are extremely worried about their intentions,” he wrote in response to another question on his views about the U.S. military presence.

Matthew Duss, Eric Martin and Kevin Drum have more. The occupation has always been unsustainable. But Sistani's rulings appear to make that even more obvious. If he acts soon, our troops could be in a horrible situation over there. And I certainly don't think the White House is paying nearly enough attention to this growing crisis.

P.S. Pushing elections as the answer to all of our problems is really a mistake. Maliki's operations in Basra and Sadr City were political in nature - he wanted to crush the Sadrists and make it easier for his groups to win the elections - but it's taking too long, and elections already have been postponed until after our Election Day in November, we learned today in Senate hearings. If Bush pushes them to coincide with our political cycle, the Sadrists will win. The only way they don't is if Maliki rigs the election, and the result of that would be chaos.

Toward Hopefulness In Iraq?

This incursion into Sadr City appears to have been net with little resistance. And the Basra operation does appear to be improving, with the Iraqi security forces performing well.

I'm not quite as hopeful as Kevin Drum about this; the Sadrist elements may have just melted away just like insurgency elements have dozens of times, and in the long-term multiple problems (like resolving Kirkuk, bringing those armed Sunni groups into the government, Maliki's poor leadership) remain. Indeed, even in this "good news," the Sadrists are claiming that Maliki's forces are breaking the cease-fire, there are ominous warning signs.

But I'm not averse to broadcasting good news from Iraq, and indeed I seek only the best possible outcomes. An Iraqi security force that can sustain itself and carry out missions on its own is key to our eventual exit. However, you have to understand that these operations are intended to take out political rivals to Maliki, as much as they're talking about "thugs" and "criminal elements." I do think that rooting out Sadrists in Basra and Sadr City might make the lives of Iraqi citizens easier, but if the militia members making their lives horrible were allies of Maliki we wouldn't be seeing these actions at all. So it's hard for me to give sanction to one set of suppression as opposed to another.

Let's see where this goes instead of playing armchair generals.

Here Comes Your 19th Nervous Breakthrough

I was told yesterday that Muqtada al-Sadr's militia made a major concession yesterday by letting Iraqi security forces to enter Sadr City and arrest anyone found with heavy weapons. Clearly Sadr backed down to the Maliki government and ceded control of the rebel stronghold, right?

Then I read the whole story:

The al-Maliki government and the Sadrists pulled back from the brink in Sadr City on Saturday. PM Nuri al-Maliki had demanded that the Mahdi Army militia that serves as the Sadrist paramilitary give up its arms and dissolve itself. The compromise simply states that the Iraqi security forces would be allowed in to Sadr City to search for suspected medium and heavy weapons. The implication is that the Mahdi Army may continue to exist and may keep its light weapons (e.g. AK-47s), though it has to pledge not to walk with them in public.

The siege of Sadr City is to be lifted and the major roads in and out of it are to be unblocked, according to the agreement.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the agreement stipulates that the government should have a court order to come into Sadr City. Arrests of rogue commanders had to to be based on warrants and not just 'indiscriminate.' There is nothing in the agreement about the Mahdi Army disarming altogether, as Nuri Al-Maliki initially demanded.

This represents the Maliki government stepping back from the brink instead of forcing a confrontation as they've been demanding for weeks. They're trying to change the subject by announcing a campaign in Mosul, but in truth Maliki blinked, knowing that he had no popular support for continuing the offensive in Sadr City. Sadr's militia remains in place, the Iranians remain the power brokers in Iraq (they were instrumental in managing this compromise), and the Maliki government must retreat and huddle close with the US military forces keeping their leverage.

Meanwhile, those Iranian weapons found in Iraq? They're not Iranian weapons.

There was something interesting missing from Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner's introductory remarks to journalists at his regular news briefing in Baghdad on Wednesday: the word "Iran," or any form of it. It was especially striking as Bergner, the U.S. military spokesman here, announced the extraordinary list of weapons and munitions that have been uncovered in recent weeks since fighting erupted between Iraqi and U.S. security forces and Shiite militiamen [...]

Iraqi officials also have accused Iran of meddling in violence and had echoed the U.S. accusations of new Iranian-made arms being found in Basra. But neither the United States nor Iraq has displayed any of the alleged arms to the public or press, and lately it is looking less likely they will. U.S. military officials said it was up to the Iraqis to show the items; Iraqi officials lately have backed off the accusations against Iran.

