Failed abstersion?

Iraq’s interior minister said all 24 of his officers who had been arrested in a security crackdown this week would be released. And in a bold gesture of defiance, he publicly condemned his own government’s investigation, calling the accusations false and motivated purely by politics. -NY Times

As Robert Farley said, the purge did not seem to work out exactly how Maliki seemed to have intended. Joe Klein says there are two ways to look at the situation:

Glass half full: The nascent Iraqi democracy is apparently supple enough to derail this attempt at anti-democratic mayhem.

Glass half empty: We are witnessing the return to Iraqi politics as usual--a constant succession of coups and attempted coups that will produce something less than a democracy in the not-too-distant future.

I'll go with the glass half empty. I think Maliki thought he could get away with the firing but his support was not strong enough at the present time. I do not think they were released out of respect for abstract democratic ideals; the reasons were doubtless much more pragmatic. In any case, the situation does not bode well for Maliki.

Attempted coup on Maliki?

It's being spun as a thwarted coup on Maliki but I don't buy it. It looks more like Maliki is trying to strengthen his control of the government by slowly removing opponents so that he can become the next Iraqi strongman. As I said after SOFA passed, now that the endgame is in sight we will see a power struggle for control of the country in the post American era. Maliki looks like he is doing pretty well for himself for now.

BAGHDAD — A senior spokesman at the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior confirmed publicly on Thursday that 23 of its officials had been arrested in recent days under suspicion of being affiliated with a banned political party related to Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. The ministry, in a statement, also said the scope of the investigation was wider than originally reported, with officials in other security ministries also arrested.

(...)

According to senior security officials in Baghdad who revealed the arrests earlier this week, up to 35 officials in the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior ranking as high as general have been detained this week.

The arrests, according to those officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, included at least three generals. The officials also said that the arrests had come at the hand of an elite counterterrorism force that reports directly to the office of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. -NYTimes

Israeli pogrom

An innocent Palestinian family, numbering close to 20 people. All of
them women and children, save for three men. Surrounding them are a few dozen masked Jews seeking to lynch them. A pogrom. This isn't a play on words or a double meaning. It is a pogrom in the worst sense of the word. First the masked men set fire to their laundry in the front yard and then they tried to set fire to one of the rooms in the house. The women cry for help, "Allahu Akhbar." Yet the neighbors are too scared to approach the house, frightened of the security guards from Kiryat Arba who have sealed off the home and who are cursing the journalists who wish to document the events unfolding there. -Avi Issacharoff

I am generally more sympathetic to the Israeli point of view than the average western liberal, but there is simply no way to defend such behavior. Webster dictionary defines terrorism as "the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion" and that is exactly what those settlers are doing.

Quote of the Day: Lessons of Iraq

My own (provisional) view is that the Iraq War tells us a great deal about the limits/costs of using large-scale military force in situations where the stakes are vastly higher for our opponents than for ourselves, a great deal about America's ability, or lack thereof, to transform dysfunctional societies through occupation, a fair amount about the limits of pro-democracy sentiment as a north star for policymaking, and a fair amount about the limits of American power, period. I think it tells us less than many liberals and conservatives think about the particular incompetence of Bush's war cabinet (though clearly it tells us something on that score!), less than many liberals (and some realists) think about the importance of international organizations and their utility for crisis management in high-stakes situations, and less than many progressives and paleoconservatives think about whether the U.S. should radically scale down its involvement in Middle Eastern politics, and more broadly abandon its informal-empire commitments around the world. -Ross Douthat

Iraq post American occupation

From Michael Totten in Commentary:

Many American soldiers agree. “Everyone says things will implode after we leave,” Lieutenant Eric Kuylman told me. “They’ll blame it on politics and religion, but it’s not going to be any of that. It’s going to be about straight power. It’s going to be guys trying to one-up each other. It’s going to be key people in cities just like this who will want to seize the power gaps. It’s going to break down along tribal lines and these militias that we’ve put in place. When we pull out, there will be power vacuums. There will be pockets of people that we’ve put in power. I mean, everybody already has shaky alliances as it is. So what you’re going to see is the straight seizing of power. People are going to try to put their own tags on it, but it’s just about the seizure of power. It’s not going to be Sunni or Shia, nothing like it. It’s just going to be men who want control.”

