Just Foreign Policy News November 28, 2006 Oppose the "Supplemental Appropriation" for Continued U.S. Occupation of Iraq: Write your Member of Congress: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/iraq.html
No War with Iran: Petition More than 25,600 people have signed the Peace Action/Just Foreign Policy petition. Please sign/circulate if you have yet to do so: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/iranpetition.html Write a Letter to the Editor: In today's Washington Times, Frank Gaffney suggests that talking to "one…of our foes -Iran, Syria or Saudi Arabia[!]" about Iraq is a "strategy of appeasement" that must be rejected. Do you agree? http://www.washtimes.com/contact-us/index.php?Department=LetterToTheEditor Just Foreign Policy News daily podcast: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/podcasts/podcast_howto.html Summary: U.S./Top News Iran's president pledged Monday that Iran would do all it could to stop the growing violence in Iraq, the New York Times reports. Analysts say the Iraqi president is urging Iran to hold direct talks with the US to help stop the bloodshed in Iraq. Iran has close ties with Shiite leaders in Iraq, and it might be able to call on them to exert restraint. Iraq's president said Iraq needed Iran's help to bring peace. An Iranian News Agency account of the Iranian president's remarks suggests that Iran's help might be contingent on the US setting a timetable for the withdrawal of its forces from Iraq - a demand supported by a majority of Americans and Iraqis. Writing on Common Dreams, Jeff Cohen calls for holding CNN to account for providing a platform for Iran-bashing warmonger Glenn Beck. A growing number of Middle East analysts say Iraq's conflict has spun out of Washington's control, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports, suggesting it doesn't matter if the Baker commission recommends talking with Iran and Syria, because it won't do any good. [Those who oppose talking to Iran and Syria on the grounds that they are responsible for all the violence in Iraq should get together with those who oppose talking with Iran and Syria on the grounds that they don't have any influence in Iraq to try to hammer out a consistent message.] The Iraq Study Group met yesterday at an undisclosed location to discuss its first draft report that calls for increased diplomatic engagement in the region, the Washington Times reports. Baker is said to be pushing a recommendation for the Bush administration to engage in direct talks with Syria and Iran. Defense sources said it will be difficult for the group to reach a unanimous report if it recommends a significant shift away from Bush's policy of no specific timetable for removing U.S. troops. NBC's "Today Show" host Matt Lauer yesterday told millions of American television viewers the network would buck the White House and from now on describe the Iraq war as a "civil war." Some media analysts compared the shift to Walter Cronkite's declaration in 1968 that the US was losing the Vietnam War, the Boston Globe reports, noting that the Los Angeles Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and McClatchy Newspapers have made the same shift, while CBS and the New York Times will permit "where appropriate" the use of the term "civil war." Robert Gates is likely to assume the post of defense secretary before year's end if he is confirmed by the Senate as expected, AP reports. The Pentagon press secretary said Gates will have his confirmation hearing early next week, with a vote expected by the Senate by Dec. 13. Iran Iran said Tuesday it would let the IAEA take further environmental samples of materials related to an academic center, Reuters reports. Iran is not required to allow the IAEA into sites where there is no clear sign of nuclear activities. But it says that by permitting such inspections, it wants to show its nuclear plans are peaceful. Iraq A senior American intelligence official says Hezbollah has trained members of the Mahdi Army, Michael Gordon & Dexter Filkins write in the New York Times. Iran has facilitated the link between Hezbollah and the Shiite militias in Iraq, the official said, although no evidence is presented for this claim. In his piece on Common Dreams, Jeff Cohen cited Michael Gordon as a reporter who cannot hold officials to account for their claims about Iran because of his role in hyping claims about Iraq in the run-up to the US invasion. The U.S. military cannot defeat the insurgency in western Iraq or counter al-Qaeda's rising popularity there, according to a classified Marine Corps intelligence report, writes the Washington Post, which obtained a copy of the report. A debate over whether to set a timetable for a phased withdrawal of US forces from Iraq is being preempted by key US allies who have announced plans to scale back their own forces over the next year, AFP reports. Lebanon A satricial ad campaign in Lebanon mocks the country's sectarian social and political structure, the Washington Post reports. Afghanistan U.S. and European efforts to end heroin production in Afghanistan have done little to hamper the drug industry and have hurt the country's poorest people, according to a new report by the UN and the World Bank. NATO's fragile unity over Afghanistan has begun to crack with a public call to discuss an exit strategy, the Independent reports. André Flahaut, the Belgian Defense Minister, brought anxieties about the Afghan mission into the open when he suggested that, at the Riga summit, "we finally reflect on an exit strategy". In an interview, Flahaut argued: "The situation is deteriorating and, over time, NATO forces risk appearing like an army of occupation." NATO forces should be able to hand over responsibility to Afghanistan's security forces gradually in 2008, the alliance's secretary-general said on Tuesday. But Jaap De Hoop Scheffer said that