Draft Gore 2008 PAC

VOA reports that on May 15, 'Clashes in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad's Sadr City district have left at least seven people dead, despite a deal aimed at ending the bloodshed. Iraqi officials said Thursday the fighting between Iraqi security forces and Shi'ite militants loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr broke out overnight and in the early morning. Hospital officials say 19 people were wounded, including women and children.'

Remember how Tom Friedman and Bush administration spokesmen kept saying that "the next six months" would be crucial for Iraq? They said it in 2003, 2004, 2005, etc., etc. Atrios finally called them on it, terming it the "Friedman unit".

Now we have the new, improved, "McCain unit"-- which is apparently that the next four years will be crucial in Iraq. Indeed, McCain predicted "victory" by 2013, four years after he hopes to take office as the new president. Of course if victory does not come by 2013, then the next McCain unit would kick in, with the years leading up to 2017 being "crucial" for Iraq.

William Lind explains why McCain's fantasy of victory is highly unlikely to be fulfilled. Lind calls Iraq a 'fourth generation war' in which there is no real state capacity on which the US can build, and in which the enemy is shadowy and slips away before conventional forces (as in Basra, where rightwing commentators have mistaken the Mahdi Army's ability to melt away and lie low as a victory for the [non-existent] state). The US really only controls the ground on which its soldiers tread, and that reality may well not change during the next 4 years. If Lind is right, McCain is hanging US policy on a set of ideas out of the 1940s that have no application in Iraq today.

The "McCain unit" is already a public relations bust. It sounds like a timetable to Democrats. It is too far off for most people to take seriously. The beauty of the Friedman unit was that it seemed relatively near, but people could be depended to forget about its last use before it was invoked again. The "McCain unit" will tax the public's patience too much, not to mention their pocket books. His unit probably has a $1 trillion tax bill attached to it all at once. And his unit is too specific, calling for "victory." The Friedman unit was deliberately vague about what exactly would happen in the next six months that was "crucial" for Iraq.

"Three employees of the Iranian embassy and their Iraqi driver were shot and wounded as they traveled Thursday to the Shiite Kadhemiyah Shrine in northern Baghdad."

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the Mosul power elite is increasingly disturbed by the central government's military campaign in that city. They say that they would be willing to keep on the sidelines if the al-Maliki government just went after "al-Qaeda" (the Salafi Jihadis) in the city. But they say that the al-Maliki forces have arrested dozens of ex-members of the Baath Party, as well as former military officers. They say that if this campaign against the Mosul elite continues, they will be forced to act. The al-Maliki government had given them undertakings that it would only target "al-Qaeda", but in fact it has arrested over 900 persons, many of them ex-Baathists.

The US is cutting off relations with Iraqi politician and notorious embezzler and liar Ahmad Chalabi for the fourth time. This time the issue is said to be his deteriorating relations with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his closeness to Brig. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, head of the Jerusalem (Quds) Brigades of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Actually my suspicion is that Chalabi is supporting the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr and that is the real reason for the tension with him. Sadr wants the US out on a short timetable and opposes the passage of an oil law that the Bush administration desperately wants.

McClatchy reports political violence for Thursday:
' Baghdad

A roadside bomb exploded targeting the motorcade of the Governor of Baghdad in Nasr Square, Sadoun Street, central Baghdad at 8 am Thursday. 1 security personnel was killed and 4 others as well as 2 civilians were injured.

A roadside bomb targeted a joint US military and Iraqi Army patrol in al-Khadhra neighbourhood, west Baghdad at noon Thursday. 1 Iraqi army serviceman was killed and 4 were injured, said Iraqi Police.

A roadside bomb targeted a US military convoy in al-Qanat, near al-Amin neighbourhood at 1 pm. One Hummer vehicle was destroyed, according to Iraqi Police. No comment was available from the US military at time of publication. A roadside bomb targeted a US military convoy in Fdhailiyah, northeast Baghdad at around 6 pm Thursday. No casualties were reported.

3 unidentified bodies were found in Baghdad by Iraqi Police today. 1 in Fdhailiyah; 1 in Iskan and 1 in Bayaa.

Salahuddin

3 prominent doctors were kidnapped by gunmen on the way between Tikrit and Baiji, close to al-Hamra village, 20 km to the north of Tikrit. They are Dr. Sabbar Mahrooz Abdullah, administrator of Tikrit Teaching Hospital, his deputy and specialist Dr. Ahmed Salah.

Sulaimaniyah

Iranian bombardment hit border villages in Qalaat Daza district. Local governmental sources say that the bombardment started early Thursday and continued intermittently into the afternoon. No casualties were reported.'


Reuters reports political violence on Thursday and Wednesday, including the rising death toll from the bombing of a funeral, which has reached 25:
' BAGHDAD - The final death toll from a suicide attack on a funeral west of Baghdad on Wednesday was 25, police said. They said 48 people were wounded.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb targeted the convoy of Baghdad's Governor Hussein al-Tahan, killing one of his guards and wounding six people near al-Nasser Square in central Baghdad, police said. Al-Tahan was not in the convoy.

BAGHDAD - The bodies of five people were found in Baghdad on Wednesday, police said.

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said it killed four militants in clashes on Wednesday afternoon in the Kadhimiya district of northwestern Baghdad.

MOSUL - The Iraqi army said it arrested the manager of the Nineveh governor's office in a raid in southern Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad.

MOSUL - The Iraqi army said it arrested the head of the facilities protection force in Mosul on Wednesday. '

I've been traveling again and so only just saw Edward Luttwak's ridiculous column about Barack Obama being considered an "apostate" in the Muslim world.

It is just so discouraging that such an ignorant and illogical comment was made by a prominent American pundit, and that the New York Times leant its pages to this complete drivel.

Of course, this column is a stealth way of bringing back up the myth of Obama being a Muslim, and it is profoundly dishonest.

The argument is that Obama's father was a Muslim and therefore Obama would be considered a Muslim apostate by fundamentalists, even though Obama's mother was a Christian; even though his father abandoned them and Obama did not really know him; even though Obama never practiced Islam; and even though his father was himself a secularist who was known to like a stiff drink. Luttwak even alleges that the law of apostasy is in the Qur'an (Wael Hallaq has argued convincingly that it is not).

So here is what the academic literature has to say about Islamic law on this issue (Rudolph Peters and Gert J. J. De Vries
Die Welt des Islams, New Series, Vol. 17, Issue 1/4 (1976 - 1977), pp. 1-25 ):

"Not only the act of apostasy is subject to certain conditions in order to be legally valid, but also with regard to the perpetrator (murtadd) specific qualifications have been laid down. He can perform a legally effective act of riddah [apostasy] only out of free will (ikhtiyar) at an adult age (bulugh), being compos mentis (`aqil [of sound mind]), and, as emphasized by the Malikite school, after his unambiguous and explicit adoption of Islam." [- p. 3][P. 2, n. 3: "It is equally stated that this Islam needs to be evident in both qawl [speech] and `amal [deed]; a person who embraced the faith by merely pronouncing the shahadah [profession of faith] would not be considered qulified to perform a legally valid act of apostasy-- Cf. Mawwaq in the margin of Hattab, Mawahib al-Jalil, VI, pp. 279-80]"

Barack Obama never accepted or practiced Islam as an adult (which would be age 15 in Islamic law) and therefore according to classical Islamic jurisprudence cannot be an apostate. Peters and DeVries are Arabists and are among the foremost scholars on Islamic law, unlike Luttwak, who does not have the slightest idea what he is talking about.

Luttwak has no doubt been misled by some Salafi, modernist-fundamentalist fatwa, which departs from the great Islamic legal traditions, and he has mistakenly taken it to be representative of Islamic law. Or, I don't know, maybe some minor jurist in the minority Hanbali tradition dissents. But to characterize these minority traditions or idiosyncratic views as representative of Islam as a whole would be like declaring Pat Robertson's interpretation of Christianity more legitimate than that of Saint Thomas Aquinas.

The authoritative Encyclopedia of Islam, after noting some of the extremist modern positions of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad of Ayman al-Zawahiri and others goes on to say,

' The view that the law of apostasy applies only to those [adult Muslims] who have deliberately and unambiguously broken with Islam is, for instance, still held by the majority of Hanafi jurists. Some jurists have proposed the abolition of all penalties for apostasy from Islam (Shaltut, M., Islam. `Aqida wa-shari`a (Cairo 1966), 287f.; Saeed, A., and H. Saeed, Freedom of religion. Apostasy and Islam, Aldershot 2004).' (S.v. "Apostasy.")

Luttwak even goes so far as to speculate, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, that some Muslims might want to kill Obama for "apostasy" and suggests his life would be in danger on state visits to Muslim countries. But as we have seen, classical Islamic law would not lead to this conclusion at all.

Another error is to see persons of Muslim heritage as necessarily religious. Frankly, most Muslims nowadays don't pay any attention to those kinds of minutiae. Indonesia's Muslims elected relatively secular parties when they were allowed to vote. Hundreds of millions of Muslims in Muslim-majority states lives under secular governance and laws-- Turkey, Indonesia, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Syria, etc.

Moreover, Luttwak's column is ahistorical. There have been lots of "apostasies" in modern Middle Eastern history. The Shihab dynasty in the 19th century Levant had been Sunni Muslims but converted to Christianity. They were recognized as the rulers of what is now Lebanon by the Ottoman Empire and by other Ottoman principalities. Nothing bad happened to them because of their conversion even though it did meet the classical definition of apostasy. People don't always act the way the obscure law books suggest.

Or for a contemporary example, let us take Turkish Chief of Staff Yasar Buyukanit, a pillar of the Kemalist, anti-Islam establishment in Ankara. He visited Egypt quite safely even though he certainly would be considered an apostate by Muslim fundamentalists. He called activist Islam a "center of evil" that threatens Turkey's secular and democratic traditions. Fundamentalist Muslim Turks consider Buyukanit not only an apostate from Islam but also a secret convert to Judaism.

Yet Buyukanit is arguably among the more powerful persons in the Middle East and travels freely in the region.

Or there is Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who obviously apostatized from Islam to Communism and then from Communism to some other form of secularism. And yet Nazarbayev freely visits the Middle East.

Former Cairo University Professor Hamid Nasr Abu Zaid was accused of apostasy (not heresy, apostasy) in the Egyptian court system, on the grounds that his academic writings on the Qur'an denied its status as divine revelation. He was actually found guilty by a Cairo court, though the ruling was later suspended and an embarrassed Egyptian government said it would work to prevent it happening again. Was Abu Zaid sentenced to death by the official court? No. The punishment? He was ordered divorced from his Muslim wife, since a non-Muslim male may not be legitimately married to a believing Muslim woman. The couple fled to Holland. This incident was a horrible miscarriage of justice and an affront to human liberty, but it directly refutes Luttwak's silly argument that a finding of apostasy would necessarily lead state institutions to impose a death penalty. Many Middle Eastern states do not even have hisba or sharia benches that could make such rulings. Iran is among the few places where it could happen, and there are other reasons for one to be fearful for an American president's safety in Iran. Likewise, those radicals who brandished death threats at Abu Zaid would kill an American president even if they didn't think him an apostate, as Ali Eteraz pointed out.

A lot of observers think Obama is a 'natural' candidate for Muslims abroad to support. But why? They see him as just another American, and they haven't had a good experience with American policies. In Pakistan, 50% of a sample said that they would like to vote in the upcoming American election. Of that group, 30% said they would vote for Hillary Clinton, 14% said they would vote for Obama, and 8% said they would vote for John McCain. So Luttwak's assumptions are incorrect in every way. Pakistanis don't care about Obama's background, they care that he threatened to bomb their country. American reporters are always asking if Hillary Clinton can get respect in the patriarchal Muslim world; but she is is the one the Pakistani public would vote for! Pakistani Muslims elected a female head of state, after all, something the patriarchal Americans haven't yet managed.

An American president might be in danger in the Middle East. But it would be because of the hatred for the United States provoked by the brutal military tactics of the Bush administration and by its blithe unconcern for the welfare of Palestinians and other local people.

It would be because Bush is the apostate, since he was born under the US constitution but he left it for a faith in torture, killing innocents, neo-colonialism, and mass murder (as at Fallujah).

That's the apostasy that Middle Easterners most mind.

As I was setting off for some conferences in the UK last April, I got an invitation from Tim Sebastian to come participate in the Doha Debates on April 29. Sebastian for years ran a hard hitting interview program on the BBC. More recently, he has hosted the Doha Debates in Qatar. The debates are sponsored jointly by BBC World, which carries them the following weekend, and by the Qatar Foundation.

The video of the event in which I participated is here.

The Doha Debates have a local audience and a big student following. They also sponsor a Qatari student debating team.



Among the aims of the enterprise is to foster a tradition of Oxford-style debating in the Gulf and the Arab world. Given that Qatar is emerging as a major educational hub in the region, with its innovative Education City Complex the Doha Debates have taken on an important pedagogical role.





The question put to us was whether Sunni-Shiite fighting had damaged the reputation of Islam as a religion of peace. I have to say that I did not particularly like the question, which seemed to me to lack analytical rigor. It did not specify when and where, nor the audience for Islam's reputation, and the last part begged a question. I think the way it was posed, as a matter of the reputation of Islam, tended to make a Muslim audience defensive and concerned to defend the honor of their faith. That is, if the point was to foster reasoned, dispassionate debate, then this question was ill suited to the purpose in the context of an Arab Muslim audience.

My fellow debaters were Gen. Ali Shukri of Jordan, a former adviser to the late King Hussein (who argued for the motion, as did I); Hisham Hellyer, a UK Muslim intellectual; and Imam Hassan Qazwini, who runs an impressive Shiite mosque in Deaborn, Michigan and who is originally from Karbala in Iraq. I knew Hillyer and Imam Qazwini and we had usually been on the same side in debates about Islam, so it was a little odd to be ranged against one another.

I arrived in Doha from London on the evening of the 28th of April.



By the time I got settled in the hotel, it was late. I asked the concierge about taking a walk, and he recommended the Corniche, which was near the hotel. So I walked along the seaside (Qatar is a peninsula sticking up into the Persian Gulf). There were others out, including families. There was a little kiosk serving coffee and ice cream, and people seemed to be drinking coffee at midnight.



The population is polyglot, so you could see Qataris, Egyptians, Filipinos, Pakistanis, Indians, Nepalis, Sri Lankans, Chinese, etc. Qatar's population is officially about one million, but it may be half again that in reality. There are differing estimations of the number of native citizens, usually put at 150,000. The rest are guest workers, most on 2-year renewable visas. Only 20 percent of the guest workers are Arabs. Qatar may have six or seven million people in a decade or two, raising questions about its ultimate identity, since a large part of the population seems likely to be non-Muslims from the Indian Ocean region.

Qatar is the only other Wahhabi state besides Saudi Arabia, but its tone is very different. One Qatari friend told me it was the difference between Wahhabism of the sea and Wahhabism of the desert. Qatari merchants plied dhows in the old days to India and were always more cosmopolitan. Although the Sunni mosques, which are licensed by the Pious Endowments ministry, are all of the conservative Hanbali school, the government is now allowing a Catholic church to be built. (Not something you'd see in Saudi Arabia). Although my hotel was thankfully quiet, apparently some have night clubs for the expatriates, and serve alcohol. Again, not a Wahhabi set of policies. And, Sheikh Hamad Al Thani, the current emir, has an interest in promoting open intellectual exchange; hence Aljazeera and the Doha Debates. In these ways, Qatar is starting to resemble the United Arab Emirates to the south more than it does Riyadh.

On Tuesday morning, Mr. Sebastian met with Gen. Shukri and myself to discuss the mechanics of the debate and strategy. They stressed that the opening statement is key to persuading people. Gen. Shukri and I had lunch later on to talk more about what kinds of arguments and anecdotes might be persuasive.

Despite the draw for me of the hotel beach, I dutifully stayed in my room that afternoon working on my opening statement and my main arguments.

I thought this statement by former Senate majority leader Trent Lott pretty persuasive that the Sunni-Shiite strife has damaged Islam's image. Alas, as things transpired it became clear to me that most of the studio audience had no idea who Trent Lott was and so could not gauge the significance of the quote.

The debate itself, you can see at the link above. It was collegial and maybe suffered from us all liking each other too much.

I got both bouquets and brickbats from the studio audience, but it seemed clear to me that for some of them, the way the question was phrased put them on the defensive.

It was a great experience, and I greatly enjoyed the back and forth with the other debaters and with the audience. Mr. Sebastian took us out for a nice dinner afterwards (Italian), and the hosting throughout the trip was among the best I've ever experienced.

The debates were broadcast on BBC World that weekend. Unfortunately I don't think you can get it in the United States. My DISH network just gives me this awful "BBC America" which replicates in a British accent the worst features of American television. Apparently we are not considered grown up enough for real news.

On Wednesday I went to Aljazeera to do some interviewing,

which ended up as a Salon article. The Doha Debates staff very kindly set up those interviews.

On Thursday and Friday I was shown around Education City and then hooked up with old friends, who showed me around the rest of the city, which has grown enormously since I was last there in 1988.



Not everything has changed. The Emir has tried to preserve the old souq or traditional market:



And a good time was had by all!

The bombings that shook Jaipur and killed 80 innocents are not immediately legible as ordinary politics. Most previous such bombings (Bombay, Hyderabad) have been in areas that have important Muslim minorities, or have been connected to separatist movements such as in Assam. Some appear to have been the work of Muslim radicals and intended as revenge on the Bharatiya Janata Party for its ties to RSS goon squads that have engaged in pogroms against Muslims. But Jaipur in Rajasthan is heavily Hindu and is not politically symbolic. Its main claim to fame is as a tourist attraction.



I don't agree with the Indian analysts who suggest that the site of the attack is arbitrary, or that it has something to do with the new government in Pakistan, which is more favorable to India than the previous one. A general attempt to foment Hindu-Muslim tension may be part of it, but then why did the perpetrators not announce themselves?

Possible considerations are that unlike most of India's provinces now, Rajasthan is run by the BJP. So this attack could be a strike against that party. A bombing in Jaipur clearly is intended to hurt India's tourist economy. Since tourism revenues in Jaipur at the moment benefit the BJP, these horrific bombings could be intended to harm the provincial government.

Terrorists have their own awful logic, however, so other considerations may have played a role.

No sooner had the truce between the Mahdi Army and the US & Iraqi military been signed than it appeared to break down. Clashes broke out Monday night into Tuesday morning between the Mahdi Army militiamen and US troops, leaving 11 Iraqis dead and 20 wounded. The militia also targeted some government ministries with mortar fire.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that there is a disagreement between the United Iraqi Alliance (Shiite coalition) and the Sadr Movement over the exact content of the ceasefire proclamation. The UIA says that Sadr made an undertaking to dissolve the Mahdi Army, while his supporters say he pledged no such thing. Sadrist spokesman Salah al-Ubaidi said that individual militiamen were free to surrender their arms to the central government, but that the movement would not impose a duty to do so on its members.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that the population of Mosul feels betrayed because Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had given them an undertaking that he was only after foreign jihadis and would not arrest local Mosulis. In fact he has had 150 officers arrested.

The USG Open Source Center translates a report from Sharqiya t.v. that there is little potable water in Mosul.

From Media Matters: "A New York Times article detailed the connection between numerous media military analysts and the Pentagon and defense industries, reporting that "the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform" media military analysts "into a kind of media Trojan horse -- an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks." A Media Matters review found that since January 1, 2002, the analysts named in the Times article -- many identified as having ties to the defense industry -- collectively appeared or were quoted as experts more than 4,500 times on ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR. . ."

I had been afraid that the Iraq conflict would drive Saudi Arabia and Iran into conflict with one another. But now you have to wonder if Lebanon might be more deadly in this regard. Saudi Arabia supports Saad al-Hariri and the Sunnis, while Iran supports Hizbullah.

McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq for Tuesday:

' Baghdad

Five civilians were wounded in a roadside bomb that targeted a patrol for the Iraqi army in al Wathiq intersection in Karrada neighborhood in downtown Baghdad around 8:00 a.m.

Medical sources in Sadr hospital in Sadr city said that a seven years old died after he was run over by a vehicle of the Iraqi army and 15 other men were wounded in a air strike targeted Jamila area in east Baghdad. US military says their was one air strike and some gun battles without any further details.

Medical source in Imam Ali hospital said that five men were killed and four others were wounded in an American air strike around 5:00 a.m. No confirmation reached us from the US military until time of publication

Around 5:00 p.m. three mortar shells hit the building of the ministry of interior affairs in Bab al Sharji neighborhood in downtown Baghdad. No casualties reported. At the same time, another three mortar shells hit the building of the ministry of justice in Salihiya in downtown Baghdad casuing afire that was controlled by firefighting units.

Police found four unidentified bodies throughout Baghdad (1 body in Jisr Diyala, 1 body in Tobchi, 1 body in Amil and 1 body in Sleikh)

Nineveh

Five Iraqi soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb that targeted their vehicle in Tal al Roman area in southwest Mosul city around 9:00 a.m.

Kirkuk

Ten civilians were injured in a car bomb near Mahabad primary school in one of the Kurdish neighborhoods in downtown Kirkuk city on Tuesday afternoon. The explosion caused damaged some shops and cars '

As if Iraq was not enough to worry about, some important political developments in Lebanon, and even in the Yemen have raised the temperature of the Middle East . . .

A roadside bomb targeted Abu Qutaiba, a local leader of an Awakening group a U.S. sponsored militia, in Al Lehaib area north east of Fallujah killing him with two bodyguards and killing two children were passing by the bomb.