A plan to show some alleged Iranian-supplied explosives to journalists last week in Karbala and then destroy them was canceled after the United States realized none of them was from Iran. A U.S. military spokesman attributed the confusion to a misunderstanding that emerged after an Iraqi Army general in Karbala erroneously reported the items were of Iranian origin.

When U.S. explosives experts went to investigate, they discovered they were not Iranian after all.

Maybe they can grab a military "analyst" to go on the teevee and make the assertions Pentagon spokesman can't, because they're not true.

Proudly Fighting The War On Hospitals

Now, when you consider an occupation in a foreign country, would you consider these developments examples that the operation is going successfully and that the occupier is well on its way to winning hearts and minds?

• Air strikes hit a Baghdad hospital

• The occupier is planning luxury hotels and a shopping center in the heart of Baghdad.

• The insurgency does a better job of delivering services to the people than the central government.

I'm going to go ahead and say "No." In fact, while the military claims to be using the principles of counterinsurgency, their reliance on air strikes have the opposite effect, angering the population and killing innocents (over 40 in that air strike according to Iraqi sources). Meanwhile, Sadr is applying those counterinsurgency principles to inspire loyalty among the citizenry. I actually think that the plan to limit reconstruction spending by the US and forcing the Iraqis to be the public face of those projects will help counteract that, but five years on I can't see how the Maliki government can be seen inside Iraq as an independent actor.

Meanwhile, four more Marines died yesterday and the President's wife was nearly assassinated yesterday. I guess the 100 years of peaceful presence doesn't start today.

Fighting Our Allies, Actually

There's really a cross purposes going on with respect to our relations with Iran. On the one hand, the Cheney faction in the White House clearly wants to bomb them. They've been imputing all sorts of negative actions to them inside Iraq, and today we learned that the military has constructed an attack plan and sent a second aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf.

CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that the planning is being driven by what one officer called the "increasingly hostile role" Iran is playing in Iraq - smuggling weapons into Iraq for use against American troops.

"What the Iranians are doing is killing American servicemen and -women inside Iraq," said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

And yet...

Iran is intervening on the side of the Maliki government that America backs in their fight against Muqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army. Sadr spokesmen are tying Iran to the United States, saying both want to control Iraq. An Iranian general who commands the Quds Force is a powerful maneuvering force inside Iraq, and he's in cahoots with senior Iraqi leaders and the security forces. Even while Americans are charging the general with malign influence, he's backing the same folks we're backing.

So we're going to go to war with Iran because they're supporting the same politicians that we are in Iraq?

Incidentally, the Iraqis have stepped into this fight on the side of IRAN. And I think this passage shows how much of a tangle this whole thing is.

Baghdad says it agrees with the United States that Iran has continued to supply weapons to anti-government militants in southern Iraq, including arms with markings indicating they were produced this year. On the other hand, the Iraqi government seems eager to send a message to the Bush administration to back off threats of military action and allow Baghdad to pursue diplomatic solutions more quietly with Tehran.

"We are worried about any escalation between the United States and Iran for a simple reason: We are the weakest party in this game," said Sadiq Rikabi, an advisor to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. "Our policy for our neighbors is to go to them, face to face, speak with them in a planned, frank and direct way about any problem."

In recent days, Iraq's government has followed the United States in stepping up claims that new Iranian-made weapons have been found in the southern city of Basra. The allegations appear to come at a convenient time for both the Shiite-led Iraqi government and its ally, the United States.

With Baghdad still suffering the violent aftereffects of Maliki's offensive against Shiite militias last month, Iranian interference would help explain why Iraqi and U.S. forces have been unable to bring the fighting to a standstill. In the latest clashes, four U.S. soldiers were killed Monday in two separate rocket and mortar attacks in Baghdad.

At the same time, Iranian involvement allows U.S. officials to deflect blame for the fighting from radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr, whom they are counting on to sustain a frayed but officially intact truce he called in August for his Mahdi Army militia. Though privately many soldiers here say the Mahdi militia is involved in the current fighting, publicly, the allegation is that "special groups" who have broken away from Sadr and receive training and aid from Iran are causing the troubles.

So the US can keep firebombing Sadr City, killing scores of civilians, while blaming it on the Iranians, and the Iraqi government can keep up the fiction to maintain needed US support while double-dealing with Iran at the same time. What a bunch of kabuki theater.

