Nobel Peace Prize-Worthy

Who got these two longtime enemies together?

Armenia and Turkey signed a landmark agreement Saturday to establish diplomatic ties, after a dramatic last-minute intervention by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to keep the event from falling apart.

The accord, aimed at ending a century of hostility stemming from Ottoman Era massacres, was brokered by the Swiss over the past two years, with the help of French, Russian and U.S. officials. Clinton had been in frequent contact with the two sides in recent months to help seal the deal.

But just as she arrived at the University of Zurich for the signing at about 5 p.m. Saturday, Clinton heard that the Armenian side was objecting to a Turkish statement prepared for the ceremony, officials said. Clinton's motorcade made a U-turn and raced back to the hotel, where a U.S. diplomat was talking to the Armenians.

In the hotel parking lot, Clinton sat in her black BMW sedan in a soft rain for about an hour, talking on one phone to the Armenian foreign minister and on another to the Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. Finally, she went into the hotel to invite the Armenian foreign minister, Edward Nalbandian, to drive with her to the university, where his Turkish counterpart was waiting.

Once there, further hours of negotiating ensued with a broader group of international diplomats, including Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, before the documents were signed. In an apparent compromise, neither the Turks nor the Armenians made a statement at the ceremony.

Could we see two in a row for the Obama Administration? (Probably not, the principals themselves are probably more deserving; this excerpt is written in an American paper for an American audience.)

Actually, some Armenians and their representatives in Washington are upset that the accord puts off the question of whether Turkey committed genocide against the Armenian people to a "committee of historical experts" for study. They want an immediate acknowledgement based on the known facts. Armenians throughout the world are not entirely pleased with the document. But the Armenian people will likely by helped innumerably by the opening of borders and normalization of relations with their most powerful neighbor.

Let's hope we see more agreements like this soon.

Obama's Public Diplomacy

I sense a harshness to my own rhetoric against President Obama the past couple weeks. I've been focused on the financial crisis, the refusal to acknowledge the Constitutional abuses of the prior Administration and the Af-Pak policies, all of which I fear have the potential to destroy a promising Presidency; but I have been remiss in pointing out that, in general, this was an excellent European trip that yielded tangible results, particularly in the area of public diplomacy. For instance I thought his town hall in Istanbul, and indeed the entire notion of holding town hall meetings in foreign countries, to be first-rate. The past two days have done more to restore American relations with the Islamic world than eight years of George Bush. Obama operated with humility and respect. And he challenged the younger generation to rise above the pettiness and the old arguments and forge the world they'd like to see. I found this part in particular to be crucial.

Finally, I want to say how much I'm counting on young people to help shape a more peaceful and prosperous future. Already, this generation, your generation, has come of age in a world that's been marked by change that's both dramatic and difficult. While you are empowered through unprecedented access to information and invention, you're also confronted with big challenges -- a global economy in transition, climate change, extremism, old conflicts but new weapons. These are all issues that you have to deal with as young people both in Turkey and around the world.

In America, I'm proud to see a new spirit of activism and responsibility take root. I've seen it in the young Americans who are choosing to teach in our schools or volunteer abroad. I saw it in my own presidential campaign where young people provided the energy and the idealism that made effort possible. And I've seen it wherever I travel abroad and speak to groups like this. Everywhere I go I find young people who are passionate, engaged, and deeply informed about the world around them.

So as President, I'd like to find new ways to connect young Americans to young people all around the world, by supporting opportunities to learn new languages, and serve and study, welcoming students from other countries to our shores. That's always been a critical part of how America engages the world. That's how my father, who was from Kenya, from Africa, came to the United States and eventually met my mother. It's how Robert College was founded so long ago here in Istanbul.

Simple exchanges can break down walls between us, for when people come together and speak to one another and share a common experience, then their common humanity is revealed. We are reminded that we're joined together by our pursuit of a life that's productive and purposeful, and when that happens mistrust begins to fade and our smaller differences no longer overshadow the things that we share. And that's where progress begins.

Most satisfying was his final answer to a student's question, where he urged the assembled and the world to reject the worst stereotypes that hold back progress, which is a notion that comes out of the civil rights movement as much as anywhere else, but which fits the context Obama provides of the Middle East peace process pretty well:

But it will depend on young people like you being open to new ideas and new possibilities. And it will require young people like you never to stereotype or assume the worst about other people.

In the Muslim world, this notion that somehow everything is the fault of the Israelis lacks balance -- because there's two sides to every question. That doesn't mean that sometimes one side has done something wrong and should not be condemned. But it does mean there's always two sides to an issue.

I say the same thing to my Jewish friends, which is you have to see the perspective of the Palestinians. Learning to stand in somebody else's shoes to see through their eyes, that's how peace begins. And it's up to you to make that happen.

The Jerusalem Post certainly took notice of that last part. It's a very fresh, optimistic view of the world untainted by the sins of excessive demonization or the easy taint of believing the worst of your enemy. I wish more people could live up to it.

I'm not going to like everything this President does, but I have to applaud his trip to Turkey.

Obama In Ankara

As promised, Barack Obama gave an address in a Muslim capital within the first 100 days of his Presidency. Speaking to the Turkish Parliament, he praised the Turkish people (including shout-outs to basketballers Hedo Turkoglu and Mehmet Okur) and argued for strong bilateral relations. The most talked-about portion of the speech will probably be the part where Obama insists that the West is not at war with Islam.

I know there have been difficulties these last few years. I know that the trust that binds us has been strained, and I know that strain is shared in many places where the Muslim faith is practiced. Let me say this as clearly as I can: the United States is not at war with Islam. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical in rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject.

But I also want to be clear that America's relationship with the Muslim work cannot and will not be based on opposition to al Qaeda. Far from it. We seek broad engagement based upon mutual interests and mutual respect. We will listen carefully, bridge misunderstanding, and seek common ground. We will be respectful, even when we do not agree. And we will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over so many centuries to shape the world for the better - including my own country. The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country - I know, because I am one of them.

Above all, we will demonstrate through actions our commitment to a better future. We want to help more children get the education that they need to succeed. We want to promote health care in places where people are vulnerable. We want to expand the trade and investment that can bring prosperity for all people. In the months ahead, I will present specific programs to advance these goals. Our focus will be on what we can do, in partnership with people across the Muslim world, to advance our common hopes, and our common dreams. And when people look back on this time, let it be said of America that we extended the hand of friendship.

Obama delivered that bit with sensitivity and the exact right point of view, seeking to align the Muslim world on the same side as the West against the perversion of their faith. And he pushed for a two-state solution in the Middle East, engagement with Iran, and the denial of safe havens for terrorism in Iraq and Af-Pak, and sought Turkish aid in those efforts. All fine and good.

But on the issue of Turkey's own past, Obama backslid from his past rhetoric on the subject and approached with more typical caution. It was smart to couch this in the context of Turkey's admission to the EU, and the political reforms necessary for that accomplishment. But Obama certainly pulled his punch.

Another issue that confronts all democracies as they move to the future is how we deal with the past. The United States is still working through some of our own darker periods. Facing the Washington monument that I spoke of is a memorial to Abraham Lincoln, the man who freed those who were enslaved even after Washington led our Revolution. And our country still struggles with the legacy of our past treatment of Native Americans.

