Posts by Juan Cole

Juan Cole teaches Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan and is author of the forthcoming "Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East."

Iraqi Government Gridlocked: No Oil Law; No Election Law Likely
Posted by Juan Cole, Informed Comment on August 5, 2008 at 5:56 AM.

So to recap: No provincial election law means, probably, no provincial elections this year. No oil law. No significant Shiite-Sunni reconciliation. Politics gridlocked in Iraq.

Westerners look for public opinion leaders to politicians. But the influence of preachers in Iraq is significant. They are clearly very interested in the provincial elections, and hoping to position the parties to which they are affiliated to do well in them. The disposition of the northern oil city of Kirkuk is emerging as a key nationalist issue for Iraqi Arabs, putting the Shiite fundamentalist Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which is allied with the Kurds, in a difficult position (see Saghir's remarks below). This is an issue on which the Sadrists could do well if there were elections.

The USG Open Source Center translates Friday prayers sermons from Iraq last Friday, which often refer to the contentious upcoming provincial elections and the dispute over Kirkuk. It seems clear that the Sunnis and the Sadrists are urging their adherents to register to vote in hopes of changing the government through the polls.:

Roundup of Iraqi Friday Sermons 1 Aug
Iraq -- OSC Summary
Saturday, August 2, 2008 . . .

Baghdad Al-Iraqiyah Television in Arabic - government-sponsored television station, run by the Iraqi Media Network ... within its 1500 GMTnewscast, Al-Iraqiyah carries the following report on today's Friday sermons:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Controversy Swirls Around Baghdad as Member of Parliament Calls for President's Ouster
Posted by Juan Cole, Informed Comment on July 28, 2008 at 8:45 AM.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that a controversy is raging in the Iraqi parliament about the veto exercised by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani against a bill passed last week enabling elections in the fall. MP and former court judge Wael Abd al-Latif of the State Party charged that the veto was "unconstitutional." He said that when a bill is vetoed, it has to go back to parliament for another vote, and needs a 3/5s majority to overturn the veto. Abd al-Latif also pointed to the constitution's requirement that the presidential council act through consensus. In this case, Talabani and Adel Abdul Mahdi vetoed the bill while their colleague, the other vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi, was out of town! He should have been consulted about appointing a proxy to vote for him but was not.

A member of the Sunni fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front, Khalaf al-Ulyan, called for Talabani to be removed from the presidency, on the grounds that his veto derived from ethnic solidarity rather than from a concern to act on behalf of the entire Iraqi nation. On Saturday, Talabani consulted with Massoud Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Regional Government, on the crisis. The bill had contained a provision apportioning power in Kirkuk province equally among Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds, while Kurds claim to be the majority there.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Iraq Update: Missed Deadlines; Sadrists in the Streets; "Security Agreement" Watered Down
Posted by Juan Cole, Informed Comment on July 24, 2008 at 4:48 AM.

First there was going to be a status of forces agreement between the US and Iraq, which would be ratified by the Iraqi parliament and would grant the US long-term bases. Private security guards and US troops would be immune from Iraqi law. US commanders would launch operations at will, would decide who a terrorist was, and would arrest and imprison Iraqis at will.

Then al-Maliki went to Iran for consultations. And Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani forbade a giveaway of Iraqi sovereignty. And the Sadrists began demonstrating every Friday. Then the US launched a unilateral operation in al-Maliki's home town and killed his cousin.

So the private contractors won't have legal immunity. And the agreement will be just for a year, not long-term. And it won't be ratified by the Iraqi parliament, so it is just a vague agreement between two executives. It won't stipulate long-term arrangements, but its interpretive context will be one in which the Iraqi leadership has expressed a desire for US troops to leave in 2010. It isn't clear if US troops will have legal immunity or whether they will have full freedom of action or whether they will be able to arrest and incarcerate Iraqis at will.

And now, it won't be signed by the deadline of July 31.

You have to wonder whether the Iraqis and the Americans in the end won't have to go back to the UN for a troop mandate again. The Iraqis want out from under the UN but don't want to recognize that the American presence detracts from their sovereignty. D'oh.

No provincial election law again on Monday. Maybe Tuesday. Maybe not.

The Iraqi legislative calendar is more like "Waiting for Godot" than it is like ... a legislative calendar.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Will Petraeus' Imperial Delusions Prolong Iraq's Civil War?
Posted by Juan Cole, Informed Comment on April 9, 2008 at 7:35 AM.

Gen. Petraeus is clearly convinced that Iraq needs US troops to shore up the government and security. He has done the most responsible job yet seen by an American official in Iraq in trying to end the carnage. He has made bazaars no drive zones to stop the car bombings. He has surrounded city districts with blast walls to keep out insurgents. He has reached out to the Sunnis (though alas the Shiite government has not). He has done what he could, but it hasn't been enough. There really is little sign of political reconciliation.