It's be nice if the Democrats running for President remembered there was a world out there and called out these tactics in the Middle East. There is no reason for us to be intervening in the internal political struggles between Shiites inside Iraq. And especially when the goal is to gin up a war with Iran that would be catastrophic in TWO countries, as Iraq would melt down as a consequence as well.

The Sadr Coalition

Maybe this is just me, but I found this somewhat important.

About 50 leaders representing a variety of Iraqi political blocs took to Baghdad's Sadr City on Sunday, a stronghold of fiery religious leader Muqtada al Sadr, to protest the U.S.-led siege of that area.

The leaders promised to work together with Sadrists to remove insurgents and weapons in the area. But they also had six other demands of the government, including that it immediately suspend military activity in the city, supply basic services to residents and prioritize peaceful solutions over military conflicts.

"Whatever point the crisis reaches we will keep our efforts to put an end to it," said Ahmed Radhi, a member of the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni Muslim bloc. Radhi said the leaders formed a committee to meet with Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to solve problems plaguing Sadr City.

The Accordance Front recently returned to the government, which signaled hope among a few that there actually is a center taking hold in Iraq. This demonstration dampens that outlook. The Maliki government is trying to disband the Sadrists but this shows that Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds are opposed to it. And since Sadr himself has called for an end to fighting among Iraqis and a movement toward the "liberation of ourselves and our lands from the occupier," and since the Green Zone, the symbol of the occupiers, is under near-constant attack, I'd say there's a far different consensus taking root.

Bring It On II

The first time a Bush Administration official dared the Iraqi insurgency to attack Americans, they did, with devastating consequences that reverberate to this day. In a show of sound judgment, they went and did it again (h/t Newshoggers):

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mocked anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward on Sunday, hours after the radical leader threatened to declare war unless U.S. and Iraqi forces end a military crackdown on his followers.

Rice, in the Iraqi capital to tout security gains and what she calls an emerging political consensus, said al-Sadr is content to issue threats and edicts from the safety of Iran, where he is studying. Al-Sadr heads an unruly militia that was the main target of an Iraqi government assault in the oil-rich city of Basra last month, and his future role as a spoiler is an open question.

"I know he's sitting in Iran," Rice said dismissively, when asked about al-Sadr's latest threat to lift a self-imposed cease-fire with government and U.S. forces. "I guess it's all-out war for anybody but him," Rice said. "I guess that's the message; his followers can go too their deaths and he's in Iran."

Don't think for a second that it wasn't intentional to have Rice do this, either. At Abu Ghraib and other detention camps the rationale behind stripping prisoners and forcing them to walk around naked was that such humiliations at the hands of women would be even worse in their culture. This is the same "Arab Mind" garbage that these guys have been using as a template for years.

Never mind the absurdity of the statement - Condi shows up in Baghdad, behind fortified Green Zone walls, one day a year, and she's talking about someone ELSE sending minions to their death while they're in calm and comfort? - but this is a death warrant for many of our troops. Maliki wants to hold power and is inciting this conflict while he has American troops and air support on his side so that he can vanquish the Mahdi Army before the elections. But it's an open question whether he has the popular support to carry this through - he certainly didn't in Basra. Which means that Americans will end up on the front lines, and now that Condi has attempted this little humiliation game, Sadr has all the impetus he needs to stage a massive rebellion based on nationalist fervor. Brandon Friedman puts it best.

Again, we have yet another member of the Bush administration who--in a ham-handed effort to help our "allies"--is actually placing our own troops in more danger. I don't think there's any question that this echoes George W. Bush's provocative invitation for terrorists around the world to descend on Iraq when he declared, "Bring'em on" in July 2003. And we all know how that worked out.

But it's not just about Rice's dismissive, provocative tone, either. It's also this continuing, obnoxious Bush-brand of hypocrisy that the whole world sees: If Sadr had said the same thing of Rice--that she's a Washington, D.C. bureaucrat who sends others to fight her own battles--the Bush administration would freak out. And that fact isn't lost on Iraqis.

As Rice is one who will not have to stay and fight the Mahdi Army side-by-side with our troops, I suggest that she keep her mouth shut if she's not going to say anything helpful. Because statements like these are certainly not.