I mostly agree with this. There will be more violence following USA withdrawal from Iraq because there will be power vacuums in a country overflowing with armed men used to settle conflicts with violence (because of their experiences of the last 5 years of course, not because they are inherently violent). But this does not mean that long term instability will follow; in my opinion, the odds that it goes the Somalia route are low, the internal stability in Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon (if you discount war against external enemies) is a more likely route. Why? Because unlike the Southern Vietnamese government, Maliki wants the US gone. It means he is fairly confident he can retain power even if they leave within a few years. It was Sadr and the Sunnis who were more uneasy about withdrawal; they are probably less confident in their abilities. As Totten writes at the end of the article:

He thinks Iraq will be okay, even so. The Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police are still shaky institutions at best, but they are much more competent than they were a few years ago. The Iraqi Army proved itself earlier this year, against nearly all expectations, when it took back areas under the control of Moqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia in Basra and Sadr City with only a limited amount of help from Americans.

Things might go as planned, but if Maliki plays his cards right he will probably be able to fill the power vacuum.

Via Andrew Sullivan

SOFA conditionally approved

The Iraqi Parliament has approved the Status of Force Agreement, which sets the timetable for withdrawal of American troops, who are to stay in Iraq through 2011. It seems the concessions that Sunnis demanded yesterday, such as amnesty for Baath related crimes and the release of 16 000 Sunni prisoners was not mentioned today. Maybe they have been dropped or maybe there were some back-door deals that were done to ensure Sunni's support.

But there will be a referendum on SOFA in July 2009. If the Iraqis vote no, then the Americans will have one year to get out of the country under the terms of the deal, which incidentally would fit almost exactly with Barack Obama's proposed timetable. So we might not have a definitive timetable for withdrawal, but it will be either a year and a half from now or a bit more.

Sadr is opposing the deal, but he was not strong enough to torpedo it. We will see if his faction can convince the population in a few months.

Syria first

Someone in the mainstream media agrees with me on the Middle East Here is Aaron David Miller in the Washington Post arguing for a Syria first approach to the Middle East:

The more compelling argument is for a major push on another negotiation: between Israel and Syria. Here, there are two states at the table, rather than one state and a dysfunctional national movement. A quiet border, courtesy of Henry Kissinger's 1974 disengagement diplomacy, prevails. And there are fewer settlers on the Golan Heights and no megaton issues such as the status of Jerusalem to blow up the talks. Indeed, the issues are straightforward -- withdrawal, peace, security and water -- and the gaps are clear and ready to be bridged.

For a president looking for a way to buck up America's credibility, an Israeli-Syrian agreement offers a potential bonus. Such a deal would begin to realign the region's architecture in a way that serves broader U.S. interests. The White House would have to be patient. Syria won't walk away from a 30-year relationship with Iran; weaning the Syrians from Iran would have to occur gradually, requiring a major international effort to marshal economic and political support for Damascus. Still, an Israeli-Syrian peace treaty would confront Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran with tough choices and reduced options.

I've made a similar argument before. Also here.

Via Matthew Yglesias

Update: Itamar Rabinovich over at Jerusalem Post makes essentially the same arguments (hat tip FP Passport)

Interesting parallel between ancient frankincense and modern drug trade

I am currently reading William Bernstein's new book called A Splendid Exchange, which is about the history of trade from the prehistoric man and Sumer all the way to the present. It is quite fascinating, although the topic is extremely broad and at 400 pages, it moves a bit too fast for my taste.

In the book, Bernstein makes an interesting parallel between the antique frankincense trade and the modern drug trade. Quoting Pliny, he shows that the growers of southwest Arabia (modern Yemen) did not steal from each other even if there were no guards or fences to protect the valuable trees; they instead relied on a system of honor and integrity which seemed to work. But the wonderful integrity stopped there. City states in Yemen and along the Red Sea coast, Shabwah, Thomna and Marib among others, attempted to monopolize the trade by threatening with the death penalty those who dared try to bypass the official route (and, of course, the official levy).

But even more interesting is Pliny's description of the warehouse at Alexandria, where workers had to undergo strict security checks at the beginning and end of every work day--including taking all their clothes off at the end of the day for inspection--to ensure that they had not stolen any of the precious aromatic. As Bernstein says:

The ancient incense trade was thus no different from modern cocaine and heroine trades: relatively safe around the raw agricultural source, but highly risky around the finished product and its ultimate consumers. -William Bernstein

I guess it is not too surprising when you think about it. The growers' wealth depend on the land and is thus fixed, the incentives to steal are lower because it would invariably lead to reciprocal thefts on their own land as well as fights; all of which would lower productivity. The most efficient system is one that recognizes property rights, secured by traditions and more than likely a small justice system established by the local ruler. At the other hand, in cosmopolitan Alexandria, the warehouse workers have no such incentives against stealing and the finished product is much more valuable given its proximity to the buyers; forcing the merchants to invest in security to protect its investment against workers (and, we assume, competitors).