Al-Maliki started out with a national unity government. He had Sunnis in his cabinet. He had Sadrists in his cabinet. Islamic Virtue Party. Iraqi National List. All gone. His government is more fractured and less representative than before the surge began!

What if the US military presence is juvenilizing the Iraqis and prolonging the civil war? Over 900 Iraqis were killed in political violence in March, the highest number since September.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

US Iraq War Death Toll Reaches 4,000
Posted by Juan Cole, Informed Comment on March 24, 2008 at 9:49 AM.

All hell broke loose again in Iraq on Sunday, with political violence killing nearly 60 persons according to official statistics.

A roadside bomb killed 4 US troops, bringing the total dead in Iraq on the American side to 4,000. The think I most mind about the deaths of those brave warriors is that our government has not been honest about why they died. We don't know the answer to that question. We've been lied to.

The Bush administration still has not told us why they died. It was not to protect the US from "weapons of mass destruction" (see below; that was a fabricated cover story). It was not to spread democracy. It may have been to nail down a major petroleum-producing country for US geostrategic goals (ensuring its resources were available to the US and could be denied if necessary to growing rivals such as China). If so, one has to ask whether the objectives (which were hidden from the American people) were the top priority for the US, or only for the petroleum industry; whether those objectives have been achieved; and whether there was another way to attain them. No such debate has ever been held. Was it in part to ensure Israeli security, as Mearsheimer and Walt argue (and Craig Unger implicitly argues, below)? If so, that should be stated, it should be debated. Even the former head of Shin Bet did not agree that it increased Israel's security. It is not right to ask men and women under arms to die for their country without telling them exactly how they are benefiting their country. For all we know, they have died so that Bush and Cheney could throw goodies to their "base," so that Halliburton could escape bankruptcy and Hunt Oil could get new development contracts.

The Green Zone was subjected to repeated mortar and rocket attacks on Sunday, which killed 1 American and 4 others inside, and at least a dozen on its edges (because those firing them were bad shots). The Green Zone is where the US Embassy and major Iraqi government buildings are. It had been a little safer recently, or at least the Pentagon was peddling that line to CNN during last week's commemoration of the 5th anniversary of the war (see the CNN piece below). It is a measure of how the war objectives keep being defined down, that for the Green Zone to be relatively safe was trumpeted as an accomplishment. The "green zone" was always supposed to be safe, since it was heavily guarded and surrounded by blast walls. I take it that the US ceasefire with the Mahdi Army has actually broken down, in part because the US army and its Iraqi allies keep arresting commanders of the Mahdi Army. The Bush administration attitude has been, that's not a truce, that's an opportunity to make a bust.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that the Sadr Movement is demanding that recently arrested members of the Mahdi Army be released by the al-Maliki government. If their demands are not met, they say, they will launch a general strike. I suspect that the shelling of the Green Zone on Sunday was proffered as evidence that they really would be willing to take extreme actions if that would free the arrested Sadrists.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Top Ten Middle East Policy Challenges for the US in 2008
Posted by Juan Cole, Informed Comment on December 31, 2007 at 6:08 AM.

10. Helping broker a deal in Lebanon between the March 14 Movement and the Shiites so that a new president can be elected and a national unity government can be formed.

Lebanon's economy was badly damaged by the Israeli war on the poor little country in summer of 2006. Tourism is a big part of that economy, and is being hurt by the continued political instability. Given historically high oil prices, Iran will probably make $56 billion from petroleum sales this year. That gives it lots of carrots to hand out in Lebanon. If the Lebanese were better off, foreign oil money would not be as important to them. Likewise, the country's poverty breeds social ills. Hizbullah militiamen might be harder to find if there was well-paying work for young men in the south. The dire poverty of Palestinians in camps such as Nahr al-Bared near Tripoli has made them open to predations by Mafia-like groups linked to al-Qaeda. Just a couple of weeks ago, Lebanese security broke up a plot to blow up churches in Zahle on the part of a small group of jihadis. An economically flourishing Lebanon would be less likely to be beset by these ills. The Levant is not that far away from the US or its major interests, and it is very unwise to allow the pathological situation in Lebanon to fester. A prosperous, healthy Lebanon is good for US security and is less likely to become the cat's paw of regional powers hostile to US interests.

9. The US should exercise its good offices to encourage continued dialogue between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The capture of Baghdad by the Shiites and the ethnic cleansing of most Sunnis from it have set the stage for a big Sunni- Shiite battle for the capital as soon as the US troops get out of the way. It is absolutely essential to Gulf security, and to American energy security, that Saudi Arabia and Iran not be drawn into a proxy Sunni-Shiite war in Iraq. Keeping in close contact with each other and with Iraqis of the other sect is the best way for them to avoid a replay of the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. Those in the Bush administration who dream of an Israeli-Saudi alliance against Iran are playing with fire, a fire that is likely to boomerang on the US. If the Persian Gulf goes up any further in flames, the resulting unprecedentedly high petroleum prices will likely finally produce a bad impact on the US economy. Instead, the US should be attempting to bring Iran in from the cold, now that the NIE has absolved it of nuclear-weapons ambitions.