Gen. Petraeus didn't approve of the attack in Basra because he understood it could blow up into a popular uprising. The focus on "special groups" and "criminals" was an effort to cast the battle away from Sadr and his militia. Maliki completely bungled that, and now Rice stomps in with this pathetic schoolyard taunt that's going to do incredible damage. The next several days in Iraq will be incredibly tense. It's April 2004 all over again.

And look what happened WHILE Rice made this statement.

Warning sirens sounded at least twice while Rice was inside the temporary embassy, housed in a beat-up Saddam-era palace. She did not visit the site of a new fortified U.S. Embassy set to open in a few weeks.

They call that a metaphor.

Duck And Cover

I've seen some blogger types viewing the development that Iran could be backing away from the Mahdi Army as good news. I'm not so sure. Sadr's strength is not that he is being propped up by Iran, it's that he is a nationalist with substantial popular support. In particular, the Mahdi Army's aid to displaced victims of the war has consolidated his strength. So I'd be very concerned about this unless the Qods force is going to now intervene on the side of the national government, which will provoke a regional response.

Anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr gave a "final warning" to the government Saturday to halt a U.S.-Iraqi crackdown against his followers or he would declare "open war until liberation."

A full-blown uprising by al-Sadr, who led two rebellions against U.S.-led forces in 2004, could lead to a dramatic increase in violence in Iraq at a time when the Sunni extremist group al-Qaida in Iraq appears poised for new attacks after suffering severe blows last year.

Note also that Sadr is currently holed up in Iran, and that Iran's ambassador to Baghdad, while praising the government's effort to curtail "lawbreakers" in Basra, also said that the current US/Iraqi efforts to seal off Sadr City "is a mistake."

This effort in Sadr City has the potential to be very bloody. We've already seen 300 or so Iraqis dead in less than a month, and if Sadr calls for open warfare it's bound to get worse. We're in the middle of an intra-Shiite conflict now, and it's hard to tell friend from foe. In many ways the Sadr City operation is a symbol of why we shouldn't have invaded. There's a complexity to the local situation on the ground that we still don't have a good feel for. Not to mention that we appear only able to clamp down on populations for so long.

Elsewhere in Iraq, at least five people died and 18 were injured in separate bombings in the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk and the Diyala provincial capital of Baqouba.

The attacks capped a violent week that has raised concerns that suspected Sunni insurgents are regrouping in the north. U.S. and Iraqi troops have stepped up security operations in Mosul, believed to be one of the last urban strongholds of al-Qaida in Iraq.

The war architects and the spinners are claiming some kind of political center that is taking hold in Iraq. First of all, the government is closest to Iran, so are they calling the Iranians centrists? Second, it's not to be trusted. This ceremony typifies the entire adventure.

A ceremony at which Rice unveiled a plaque commemorating civilian deaths in the Green Zone was briefly delayed during one of several "duck and cover" alerts for incoming rockets during her six-hour visit to the fortified compound housing the U.S. Embassy and much of the Iraqi government.

Duck and cover is right.

Sadr The Folk Hero

We've all been so focused on intra-Shiite conflicts in Baghdad and Basra and points south, everybody's figured that the Sunni areas were perfectly dandy. But that's not how Iraq works; stability is fragile no matter where you go.

Dozens of Iraqis were killed Tuesday in attacks that included a massive car bombing in Diyala province, where security had improved significantly in recent months.

A car bomb in that province's capital, Baqubah, killed at least 35 people and injured 66, the U.S. military said in a statement.

Iraqi officials provided a higher death toll, saying that 43 had been killed and that women and children were among those killed. The explosions destroyed three buses and damaged 10 shops, the military said.

Meanwhile, in Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed at least 10 people, according to Iraqi officials.

Considering that continual bombing requires reconstruction and relief for affected families, you would think that the FIRST thing the military would do would be to ensure that the Iraqi government would be the clearinghouse for such activities. It would improve loyalty to the state and show some compassion, and heck some actual progress from the leadership in Baghdad. But that's not happening, and just like with Hezbollah in Lebanon, into the breach steps the Mahdi Army. This explains their popularity.

The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which has provided little financial assistance to the more than 2 million Iraqis who have fled the country's sectarian violence, has also failed to support millions more internally displaced persons who are instead being aided by militias, according to a report by Refugees International due for release today.

"Militias of all denominations are improving their local base of support by providing social services in neighborhoods and towns they control," the report says. It also finds that the Iraqi government, "although it has access to large sums of money," lacks the capacity and political will "to address humanitarian needs." [...]

The Refugees International study found that, with many displaced Iraqis living in poverty, the movement of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has become Iraq's "largest 'humanitarian' organization." It said that Sadr's group " 'resettles' displaced Iraqis free of charge in homes that belonged to Sunnis." It said Sunni militias "play a similar role with displaced and needy Sunnis."

A diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of his Iraqi connections, said yesterday that there have been disagreements within the Maliki government over the refugees. "Iraq's response has been woefully inadequate, and more should be done to help the refugees," the diplomat said. "But the cabinet has not focused on it because of other problems, and the ministry handling refugees is dysfunctional."

This is how governments get overthrown - when the basic needs of their citizens are ignored. And in so doing, the Maliki government is turning Muqtada al-Sadr into some kind of civil rights leader. He's the one arguing for restoration of police and Army forces (which takes chutzpah, since they were fighting him), he's the one fighting for the people, calling for unity. Rahm Emanuel "skin in the game" comment was ghoulish, but it ought to be applied to the Iraqi government, who is tucking away tens of billions in Swiss bank accounts while militias take control of the country. This is a predictable disaster, and it's being tolerated because taxpayers here are propping up this irresponsibility by doing a lot of funding ourselves. Once again, our presence makes things worse.

Yet Another Enemy In Iraq

So far in Iraq we've fought Saddam, the Fedayeen, the bitter-enders, the Mahdi Army, insurgents, Al Qaeda in Iraq, foreign fighters, and now we're apparently fighting Iran.

Last week's violence in Basra and Baghdad has convinced the Bush administration that actions by Iran, and not al-Qaeda, are the primary threat inside Iraq, and has sparked a broad reassessment of policy in the region, according to senior U.S. officials.

Evidence of an increase in Iranian weapons, training and direction for the Shiite militias that battled U.S. and Iraqi security forces in those two cities has fixed new U.S. attention on what Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday called Tehran's "malign" influence, the officials said.

The intensified focus on Iran coincides with diminished emphasis on al-Qaeda in Iraq as the leading justification for an ongoing U.S. military presence in Iraq.

"Justification" being the operative word.

You know, if you're going to suddenly be fighting Iran in Iraq, you might want to tell the Iraqi government that we allegedly support, since, you know, Iran is their biggest backer and all.

In a week that we learned that General Petraeus made secret diplomatic trips to various Middle Eastern countries (hey, thanks for doing your job, Secretary of State Rice!), and in a time when we know that nobody has greater sway over all sides of the intra-Shiite conflict in Iraq than Iran, who brokered the cease-fire in Basra, shouldn't the real answer be a surge of regional diplomacy including Iran? I mean, isn't that obvious?

But we're not doing that, of course. We're using Iran as an impetus to stay in Iraq, and supporting the political rub-out of Sadrist forces by lumping them in with Iran, despite the error of that belief. And it really looks to be taking place because we want to stay in Iraq forever.

We oppose Sadr because Sadr opposes the U.S. military presence in Iraq. Indeed, at times he opposes it through violent means that lead to the death of our troops. But "killing people who oppose the U.S. military presence in Iraq" isn't a reasonable rationale for the U.S. military presence in Iraq. This is what's led Joe Klein to speculate that the anti-Sadr tilt is driven by our quest for permanent military bases. Sadr is an opponent of what we're doing in Iraq, but he doesn't have some larger conflict with the United States -- he's not plotting an invasion of Delaware, he's willing to sell oil on an open market, etc. -- and while his credentials as a liberal democrat are highly suspect, so are those of the people we work with in Iraq (and Saudi Arab, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, etc.) all the time. That's not to say we should partner-up with Sadr or wish him particularly well in his adventures, but it's just to reiterate the point that we could easily afford to adopt a posture of indifference to Iraq's internal political disputes and just go home.

The fact that we're speedily negotiating security agreements with the Iraqi government also leads you directly to this conclusion. The goal is permanent bases and a nice presence to move along the safe dispensation of oil to multinational corporations. That's why we've gone back to an "open-ended commitment" in the country, and would certainly have the same in a John McCain Presidency. As Eugene Robinson said in the aftermath of the Petraeus hearings, the nation's only recourse is at the ballot box. But that doesn't mean Senate Democrats shouldn't be vigilant, stopping this SOFA agreement and dissuading a late attack on Iran as the mission creep moves eastward.