at present any talk of withdrawals in Afghanistan was premature, Reuters reports. Ecuador In a confused New York Times article about Ecuador's new president, Simon Romero tries to contrast Rafael Correa with other leftist Latin American presidents, noting Correa's statement that "Foreign investment that generates wealth and jobs and pays taxes will always be welcome." Similar statements have been made by the presidents of Bolivia and Venezuela, where foreign corporations continue to make handsome profits. Romero says it would be premature to make a judgment on Correa, but apparently the headline writer didn't get the memo. Ironically, Romero makes much of Correa's admiration of the late American economist John Kenneth Galbraith, which he contrasts to Correa's Bush and IMF-bashing (it's not clear why Romero sees this as contradictory.) It was President Chavez' statement that he regretted not having met Galbraith before his death that the New York Times mistranslated as a statement that he regretted not having met Noam Chomsky. Contents: U.S./Top News 1) Iran Promises To Help Iraq In Ending Violence There Nazila Fathi & Kirk Semple, New York Times, November 28, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, pledged Monday in a meeting with the Iraqi president that Iran would do all it could to stop the growing violence in Iraq. "The Iranian government and people will stand by their brothers in Iraq and will do anything to help bring peace into Iraq," Ahmadinejad said in a news conference with the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, state-run television reported. "A safe, developed and strong Iraq is better for Iran and also for the region," he said. In an effort to increase its role as an influential power in the region, Iran also invited the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to join the talks. But Assad did not respond to the invitation, according to an official at Ahmadinejad's office. Analysts believe that Talabani is here to urge Iranian officials to hold direct talks with the US to help stop the bloodshed in Iraq. Iran has close ties with Shiite leaders in Iraq, and it might be able to call on them to exert restraint. Many of them lived in Iran in exile when Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq. A draft report by an American bipartisan commission studying new strategies for Iraq urges that the US conduct direct talks with Iran and Syria, according to American officials who have seen all or part of the document. In the press conference, Talabani, a Kurd who had close ties to Iran, said Iraq needed Iran's help to bring peace. "We seriously need Iran's help to restore stability and security," he was quoted as saying. Iran and Iraq fought a bloody war from 1980 to 1988. Talabani was Iraq's first president to travel to Iran when he came a year ago, and Iraq's prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, visited Iran in September. U.S. responds to Ahmadinejad latest remarks-ISNA http://www.isna.ir/main/NewsView.aspx?ID=News-832834&Lang=E Ahmadinejad had criticized the U.S. bullying policy a day before while giving a speech addressing a group of members of the Basij paramilitary group, associated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps forces. "You said you wanted to bring forth freedom but from the moment you got to Iraq, over 150 thousand people were killed and you are stuck in a quagmire... Iran is ready to help and save you on the condition that you resume behaving in a just manner and avoid bullying and invading. Return to your own country and stop the occupying, because in the persistence of such methods lies nothing but loss and misery for you," declared Ahmadinejad. 2) In Diplomatic Turn, Iraqi Reaches Out To Iran Britain Planning to Reduce Troop Levels Nancy Trejos, Washington Post, Tuesday, November 28, 2006; A15 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/27/AR2006112700181.html In the latest sign of a budding diplomatic relationship, Iraq's President Jalal Talabani arrived in Iran on Monday to seek his neighbor's help in ending his country's sectarian conflict, as Britain said it expects to withdraw thousands of troops by the end of next year. "We are in dire need of Iran's help in establishing security and stability in Iraq," state-run television quoted Talabani as saying after he met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran. Ahmadinejad pledged his support in helping Iraq stop the escalating violence. "Definitely, the Iranian government and nation will stand next to its brother Iraq," he said on state-run television. "We believe a stable, developed and powerful Iraq is in the interest of the Iraqi nation, Iran and the whole region." The US has been leery of Iran's effort to position itself as a regional power broker. Relations between Iran and the US deteriorated this year, as a defiant Ahmadinejad refused demands that he suspend his country's uranium enrichment program. The Bush administration has also accused Iran of fomenting the violence in Iraq by assisting Shiite militias, an allegation that officials in Tehran have denied. 