Syria or Iran first?

Indeed, the Syrian elite itself may be split over Western overtures and their Iranian relationship. Whether or not it is as quixotic a dalliance as the Times suggests, it is correct that Iran is the key, and a resolution of that standoff will force Syria to move so as not to risk further isolation. -Boz

I think the logic is backward here. After eight years of a Bush administration which strengthened Iran's standing in the region through a succession of blunders, Iran's position is strong enough to be able to extract significant concessions on any sort of deal it would agree to sign with western powers. I do not think that a new President in the White House will magically shift the balance of power in the Middle East; we saw how that worked at Vienna in 1961 in regard to Russia. Iran has few incentives to give up on its nuclear program now; it knows that if it manages to build nuclear bombs, the balance of power will be further shifted toward them. I think the smart thing to do is weaken Iran's position through diplomacy and then reach a deal, rather than attempt to do so when Iran's position is strong.

Syria has shown its willingness to negotiate with Israel and to work with the west even during the Bush years. The leaders of the country are largely secular and come from a small religious minority of the population (Alawite) who have had problems of their own with fundamentalists. Therefore, they do not have any ideological objections to cooperation against terrorism. While allegedly "allied" with Iran, Syria is definitely the minor partner in the operation. The odds are that they dislike Iran's new influence in Lebanon through Hezbollah, since Syria considers Lebanon its own backyard. Again, Syria has no ideological commitment to its alliance with Iran, it is simply a marriage of convenience by two countries hated by the west. I think Syria would be much easier to bring into a peace deal with the west and Israel, by giving them back Golan Heights, normalizing relations and maybe recognizing its "special relation" with Lebanon*.

Making a deal with Syria would improve chances of reaching a satisfying peace deal with Iran, especially if other policies intended to isolate Iran diplomatically such as improved relations with Russia are pursued.

*The caveat is that this strategy depends on a Livni win in February.

Via: Arthur Goldhammer

Iran calls Iraq to resist the Security deal

The Iranian parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, has called the Iraqis to reject the US security pact.
He said Washington's goal was to "strengthening comprehensive U.S. hegemony in Iraq." and he called for continued resistance: "The Iraqi nation and parliament should realize that the time for resistance is not over yet,".

That should give pause to those who bemoan the massive influence of Iran in Iraq. But why would Iran be opposed to a deal that effectively makes Iraq a nation independent from "US meddling" in about 2-3 years if they thought they could control it? The logical conclusion is that their influence is not that deep inside Iraq despite religious similitude with the new rulers of the country; else they should welcome the withdrawal of the US.

The reality is that Arab Iraqis, even Shiites, see Iranians as Farsi foreigners. During the Iran-Iraq war, Shiites and Sunnis fought Iranians side by side and there are no history of widespread Shiites opposition to the war based on sectarian arguments. Iraqis and Persians might share a religion but there does not appear to be any sign that the former will be submissive to Iran. We saw the relevance of Iran's opposition in the cabinet vote which went 27-1. The lone dissenter was Sunni, so the odds that he voted no because of Iran pressure are, let's say, fairly low. We will see what kind of influence Iran has in the parliament vote, but I doubt it will be impressive.

Now that is not to say that Iran will not have an influence in Iraq. It is one of the major power in the region, along with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and it will have more power than during the Ba'ath years. But those hyperventilating about how the US gave Iraq to Iran can calm down; Iraqis are proud enough not to let foreigners run the show.

There are a few caveats to my argument. Ali Larijani is not Ali Khamenei or Ahmadinejad, what he said should be taken with a grain of salt before we assume that it is the position of the Iranian government. Also, it is possible that Iran oppose the deals because they believe if Iraq waits until BO takes over, it will get a better deal and a faster withdrawal. But it is hard to see why they would get worked up on a 6-12 months earlier withdrawal; the end result would be the same.

Obama to try to solve Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Kashmir is not enough, it looks like Obama also wants to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Furthermore, I've heard through the cracks that he intends to transform Darfur into a Japan clone during his second term. This is coming from very well placed sources.

Alright, back to the Middle East. An article published today in the Sunday Times hints that Obama is thinking about solving the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Apparently, Barrack Obama intends to pursue the Arab Peace Initiative, originally proposed by Saudi Arabia in 2002. To say that the plan is ambitious is an understatement. If implemented by all parties, Israel would retire to its pre 1967 borders (including Golan Heights), recognize a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and in return they would get full recognition from Arab states. According to the Times, the Right of Return would be subject to Israeli veto; it is only cited in the plan. So the plan is basically a full normalization of the state of Israel and the creation of a Palestinian State.

The Peace Deal is definitely interesting, if only because it came from the Arab states and show that they are finally committed to solve the problem. One of the reason why they want to solve it is that they almost all have internal problems with fundamentalists; and they would all sleep better at night if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was solved, in the belief that it would slow down fundamentalist recruitment. But before we start being optimist, there are a lot of questions left unanswered:

1. Who will win the Israeli elections of February 10th 2009? Livni, the leader of the ruling Kadima Party, has supported the plan. But on the other hand, Netanyahu of the Likud Party is totally opposed to the plan. Several polls show Likud with a small lead, but it is very close. If Likud wins, forget about the plan.
   
2. Will the plan still be acceptable to Arab states and all leading Palestinian factions once it is clear that the Right of Return will be "vetoed" by Israel? This is a huge sticking point.
   
3. Is the plan acceptable to both Fatah and Hamas? The article does not mention Hamas at all, but they must be aware that they are in charge of Gaza and no comprehensive peace deal will lead to anything if Hamas is not on board. According to wikipedia, Hamas has supported the plan after it was released; but that was a long time ago when the intra-Palestinian situation was different. What about now? Also, Fatah might not want to sign a Peace Deal which would leave them a country that they think would vote them out for Hamas. It seems Fatah has become almost parasitically dependent on Western propping
   
4. Is Barrack Obama experienced enough to pass it? I can't say I'm impressed by what he said according to the Times; that Israel would be "crazy" if they refused such a plan which "give them peace with the Muslim world". Telling choice of words but not very diplomatic; and if he wants to do this thing he will need all the diplomacy he can get. I tend to agree that this is as good as a deal that Israel will get, but I could see plenty of scenarios where I would not regard it in Israel's self-interest to sign (for example if some Arab countries backed off or if Fatah or Hamas disengage from the negotiations).
5. Will there be fundamentalists on either sides that will do whatever it takes to make it fail? If so will they succeed?

Anyway, it will be another subject I'll follow closely.

But I think we can see a pattern emerging from Obama; from Kashmir to health care to the Middle East, it can be summed up in 2 words: THINK BIG.

The UN, always there when you need your daily dose of irony

Saudi Arabia, the oil-rich Islamic kingdom that forbids the public practice of other religious faiths, will preside Wednesday over a two-day U.N. conference on religious tolerance -Washington Post

Maybe next week Russia could preside a conference on how to lead the world to a post-nationalism stage.

Via FP Passport.

Sadr crumbling?

From the LATimes:

Sadr's troubles are rooted in the fighting between his militia and Iraqi security forces that erupted in March after Prime Minister Nouri Maliki ordered the army to clear the militia's strongholds in the southern city of Basra. The clashes there ended only when Sadr commanded his militia to stand down, and then did the same in Sadr City six weeks later.

The cleric's retreat was hailed as a victory for Maliki. Former Sadr supporters expressed relief at the end of the fighting and resentment toward the Mahdi Army for endangering them.

With his armed wing formally frozen, Sadr looked to repair his movement's image. He announced in June that his fighters should form a new social and religious education organization, named Mumahidoon, which aims to teach Iraqis about Islam.

(...)

"To avoid having his organization continually targeted, he had to do something with them, so he followed the Islamic Brotherhood and Hezbollah model," a U.S. military intelligence officer said, referring to other Islamist movements that provide charitable services and enjoy popularity in the Arab world.

As Kevin Drum wrote, we do not have enough information on what exactly happened in Basra in March and how strong Sadr really is before we start making judgments on his long term strength. But there is one thing for sure; it is much harder to build a Hezbollah-like organization in a country that is ruled by fellow Shiites than a country like Lebanon that has been ruled by Christians, Sunni Muslims (who despise Shiites as poor and uneducated in Lebanon) and from time to time Israeli invaders. Hezbollah succeeded by being the only organization that defended Lebanese Shiites, in an environment where they had almost no access to "legitimate" power. Iraq would appears to be different; I have no doubt that Maliki is trying hard to integrate Shiite from Sadr's area into the government's patronage system, undercutting Sadr's influence. I do not believe that the Hezbollah strategy will be any effective in such an environment; although it might become powerful if Sunni were to take over the government again.

But Muqtada Sadr has surprised observers of the region before, so I wouldn't count him out just yet.