Human endeavor is by its nature imperfect. History, unresolved, can be a heavy weight. Each country must work through its past. And reckoning with the past can help us seize a better future. I know there are strong views in this chamber about the terrible events of 1915. While there has been a good deal of commentary about my views, this is really about how the Turkish and Armenian people deal with the past. And the best way forward for the Turkish and Armenian people is a process that works through the past in a way that is honest, open and constructive.

We have already seen historic and courageous steps taken by Turkish and Armenian leaders. These contacts hold out the promise of a new day. An open border would return the Turkish and Armenian people to a peaceful and prosperous coexistence that would serve both of your nations. That is why the United States strongly supports the full normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia.

The Turkish people know that Obama has called the Turkish repression of Armenians a genocide, and that's what he's referring to when he discusses "my views." He tries here to disassociate from the debate and let the Turks and the Armenians move forward with dialogue. But we have commitments to the truth in discussing human rights, and should not sidestep them. Obviously, remaining mute has not resolved this tragedy over close to 100 years. Matthew Yglesias has some good thoughts on the need for outside forces pushing Obama to the truth on this subject, and I think there's a direct parallel to world leaders pushing the Turks.

Realistically, long-run international humanitarian considerations just aren’t going to be the controlling priority of the United States government. “Pragmatic” stuff like what Obama did in his speech is bound to happen and it doesn’t really matter who you make senior director of what on the National Security Council. It’s important, however, to have strong voices in civil society capable of making the point that this kind of pragmatism, and the also-inevitable pragmatism that will surround discussion of China human rights issues, is really pretty awful. I’m not even sure it’s the wrong choice for the president to make—Turkey is an important ally and the United States has nothing to gain from poking a stick in their eye. But I’m very glad that as a private citizen, rather than a government official, I don’t need to make that choice. And I’d sort of rather that our Pulitzer Prize winning authors (he's talking about genocide expert Samantha Power -ed.) were in my position rather than in the position of being on the inevitably-losing side of internal arguments about this sort of thing.

Exactly. And in the same way, it's pragmatic for the Turks to deny the acts of their ancestors in Armenia, but strong voices in the international community ought to make the right noises on the side of truth. Otherwise, there is never a "good time" to bring up such things and the past just gets buried in the most corrosive way possible.

...Obama took a question on this at a press avail today and reiterated his views:

Q Thank you, Mr. President. As a U.S. senator you stood with the Armenian-American community in calling for Turkey's acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide and you also supported the passage of the Armenian genocide resolution. You said, as President you would recognize the genocide. And my question for you is, have you changed your view, and did you ask President Gul to recognize the genocide by name?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, my views are on the record and I have not changed views. What I have been very encouraged by is news that under President Gul's leadership, you are seeing a series of negotiations, a process, in place between Armenia and Turkey to resolve a whole host of longstanding issues, including this one.

I want to be as encouraging as possible around those negotiations which are moving forward and could bear fruit very quickly very soon. And so as a consequence, what I want to do is not focus on my views right now but focus on the views of the Turkish and the Armenian people. If they can move forward and deal with a difficult and tragic history, then I think the entire world should encourage them.

And so what I told the President was I want to be as constructive as possible in moving these issues forward quickly. And my sense is, is that they are moving quickly. I don't want to, as the President of the United States, preempt any possible arrangements or announcements that might be made in the near future. I just want to say that we are going to be a partner in working through these issues in such a way that the most important parties, the Turks and the Armenians, are finally coming to terms in a constructive way.

Q So if I understand you correctly, your view hasn't changed, but you'll put in abeyance the issue of whether to use that word in the future?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: What I'd like to do is to encourage President Gul to move forward with what have been some very fruitful negotiations. And I'm not interested in the United States in any way tilting these negotiations one way or another while they are having useful discussions.

Basically... I'm not saying the word, my views are the same, and hopefully the Armenians and the Turks can work it out and get me off the hook.

The Biggest Crisis Ending In A Cease-Fire In The History Of The World

I think when this is all said and done, the conflict between Russia and Georgia, now reaching an endgame, will be, as Kevin Drum notes, a blip on the radar screen. South Ossetia and Abkhazia were already breakaway republics, Georgia got a full head and attacked one of them, Russia made them pay for such foolishness, and the whole scene ends with Mikhail Saakashvili blubbering on camera. And it's shameful how John McCain seized on it for his own ends and to paint himself as the only true patriot in the entire world.

By the way, this golden beacon of democracy, Saakashvili, isn't so golden:

Saakashvili's recent statements demonstrate how well he has learned to push America's buttons, probably with the help of his government's lobbyists in Washington. In several interviews and articles, including an op-ed in yesterday's Post, he has compared the recent Russian attack on Georgia to the Soviet invasions of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. He has also invoked former president Ronald Reagan and tried to frame the war as a Russian assault on Western values. "We are attacked because we wanted to be free," he said on CNN.

But the situation inside Georgia belies Saakashvili's rhetorical commitment to freedom. Most glaring was his handling of opposition protests last fall. The State Department's 2007 Human Rights Report, released just a few months ago, found "serious problems" with Georgia's human rights record and notes "excessive use of force to disperse demonstrations"; "impunity of police officers"; and declining respect for freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and political participation. Ana Dolidze, a democracy advocate and former chair of Georgia's Young Lawyers Association, has described in detail how Saakashvili acted quickly after entering office to empower the executive branch at the expense of parliament and to strengthen the government by "stifling political expression, pressuring influential media and targeting vocal critics and opposition leaders" -- including by using law enforcement agencies. Saakashvili is far from the morally pure democrat he would have the West believe he is.

Meanwhile, this deal with Poland on missile defense, supposedly as a result of Russia's belligerence, is the real destabilizing event going on in Eastern Europe this week. We are needlessly pushing this useless defense system to antagonize Russia and endanger many lives.

And finally, we can't even get humanitarian assistance right:

President Bush Wednesday promised that U.S. naval forces would deliver humanitarian aid to war-torn Georgia before his administration had received approval from Turkey, which controls naval access to the Black Sea, or the Pentagon had planned a seaborne operation, U.S. officials said Thursday.

As of late Thursday, Ankara, a NATO ally, hadn't cleared any U.S. naval vessels to steam to Georgia through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, the narrow straits that connect the Mediterranean and the Black Seas, the officials said. Under the 1936 Montreaux Convention, countries must notify Turkey before sending warships through the straits.

Ugh.

This is What "Regional Instability" Means

Dozens killed in 16 separate bombings in India. Two bombs in Turkey, reportedly set off by PKK rebels (many of whom operate in Iraqi Kurdistan, kill 16 and wound 150. The relative success or failure of the surge ought to be considered in a regional and global context. A non-functional government, a culture of violence and a maintenance of order through airstrikes which inflame local populations all contribute to world terrorism generally (and violence locally, even if the reporting is more sporadic).

If we continue to have foreign policy "experts" who think only about American interests with respect to Iraq, and then fail to actually understand American global interests when making those decisions, so blinded are they by the prospect of all those natural resources so ripe for the taking, we aren't going to solve these fundamental problems, and we will weaken our national security significantly.

World Report

Because, you know, why not:

• For those who thought that Turkey's military pullout from northern Iraq would be the end of that potentially chaotic front in the war, they've started bombing again, and I'm sure they won't hesitate to go right back into Kurdistan again if they see fit. In the same article comes news that the US has released two Shiite officials accused of killing and kidnapping Sunnis. This was the legal case that fell apart last week. Sunni groups are up in arms. We're still on very shaky ground over there.

• It's funny that the Pentagon keeps talking about China's military buildup as if it portends some horrible consequence for the world, when in actuality their military budget is a mere fraction of the US military budget. This of course raises the double standard where we only use our military for good but everyone else uses the military for EEE-VILLLL.

• While nobody's paying much attention, it turns out that Pakistan's opposition parties have been unable thus far to get together on a unity government. Meanwhile attacks by Islamists continue, and Musharraf is emboldened by stepping into the power vacuum. And of course, our backing of Musharraf is adding to the chaos.

• We really could see Zimbabweans finally turning against Mugabe at long last. That's really one of the most horrifying situations in the whole world. If the ZANU-PF party finally rebelled it would be good for the world.

• Finally, this is one of the strangest stories I've ever read.

The generals, to put it mildly, can't take a joke.

But the Moustache Brothers make their living mocking fools, including those who wear military uniforms. So they have drawn a battle line in this country's long struggle for democracy with a small stage that cuts across their cramped living room, site of the three-man comedy troupe's nightly performance.

The military regime silenced street protests last fall by arresting and, in some cases, shooting peaceful demonstrators. That has left dissidents such as comedians Lu Zaw, Lu Maw and the lead satirist of the family, Par Par Lay, to tend the embers of opposition by poking fun at the regime.

In the past, the junta that rules Myanmar -- also known as Burma -- has tried to shut them up too, hoping to intimidate them with prison terms, hard labor and torture. But the comedians are exploiting a loophole in a ban on their act by staying on the attack at home, in English, with biting humor that ridicules the junta as a bunch of bumbling thugs, thieves and spies.

Never underestimate the power of the court jester to cause radical change. The despot is always cut down to size when mocked. It's not for nothing that most military dictatorships tighten the communications apparatus first.

They're Emboldening the Enemy!

Cut 'n' runners:

Turkey’s military announced it had withdrawn all of its troops from northern Iraq by Friday morning, bringing an eight-day ground offensive against Kurdish guerrillas to a close, just one day after Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned Turkey to pull out its troops.

Why does Robert Gates want the terrorists to win?

Ladies And Gentlemen, Your Preznit

Two points from President Irrelevant's news conference today that may send whatever's sitting next to you hurling through the window, so make sure it's open.

Number one:

Maybe people didn't pay much attention to President Bush's presser today, but he did say this regarding the incursion of Iraq by Turkey:

"The Turks need to move quickly, achieve their objective, and get out."

Quite an astonishing statement, as we head into the sixth year of our own objective.

Of course, we're fighting for freem, and fighting the terrists, and you must want Al Qaeda to win.

Number two:

Responding to this reporter's questions at a White House news conference today, Mr. Bush said he had not heard about analysts' predictions of the potential for $4-a-gallon gas later this spring when refiners re-formulate fuel blends for summer driving.

This has kind of been all over the news. Those who actually fill their tanks on a regular basis know all about it, even if it hasn't punctured the bubble.

Just interesting that someone could be running the country and so detached from it - and from the consequences of his own policies - at the same time.

Iraquagmire: Lucy Pulls The Football From Charlie Brown Again

For the second time in a month, the Iraqi presidency council has vetoed a law that was hailed as a great breakthrough by the Bush Administration, John McCain and the slew of neocon handlers. This familiar pattern plays on the failures of most of the traditional media to follow up on anything. There's a big news hit when the Iraqis pass a bill, like the de-Baathification law, or this recent one setting up provincial elections. Then the law is quietly submarined, but that story ends up on A-27, weeks after the initial story on A-1. The effect is to give people the false sense that there's any political movement whatsoever, pushing the "shut up we're winning" story right along to a public that can't be expected to do the legwork and know the difference. And here we go again.

The rejected bill, which sets out the political structure for Iraq's provincial governments and establishes a basis for elections in October, was only the second of 18 U.S.-set political benchmarks that the war-tore nation needs to reach.

Parliament considered it in a bundle with two other bills, a general amnesty and a budget, and approved it on Feb. 12 in what was welcomed in Washington as an example of good government, compromise and progress toward national unity.

Now the question is whether parliament is willing to revise the measure.

"It was a package deal. Now that package is broken," said Joost Hiltermann, an Iraq expert at the International Crisis Group in Amman, Jordan.

This was the set of bills that led Huckleberry Graham to say that politics moves faster in Baghdad than in Washington. But now there's chaos. The complex way in which this compromise was brokered was the result of deals made by all the major stakeholders. If points in the October elections now have to change, that'll need to be balanced with changes in the other two laws, and the whole game of Jenga can come crashing down in a hurry.

And those elections really need to happen. In parts of the country where the Sunnis boycotted the initial elections, the representative is completely out of whack. The sticking point is whether the elections will produce strong provincial governors who cannot be removed by the Prime Minister at will. This is more than a technical difference. It's basically the difference between a weak federalist state and a strong central government. While the Presidency council claims the October 1 elections will go on as scheduled, that really is not a guarantee.

Meanwhile, in the other nightmare on the horizon, the Turkish incursion into Kurdistan, the Secretary of Defense has called for a rapid conclusion to the fighting (why is he giving the Turks timetables? The PKK will wait 'em out!), for fear of it destabilizing the region and provoking a peshmerga counterattack, which has already been authorized by Kurdish lawmakers. Turkey is currently vowing to pull out in a matter of days but again, there's no guarantee, especially considering that yesterday produced the strongest fighting yet, with 77 PKK members dead. Many experts are worried.

The United States is being skillfully handled by the Turks, who are dragging the U.S. into a policy disaster in Kurdistan. The Kurds have moved a lot of fighters and equipment quietly into the area, and are prepared to strike the Turks. Massoud [Barzani, the Iraqi Kurdish leader] has issued all the press comments he can to publicly warn that Kurdish patience is gone. The United States is either ignoring the signals or missing them…The Kurds can and will bloody the Turks badly in a fight.

I'm beyond believing what gets printed on page A-1 at the early stages of anything that happens in Iraq, and so should so. The media is carefully stage-managing a situation that is far more dire than they let on.

UPDATE: Here's why the provincial elections are so important: the current Shi'a provincial leaders in Anbar are thinning the patience of the Awakening groups. It's a matter of time before they do more than walk off the job, but retaliate:

U.S.-backed Sunni volunteer forces, which have played a vital role in reducing violence in Iraq, are increasingly frustrated with the American military and the Iraqi government over what they see as a lack of recognition of their growing political clout and insufficient U.S. support.

Since Feb. 8, thousands of fighters in restive Diyala province have left their posts in order to pressure the government and its American backers to replace the province's Shiite police chief. On Wednesday, their leaders warned that they would disband completely if their demands were not met. In Babil province, south of Baghdad, fighters have refused to man their checkpoints after U.S. soldiers killed several comrades in mid-February in circumstances that remain in dispute.

Some force leaders and ground commanders also reject a U.S.-initiated plan that they say offers too few Sunni fighters the opportunity to join Iraq's army and police, and warn that low salaries and late payments are pushing experienced members to quit.

First off, we're trying to pull off a balancing act that is nearly impossible, pleasing former insurgent and militia groups and the central government that wants no part of them at the same time. Second, insurgent groups are starting to infiltrate the Awakening groups as they grow more and more frustrated. Third, attacks on Concerned Local Citizens members are rising. Fourth, since the provincial leaders in places like Diyala are Shi'a, owing at least in part to the Sunni boycott of the previous elections, the Sunnis are being marginalized in their own home regions.

A restive mix, to be sure.

UPDATE II: Turkey is more committed to resisting troop timetables than the US.

Turkey has given no clear timeframe for ending its military operations against Kurdish PKK rebels in northern Iraq, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters on Thursday after talks with Turkish officials.

Iraq In Fragments

• Guess what, so the post-surge is going to be surgier than the pre-surge, with 140,000 troops in Iraq by July as opposed to 130,000 last January. As recently as a month or so ago, the expectation was to be under 100,000 by the end of the President's term. This must be because we're winning so completely that we have to leave additional forces to bask in the success.

• Other signs of success include the desperation of an insurgency changing tactics, killing several dozen at a time, a legal system where witnesses disappear and cases splinter and hitting the Green Zone with rockets.

• The different regions of the country present different challenges. In the south, Shiite militia groups have basically taken over Basra and are clashing for power from street to street. This is the civil war within the civil war.

“Most of the killings are done by gunmen in police cars,” said Sheik Khadem al-Ribat, a Basra tribal leader who claims no party membership. He spoke of the militias in an antechamber of his downtown mosque, his voice barely above a whisper. “These cars were given to the political parties. There are supposed to be 16,000 policemen, but we see very few of them on the street, and most of the ones we do see are militiamen dressed as police.”

• In the Kurdish north, dozens are dying daily from Turkish raids against PKK rebels. The Kurdish peshmerga forces have 60,000 massed inside Dohuk province just waiting to strike if the Turks delve too far into Kurdish territory. This is actually a second war front that's been raging for five days, and it ought to be a great concern.

In Baghdad, national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie declared at a news conference Monday that the fighting could have "very serious consequences."

Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani warned Turkey against any expansion.

"The operations are still limited operations, and the government has expressed its concern," Bolani said. "If the operation is widened, definitely Iraq will defend its sovereignty and territory."

He said the United States should do more to encourage the Turks to withdraw. U.S. troops "are the greatest force on the ground. They have certain obligations," Bolani said. "They could do more."

Once again, our policy of standing in for the Iraqis instead of forcing them to take responsibility for their own security is coming back to hurt us. We're supposed to now police another war inside the fractured nation.

• All of the ordnance that we've been dropping - six times as many bombs in 2007 as in 2006 - has clearly led to increased casualties, which is why we've stopped counting legitimately.

The report on the increase in bombing comes just after the World Health Organization released the findings of a study which put the number of civilians killed in Iraq between the invasion in 2003 and 2006 at about 151,000. That figure was almost instantly accepted by some supporters of the war who have been eager to discredit reports of much higher civilian deaths.

It's a controversial field. When Gen. David H. Petraeus testified before Congress in September that the escalation of the war in Iraq was going well, he used a graph indicating that the number of civilians killed since the invasion in 2003 until August 2007 was about 37,500. Two days after this testimony, a British opinion polling company released the results of its own study which put the number of civilian deaths between 1 and 1.2 million, 32 times the Pentagon figure.

• And as the wingers continue to maintain that the surge is a success, the truth is coming to light that it's a failure.

Imagine that you had been told in 2003 that when George W. Bush finished his second term, dozens of American soldiers and hundreds of Iraqis would be dying violently every month; that a major American goal would be getting the Iraqi government to temper its "de-Baathification" campaign so that Saddam Hussein's former henchmen could start running things again (because they know how); and "only" 100,000 American troops would be needed to sustain this equilibrium.

You might have several words to describe this situation, but success would not be one of them.

On the one hand, on the other hand in Iraq

On the one hand, Muqtada al-Sadr did extend his cease-fire by six months. That will save American lives, so it comes as a great relief, for the near future.

On the other hand, a foreign country has invaded Iraq. Which is, you know, another hand.

Turkish soldiers crossed into northern Iraq in their first major incursion in 11 years, stepping up an assault against Kurdish militants after two months of air strikes.

The troops moved in late yesterday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters in Ankara without saying how many soldiers were involved. Istanbul-based NTV television said that 10,000 Turkish soldiers pushed 10 kilometers (6 miles) into Iraq. CNN-Turk later said the attack involved a Turkish force of 3,000.

The US was informed of this, and is claiming that the Turks will take great care to only target PKK separatist rebels. Of course, our military isn't all that good at limiting collateral damage, I hasten to think how the Turks are at it.

This could end very badly.

Checking In On Iraq

I don't know if you've been following events in Iraq... oh wait, actually if you're 99.9% of America you haven't. Because there's an election and Britney Spears is all crazy and your favorite shows might come back soon and Amy Winehouse got a Grammy. So you're getting most of your news about Iraq from John McCain speeches and dog-eared National Review copies on your loony uncle's coffee table. It's beyond time for someone other than them to get in the game and weigh in, because events are starting to overtake the United States' ability to control them.

We know that dozens are still dying every day in an increasing series of car bombs and suicide attacks. Even the Secretary of Defense, who has wanted more flexibility with his forces, is acknowledging that there will be 130,000-plus troops in Iraq on the next President's first day in office. The pitfalls of Turkish warplanes bombing northern Iraq, Sunni militants evading American forces and terrorizing towns in the Diyala River Valley, and Shiite extremists murdering women who violate Islamic teachings still exist. Meanwhile, today we saw a new development returning ominously to the region:

Two CBS News journalists have been kidnapped in the southern city of Basra and remain missing, Iraqi officials said Monday.

The journalists, a British citizen and an Iraqi, were taken from their hotel late Sunday night by about 20 armed men wearing the uniforms of Iraq's security services, according to Brig. Gen. Jalil Khahlaf, the provincial police chief. He said authorities did not know the condition of the journalists and had not been contacted by the kidnappers, whose identities were unknown.

"All efforts are underway to find them," CBS News said in a three-sentence statement. A network spokeswoman said she would not comment on the account given by Iraqi police and asked news outlets not to report the missing journalists' names or jobs.

This is starting to look like 2005 again. And the security "gains" made by the concerned local citizens groups in Anbar province (now called the Sons of Iraq) are starting to break down in surprising and frightening ways.

Hundreds of members of an anti-Al-Qaeda front in Iraq's central city of Baquba on Friday donned keffiyeh headdresses and took to the streets demanding the police chief be sacked, witnesses said.

Fighters ran militia-style through two neighbourhoods in the capital of Diyala province, ordering shops to shut and people to stay indoors, prompting police to declare a curfew, an AFP correspondent said.

The action came after demands by the group earlier in the week that police chief Major General Ghanim al-Quraishi be sacked were ignored.

"Despite our efforts and the blood we shed in order to expel Al-Qaeda members from Diyala, we received no help from the government or the police," said Haji Basim al-Karkhi, who is in charge of the "popular committees."

"The police chief committed violations such as abducting Sunnis in front of the Diyala police headquarters," said Karkhi. "He also does not accept Sunni recruits."

What with this and the Anbar Salvation Council threatening to take up arms against the elected council and refusing to fly the new Iraqi flag and dismissing the entire Parliament as illegitimate and Awakenings leaders declaring that no Iraqi police are allowed in their territory and clashing with them when they do and blaming Shi'ite militias (and not al-Qaeda) for the wave of attacks against them and fighting over territory and threatening to quit if they aren't paid, it really is hard to see why anybody would think that there might be anything troublesome about the relationship between the Awakenings and the Iraqi "state". Nothing to see here but great big gobs of victory folks, please move along.

This, by the way, is the biggest victory of the "surge" (even though it had nothing to do with the surge).

Then you have Muqtada al-Sadr's cease-fire nearing its end, and a resumption of violence by his forces, whether he calls for it or not, would lead to a near-total breakdown in civil order. And paradoxically, continuing to arrest Sadrist forces could lead to more violence and not less:

Among Sadrist rank and file, impatience with the ceasefire is high and growing. They equate it with a loss of power and resources, believe the U.S. and ISCI are conspiring to weaken the movement and eagerly await Muqtada’s permission to resume the fight. The Sadrist leadership has resisted the pressure, but this may not last. Critics accuse Muqtada of passivity or worse, and he soon may conclude that the costs of his current strategy outweigh its benefits. In early February 2008, senior Sadrist officials called upon their leader not to prolong the ceasefire, due to expire later in the month.

The U.S. response – to continue attacking and arresting Sadrist militants, including some who are not militia members; arm a Shiite tribal counterforce in the south to roll back Sadrist territorial gains; and throw its lot in with Muqtada’s nemesis, ISCI – is understandable but short-sighted. The Sadrist movement, its present difficulties aside, remains a deeply entrenched, popular mass movement of young, poor and disenfranchised Shiites. It still controls key areas of the capital, as well as several southern cities; even now, its principal strongholds are virtually unassailable. Despite intensified U.S. military operations and stepped up Iraqi involvement, it is fanciful to expect the Mahdi Army’s defeat. Instead, heightened pressure is likely to trigger both fierce Sadrist resistance in Baghdad and an escalating intra-Shiite civil war in the south.

I don't really know if there's a whole lot we can do about this at this point, but clearly stating that the surge has failed, as the Democratic leadership has pretty well done but not nearly loudly enough, is a start. The consequences of us sinking further in the quicksand are too great to simply sit on the sidelines until there's a new President. I don't agree with everything in this Matt Taibbi story, particularly the parts about antiwar movement organizing and dovetailing with a partisan strategy to elect more Democrats (that's the words of a national reporter who never checked in with the local organizing on the ground), but it's completely clear that the Democrats can't wait for 2009 to come so they can stop keeping their heads in the sand on the occupation.

Quietly, while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been inspiring Democrats everywhere with their rolling bitchfest, congressional superduo Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have completed one of the most awesome political collapses since Neville Chamberlain. At long last, the Democratic leaders of Congress have publicly surrendered on the Iraq War, just one year after being swept into power with a firm mandate to end it.

Solidifying his reputation as one of the biggest pussies in U.S. political history, Reid explained his decision to refocus his party's energies on topics other than ending the war by saying he just couldn't fit Iraq into his busy schedule. "We have the presidential election," Reid said recently. "Our time is really squeezed."

There was much public shedding of tears among the Democratic leadership, as Reid, Pelosi and other congressional heavyweights expressed deep sadness that their valiant charge up the hill of change had been thwarted by circumstances beyond their control — that, as much as they would love to continue trying to end the catastrophic Iraq deal, they would now have to wait until, oh, 2009 to try again. "We'll have a new president," said Pelosi. "And I do think at that time we'll take a fresh look at it." [...]

An honest attempt to end the war, say Democrats like Woolsey and Lee, would have involved forcing Bush to execute his veto and allowing the Republicans to filibuster all they wanted. Force a showdown, in other words, and use any means necessary to get the bloodshed ended.

"Can you imagine Tom DeLay and Denny Hastert taking no for an answer the way Reid and Pelosi did on Iraq?" asks the House aide in the expletive-filled office. "They'd find a way to get the votes. They'd get it done somehow."

It's especially craven when you consider that just token pressure from Democrats, particularly the Presidentials, got the White House to back down on at least part of this "long-term security guarantee" with the Iraqi government. While Clinton and Obama failing on Iraq in the eyes of Michael O'Hanlon is a step forward, the real failure would be spending the next 11 months digging an even bigger hole over there, with no political or social progress, with the factions at each other's throats, while both chambers of Congress go silent on the issue. Now is the time for honest men to pick a fight, not cower from one.

Good News For People Who Like Bad News

There's a new front in Iraq:

Turkish airstrikes on Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq have killed more than 150 rebels and hit more than 200 targets in recent days, the Turkish military said Tuesday, countering Kurdish claims that only a handful of people were killed in the attacks.

The air raids, on Dec. 16 and 22, were the first large-scale assaults on Iraqi territory since the Turkish Parliament approved cross-border operations in mid-October against hide-outs of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party, known by its Kurdish initials P.K.K.

According to a statement by the Turkish Army, Turkish fighter planes hit 22 targets in the Metina, Zap, Avashin and Hakurk regions in Iraq on Dec. 16, after intelligence confirmed a rebel presence at the sites [...]

Turkey’s assertions came as Kurdish and American officials said that Turkish jets crossed into Iraqi airspace again on Tuesday, in what American officials said was the fourth such flight over the border in two weeks.

And we all know how precise those bombings are when the US military does them, I'm sure the Turks employ even more laser-like proficiency.

Talk about playing both sides of the fence. We are providing intelligence to the Turks about rebel hideouts. This enables them to pummel their neighbor, which is our strongest ally in Iraq. Spencer Ackerman lays this out well.

...the Kurds of northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdish Regional Government fear and distrust Turkey as well. They're the closest allies the U.S. has in Iraq, and the U.S. occasionally relies on them to broker political truces between the Arab Sunnis and Shiites. They don't like being bombed and invaded, and, not unreasonably, blame the U.S. for the Turkish incursion.

Add to that the Shiite-dominated government, which has its own uneasy relationship to its American patron, looks weak in the eyes of both its own people and regional governments because a neighboring country is bombing and invading what's technically its territory with no reprisal. It comes at an inopportune time: that Shiite government is already pretty angry at the U.S. for funding and arming anti-government Sunni ex-insurgents who swear they would never dream of using their weapons against the government. And it's in the eyes of precisely those roughly 70,000 mostly-Sunni militiamen -- to say nothing of Moqtada al-Sadr and al-Qaeda in Iraq -- that the government doesn't think it can afford to look weak.

I know the Iraq war is over and everything and I should just be happy with the decrease to 700 or so civilians being killed a month (don't you like freedom?), but it seems to me that aiding and abetting airstrikes on a nation we're supposed to be protecting and defending is something only the galactically stupid would do. It also seems vaguely illegal, although we've already broken Iraqi law to renew the UN mandate providing the legal means for foreign troops to stay in the country, so just throw that violation on the pile.

Earlier in the week, a group representing a majority of lawmakers in Iraq's parliament -- a group made up of Sunni, Shiite and secular leaders -- sent a letter to the Security Council, a rough translation of which reads: "We reject in the strongest possible terms the unconditional renewal of the mandate and ask for clear mechanisms to obligate all foreign troops to completely withdrawal from Iraq according to an announced timetable."

Why do the Iraqis hate Iraqis? Don't they WANT to live in peace?

UPDATE: Shorter Matt Yglesias: The surge has become a Baghdad surge. No areas of the country unaffected by the surge have experienced any kind of security change, as evidenced by yesterday's bombings. And when the surge ends, so will the security gains in those parts which have been affected.

It's Still A Failed Occupation

Under the radar, I think there's a congealing narrative, in the unbiased section of the print media at least, about how things are going in Iraq. Violence is becoming less spectacularly bad, but this has not translated into political success. And this isn't coming from anybody's opinion, but the Pentagon's own report.

Despite significant security gains in much of Iraq, nothing has changed within Iraq's political leadership to guarantee sustainable peace, a Pentagon report released Tuesday found.

The congressionally mandated quarterly report suggests that the drop in violence won't hold unless Iraq's central government passes key legislation, improves the way it manages its security forces and finds a way to reconcile the country's competing sects. It said none of those steps has been taken.

"Although security gains, local accommodation and progress against the flow of foreign fighters and lethal aid into Iraq have had a substantial effect, more needs to be done to foster national, 'top-down' reconciliation to sustain the gains," the report said.

If the Democrats hadn't given up on trying to change Iraq policy, they would be on every show highlighting this document. These Pentagon reports were the only concession from the original Iraq capitulation in May. If you're getting them, and they fit with what you've been saying for months, you might as well use it, no?

I mean, you have a report here saying that the US military is the "de-facto low-level government of the Iraq state." This is pulling us deeper into Iraq, not helping us get out. And the violence will continue until we raise the boot of occupation off of the necks of the Iraqis. That violence, by the way, is not falling as dramatically as it's being described in the media.

As long as basic services aren't being improved, as long as the local government is hopelessly corrupt, and as long as sectarianism still rules political decision-making, we're not going to see any difference in the fundamental dynamic of Iraq.

Three years after the massive US assault on Falluja, the city's mayor has accused Iraq's central government of starving the city of resources.

Mayor Sa'ad Awad says Shia officials still consider the former insurgent stronghold a haven for Sunni militants.

Support was particularly lacking for the city's 2,000-strong police force, he added, as it takes on a bigger role.

It may not be playing out in violent attacks (probably because of the blast walls), but there is still fierce combat for power between Shia and Sunni, which eventually will result, it's inevitable, in armed combat between well-stocked militias. And the Turkey-Kurdistan problem looks to be really teetering on disaster.

Juan Cole is suspicious about the timing of the recent Turkish raids on Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq, which came just as Condoleezza Rice was flying to Kirkuk to meet with Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani — a meeting that was angrily cancelled after Barzani learned about the raids:

....Look, it is absolutely impossible that Condi plans out a trip to Kirkuk and a meeting with Barzani with full knowledge that while she is there, Turkey will send 500 Turkish soldiers into northern Iraq to occupy the villages of Kaya Retch Binwak, Janarok and Gelly Resh. Or even that when she set out on her trip, she knew that Turkey was planning to bomb Iraqi Kurdistan on Sunday, killing 3, wounding 8, and displacing 300 Kurdish villagers...

It's hard to think this is about anything but Turkey being a malefactor, which is exactly what we don't need.

The media has a MAJOR incentive not to recognize anything about Iraq anymore. But this is a point where the nation is really being lost, and the Democrats should be ashamed of themselves for not calling attention to it.

Over In The Forgotten War

Speaking of Iraq, it turns out that the military understands that their only chance to keep the lid off the cauldron is to keep every available troop in Baghdad.

In a change of plans, American commanders in Iraq have decided to keep their forces concentrated in Baghdad when the buildup strategy ends next year, removing troops instead from outlying areas of the country.

The change represents the military's first attempt to confront its big challenge in 2008: how to cut the number of troops without sacrificing security.

The shift in deployment strategy, described by senior U.S. military officials in Iraq and Washington, is based on concerns that despite recent improvements, the capital could again erupt into widespread violence without an imposing American military presence.

Smells like progress!

The worst part of this is what it presages. By taking troops out of the outlying areas, particularly in the Sunni triangle around Anbar province, you're essentially ceding that territory over to well-armed militias.

The new planning is not without risk and controversy. The change in U.S. deployment strategy is likely to shift the balance of political power in Iraq by putting much greater authority over provincial affairs in the hands of local and regional officials. That will increase their influence and offset the authority of the Shiite-dominated central government in Baghdad.

That basically creates the soft partition that Joe Biden is always screaming about. But it's not that simple. The Sunnis in Anbar actually want a return to national rule. With the aid of American money and know-how, the Sunnis are organizing themselves into a force that threatens the Maliki government.

Officers who've served in Iraq warn that the Great Awakening could be transitory. "The Sunni insurgents are following a 'fight, bargain, subvert, fight' approach to get what they want," said one colonel. So Americans need to explore whether U.S. forces are courting long-term strategic success, or if the expedient cash surge is leading U.S. forces into a new phase of conflict that could engulf the region and create a perfect storm.

We're playing with a lot of fire. We have the Shiite forces biding their time, led by a ruthless group of young militiamen. We have Turkey routinely incurring into Iraqi air space, with the help of the US military, to pound PKK rebels, and at any point that conflict has the potential to turn into another front of the war. Meanwhile the actual military strategy is to push the Shiites and Sunnis into further conflict:

The new U.S. military view worries officials in the Iraqi government who fear their power will be diminished. The ruling Shiite Muslim bloc already has expressed concern over U.S. plans to hand over security responsibilities to recently recruited police forces, particularly in Sunni Muslim strongholds such as Anbar where the new officers are mostly Sunnis.

But the day-to-day commander in Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, and his staff believe that the increasing competence of provincial security and political leaders will put pressure on the government in Baghdad that "will breed a better central government," said his chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Joseph Anderson.

"There are different schools of thought here," Anderson said in an interview in his office at the U.S. military headquarters at Camp Victory, outside the capital. "Our school of thought is provincial capacity will ultimately lead to enhanced central government capacity. That's our view."

That's madness. This isn't a situation where you can run ads or try to pick off certain legislators in elections. This is a thousand year-old struggle at the root, and there's a fine line between pressuring the central government and antagonizing them. I know that media figures and politicians fly into Baghdad, hence the reason to keep that area relatively under control. But this is being done at the expense of long-term stability, and if that falls through, you have heavily armed camps ready for civil war. This is bad.

Axis Of Emanuel

This latest "strategy" on Iraq being floated by the Emanuel-Hoyer wing of the party is absolutely flabbergasting. They're trying to take the (correct) argument that the only progress meaningful in Iraq is political progress, and then twist it into an unworkable plan to tie political progress to war funding.

Now, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) is examining a new approach, releasing war funds in small increments, with further installments tied to specific performance measures for Iraq's politicians. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) also is searching for a new approach and has been briefed on the idea of more explicitly tying funds to political progress.

The new thrust has divided Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill, some of whom say they will never approve additional funding for the Iraq war without troop-withdrawal timelines. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) remains skeptical, House Democratic leadership sources said, and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has vacillated between seeking compromise with Republicans and holding firmly to troop-withdrawal language.

"We've been through all that," Reid said yesterday of the new approach, suggesting the war-funding issue will wait until January. "I just think we need to figure out some way to fund a government and move on to next year."

OK, I know hacks like Emanuel rely on the ignorance of the public, but does he really expect us to be THAT ignorant?

In the spring, when the Democrats finally capitulated and provided war funding to the President, they held out the consolation that the Administration would be forced to show benchmarks of political progress in Iraq. The progress was nonexistent, and that was reflected in the benchmarks. The response to this from the Emanuel wing is, "OK, this time we're REALLY going to tie funding to political benchmarks!" And when they fail, they'll send out funding but they'll really, REALLY have to be tied to political benchmarks. As long as these guys are still buying the false argument that funding the war is the same as supporting the troops, they're NEVER going to cut off funding for any reason. And so what the benchmarks say is completely immaterial, and it's immaterial whether or not they're met.

It's important to note that this awful strategy is spearheaded by (drum roll please) Michael O'Hanlon, who has a stake in getting Democrats to admit that there's great progress in Iraq because he's implicated in the decision to go to war in the first place. Emanuel is taking Iraq policy from someone who's only goal is to vindicate himself.

How about some straight talk, to coin a phrase? The troop surge is insufficient for saving Iraq, and may be working against the best interests of the country. The relative "security" in the country obscures the fact that it's still one of the worst civilian crises in the world, still capable of horrific violence like we saw yesterday, with four bombs killing 23. In cities where the additional forces cannot be deployed, there remains desolation and rubble, as citizens of Iraq wait nervously to see how this will play out. The tactics used most to tamp down violence, like curfews and bans on driving and blast walls and air bombings, are unsustainable in the long term. So are the troop numbers. Meanwhile, the ethnic separations are as much to account for the reductions in violence as anything, resulting in horrors like the elimination of the Iraqi Christian community. This is a fragile calm that isn't even all that calm, and is very subject to change.

Officials attribute the relative calm to a huge increase in the number of Sunni Arab rebels who have turned their guns on jihadists instead of American troops; a six-month halt to military action by the militia of a top Shiite leader, Moktada al-Sadr; and the increased number of American troops on the streets here.

They stress that all of these changes can be reversed, and on relatively short notice. The Americans have already started to reduce troop levels and Mr. Sadr, who has only three months to go on his pledge, has issued increasingly bellicose pronouncements recently.

The Sunni insurgents who turned against the jihadists are now expecting to be rewarded with government jobs. Yet, so far, barely 5 percent of the 77,000 Sunni volunteers have been given jobs in the Iraqi security forces, and the bureaucratic wheels have moved excruciatingly slowly despite government pledges to bring more Sunnis in.

“We are in a holding pattern,” said Joost Hiltermann, an Iraq analyst at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research organization. “The military solution has gained enough peace to last through the U.S. election, but we have a situation that is extremely fragile. None of the violent actors have either been defeated or prevailed, and the political roots of the conflict have not been addressed, much less resolved.”

Indeed, there are reports that insurgent groups may be reforming, waiting out a surge that they know will end (isn't that EXACTLY what George Bush said would happen, that if we set a timeline the insurgents would "wait us out"? If that was so, why would he authorize a surge he KNEW would have to end shortly, giving insurgents the opportunity to do just that?)

We know, then, that the security situation can only be sustained through a political solution. And on the political front, periodic Parliamentary boycotts and rampant corruption have brought efforts to a standstill, and there is no emphasis from the Administration to encourage reconciliation. There has been talk of the Iraqi government hiring civilian volunteers to police neighborhoods, but without any action to this point. Meanwhile the Turkish army has actually sent ground forces into Kurdistan over the last week, firing on rebel PKK terrorists and threatening a breakdown of stability in one of the few stable areas.

This is a chaotic environment. Yet the Emanuel wing wants to, in essence, take Iraq off the table by offering what amounts to no-strings-attached money far into the future for a continued occupation. They refuse to really tie funding to progress, and so we get these fig leaves. And the result is that the Administration doesn't take demands from the Congress seriously, and they refuse to do the hard diplomatic work of forging a political solution, which is the only hope for the holding pattern we now see not to morph into an explosion of violence. What's more, continued funding of the occupation makes the Iraqis dependent on the United States for their security, actually decreasing the hopes for political progress. What we have right now in Iraq are armed camps, many of them armed by the Americans, and the axis of Emanuel seek to arm and train them even more to eventually fight one another.

One Of Those "Oh-Shit" Days

Turkish helicopters have struck inside Iraq, a possible prelude to larger cross-border action despite pleading from American and Iraqi officials that they would internally deal with PKK rebels. Four Turkish groups were killed by rebels today. The Turks will not wait forever.

Benazir Bhutto has now broken completely with Pervez Musharraf after being put under house arrest for the second time. The preferred American solution was to have Musharraf and Bhutto in a power-sharing agreement. That's not going to happen anymore. John Negroponte has been sent to Pakistan to try and relieve tensions. But now, even the Bhutto factions are becoming violent. This is Iran 1979 all over again.

In the southern city of Karachi, Bhutto supporters fired on two police stations in a poor district where her party is popular, and police used tear gas to disperse demonstrators, senior police officer Fayyaz Khan said. A 9-year-old boy and a 22-year-old woman were wounded in crossfire between demonstrators and police, witnesses said.

And there was an explosion in the Phillippine legislature today, killing 1.

It's going to be a bumpy ride, so buckle up...

There Is Still Power In What America Does

On Monday, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Ergodan announced he was happy with the President's offers of support, through intelligence and military contacts, to finally help manage the situation at the border with PKK rebels. By the way, the Turks still want more done to stop the rebels, calling for Iraq and the United States to arrest the commanders. So this could still blow up big. But I want to look at something else right now.

Ergodan also had this to say.

Erdogan also criticized a U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee resolution passed last month that labeled the killing of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I as "genocide." Under heavy pressure from Bush, House Democrats retreated from sending the measure to the full House of Representatives for a vote.

"There is no such thing as genocide. Those who claim it must prove it," Erdogan said.

Yet a day later, Turkey amended their own law restricting freedom of expression and banning "perceived insults to Turkish identity," which has been used in the past to arrest and imprison anyone speaking in public about the genocide, such as authors Orhan Pamuk and Hrant Dink.

There is no question in my mind that the amending of this law is a direct result of Congress' pushing to recognize the fate of the Armenians. Despite eventually derailing, this was a noble effort that bore fruit and had positive consequences for human rights globally. There is still soft power available to America, for some reason the Bush Administration has not wiped it all out. Under a Democratic President we will need to wield it more judiciously and toward the principles of justice. I hope we're up to the task.

They've Already Won The Iran Debate

We're having a debate about Iran in this country, a debate between reason and utter insanity. It's clear that the Cheney Administration has found the next Hitler in the guy who controls the traffic signals in Tehran; and they will be relentless in fostering a climate of fear in the American pschye, designed to turn them into a quivering mass who will submit to their father-protectors. Whether or not this is the work of the mentally ill is besides the point. The point is this:

Every day we talk about Iran is one less day we're talking about Iraq.

This has been a classic distraction strategy from the very beginning. I mean, yes, we all know that the Administration is crazy enough to unilaterally strike Iran and bomb what they perceive to be an imminent nuclear threat. So sure, you have to counsel patience, you have to ask for direct talks, as Chuck Hagel did today, or you cede the debate to the neocons in the White House and their enablers in the Senate, and end up with a situation where the public is on board with an attack on Iran, beyond all reason. But all of that energy expended on rebutting the Iran claims doesn't go to ending this tragic occupation in Iraq, which, contrary to wingnut belief, has not magically turned the corner. Indeed, there has been no movement whatsoever on the political front, with the country due to lapse into a warlord state where local gangs fight for power at the local level. But none of these cases are being made, crowded out by the drumbeat to Iran.

Did you even know that the Democrats are considering dropping another $50 billion on Iraq before they go home for the recess? There's no way to organize around that when it barely registers a peep. I don't know if Bush wants to attack Iran or not. What I do know is that it is a great way for him to tie everyone up in knots around the question, so that he can say that Congress wasted its time trying to stop the occupation without repercussions. I think the strategy to fearmonger around Iran is less about scaring the Iranians and more about scaring the Democrats and the American people. Scaring them into silence.

Because the truth is that what we're witnessing is the collapse of Bush's foreign policy, although you wouldn't know it. Throughout the world, from an increasingly violent Pakistan, where every public official is a target, to a Turkey on the verge of an invasion of Kurdistan, to Somalia, which has become so restive that the prime minister has quit, to Afghanistan, where our airstrikes are angering the population and our poppy eradication tests are driving citizens into the arms of the Taliban, to Egypt, which has decided on the exact same program as Iran on nuclear energy, which could escalate proliferation in the Middle East by exacerbating Sunni-Shiite tensions (why is it OK for Egypt to get civilian nuclear energy and not Iran, you can hear people say).

None of this is being discussed in any serious fashion because everyone has gone code red on Iran. This is by design, because it's precisely the moment where the Bush foreign policy is at its lowest ebb.

The Bush administration once imagined that its presence in Afghanistan and Iraq would be anchored by friendly neighbors, Turkey to the west and Pakistan to the east. Last week, as the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan continued to deteriorate, the anchors themselves also came loose [...]

After Sept. 11, when the Bush administration launched its global “war on terror,” the United States enjoyed some clear assets in fighting the al-Qaida terrorist network. In the Middle East, the United States had the support of secular Turkey, a NATO member. The long relationship of the powerful Pakistani military with that of the United States enabled Bush to turn the military dictator Musharraf against the Taliban, which Pakistan had earlier sponsored. Shiite Iran announced that it would provide help to the United States in its war on the hyper-Sunni Taliban regime. Baathist Syria and Iraq, secular Arab nationalist regimes, were potential bulwarks against Sunni radicalism in the Levant.

Like a drunken millionaire gambling away a fortune at a Las Vegas casino, the Bush administration squandered all the assets it began with by invading Iraq and unleashing chaos in the Gulf. The secular Baath Party in Iraq was replaced by Shiite fundamentalists, Sunni Salafi fundamentalists and Kurdish separatists. The pressure the Bush administration put on the Pakistani military government to combat Muslim militants in that country weakened the legitimacy of Musharraf, whom the Pakistani public increasingly viewed as an oppressive American puppet. Iraqi Kurdistan’s willingness to give safe haven to the PKK alienated Turkey from both the new Iraqi government and its American patrons. Search-and-destroy missions in Afghanistan have predictably turned increasing numbers of Pushtun villagers against the United States, NATO and Karzai. The thunder of the bomb in Karachi and the Turkish shells in Iraqi Kurdistan may well be the sound of Bush losing his “war on terror.”

And we're all talking about this potential war in Iran. It's a brilliant, brilliant maneuver.

I don't know what really can be done about this; it would be folly not to take Bush seriously about anything megalomaniacal. But let's be clear that saber-rattling on Iran serves multiple goals, not the least of which is wriggling out of the failed foreign policy choices that will define this Presidency far into the future.

SORT OF RELATED: I love how the US giving Turkey intelligence on the PKK guerrillas in Kurdistan is supposed to solve everything. News flash: we don't have good intel in Iraq. We rely on tips. If we had good intel we wouldn't see 100 bombing attacks a day. This isn't going to help anything.

Most Dangerous Trouble Spot In The World Update

Pakistan is still dangerous, but today I'm shifting the most dangerous trouble spot to: northern Kurdistan! Congratulations, Kurdistan.

Turkey has commenced bombing on what they term "rebel positions" just inside Turkey. Obviously, the concern is that these bombing runs will migrate over to Iraq, which would widen the war. According to this report that's already happening:

On Sunday, Turkish helicopter gunships penetrated into Iraqi territory and troops have shelled suspected Kurdish rebel positions across the border in Iraq, a government official said Wednesday.

U.S.-made Cobra and Super Cobra attack helicopters chased Kurdish rebels three miles into Iraqi territory on Sunday but returned to their bases in Turkey after a rebel ambush killed 12 soldiers near the border, the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

He also said Turkish artillery units shelled rebel positions as recently as Tuesday night but did not say which areas were targeted.

The Iraqi government is vowing to help stop the PKK rebels from their incursions into Turkish territory, although realistically they have almost no ability to do so. Kurdistan is an independent country in everything but name. Plus there are still some faint strains of national identity that make Iraqis reluctant to target their own people.

Which makes this story all the more dangerous:

THE Bush Administration is considering air strikes, including cruise missiles, against the Kurdish rebel group PKK in northern Iraq.

The move would be an attempt to stave off a Turkish invasion of that country to fight the rebels [...]

"It's not 'Kumbaya' time any more - just talking about trilateral talks is not going to be enough," the official said.

"Something has to be done."

I want to know how it's going to look to Iraqi civilians to have Americans launching cruise missiles inside Kurdistan, which given the military and intelligence community's penchant for getting things wrong could easily hit population centers of civilians. How is that furthering the goal of bringing peace and stability to Iraq?

Maybe that would be the kind of incident that would have the Iraqis move to limit military involvement in their own country, at which point you would see a civil war between the Iraqi government and the American occupiers. The point is that continuing to use bombs as a stand-in for diplomacy will have severely negative consequences for the effort to extract ourselves honorably from this quagmire.