3) TV Blowhard Barks at Iran: Let's Hold CNN Accountable Jeff Cohen, Common Dreams, Monday, November 27, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1127-22.htm Turn on CNN Headline News – a supposed "news" channel – on weekday nights and you'll be subjected to the lectures of a loudmouthed, factually-challenged, occasionally funny know-it-all whose shtick is that he's "just a regular American schmoe." His name is Glenn Beck, a smiley-toothed monologist and proselytizer who is a recovering alcoholic, talk-radio host, convert to Mormonism and self-described "rodeo clown." His crude rants would be easy to ignore except that CNN - part of the Time Warner conglomerate – has chosen to give Beck a primetime platform which he uses day after day to cheer on a confrontation with Iran. Beck's CNN guestlist is replete with often obscure, simplistic hawks. In his segment asking "How Long Until Iran Gets Nukes?," Beck's expert was novelist Joel Rosenberg, a Jewish-born born-again-Christian who describes himself as a "senior advisor" to Rush Limbaugh. Beck is obsessed with Iranian president Ahmadinejad, whom he calls "President Tom." A recent segment was titled: "Is Iran Pushing for Armageddon?" Another segment asked: "Are We Too P.C. Over Islam?" Beck certainly isn't. Beck hosted Congressman-elect Keith Ellison, a Muslim and moderate voice on the Middle East. "I have been nervous," said Beck, "about this interview with you because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.'" Are we mistaken to laugh off TV pundits and "experts" who now blow smoke at Iran? Three years ago, our country was driven to war in Iraq by a deceptive White House, abetted by blaring advocates echoing into every American household and car radio – courtesy of a half-dozen media conglomerates. In the middle of that media propaganda onslaught was Glenn Beck. From his talk show distributed by radio giant Clear Channel, Beck sparked "pro-America" rallies across the country, some organized by Clear Channel stations. He wished violent death upon Michael Moore and Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and called Cindy Sheehan a "big prostitute." All this was known to CNN when it hired Beck. Today, the war-hawks are back, as Target Iraq has become Target Iran. And none of them are held to account for having been so deadly wrong when they urged on the last war. When Beck interviewed Netanyahu, he politely didn't ask the Israeli about any of his resoundingly false pre-war claims about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and links to Al-Qaeda. Before the Iraq war, former Reagan Defense official and uberhawk Frank Gaffney pushed for an invasion on the grounds that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was not only behind the 9/11 attacks, but was behind Tim McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing. Today, he is on the warpath again in U.S. media, denouncing those who want America to "appease" Iran. Before the Iraq invasion, former CIA analyst Ken Pollack repeatedly pushed for war in appearances on CNN and elsewhere as an expert on Iraqi WMD. He warned Oprah's audience that Saddam could use WMD against the U.S. homeland. After no weapons were found, Pollack was sheepish: "That was not me making that claim; that was me parroting the claims of so-called experts." Has Pollack been held accountable for his role in egging on the war? Quite the contrary, he was just quoted in a blatantly biased frontpage New York Times article by Michael Gordon, emphasizing how bad it would be for the US to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq. Gordon was kind enough not to bring up Pollack's faulty pre-war analysis. (Gordon himself is in no position to hold others to account; he and Judith Miller co-wrote the infamous September 2002 Times piece claiming that Iraq had "stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons" by seeking aluminum tubes.) [See Gordon's piece on Iran, item 9 in this news summary.] 4) Many Now Say Iraq Is Beyond U.S. Control Warren P. Strobel & Jonathan S. Landay, McClatchy Newspapers, Posted Nov. 28, 2006 http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/nation/16111318.htm This is supposed to be a pivotal week for the U.S. venture in Iraq: President Bush is to meet Thursday in Jordan with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and the blue-ribbon Iraq Study Group has begun debating its final recommendations to the White House. But does any of it matter? Not really, according to a growing number of Middle East analysts, who say that Iraq's cascading conflict has spun out of Washington's control. If Iraq is to hold together and avoid an all-out bloodbath, they say, it will be because the country's warring factions step back from the brink and forge some sort of political compromise. That seems like a pipe dream after a weekend of the worst violence for Iraqi civilians since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion. The US has about 140,000 troops in Iraq and is spending roughly $2 billion per week on military operations, "but all of that effort doesn't really matter," said Andrew Bacevich, a Boston University professor and a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy "We're not in control any longer," Bacevich said. A retired senior military officer said: "There is a growing sense that both sides are attempting to move toward a civil war - they want to have a civil war - to bring closure to who will have power in Iraq," referring to Iraq's Shiite and Sunni Muslims. Bush is scheduled to meet Maliki in Amman, Jordan, in an effort to prod him to take concrete steps, particularly to deal with rampaging sectarian militias. But Maliki's government is seen as increasingly ineffectual, particularly by Iraqis, who are turning more and more to local militias to protect them. What's more, Maliki needs the support of the anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army is one of the powerful Shiite militias. Sadr's political party controls four ministries and the largest bloc of votes in parliament. "This is an out-and-out fight for power," said Jeffrey White, a former senior Middle East analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency who is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "There is a smoke screen of this national- unity government, but they have no general agreement on the future shape of Iraq, no general agreement on the distribution of power, no general agreement on the distribution of resources," White said. The spreading civil strife threatens to overwhelm the long-awaited recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, cochaired by former Secretary of State Baker and retired Rep. Lee Hamilton. The group's 10 commissioners began meeting yesterday to try to reach consensus on a final report, which Baker and Hamilton hope to issue in early December. The panel is expected to recommend U.S. diplomatic engagement with Iran and Syria to stabilize Iraq, which would be a major policy reversal on the part of Bush, who has shunned both governments. But even if Iran and Syria wanted to help, they would be almost certain to demand U.S. concessions and might have limited ability to assist, the analysts said. "This thing is going to be decided by Iraqis in Iraq," said Wayne White, a longtime Middle East intelligence officer at the State Department who is now retired. "Surrounding players are going to play a bit part." [Note that this argument against talking to Iran - Iran can't do anything to help in Iraq - contradicts the story that Iran is behind the violence in Iraq. See item 9 in this news summary.] Not all outside experts argue that the US is virtually powerless in Iraq. Michael O'Hanlon, of the Washington-based Brookings Institution, said the US and its partners could could still take steps, including more intensive regional diplomacy, better training of Iraqi security forces, and a one-year increase in U.S. troop levels. 5) Iraq Panel Inks Draft Report Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times, November 28, 2006 http://www.washtimes.com/national/20061127-103715-2322r.htm The Iraq Study Group met yesterday at an undisclosed location to discuss its first draft report that calls for increased diplomatic engagement in the region and new military moves to rescue Iraq from a descent into civil war. The panel's co-chairs, James Baker, secretary of state in the first Bush administration, and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, finished work on the draft during the weekend. It contains an assessment of where violence-racked Iraq stands more than three years after the U.S. ousted Saddam Hussein. It also includes a list of recommendations on diplomatic and military fronts. A final report to President Bush is expected next month. Baker is said to be pushing a recommendation for the Bush administration to engage in direct talks with Syria and Iran, two U.S.-designated state sponsors of terrorism who are supporting various insurgencies and terrorist attacks in Iraq. David Satterfield, the State Department's top adviser on Iraq, told Congress earlier this month that the administration is willing to talk with Iran but not Syria. Satterfield listed several of Syria's pro-terrorism policies, such as backing Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hamilton told The Washington Times last week that the first draft is a working document that can be changed by the 10-member panel created by Congress. Defense sources said it will be difficult for the group of five Democrats and five Republicans, all former officeholders, to reach a unanimous report if it recommends a significant shift away from Bush's policy of no specific timetable for removing U.S. troops, which now number close to 150,000. 6) Bucking White House, NBC Says Iraq in 'Civil War' Usage increasing in news media Bryan Bender, Boston Globe, Tuesday, November 28, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1128-01.htm NBC's "Today Show" host Matt Lauer yesterday told millions of American television viewers, many sitting at their breakfast tables, that the network would buck the White House and from now on describe the Iraq war as a "civil war." The new policy, which NBC News said would cover all its news shows, could become a benchmark in public opinion about the war, according to media specialists. Some media analysts compared it to CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite's declaration in 1968 that the US was losing the Vietnam War - a pronouncement now considered a turning point in public opinion - and Ted Koppel's ABC updates on the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 and 1980 that infuriated Jimmy Carter's White House. "How you frame a problem frames what the public thinks is the right thing to do," said James Steinberg , dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. "If Iraq is a democracy struggling against insurgents and you describe it that way, people might still support you. If it is a civil war, it is indisputably the case that Americans will say, 'What are we doing in the middle of a civil war?' " Steinberg, deputy national security adviser under Clinton, added: "The more they hear 'civil war,' the harder it is going to be to support a strategy that keeps a lot of American troops there in large numbers." A few other media outlets with reporters in Baghdad have slowly begun to refer to the conflict as a civil war and still more said yesterday they were debating the issue after the NBC announcement. Lauer, whose announcement was termed "a bombshell" by the industry magazine Editor & Publisher, explained that NBC did not come to the decision lightly. The Los Angeles Times, dropping the usual qualifiers, flatly referred to the conflict as a civil war yesterday. So, in published stories, have The Christian Science Monitor and McClatchy newspapers."We began using it when that was clear that was going on, which was a number of months ago," said John Walcott, Washington bureau chief for the McClatchy chain. "When the Shi'a population is at war with the Sunni population and members of the Interior Ministry kidnap people from the Education Ministry, that sounds like a civil war." Some other news organizations said that they, too, will permit the use of the term "civil war" where appropriate, though they prefer not to have a blanket policy. "We talk about it every day," said Sandy Genelius , a CBS News spokeswoman. "But there is no edict here. Each producer and correspondent tries to put on the air what seems accurate and appropriate in the context of each story." Bill Keller , executive editor of The New York Times, said in a statement yesterday that "after consulting with our reporters in the field and the editors who directly oversee this coverage," the paper has decided that the term "civil war" is now appropriate. Observers said the media's willingness to reject the White House's depiction of events was reminiscent of 1968, when Cronkite filmed a Vietnam documentary and offered his belief that the US was losing the war. "To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion," Cronkite said at the time. "The only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could." President Johnson, after hearing Cronkite's broadcast, reportedly remarked, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." "There is a clear parallel," Edward C. Pease , a journalism professor at the University of Utah, said of yesterday's NBC broadcast during a morning time-slot that is now far more popular than the evening news. "The way the media frames things helps lead the public perception." 7) Gates May Take Pentagon Job In December Associated Press, November 27, 2006, Filed at 8:26 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Gates-Rumsfeld.html Robert Gates, the former CIA director who is President Bush's choice to replace Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary, is likely to assume the Pentagon post before year's end if he is confirmed by the Senate as expected, officials said Monday. Eric Ruff, the Pentagon press secretary, said Gates will have his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee early next week, with a vote expected by the full Senate by Dec. 12 or 13. Even if Gates is confirmed as expected, it is unclear when he would be sworn in to his new duties, Ruff said. Another administration official said that if confirmation goes as expected, then Gates would be sworn in well before the end of the year. Iran 8) Tehran to let IAEA take more materials samples Reuters, Tuesday, November 28, 2006; 12:02 PM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/28/AR2006112800351.html Iran said on Tuesday it would let the U.N. nuclear watchdog take further environmental samples of materials related to an academic center and which Washington fears are part of a covert program to develop atomic weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency has said it has questions about Iran's nuclear program and wants answers before it can declare Iran's aims are peaceful. The West accuses Iran of wanting to make atomic bombs, a charge Iran denies. In a report to the U.N. Security Council in April, the IAEA said it took samples from some equipment acquired by the academic center. The IAEA believes the equipment was earlier used at the Lavizan-Shian site, which was razed in 2004 before agency inspectors could examine it. A former physics center at Lavizan-Shian acquired some dual-use machinery useable for uranium enrichment, including vacuum pumps, which had tested positive for traces of highly enriched uranium (HEU) this year. In larger quantities, HEU can be used in bombs. Iran has admitted that Lavizan-Shian, northeast of Tehran, was once a military research and development site but denied conducting any nuclear weapons research there or anywhere else in the country. Tehran is not required to allow the IAEA into sites where there is no clear sign of nuclear activities. But it says that by permitting such inspections, it wants to show Tehran's nuclear plans are peaceful. Iraq 9) Hezbollah Said To Help Shiite Army In Iraq Michael Gordon & Dexter Filkins, New York Times, November 28, 2006 (see Jeff Cohen's piece - item 3 in this summary - on Michael Gordon's role in press coverage leading up to the US invasion in Iraq.) http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/world/middleeast/28military.html A senior American intelligence official said Monday that the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah had been training members of the Mahdi Army, the Iraqi Shiite militia led by Moktada al-Sadr. The official said that 1,000 to 2,000 fighters from the Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias had been trained by Hezbollah in Lebanon. A small number of Hezbollah operatives have also visited Iraq to help with training, the official said. [This kind of unsourced and unsubstantiated "senior intelligence officials say" report played a key role in preparing public opinion for the invasion of Iraq. -JFP] Iran has facilitated the link between Hezbollah and the Shiite militias in Iraq, the official said. Syrian officials have also cooperated, though there is debate about whether it has the blessing of the senior leaders in Syria. The interview occurred at a time of intense debate over whether the US should enlist Iran's help in stabilizing Iraq. The Iraq Study Group is expected to call for direct talks with Tehran. The claim about Hezbollah's role in training Shiite militias could strengthen the hand of those in the Bush administration who oppose a major new diplomatic involvement with Iran. … Some Middle East experts were skeptical about the assessment of Hezbollah's training role. "That sound to me a little bit strained," said Flynt Leverett, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and a Middle East expert formerly on the National Security Council staff. "I have a hard time thinking it is a really significant piece of what we are seeing play out on the ground with the various Shiite militia forces." The officials said that because the Iraqi militia members went through Syrian territory, at least some Syrian officials were complicit. [Yet later in the article we learn: "They travel as normal people from Iraq to Syria," one of the militiamen said. "Once they get to Syria, fighters in Syria take them in." By this logic, "at least some US officials" were "complicit" in the 9/11 attacks, since the attackers "went through US territory." - JFP] There are also reports of meetings between Imad Mugniyah, a senior Hezbollah member; Ghassem Soleimani of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards; and Syrian representatives to discuss ways of stepping up the pressure on the US in Iraq. [Recalling the "reports" of meetings between Iraqi officials and Al-Qaeda operatives prior to the Iraq War.] [It's not obvious why reports indicating that Iran has some influence on events in Iraq should scuttle the idea of talks with Iran about Iraq. On the contrary, it suggests that talks with Iran could have a positive result. In the Philadelphia Inquirer piece - item 4 in this summary - we are informed that analysts say Iran and Syria "might have limited ability to assist." It seems that we are being told that we shouldn't talk to Iran and Syria 1) because they are causing trouble in Iraq 2) because they can't influence events in Iraq. Both of these arguments cannot be true. -JFP.] 10) Anbar Picture Grows Clearer, And Bleaker Dafna Linzer & Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, Tuesday, November 28, 2006; A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/27/AR2006112701287.html The U.S. military is no longer able to defeat a bloody insurgency in western Iraq or counter al-Qaeda's rising popularity there, according to newly disclosed details from a classified Marine Corps intelligence report that set off debate in recent months about the military's mission in Anbar province. The Marines recently filed an updated version of that assessment that stood by its conclusions and stated that, as of mid-November, the problems in troubled Anbar province have not improved, a senior U.S. intelligence official said yesterday. "The fundamental questions of lack of control, growth of the insurgency and criminality" remain the same, the official said. The Marines' August memo is far bleaker than some officials suggested when they described it in late summer. The report describes Iraq's Sunni minority as "embroiled in a daily fight for survival," fearful of "pogroms" by the Shiite majority and increasingly dependent on al-Qaeda in Iraq as its only hope against growing Iranian dominance across the capital. True or not, the memo says, "from the Sunni perspective, their greatest fears have been realized: Iran controls Baghdad and Anbaris have been marginalized." Moreover, most Sunnis now believe it would be unwise to count on or help U.S. forces because they are seen as likely to leave the country before imposing stability. Between al-Qaeda's violence, Iran's influence and an expected U.S. drawdown, "the social and political situation has deteriorated to a point" that U.S. and Iraqi troops "are no longer capable of militarily defeating the insurgency in al-Anbar," the assessment found. In Anbar province alone, at least 90 U.S. troops have died since Sept. 1. The Post first reported on the memo's existence in September. But the contents have not previously been made public. Read as a complete assessment, it paints a stark portrait of a failed province and of the country's Sunnis now desperate, fearful and impoverished. They have been increasingly abandoned by religious and political leaders who have fled to neighboring countries, and other leaders have been assassinated. And unlike Iraq's Shiite majority, or Kurdish groups in the north, the Sunnis are without oil and other natural resources. The report notes that illicit oil trading is providing millions of dollars to al-Qaeda while "official profits appear to feed Shiite cronyism in Baghdad." As a result, "the potential for economic revival appears to be nonexistent" in Anbar, the report says. The Iraqi government, dominated by Iranian-backed Shiites, has not paid salaries for Anbar officials and Iraqi forces stationed there. Anbar's resources and its ability to impose order are depicted as limited at best. "nearly all government institutions from the village to provincial levels have disintegrated or have been thoroughly corrupted and infiltrated by Al Qaeda in Iraq," or a smattering of other insurgent groups, the report says. … The senior intelligence official said yesterday that he largely agrees with Devlin's assessment, except that he thinks it overstates the role of al-Qaeda in the province. "We argue that it is a major element in Anbar, but it is not the largest or most dominant group," he said. 11) Allies Not Waiting for New Strategy to Announce Iraq Withdrawals Jim Mannion, Agence France Presse, Tuesday, November 28, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1128-04.htm A debate over whether to set a timetable for a phased withdrawal of US forces from Iraq is being preempted by key US allies who have announced plans to scale back their own forces over the next year, analysts say. The latest and most important to announce was Britain, whose defense minister said Monday the 7,100-member British contingent will be scaled back "by a matter of thousands" by the end of next year. Poland, which commands a 2,000-strong multi-national division in southern Iraq, said Monday that its 880-man contingent will be out of Iraq by late 2007. Italy, once a mainstay of the coalition force with 3,000 troops in Iraq, has withdrawn all but 60 to 70 troops from the country and those will be gone by early December, said Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi. Even as Washington debates what to do next, intensifying political pressure in coalition countries and a steadily worsening situation in Iraq are combining to narrow options and force decisions at an ever quickening pace. Lebanon 12) Ad Blitz Satirizes Lebanon's Divides Provocative Signs Target Pervasive Sectarianism Anthony Shadid, Washington Post, Tuesday, November 28, 2006; A12 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/27/AR2006112701456.html The evening was tense, as most are these days in Beirut, its Maronite Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Sunni and Shiite Muslims and Druze perched between war and peace. Malak Beydoun pulled her car into a parking lot in the Christian neighborhood of Ashrafiyeh. She peered at a billboard overhead, alarmed and then indignant. "Parking for Maronites only," it read. Beydoun recoiled. "How did they know that I was a Shiite?" she remembered asking herself. Part provocation, part appeal - with a dose of farce that doesn't feel all that farcical - advertisements went up this month on 300 billboards across the Lebanese capital and appeared in virtually every newspaper in the country. Thousands of e-mails carried the ads across the Internet to expatriates. Each offered its take on what one of the campaign's creative directors called a country on the verge of "absurdistan" - cooking lessons by Greek Orthodox, building for sale to Druze, hairstyling by an Armenian Catholic, a fashion agency looking for "a beautiful Shiite face." At the bottom, the ads read in English, "Stop sectarianism before it stops us," or, more bluntly in Arabic, "Citizenship is not sectarianism." Afghanistan 13) Afghan Opium Fight Hurts Poorest Donna Leinwand, USA Today, Updated 11/28/2006 10:02 AM ET http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-11-28-afghan-opium_x.htm U.S. and European efforts to end heroin production in Afghanistan have done little to hamper the drug industry and have hurt the country's poorest people, according to a new report by the UN and the World Bank. The report, released today, is the latest indication of the difficulties faced by the British-led effort to eradicate Afghanistan's opium crop, which drives the economy in parts of the embattled nation and has helped to fund a resurgence of the Taliban. The report says the production of opium, whose poppies are used to make heroin, permeates daily life in Afghanistan and eliminating the illegal drug trade there could take decades. The opium trade accounts for about $2.7 billion in Afghanistan's economy - equal to more than one-third of the nation's gross domestic product - and is responsible for thousands of jobs, the report says. The Taliban government, which had harbored al-Qaeda, virtually eliminated opium production in 2001, before U.S.-led forces toppled it. Production has soared since, even as the US and its allies have stepped up efforts to kill fields of opium and persuade farmers to grow other crops. Opium has remained the nation's most lucrative crop by far, and drug traffickers - through incentives and intimidation - have kept farmers in the opium business across Afghanistan, which the UN says produces about 87% of the world's opium. Last year, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan produced 4,100 metric tons of opium, nearly as much as the biggest harvest in 1999. The UN predicts a record harvest in 2007. Today's report describes how opium farmers' flexibility has helped harvests increase. When government officials end the opium trade in one province, opium brokers typically move cultivation and trade elsewhere, the report says. Counter-narcotics efforts also have fueled corruption, the report says. Farmers who can afford it have bribed local officials to preserve opium crops, while the poorest farmers have been driven deeper into debt when their crops are destroyed, the report says. Investigators found several instances in which farmers planned to replant opium to pay their debts. The report also says local government officials sometimes help drug lords drive competitors out of the market in exchange for a cut of the profits or protection payments. 14) Nato Urged to Plan Afghanistan Exit Strategy as Violence Soars Stephen Castle & Kim Sengupta, Independent, Monday, November 27, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1127-03.htm Nato's fragile unity over Afghanistan has begun to crack ahead of an important summit - with one public call to discuss an exit strategy from the Allied forces' bloody confrontation with the Taliban. While heads of government are to make a show of unity over Afghanistan at tomorrow's alliance summit in Riga, Belgium's Defence Minister has questioned the future of Nato's most important mission. And heads of the alliance's 26 nations are unlikely to agree to send reinforcements to Afghanistan - dealing a blow to Tony Blair's hopes that others will take up more of the increasingly heavy burden. In the bloodiest day of violence to grip the country in many weeks, a series of fierce clashes between Nato forces and Taliban fighters and a suicide bombing left 76 people dead and more than 45 injured yesterday, many of them children. Though Belgium only makes a small military contribution to the Nato mission, the Minister's comments will alarm senior figures at the alliance's headquarters where there is already concern that France is getting cold feet about its role in Afghanistan. Paris has remained publicly committed to the mission but Nato sources are concerned about the possibility of an eventual French withdrawal. They are pressing for an enhanced UN profile in Afghanistan to reassure the French who are suspicious about an expanded role for Nato because of Washington's hold over the alliance. André Flahaut, the Belgian Defence Minister, brought anxieties about the Afghan mission into the open when he suggested that, at the Riga summit, "we finally reflect on an exit strategy". Five years after the start of Western involvement in Afghanistan, Flahaut calls into question its prospects of success. In an interview with Le Vif-L'Express magazine, Flahaut argued: "The situation is deteriorating and, over time, Nato forces risk appearing like an army of occupation." Discussions of an exit strategy are the last thing the Nato top brass wants to hear because it is hoping to use this week to reinforce a message of unity on Afghanistan. 15) NATO Chief Sees Handover to Afghan Troops in 2008 Reuters, November 28, 2006, Filed at 5:02 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-afghan-nato.html NATO forces should be able to hand over responsibility to Afghanistan's security forces gradually in 2008, the alliance's secretary-general said on Tuesday. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer gave a glimpse of NATO's exit strategy from its most dangerous combat mission in a speech to a security conference hours before the start of a summit of alliance leaders in Latvia. "I would hope that by 2008, we will have made considerable progress ... and effective and trusted Afghan security forces gradually taking control," he told the Riga Conference, appealing to allies to provide more troops with fewer national restrictions on their use in the meantime. But De Hoop Scheffer said that at present any talk of withdrawals in Afghanistan was premature. He noted the 32,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force could only consider pulling out troops when Afghan security forces were able to take over. De Hoop Scheffer said it was unacceptable that the ISAF force remained 20 percent under full strength because of a failure by allies to contribute troops and equipment requested by commanders. Ecuador 16) Ecuador Vote: Leader Forges Middle Road Among Leftists Simon Romero, New York Times, November 28, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/world/americas/28ecuador.html The walls in the office of Rafael Correa are decorated with photos of leftist leaders in Latin America whom he admires, including Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia. But when Correa starts talking about his ideas, in rapid-fire Spanish interspersed with tangents in English, French and even the occasional phrase in Quechua, he conveys a more sophisticated image than the nationalists who have risen to power elsewhere in the region out of the armed forces or trade unions. "Foreign investment that generates wealth and jobs and pays taxes will always be welcome," Correa, 43, said in an interview here, sounding precisely like someone with postgraduate degrees from universities in the US and Belgium. (His are from the University of Illinois and Catholic University of Leuven.) Correa, between declarations of admiration for the American political system and the Democratic Party in the US, added that investors could look forward to his government, which would "strictly follow the rule of law." Yet the markets wasted little time trying to decipher who the real Correa may be. Skeptical speculators in New York and London engaged in a sell-off of Ecuadorean bonds on Monday as concern grew that Correa would carry out promises to renegotiate Ecuador's $10.4 billion of foreign debt. And Correa still seems intent on pressing forward with popular proposals, like limiting American influence by not renewing an agreement, which expires in 2009, that allows the US military to operate from a Pacific coast base. In some ways, Correa's rise points to how varied, and persistent, the leftist groundswell has become in Latin America. He had 68 percent of the votes cast Sunday, compared with 32 percent for his opponent, Álvaro Noboa, with about half of ballot boxes counted by Monday; final results were expected Tuesday. A former finance minister, Correa wears tailored suits and chats about how North American economists like John Kenneth Galbraith have influenced him. Yet before crowds, he rails against the Bush administration and the International Monetary Fund. [It's not obvious why admiring John Kenneth Galbraith, who believed that governments have a responsibility for the economic welfare of the population, should be regarded as contradictory to railing against Bush and the IMF. Venezuela's president Chavez - no slouch in any Bush or IMF-bashing competition - has also praised Galbraith. -JFP.] The competing strands make any hasty judgment on Correa premature, particularly as he finds his way in the unstable world of Ecuadorean politics, where Congress can oust unpopular presidents with ease. [If any hasty judgment would be premature, then the headline "Leader Forges Middle Road Among Leftists" is premature. -JFP] … Correa has the luxury of inheriting an economy that is benefiting from a combination of high oil prices, a tax increase on oil companies and the seizure this year of a crucial oil concession held by Occidental Petroleum of Los Angeles, which had been Ecuador's largest foreign investor. Together, those factors have given oil revenues a boost of $1 billion this year, according to the credit ratings company Fitch Ratings. Of course, this reliance on oil exposes Ecuador to a crash if oil prices sharply decline; they are already down nearly 20 percent from midyear highs. That is what makes some of Correa's ideas, like rejoining OPEC, strengthening the national oil company Petroecuador, or renegotiating the foreign debt, troubling to some analysts here. Ecuador is supposed to remember the pain, they say, of past oil busts. [It''s not clear why a fall in the price of oil should undermine these proposals. See also CEPR's analysis of why predictions of a bust are overblown: http://www.cepr.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=567&Itemid=8] The country left OPEC in the early 1990s when it had trouble paying its dues. Since then, Ecuador has had a debilitating dependence on imported gasoline because of inadequate refining operations. Correa will come to the presidency with virtually no support from a recalcitrant Congress that reflects, however imperfectly, a country whose instability has resulted in two million Ecuadoreans emigrating to the US and Europe. - Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming U.S. foreign policy so it reflects the values and interests of the majority of Americans.