A ceasefire was formally signed on Monday between the Al-Maliki government and the Sadr movement,, which allows Iraqi forces to search Sadr City in Baghdad for medium and heavy weapons. Arabic press reports suggest that the government will need a court-ordered warrant for such searches.

The political alliance between the Pakistan People's Party and the Muslim League-N in Pakistan has fallen apart. Nawaz Sharif is withdrawing his cabinet ministers because PPP regent Asaf Ali Zardari refuses to press ahead quickly with reinstating the court judges dismissed last fall by Pervez Musharraf. Sharif knows that the Pakistani Supreme Court would, if restored, depose Musharraf. So does Zardari but he is more afraid of a military coup than is Sharif.

Pakistan will not return to stability any time soon, since Sharif and his party want to see Musharraf deposed, and the military may or may not allow that to happen.

Then in Lebanon, street fighting subsided on Monday in Beirut and in the Shouf mountains. But it flared up in the northern port city of Tripoli between Sunnis and Alawites (a folk Shiite sect to which the Syrian top leadership belongs).

Aljazeera on Lebanon's army:


"Dozens of people have been killed or wounded in renewed clashes between the Yemen army and Shiite rebels in the north-west of the country, tribal sources said. "Fighting killed or wounded dozens of people, including many civilians," on Sunday and Monday in several regions across the Shiite Zaidi rebel stronghold of Saada, one source said.

My column, "Clinton and Obama on Aljazeera," is just out in Salon.com.

It is based in part on an interview I did with the editor-in-chief of Aljazeera during my recent trip to Qatar.

Excerpt:

' Many Americans incorrectly think of Al-Jazeera's Arabic-language network as al-Qaida Central because it occasionally broadcasts excerpts from videotapes of the terror organization's leaders. Nowadays, however, viewers are far more likely to see images of the American presidential candidates on the channel's screens. As the United States, always an interested party, has become a dominant on-the-ground player in the Middle East, residents of the region increasingly feel that their own fate depends on the outcome of this election. I was in Qatar earlier this month and stopped by the office of Ahmed Sheikh, editor in chief of Al-Jazeera's Arabic service, to ask him about his network's coverage of the campaign.

Al-Jazeera's Arabic service studios in the rapidly growing metropolis of Doha have been expanded but are still relatively modest. The facilities at the new English-language Al-Jazeera International across the street are far more state-of-the-art. The correspondent who welcomed me said that when Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak visited, he was taken aback by how small the studio was, remarking, "So this is the matchbox that has caused all that trouble!"

Safely delivered to Sheikh's office, I was plied with strong Arab tea. Soon our conversation turned to the U.S. presidential campaign. Why, I asked, give such distant events air time? "Because the United States is occupying Iraq and it is an ally of Israel and a power broker in the region," Sheikh replied. "The United States is the only superpower on the planet. Events in Iraq and Palestine affect this area." '

Read the whole thing.

Qatar, by the way, is a fascinating country, and is taking on some of the attributes of Dubai, though it isn't as swinging a place as the latter. It is opening its first Catholic church soon!

The Mosul operation came so unexpectedly for residents of the major northern city that they did not have time to stock up on food. Alexandra Zavis interviews Mosulis who say that they have been living in fear. What is odd is that we weren't having these stories of living in fear in Mosul 2 months ago.

Turkey bombed northern Iraq again on Sunday, retaliating against the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) for its attack on the Turkish military in Anatolia, which left two Turkish soldiers dead. The guerrillas are then alleged to have retreated into Iraq.

McClatchy reports on the precarious position of Sadr City residents whose homes are near to the Green Zone that houses the US embassy and other US offices.

How solid the ceasefire is has yet to be seen. Hadi al-Amiri, a member of parliament who is also head of the paramilitary Badr Corps, said Sunday that the Mahdi Army must disarm. (Since the Badr Army has not disarmed, this statement is the height of hypocrisy). And, PM Nuri al-Maliki maintains that the truce in Sadr City was worked out between the Iraqi parliament and the Sadrists, and that he was not part of the process.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that efforts to form an alternative, nationalist bloc in parliament are continuing. It hopes to include the Iraqi National List of Iyad Allawi, the Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila) and the National Dialogue Council of Salih Mutlak. The Sadrists are said to be studying the possibility of joining, but they have not so far.

For invaluable updates on the situation in Afghanistan, don't miss Barnett Rubin's recent entries at our Global Affairs blog.

Bil McKibben on the defining moment in climate change. . .

McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq for Sunday:

' Baghdad

- Around 7 am, a roadside bomb exploded near the oil marketing department in Zayuna neighborhood in east Baghdad. Two civilians were injured in the blast.

- Around 9:30 am a roadside bomb targeted the deputy of the finance minister’s convoy Mr. Fadhel Mahmoud. Six people were injured in the blast.

- Police found 1 dead body in Baghdad in Saidiyah neighborhood in south Baghdad.

Kirkuk

- Saturday night, gunmen opened fire on an Iraqi soldier at Mujaibra of Rashad in west Kirkuk. The soldier was killed immediately.

- Saturday night, gunmen kidnapped a peasant at Tal Aleid of Rashad in west Kirkuk.

- In the morning, police found two dead bodies on the way between Kirkuk and Sulaimaniyah. The police found out that those two bodies belonged to two workers who were kidnapped in Khan Khorma in Kirkuk last week. '

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.

Reading news about Iraq is like watching Bill Murray's 'Groundhog Day' in which you have to live through the same day over and over again. So the US and Iraqi governments have announced a new campaign against Sunni radicals in Ninevah province, especially Mosul. Take a look at this article, published late last January: "Thousands of Iraqi army soldiers reached the northern city of Mosul on Sunday in preparation for what the government said would be a major offensive there against Al-Qaeda in Iraq, along with other Sunni militants."

You have a sinking feeling that al-Maliki is recycling old announcements in a futile attempt to distract the public from his climb-down in Sadr City. Al-Maliki left for Mosul Saturday along with a few cabinet members and close advisers. Curfews have been announced in some Mosul neighborhoods.

Ninevah governor Duraid Kashmula admitted to Al-Hayat that Mosul "has come to dominated by the leaders of al-Qaeda as a result of the delay in the military operation in the city."

What??! Mosul is Iraq's second largest city at 1.7 million, and it is under the control of "al-Qaeda"? How long has this been the case? All this time? While the US press was reveling in the "calm" in the country?

Joel Brinkley points out that in the first four months of 2008, the Iraq trend lines are going the wrong way again. Worse, the Iraqi occupation is generating a wave of terrorism in the Middle East as trained insurgents return home from Iraq:

' In Morocco last year, "a series of suicide bombs shattered the relative lull in terrorist violence" over the previous five years, the report said. "Extremist veterans returning from Iraq" were training inexperienced insurgent fighters, who then carried out bloody attacks in Casablanca and other cities. King Mohamed VI observed that security in his corner of the Middle East is now "linked to the security of the region."

In neighboring Algeria, insurgents "used propaganda based on the call to fight in Iraq as a hook to recruit young people, many of whom never made it to Iraq but were redirected" to local insurgent cells instead. They carried out "high-profile terrorist attacks throughout the country." . .

Gen. Mansour al-Turki, Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry spokesman, once told me that Saudi militants "wanted to spread their war against the United States and found that doing this was easier in their own country." He drew this conclusion, he said, from interviews with insurgents he had arrested. "The invasion of Iraq enabled them to convince others in the country to share their goals. For that reason, the invasion was very important to them." The terror report described similar patterns in Jordan, Syria, Kuwait, Yemen and elsewhere. '

As Brinkley points out, the clear evidence of the falsehood of the Pentagon talking points about a "calm Iraq" (based on what was going on in Novemenber and December!) doesn't prevent them from being conveyed unexamined right to the front page.

The Turkish military claimed to have killed 17 Kurdish guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) in air strikes on eastern Turkey near Iraq on Saturday.

Iraq's war widows struggle to keep young families alive.

An eyewitness account of recent events in South Lebanon.

Lebanon has things so backwards. Its political parties are fighting military battles and its army is negotiating a political settlement.



New NYT blog in Arabic, this one on Saudi youth.

AFP reports that on Friday an aide to junior cleric Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr lashed out at Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani over his silence at the attacks on Sadr City (a Shiite slum) by the US and the government of PM Nuri al-Maliki:
' "We are surprised by the silence in Najaf where the highest Shiite religious authority is based," Sheikh Sattar Battat said, referring to Sistani.

"For 50 days Sadr City is being bombed ... Children, women and old people are being killed by all kinds of US weapons, and Najaf remains silent," he told the faithful at the weekly Friday prayers in Sadr City, Sadr's stronghold. Battat said the Sadr movement has not seen any "reaction or fatwa (religious decree) from Najaf" criticising the government assault on Shiite fighters in Sadr City. '

Also, Sheikh Abd al-Hadi al-Muhammadawi said in his sermon at the Kufa mosque that the shedding of blood by the Occupation forces through air strikes on the people must cease. He said it was bizarre that these air strikes should take place with the acquiescence of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. "This is something that never was done by any dictator in the world."

The USG Open Source Center analyzes the Lebanese press on the crisis between the Seniora government and Hizbullah, suggesting that despite their harsh words, they have left wiggle room for a resolution.

OSC Report: Lebanon -- Both Sides Take Tough Line, Leave Room To Maneuver
Lebanon -- OSC Report
Friday, May 9, 2008 . . .

Lebanon -- Government, Opposition Take Tough Line on Crisis While Preserving Room To Maneuver; Army Seeks Neutral Role

Both opposition and government figures are maintaining tough public positions in their dispute over Hizballah's private landline telephone network. At the same time, despite continuing violent confrontations in Beirut between opposition and pro-government elements, both sides appear to be leaving themselves room for further political maneuvering. The Lebanese Army, meanwhile, is seeking to stay out of the dispute and remain neutral while maintaining its status as the guardian of national unity.

The crisis erupted after a 6 May decision by the Council of Ministers, led by Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, calling Hizballah's private telephone network "illegal" and "an aggression on the State's authority," thereby denying Hizballah's right to maintain the network as part of its legitimate "resistance" tool against Israel. The government vowed to launch legal action against the network. On 8 May, unrelated labor protests in Beirut turned into violent demonstrations against the government. Nasrallah Vows Defiance

In a news conference on 8 May, Hizballah Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah rejected the government's demands and threatened a violent response if the government acted against Hizballah's telephone network.

Nasrallah declared: "We have the right to defend ourselves," and "we will cut off the hand" of anyone threatening to take away Hizballah's "resistance weapons regardless of the person it belongs to...we will not be lenient with anyone no matter who he is" (Al-Manar TV, 8 May).

Free Patriotic Movement leader and Hizballah ally Michel Awn echoed Nasrallah's comments by stating that "it is very serious to endanger the security of the resistance during operations" and by demanding that "all parties reverse the government's decisions" (OTV, 8 May). In subsequent statements, Hizballah allies Former Minister Sulayman Franjiyah (The Daily Star, 9 May) and leader of the Lebanese Unification Party Wi'am Wahhab reiterated Nasrallah's sentiments (Now Lebanon, 9 May).

Notwithstanding his threats, Nasrallah left the door open for a negotiated resolution.

Nasrallah stated: "There are two hands: one is outstretched for dialogue based on canceling the unfair decisions" and "the path to a solution is clear and open" (Al-Manar TV, 8 May).

He asserted his continued respect for existing institutions, in particular the Lebanese Army: "We are raising the slogan of partnership between the opposition and pro-government forces...the Army constitutes a genuine national guarantee" (Al-Manar TV, 8 May). Pro-Government Response

Pro-government leaders were equally adamant in asserting the primacy of state authority.

A 9 May statement made by Lebanese Forces leader Samir Ja'ja on behalf of the pro-government March 14 Forces declared that "what happened in Beirut, its periphery, and the International Airport is an armed coup carried out by Hizballah" and called on the Siniora-led government "to hold firmly to this independent position" (LBC, 9 May).

Communications Minister Marwan Hamadah, in an interview with the Pan-Arab television channel Al-Arabiyah, stated that "we will never go back on our decision" and that "we intend to defend what remains of the sovereignty of the Lebanese state" (8 May).

Nonetheless, pro-government also alluded to the possibility of a political resolution.

Prominent 14 March Forces leader and head of the Future Movement Sa'd al-Hariri, in a news conference following that of Nasrallah's on 8 May, upheld the government's position on Hizballah's network while affirming: "We are not saying...that we want to stop protecting the resistance;" rather, "we are taking decisions to protect the state" (Future TV).

Hamadah, in his Al-Arabiyah interview, insisted that he "is not saying that we will dismantle the network by force tomorrow but that this is the right of the Lebanese state...the judiciary will pursue the case...we are not seeking a civil war." Lebanese Army Tries To Remain Neutral

In the face of continued street clashes in Beirut, the Lebanese Army has sought to remain above the dispute and preserve its status as a guardian of national unity.

In a statement on 8 May, the Army Command called on all parties to find solutions to save Lebanon from the deadlock, adding that "the Lebanese Army puts itself at the disposal of all groups to help find these solutions." The Army's statement warned parties against "abandoning dialogue and insisting on positions" (Al-Manar TV).

In a 9 May interview with Al-Arabiyah TV, Minister of Youth and Sport Ahmad Fatfat confirmed that the Lebanese Army has deployed troops to protect cabinet offices from street violence.

On late Friday, the Lebanese army moved into some neighborhoods that had been taken during the day by the Hizbullah militia.

Hizbullah routed Sunni militiamen loyal to Saad Hariri and set fire to the offices of al-Mustaqbal newspaper, his press outlet. (The Lebanese Army declined to intervene, the same mistake it made in 1975).

Likewise, the Futur or Mustaqbal television station is off the air after employees fled for "security reasons." But the fighting hasn't just been between Sunni and Shiite. There has been other ethnic violence, too. Members of the Syrian National Socialist Party (probably mostly Eastern Orthodox Christians) attacked the Mustaqbal archives building. (SNSP is pro-Syrian and is allied with Hizbullah). In Tripoli pro-Hariri and anti-Hariri Sunnis clashed. (Some Sunnis up there are loyal to the rival Karami family while others belong to the Baath Party of Lebanon-- both clashed with the Hariri forces).

Liz Sly of the Chicago Tribune is a veteran correspondent in Beirut and her observations are very valuable. She points to the collapse of the red line earlier drawn by Hassan Nasrallah whereby his militia would never attack other Lebanese.

Lebanon is on the brink of civil war.

AFP reports, "25 killed as Rockets Shatter Basra Calm." Shiite guerrillas fired a barrage of rockets at the British base out at the airport in Basra, killing two civilians. There was retaliatory fighting in Basra that left more dead.

Tina Susman of the LAT has some fun with the Bush administration's fixation on Iran as a source of weapons and trouble in Iraq. She notes a major embarrassment last week when a cache of supposedly Iranian weapons seized in the Shiite holy city of Karbala turned out to be no such thing. The US military had just taken the word for it of local Karbala police. She says that this week when the Pentagon gave its overview of captured weapons, all of a sudden there was no mention of Iran at all.

The Iraqi military has warned civilians to leave the vast slum of Sadr City, apparently in preparation for a massive government assault on the Mahdi Army militia based there. Since slum dwellers notoriously lack the means to leave their slums, this call seems more likely to be for the sake of appearances than a realistic expectation. When thousands are massacred in the course of a military attack on a densely packed civilian area, the authorities will be able to say that they gave fair warning. Although the US demonizes the Mahdi Army, Many Sadr City residents view it as in part a charitable organization, and they also are often grateful for the security it provides. It is not as if the federal government is providing security.

Saddam Hussein was the Iraqi leader who invented the technique for the modern Iraqi state of ethnically cleansing rebellious populations as a way of making his rule stick. He did it to the Marsh Arabs in the south and also to Kurds in the north. The US has already either conducted or allowed ethnic cleansing in Falluja and West Baghdad. It now seems set to empty out the east of the capital.

Apparently the fractious, RPG-wielding slum dwellers are getting in the way of the planned Green Zone golf course, so they have to be removed.

You know some British colonial administrators were still planning new cricket fields in India in 1946.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the Iraqi parliament took up the conflict between PM Nuri al-Maliki and the Sadr Movement and President Jalal Talabani's initiative to resolve it. At the same time, the two sides seemed to get farther apart, with al-Maliki continuing to insist on the disarming of the Mahdi Army militia. Talabani's plan called for a first step of the militiamen pledging not to carry arms in public in Baghdad and troubled areas in the south. The Talabani plan may soon be voted on by parliament, but it is opposed by the Sadr Bloc of MPs.

Al-Hayat also reports on a planned meeting of al-Maliki with Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a component of the (Sunni fundamentalist) Iraqi Accord Front. Al-Hashimi is said to be set to rejoin the government. The proposed list of cabinet members from the IAF has not been accepted by al-Maliki. Dissent has broken out, however, in the Dialogue Council of Khalaf al-`Ulyan, one of the three components of the Iraqi Accord Front.

McClatchy reports political violence for Thursday.

' Baghdad

1 Katyusha rocket slammed into the Green Zone at 9 am Thursday. No casualties were reported.

2 Katyusha rockets slammed into the street next to al-Nasr cinema, Sadoon Street, central Baghdad killing 2 civilians, injuring 2 others and causing material damage to several civilian cars.

A roadside bomb exploded in Humat al-Watan intersection near Shaab stadium, east Baghdad. It targeted an Iraqi Army patrol injuring 5 servicemen.

An adhesive IED in a Kia minibus exploded killing 1 civilian, severely injuring 5 others. The incident took place in Zayuna neighbourhood, near the traffic fly over at around 3 pm Thursday.

A roadside bomb exploded behind the National Theatre in Karrada, central Baghdad injuring 3 civilians.

A parked car bomb exploded targeting a police patrol in Mansour neighbourhood, west Baghdad, near Samad restaurant in Rowad intersection at 5 pm Thursday. The explosion killed 3 policemen and 4 civilians and injured 2 policemen and 17 civilians amongst whom were 2 women and 1 child. The location is a central commercial centre and the explosion resulted in burning 4 civilian cars completely as well as the police vehicle in addition to extensive material damages to 10 stores and completely destroying the restaurant.

A roadside bomb exploded in Jihad neighbourhood, near Mohammed Rasool Allah Mosque at 7 pm injuring 7 civilians.

4 unidentified bodies were found in Baghdad today by Iraqi Police. 1 in Nahdha; 1 in Dola’I and 2 in Abu Disheer.

Salahuddin

Suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt detonated targeting mulla Nathim al-Juboor, head of Dhuluiayah Sahwa, a US supported militia, in Khazraj area, 5 km to the north of the town of Dhuluiayah. The mulla was in a motorcade with the Chief of Police and the District Commissioner of Dhuluiyah on a tour of reconstruction projects. This is the second assassination attempt he survives with only superficial injuries.

Basra

Violent clashes broke out between the security forces and gunmen in al-Askari neighbourhood, Zubair district 35 km t the west of Basra city after many Katyusha rockets were fired targeting a Notional Police camp in Zubair. The fighting continues and no casualties report was available at time of publication.'

Violence in Lebanon
Courtesy al-Hayat

Update: CNN is reporting that the Lebanese military is reluctant to intervene in street fighting between pro-Hizbullah forces and supporters of the Seniora government. Aljazeera is also reporting that the Lebanese military has drawn back from flashpoints. It showed one clip of troops facing crowds of young men throwing stones, who were dispersed by tear gas. The overnight street fighting, which the Aljazeera correspondent said does not involve barricades but is rather fluid, was the worst seen in Beirut since the Civil War ended in 1989.

Hizbullah leader Nasrallah has just announced that he feels the Seniora government has declared war on his movement by denying them access to a network of electronic monitoring and surveillance based at the airport. (Apparently Hizbullah uses it for its struggle against Israel, but the government became concerned that they were also using it to track pro-government individuals).

A member of Saad Hariri's government on Aljazeera just said that Hizbullah had the opportunity to help elect a president (Gen. Michel Suleiman) who could have participated in the decision-making and would have been more sympathetic to Hizbullah, but they instead played the role of spoiler. The Lebanese parliament has been unable to elect a president, who by the unwritten national pact has to be a Maronite Catholic, for the past few months.

The Bush administration has been arming the Seniora government and encouraging it to take on the Hizbullah militia, which it sees as a major site of Iranian influence in the region.

From several hours ago:

First, the General Confederation of Labour Unions (CGTL) in Lebanon called a strike to protest the failure of the government to agree to a substantial rise in the minimum monthly wage. Then the strike turned violent, as the Hizbullah joined in. People closed off roads and set out burning tires. The airport was badly affected, stranding 200 passengers. Aljazeera says that the airport is closed on Thursday Arab satellite channels were showing streets crowded with Lebanese army and police, with staccatto machine gun bursts in the background. About 10 people were lightly wounded.

It isn't really clear what the relationship is between the labor unions and their strike for better wages, and the military confrontations with the strikers. [On Thursday pro-government forces said that Hizbullah had taken advantage of the strike to press its own agenda.]

I do know that on the other side, the Bush administration has worked hard to polarize Lebanese society and security, rather than working for a national unity government.

Barack Obama pulled closer to clinching the nomination last night, widening his lead over Hillary Clinton in voted delegates and in the popular vote. He overwhelmingly took Indianapolis and narrowed her earlier lead to only 2%, about 20,000 votes out of the hundreds of thousands cast. Obama even got 35% of working class whites in Indiana, which suggests that while Clinton is stronger with that constituency, Obama has an appeal there as well. He is clearly raising far more money than she, so voters are voting for him with their pocketbooks.

CBC writes of the two primaries last night,