8. Congress should expand funding for, and guarantee the future of, the Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point. Its researchers do among the very best jobs of analyzing the writings and activities of the Salafi Jihadis, and so of combatting them. Few government institutions are as effective. If the US government were serious about the threat of terrorism, I would not even have to make this plea. Of course, if Bush and Cheney had really cared about the threat of al-Qaeda, they would have gone after it and gotten Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri rather than rushing off on a fool's errand in Iraq.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

The Top Ten Myths About Iraq in 2007
Posted by Juan Cole, Informed Comment on December 27, 2007 at 5:48 AM.

10. Myth: The US public no longer sees Iraq as a central issue in the 2008 presidential campaign.

In a recent ABC News/ Washington Post poll, Iraq and the economy were virtually tied among voters nationally, with nearly a quarter of voters in each case saying it was their number one issue. The economy had become more important to them than in previous months (in November only 14% said it was their most pressing concern), but Iraq still rivals it as an issue!

9. Myth: There have been steps toward religious and political reconciliation in Iraq in 2007. Fact: The government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has for the moment lost the support of the Sunni Arabs in parliament. The Sunnis in his cabinet have resigned. Even some Shiite parties have abandoned the government. Sunni Arabs, who are aware that under his government Sunnis have largely been ethnically cleansed from Baghdad, see al-Maliki as a sectarian politician uninterested in the welfare of Sunnis.

8. Myth: The US troop surge stopped the civil war that had been raging between Sunni Arabs and Shiites in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

Fact: The civil war in Baghdad escalated during the US troop escalation. Between January, 2007, and July, 2007, Baghdad went from 65% Shiite to 75% Shiite. UN polling among Iraqi refugees in Syria suggests that 78% are from Baghdad and that nearly a million refugees relocated to Syria from Iraq in 2007 alone. This data suggests that over 700,000 residents of Baghdad have fled this city of 6 million during the US 'surge,' or more than 10 percent of the capital's population. Among the primary effects of the 'surge' has been to turn Baghdad into an overwhelmingly Shiite city and to displace hundreds of thousands of Iraqis from the capital.

7. Myth: Iran was supplying explosively formed projectiles (a deadly form of roadside bomb) to Salafi Jihadi (radical Sunni) guerrilla groups in Iraq. Fact: Iran has not been proved to have sent weapons to any Iraqi guerrillas at all. It certainly would not send weapons to those who have a raging hostility toward Shiites. (Iran may have supplied war materiel to its client, the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq (ISCI), which was then sold off from warehouses because of graft, going on the arms market and being bought by guerrillas and militiamen.

6. Myth: The US overthrow of the Baath regime and military occupation of Iraq has helped liberate Iraqi women. Fact: Iraqi women have suffered significant reversals of status, ability to circulate freely, and economic situation under the Bush administration.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

190,000 Guns Go Missing in Iraq
Posted by Juan Cole on August 6, 2007 at 11:00 AM.

This post, written by Juan Cole, originally appeared on Informed Comment

Republican candidates on Iraq Sunday:

"They are making progress, and we are winning on the ground," said Senator John McCain of Arizona. "We must win. And we will not set a date for surrender, as the Democrats want us to do." . .

"The reality is that you do not achieve peace through weakness and appeasement," said Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York. . .

Mr. Romney said: "I think we're pretty much in the same place. It is critical for us to win this conflict. It is essential, and that's why we're going to continue to pursue this effort."

Could they please define "win this conflict"? What would that look like? Whose ox would they gore to achieve it? How exactly would they pull it off?

A suicide bomber hit a Shiite neighborhood in the northern Turkmen city of Tal Afar Monday morning. Initial reports gave the death toll as 25 and the wounded as 22, but the tolls are expected to rise.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani denied that Iran is supporting Shiite militias in Iraq, saying that the idea was probably based on old intelligence.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that Talabani met with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, along with Shiite vice president Adil Abdul Mahdi. Talabani says he had had a conversation with George W. Bush and was instructed to impress on al-Maliki that Bush's support is for the general political process in Iraq, not for any one individual. Talabani said that the implication is that al-Maliki is to blame for the current political crisis in which over a dozen ministers and the parties they represent have withdrawn from his government. Sunni VP Tariq al-Hashimi did not attend the meeting, since his party is among those who withdrew from the government. Al-Maliki declined to accept the Sunnis' resignations, leaving the door open to reconciliation. Talabani is pursuing talks with the Sunni Arabs.

Al-Maliki's government is clearly teetering and may fall.

[At the group blog, A. Richard Norton comments on Sunday's outcome in the Lebanese by-election. Also some info on the situation in Afghanistan.]

The Bush administration cannot account for 190,000 AK 47 machine guns and pistols it gave Iraqi security forces in 04 and 05. Actually, I think it is pretty obvious where some of them went.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »