Just Foreign Policy News November 22, 2006 No War with Iran: Petition More than 25,400 people have signed the Peace Action/Just Foreign Policy petition. In the new Congress there will be a bipartisan effort to push the Bush Administration towards direct negotiations with Iran on all issues in dispute without preconditions. More signatures on the Peace Action/Just Foreign Policy petition will contribute to this effort. Please sign/circulate if you have yet to do so: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/iranpetition.html
Out of Iraq: Petition Res Publica - the "international cousin" of MoveOn.org - has gathered 60,000 signatures for its petition which it has published in the Guardian and the Washington Post Express. http://www.ceasefirecampaign.org/ Just Foreign Policy News daily podcast: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/podcasts/podcast_howto.html Summary: U.S./Top News President Bush could choose military action over diplomacy and bomb Iran's nuclear facilities next year, AFP reports. "I think he is going to do it," said John Pike of Globalsecurity.org, suggesting Bush would bomb Iranian nuclear facilities next summer. Seymour Hersh has said that White House hawks led by Vice President Cheney were intent on attacking Iran with or without the approval of the US Congress. Joseph Cirincione of the Center for American Progress also believes the US government could decide to attack Iran. "It is not realistic but it does not mean we won't do it," he said. "If you look at what the administration is doing, it seems that it is going to inevitably lead us to a military conflict," he said, adding that no alternative solution was being sought, including discussions with Iran on Iraq, which could lead to talks on Iran's nuclear program and role in the region. The Pentagon is drafting its own new options for winning in Iraq, in part, to give President Bush counterproposals in case the Iraq Study Group comes up with ideas he does not like, the Washington Times reports. The US use of snipers is proving less successful in many areas of Iraq than had been hoped, the New York Times reports. Many of the best sniping positions are already well known to insurgents. Some experts say the assassination of Pierre Gemayel in Lebanon shows the weakness of the U.S. in the region, the Washington Post reports. Gemayel was closely associated with the Bush Administration. U.N. Ambassador Bolton seemed to suggest that Syria was behind the assassination. Syria's U.N. ambassador denied his government had a hand in the killing, saying Syria condemned the assassination as a "horrible" crime. The assassination attempt against the speaker of Iraq's parliament was one of the most serious breaches of security yet within the Green Zone, the New York Times reports. Illinois Senator Barack Obama Monday excoriated the Bush administration for its "misguided" war in Iraq and supported dialogue with US adversaries in the region, the Chicago Tribune reports. He said the U.S. should begin reducing troops in the next 4-6 months and pressure Iraqis to work out agreements among warring factions. Obama said Iraq should convene a regional conference including Syria and Iran. His plan positions him among centrist Democrats in Congress supporting a slow and careful withdrawal of troops, rather than a quick exit or a build-up of military personnel, says the Tribune. Just Foreign Policy board member Tom Hayden, writing in Huffington Post, recounts diplomatic moves by the U.S. to negotiate with the Iraqi insurgency that have been reported in Arabic news media. Inside Higher Ed reports on the controversy around campaigns to prevent universities from hiring faculty who criticize policies of the Israeli government. The Middle East Studies Association has expanded the work of its academic freedom committee - which had focused on helping scholars in the Middle East - to engage in efforts on behalf of colleagues in the US. Juan Cole, president of MESA, characterized the groups' activities as "the privatization of McCarthyism" and said that they represented the most serious threat today to academic freedom in the US. Turning conscripts into battle-ready troops would take a year or more in the unlikely event the government revived the draft, USA Today reports. Rep. Charles Rangel has said he will reintroduce a bill that would reinstate the draft. Military leaders call a draft neither necessary nor practical. Rangel doesn't expect Congress or Bush to support reviving the draft, says a spokesman, but wants to spark a discussion. Iran Denying Iran's request for assistance at Arak is a no-brainer, says the New York Times in an editorial castigating some IAEA board members for wanting to defer the decision rather than reject the request outright. But the editorial calls for the Bush Administration to offer Iran explicit security guarantees in exchange for giving up technology that could support a nuclear weapons program. Right-wing Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman will be hosted by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in new his capacity as deputy prime minister in charge of strategic threats, the Jewish Daily Forward reports. Lieberman is known for his proposal to transfer part of Israel's Arab population. But he is slated to speak about Iran. The admirable spirit of dialogue expressed in the article by Lieberman's liberal Jewish critics contrasts sharply with the view of some groups towards the prospect of US dialogue with Iran, or towards the notion that critics of US or Israeli government policies should be able to freely express their views. Iraq Iraqi government officials acknowledge that their efforts have been mostly a failure, the Los Angeles Times reports. Iraq's officials have been unable to overcome mistrust of one another and improve security or tackle major political and economic issues - from murderous cops to sewage. Officials say Baghdad's authority has been undermined by the ubiquity of U.S. troops and by militias, and the sectarian balance on which the government was formed has made it impossible make big decisions or ferret out corruption or incompetence. The UN said Wednesday that 3,709 Iraqi civilians were killed in October, the highest monthly toll since the March 2003. The UN tally was more than three times higher than the total AP had tabulated for the month. British forces may hand over security responsibilities in Basra to Iraqi forces by the spring, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said Wednesday. The leader of the Liberal Democrats criticized the government for not saying if this would lead to a reduction of British troops in Iraq, accusing the government of being "unduly subject to American influence." Lebanon The White House is under pressure domestically and abroad to engage with Syria and Iran to quell the violence in Iraq, notes the New York Times. But suspicion that Syria is trying to destabilize Lebanon will make it hard for the US to send a full ambassador back to Syria without appearing to have abandoned the Lebanese government. Syrian officials and their Lebanese allies said the only beneficiaries of Gemayel's death were anti-Syria forces. Ecuador Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research says the outcome of the presidential election in Ecuador won't adversely affect Ecuador's economy, regardless of who wins. A CEPR report says the economic crisis of the late 1990s is not likely to be repeated, since the conditions that caused it are no longer present. Among other changes, the country has adopted the dollar as its national currency, which eliminates the currency risk and instability that played a central role in the 1998-2000 economic collapse. The report notes that the US has not followed through on threats to punish Nicaraguans for re-electing Daniel Ortega. Mexico Mexican authorities have quietly released a report that describes how three Mexican governments killed and tortured political opponents from the late 1960s until 1982, reports the Washington Post. The new report is posted on the web site of the National Security Archive. Contents: U.S./Top News 1) US Could Bomb Iran Nuclear Sites in 2007: Analysts Agence France Presse, Wednesday, November 22, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1122-07.htm President Bush could choose military action over diplomacy and bomb Iran's nuclear facilities next year, political analysts in Washington agree. "I think he is going to do it," John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, a military issues think tank, told AFP. "They are going to bomb WMD facilities next summer," he added, referring to nuclear facilities Iran says are for peaceful uses and Washington insists are really intended to make nuclear bombs, or weapons of mass destruction. "It would be a limited military action to destroy their WMD capabilities" added the analyst, believing a US military invasion of Iran is not on the table. Journalist Seymour Hersh also said at the weekend that White House hawks led by Vice President Dick Cheney were intent on attacking Iran with or without the approval of the US Congress, both houses of which switch from Republican to Democratic control in January after the November 7 legislative elections. The New Yorker weekly published an article by Hersh saying that one month before the elections, Cheney held a meeting on Iran in which he said the military option would never be discarded. The White House promptly issued a statement saying the article was "riddled with inaccuracies." Joseph Cirincione, Senior Vice President for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress, a Democrat-friendly think tank, also believes the US government could decide to attack Iran. "It is not realistic but it does not mean we won't do it," he told AFP. "It is less likely after the elections but it is still very possible." "If you look at what the administration is doing, it seems that it is going to inevitably lead us to a military conflict," he said, adding that no alternative solution was being sought, including discussions with Iran on Iraq, which could lead to talks on Iran's nuclear program and role in the region. "Senior members of the (Bush) administration remain seized with the idea that the regime in Iran must be removed," Cirincione said. "The nuclear program is one reason, but their deeper agenda is this belief that American military power can be used to fundamentally transform the regimes in the Middle East," he added. With the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, hardliners in the government have lost one of their leading advocates, and his replacement, former CIA chief Robert Gates, has in the past favored direct talks with Iran, said the expert. "But they remain within the administration at the highest level, the office of the vice president, the national security council staff, perhaps the president himself," Cirincione added. He also accused neoconservative circles of promoting the military option against Tehran. In a Sunday op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times, Joshua Muarvchik, resident scholar at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, called for getting tough with Iran. "We must bomb Iran," he said. "The path of diplomacy and sanctions has led nowhere ... Our options therefore are narrowed to two: we can prepare to live with a nuclear-armed Iran, or we can use force to prevent it." 2) Pentagon Cites Alternative To Baker Report Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times,November 22, 2006 http://www.washtimes.com/national/20061122-121959-6535r.htm The Pentagon is drafting its own new options for winning in Iraq, in part, to give President Bush counterproposals to fall back on in case the Iraq Study Group comes up with ideas he does not like, defense officials say. Meanwhile, study group co-chairman Lee Hamilton told The Washington Times yesterday that he and co-chair James Baker have nearly completed a first draft report. Hamilton said the two men hope to complete it this weekend, give it to the eight other Iraq Study Group members in time for a meeting next week to review it. The report contains Hamilton's and Baker's assessment of the Iraq situation and recommendations to Bush. The 10 members will then accept, reject or modify the ideas, and Hamilton cautioned that the panel has no deadline to produce a final report. "The whole thing could be changed," Hamilton said. Baker has said publicly he believes in talking to one's enemies, an indication that the study group will recommend opening dialogues with Syria and Iran, two U.S. adversaries that border Iraq and support the insurgents. The Baker-Hamilton group will not be the only source of new ideas on Iraq for the president in a war that an increasing number of Americans say lacks progress. The Pentagon is also leading an extensive review. The defense officials said they do not want the Iraq Study Group's options to go unchallenged in case it proposes items that Bush does not like, such as a timetable for removing troops. 3) Perfect Killing Method, But Clear Targets Are Few C. J. Chivers, New York Times, November 22, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/world/middleeast/22sniper.html More than three years after the insurgency erupted across much of Iraq, sniping - one of the methods that the military thought would be essential in its counterinsurgency operations - is proving less successful in many areas of Iraq than had been hoped, Marine officers, trainers and snipers say. In theory, Western snipers are a nearly perfect method of killing Iraq's insurgents and thwarting their attacks, all with little risk of damaging property or endangering passers-by. But in practice, the snipers say, they are seeing fewer clear targets than previously, and are shooting fewer insurgents than expected. In 2003, one Marine sniper killed 32 combatants in 12 days, the snipers say, and many others had double-digit kill totals during tours in Iraq. By this summer, sniper platoons with several teams had typically been killing about a dozen insurgents in seven-month tours, with totals per platoon ranging from 3 to as high as 26. The gap between the expectations and the results has many causes, but is in part a reflection of the insurgency's duration. With the war in its fourth year, many of the best sniping positions are already well known to the insurgents, and veteran insurgents have become more savvy and harder to kill. In some areas of Iraq, where the insurgents are less experienced or still fight frontally, snipers have had better rates of success, including the platoon with 26 kills. But many areas, the snipers say, have become maddening places in which to hide and hunt. "A lot of Marine battalions have rotated through these same areas for six or seven months at a time," said Staff Sgt. Christopher Jones, the platoon sergeant of the Scout Sniper Platoon in the Second Battalion, Eighth Marines. "But the insurgents live here. They know almost all the best places that have been used. Before we even get here, they know where we are going to go." Moreover, the insurgents have developed safeguards, using shepherds and children to look for snipers in buildings and heavily overgrown areas, and networks of informants to spread the word when a sniper team has taken up a new position. "These days we're lucky if we can go 12 hours without getting compromised," he said. 4) Assassination Increases Tensions With Syria, Iran Robin Wright, Washington Post, Wednesday, November 22, 2006; A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/21/AR2006112101022.html President Bush blasted Syria and Iran yesterday after the assassination of Christian cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel for trying to destabilize Lebanon, reflecting tensions between Washington and its two Middle Eastern rivals that are increasingly playing out in Lebanon as well as Iraq. While the president stopped short of blaming Syria for the killing, he warned that the US remains "fully committed" to supporting Lebanon's democracy despite attempts by Damascus, Tehran and their allies in Lebanon "to foment instability and violence." During remarks to U.S. troops in Hawaii, he also charged that the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is in violation of two U.N. resolutions for its ongoing meddling in Lebanon. … And having the US as an ally is no protection. "The assassination highlights to what extent the US is in a position of weakness in the region... It doesn't matter what statements the U.S. makes about coups and assassinations, it still happens," Emile el-Hokayem, an expert on Lebanon at the Henry L. Stimson Center said. Indeed, the bullets that raked Gemayel's car also fired on U.S. policy, analysts say. "The bullets were meant for an outspoken critic of Syria. The Cedar Revolution is seen as an extension of American power, so the assassination of Gemayel was by extension a way of striking the U.S. as well," said Augustus Richard Norton, a former U.N. peacekeeper in Lebanon and now a professor at Boston University. Added Lebanese columnist Rami Khouri, currently on a speaking tour in the US: "This is the new Cold War." U.N. Ambassador Bolton said Gemayel's assassination brought new attention to the danger that Syria and Iran are attempting, through Lebanese allies such as Hezbollah, to conduct a coup d'etat against the pro-Western government led by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. Over the past week, Hezbollah has threatened to hold large protests to demand more cabinet seats for a bloc that also includes the followers of Christian Michel Aoun. In an interview with MSNBC, Bolton came the closest of any administration official to blaming Damascus. "One pattern we discern in these political assassinations of Lebanese leaders - journalists, members of parliament - they are all anti-Syrian. So I suppose one can draw conclusions from that," he said. Bashar Jaafari, Syria's U.N. ambassador, denied that his government had a hand in Gemayel's killing. "Syria has nothing to do with this," he said, adding that Damascus condemned the assassination as a "horrible" crime. 5) Baghdad's Green Zone hit by car bomb Edward Wong, New York Times, November 22, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/world/middleeast/22iraq.html A bomb exploded in an armored car among those belonging to the speaker of Parliament, wounding the American security guard who was driving it out of a parking area in the government Green Zone and disrupting a meeting of lawmakers nearby, a parliamentary aide said. Though the speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, was not in the vehicle and was unscathed, the assassination attempt was one of the most serious breaches of security yet within the Green Zone, the heavily fortified government district on the west bank of the Tigris River. 6) Obama urges gradual withdrawal from Iraq Christi Parsons & David Mendell, Chicago Tribune, November 20, 2006, 8:28 PM CST http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-061120obama-iraq,0,3495200.story Amid intense speculation about whether he will run for president, Sen. Barack Obama on Monday used the spotlight to showcase his strategy for the war in Iraq, excoriating the Bush administration for its "misguided" war and describing a solution that includes dialogue with hostile nations in the region. In his speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the Illinois Democrat said the U.S. should end its "coddling" of the Iraqi government by beginning a reduction of troops in the next four to six months and pressuring Iraqis to work out agreements among their warring factions. "Our troops can help suppress the violence, but they cannot solve its root causes," Obama told members of the council. "And all the troops in the world won't be able to force Shia, Sunni, and Kurd to sit down at a table, resolve their differences, and forge a lasting peace." Offering a few new specifics, Obama said he thinks Iraq should convene a regional conference that includes Syria and Iran, two countries with which the U.S. does not currently have diplomatic relations. He also said that, as the U.S. redistributes troops around the Middle East, some of them should be deployed to Afghanistan and northern Iraq. Substantively, Obama's talk to the council was not markedly different from the one he gave there a year ago. He echoed many of the themes of that speech - as well as from his highly publicized new book, "The Audacity of Hope." Politically, the plan he embraced positions him alongside many centrist Democrats in Congress who are calling for a slow and careful withdrawal of troops, rather than a quick exit or a build-up of military personnel in Iraq. 7) U.S. Retreat from Iraq? The Secret Story Tom Hayden, Huffington Post, 11.21.2006 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-hayden/us-retreat-from-iraq-t_b_34675.html According to credible Iraqi sources in London and Amman, a secret story of America's diplomatic exit strategy from Iraq is rapidly unfolding. The key events include: First, James Baker told one of Saddam Hussein's lawyers that Tariq Aziz would be released from detention by the end of this year, in hope that he will negotiate with the US on behalf of the Baath Party leadership. The discussion recently took place in Amman, according to the Iraqi paper al-Quds al-Arabi. Second, Secretary of State Rice personally appealed to the Gulf Cooperation Council in October to serve as intermediaries between the US and armed Sunni resistance groups [not including al Qaeda], communicating a US willingness to negotiate with them at any time or place. Speaking in early October, Rice joked that if then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld "heard me now, he would wage a war on me fiercer and hotter than he waged on Iraq," according to an Arab diplomat. Third, there was an "unprecedented" secret meeting of high-level Americans and representatives of "a primary component of the Iraqi resistance" two weeks ago, lasting for three days. As a result, the Iraqis agreed to return to the talks in the next two weeks with a response for the American side, according to Jordanian press leaks and al-Quds al-Arabi. Fourth, detailed email transmissions dated November 16 reveal an active American effort behind the scenes to broker a peace agreement with Iraqi resistance leaders, a plot that could include a political coup against Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Fifth, Bush security adviser Stephen Hadley carried a six-point message for Iraqi officials on his recent trip to Baghdad: include Iraqi resistance and opposition leaders in any initiative towards national reconciliation;general amnesty for the armed resistance fighters; dissolve the Iraqi commission charged with banning the Baath Party; start the disbanding of militias and death squads; cancel any federalism proposal to divide Iraq into three regions, and combine central authority for the central government with greater self-rule for local governors; distribute oil revenues in a fair manner to all Iraqis, including the Sunnis whose regions lack the resource. Prime Minister Al-Maliki was unable to accept the American proposals because of his institutional allegiance to Shiite parties who believe their historic moment has arrived after one thousand years of Sunni domination. That Shiite refusal has accelerated secret American efforts to pressure, re-organize, or remove the elected al-Maliki regime from power. 8) Input or Intrusion? Inside Higher Ed, November 21, 2006 http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/11/21/disputes Hiring and tenure decisions are typically decided (and appropriately decided, most in academe would say) by academics. A series of lobbying campaigns by pro-Israel groups, however, have some scholars worried that those who criticize Israel are being subjected to political tests and having their jobs endangered. At Barnard College, Nadia Abu El-Haj, an anthropologist who is coming up for tenure, is under attack by some alumnae and pro-Israel groups for a book, published by the University of Chicago Press, that was critical of Israeli archaeology and its use in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At Wayne State University, similar groups are pushing the university not to hire Wadie Said for a faculty position in the law school. In that case, critics of Said are attacking him and his late father, the literary theorist Edward Said, saying that both Saids' activism on behalf of the Palestinian cause has amounted to support for violent groups. These debates follow the cancellation last month of a lecture by Tony Judt, a professor at New York University, at the Polish consulate in New York City, amid charges that the Anti-Defamation League had encouraged Polish officials to call off the talk. And in June, Yale University turned down Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who is a leading figure in Middle Eastern studies, for a position - after a lengthy period in which critics of Cole argued that he was not a suitable choice for the position, in part because of his criticism of Israel. And Princeton University has faced criticism over a possible hire as well. This weekend, the Middle East Studies Association, of which Cole is the president, voted to expand the work of its academic freedom committee - which has focused on helping scholars in the Middle East - to engage in efforts on behalf of colleagues in the US. "The subtext of these controversies is whether it is going to be allowed for Palestinians to hold positions in academe in the US. Is it going to be allowed for people who are not Zionists to hold positions? Is there a Zionist litmus test in the US?" said Cole in an interview Monday. He characterized the pro-Israel groups' activities as "the privatization of McCarthyism" and said that they represented the most serious threat today to academic freedom in the US. 9) Draft Viewed As Impractical, Unnecessary Matt Kelley, USA Today, 11/22/2006 4:05 AM ET http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-11-21-military-draft_x.htm Turning conscripts into battle-ready troops would take a year or more in the unlikely event the government revived the draft, military experts say. Rep. Charles Rangel said this week that he will reintroduce a bill he sponsored in 2003 that would reinstate the military draft. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and other military leaders, however, oppose the plan and call a draft neither necessary nor practical. House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi said Monday she opposes the plan. Rangel doesn't expect Congress or President Bush to support reviving the draft, says Emile Milne, the congressman's spokesman. Instead, Rangel wants to spark a "discussion among the people who represent the American people here in Congress." If the draft resumed, draftees wouldn't join the military for at least six months. The nation's dormant draft law gives the Selective Service System 193 days to deliver the first inductees following the revival of conscription. Fully training those troops would take months more. The Army starts with a nine-week basic training course that's followed by individual training that lasts another month for the infantry, two months for tank crews or three months for military police. Iran 10) Iran and Arak Editorial, New York Times, November 22, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/opinion/22wed3.html Denying the request should be a no-brainer - especially at a time when Iran is defying a Security Council order that it stop enriching uranium, usable for nuclear reactor fuel or potentially a nuclear bomb. But Tehran is adept at whipping up the suspicions of the board's nuclear have-nots, who jealously guard their right to all civilian nuclear technology, no matter the potential dangers. The board needs to soundly reject Iran's request. Anything less - some members of the notoriously conflict-averse board are calling for deferring the decision - will only confirm Tehran's belief that the international community is not serious about containing its nuclear ambitions. Even more worrisome, the Security Council still cannot agree on how to punish Iran for continuing to enrich uranium - nearly three months past a Council-ordered cutoff. Moscow and Beijing, which have been protecting Tehran at the Council, need to focus less on Iran's oil wealth and more on the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran. The Bush administration, which has agreed to talk with Iran if it suspends enrichment, needs to go further, offering Tehran explicit security guarantees in exchange for giving up technology that could feed a nuclear weapons program. 11) U.S. Groups To Host Rightist Minister With Anti-Arab Plan Marc Perelman, Jewish Daily Forward, Fri. Nov 24, 2006 http://www.forward.com/articles/us-groups-to-host-rightist-minister-with-anti-arab/ In a further indication of his acceptance into the political mainstream, controversial right-wing Israeli politician and newly minted government minister Avigdor Lieberman will be hosted next month in New York by the most influential umbrella organization of American Jewish groups. The leader of the secular nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, Lieberman is best known for his proposal to transfer part of Israel's Arab population by turning over territory within the 1967 border to the Palestinians. But he is slated to speak about Iran on December 12, when he addresses the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in his capacity as deputy prime minister in charge of strategic threats. In recent years, leading liberals, as well as some prominent centrists, have claimed that the Presidents Conference was tilting toward the right. Yet the decision to host Lieberman, a pariah among Israeli doves, has not drawn any public objections from members of the conference. Lieberman is also scheduled to appear in front of the hawkish Middle East Forum, a think tank run by conservative scholar Daniel Pipes. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the outspoken liberal voice who is president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said that it was a "good idea" for the Presidents Conference to offer Lieberman the opportunity to explain his views and hear the voices of the American Jewish community. "I would never object to the conference bringing an Israeli government minister," Yoffie told the Forward. "This is part of their job as long as the policy is applied to the full range of the political spectrum." Yoffie, who met Lieberman in Israel before he became a minister, said next month's meeting would be helpful, since it would expose Lieberman to the same diverging opinions he faces in Israel. According to Yoffie, the invitation does not represent an endorsement or the granting of legitimacy to Lieberman and his views. "We wouldn't want to give him the impression that we deem his extremist views as acceptable to the conference, to American Jews and to the American government," Yoffie said. Iraq 12) Iraq's Government Hampered By Suspicions Elected officials acknowledge that they haven't accomplished much. Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2006 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraqgovt22nov22,1,5528371.story When the Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works dispatched crews to the Amil neighborhood last month to repair a sewer line that had been spewing raw human waste into the street for weeks, residents were encouraged. But instead of repairing the pipe, the workers wound up rupturing the freshwater line. They left the entire mess for someone else. Iraqis elected their leaders in December, hoping that a government by the people would do something for the people. Eleven months later, officials acknowledge that their efforts have been mostly a failure. And, as with the busted sewer line of Amil, government involvement often creates a bigger problem than it solves. Despite U.S. pressure for results, Iraq's elected officials have been unable to overcome their mistrust of one another and improve security or tackle the major political and economic issues - from murderous cops to the sewage woes of Amil. Fed up with ministers he says were foisted on him by political factions, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has promised a Cabinet reshuffle. He is scheduled to convene the body this week to address the deepening political divisions and a threatened walkout by the Sunni Arab bloc. But his resolve may not be enough to overcome the government's inherent frailties and limitations. Officials say Baghdad's authority has been undermined by the ubiquity of U.S. troops and by militias, neither of which answers to the government. But above all, the sectarian balance on which the government was formed has made it impossible make big decisions or ferret out corruption or incompetence. "If Maliki discovered that one of his ministers in one of the political parties was involved in corruption or brutality, he could not fire him, because [the minister is] backed up by another political party," said Salim Abdullah Jabouri, a spokesman for Iraq's main Sunni party, which is part of the ruling coalition. The government even backtracked on its controversial decision to issue an arrest warrant for the country's leading Sunni cleric, Harith Dhari, amid threats that the Sunni coalition would pull out of the government. Some blame U.S. policy, saying it puts too much faith on consensus and balance as a panacea for Iraq's ills. 13) Iraqi Civilian Deaths Reach New High, U.N. Says Associated Press, November 22, 2006, Filed at 11:06 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq.html The UN said Wednesday that 3,709 Iraqi civilians were killed in October, the highest monthly toll since the March 2003 U.S. invasion and another sign of the severity of Iraq's sectarian bloodbath. The U.N. tally was more than three times higher than the total AP had tabulated for the month, and far more than the 2,866 U.S. service members who have died during all of the war. The report on civilian casualties, handed out at a U.N. news conference in Baghdad, said the influence of militias was growing, and torture continued to be rampant, despite the government's vow to address human rights abuses. "Hundreds of bodies continued to appear in different areas of Baghdad handcuffed, blindfolded and bearing signs of torture and execution-style killing," the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq report said. "Many witnesses reported that perpetrators wear militia attire and even police or army uniforms." The report painted a grim picture across the board, from attacks on journalists, judges and lawyers and the worsening situation of women to displacement, violence against religious minorities and the targeting of schools. Based on figures from the Iraqi Health Ministry, the country's hospitals and the Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad, the report said October's figure was higher than July's previously unprecedented civilian death toll of 3,590. 14) Britain May Hand Over Basra in Spring Robert Barr, Associated Press, Wednesday, November 22, 2006; 9:43 AM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/22/AR2006112200525.html British forces may hand over security responsibilities in Basra to Iraqi forces by the spring, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said Wednesday. It was the first time that a government minister had set even a vague target for handing over security in Basra, but officials stressed that this was a hope, not a timetable. "We expect Najaf to be the next province to be transferred to Iraqi control in December," Beckett told lawmakers. "In our own area of responsibility, we expect Maysan to follow in January," she said. "The progress of our current operation in Basra gives us confidence that we may be able to achieve transition in that province too at some point next spring." Last month, Defense Secretary Browne said Britain was "quite far down the process" of transferring responsibility to the Iraqis. The Ministry of Defense said the timing of a handover in Basra depended on conditions on the ground. "We are saying we hope to be in a position in spring to be able to transition," a ministry spokesman said. "But it is too early to say whether it is going to happen or what the effect would be on troop numbers." British officials recently have spoken of cutting troop levels in Iraq from the current 7,000 to between 3,000 and 4,000 by mid-2007, but no firm date for withdrawal has been set. "Beckett's comments are notable as much for what she doesn't say as for what she does," said Sir Menzies Campbell, leader of the Liberal Democrats. "There is no indication that if control of Basra were to be handed over next spring the deployment of British troops would be reduced. "The government's position remains of having neither a strategy for staying or for going. We are still unduly subject to American influence," Campbell said. Lebanon 15) Thousands Mourn Slain Minister in Lebanon Michael Slackman, New York Times, November 22, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/world/middleeast/23lebanoncnd.html The killing also is likely to complicate any American effort to enlist Syria's help to stabilize Iraq. The US withdrew its ambassador from Damascus after Hariri was assassinated nearly two years ago and suspicion fell heavily on Syria. Now the White House is under pressure domestically and abroad to engage with Syria and Iran to quell the violence in Iraq. But the suspicion that Syria is behind the efforts to destabilize Lebanon will make it nearly impossible for Washington to send a full ambassador back to Damascus without appearing to have abandoned the Siniora government. At the same time, any allegation of Syria's involvement is likely to antagonize Syrian officials - and make them even more reluctant to back off of a military, political and economic alliance with Iran. … In recent days, Syria has found its strategic stature in the Middle East bolstered by the surge of violence in Iraq, and the suggestion that Washington might soon ask for its help. While it has denied any role in any of the Lebanon violence, it has not denied its desire to reinsert itself as the primary force in Lebanon. "This is a crime against Lebanon, all of Lebanon," Hassan Khalil, a pro-Syria member of Parliament and member of the Shiite Amal party, said in a television interview on Tuesday. "This is a crime that we condemn." In the complex and shadowy world of Lebanon's long-warring factions, conspiracy theories can cut both ways. Syrian officials and their Lebanese allies said the only beneficiaries of Gemayel's death were anti-Syria forces. They also argued that the newly inflamed environment would make it impossible for Hezbollah to follow through anytime soon with its promised protests. Ecuador 16) Ecuador's Presidential Election: Background on Economic Issues Mark Weisbrot, Luis Sandoval, & Belén Cadena, Center for Economic & Policy Research, November 21, 2006 http://www.cepr.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=568&Itemid=77 "The 'fear factor' has been a key strategy of the right in Latin American elections this year," said Mark Weisbrot, CEPR Co-Director and the lead author of the report. "But there is no reason to think that the outcome of this election would adversely affect Ecuador's economy, regardless of who wins." The report notes that the severe economic crisis of the late 1990s is not likely to be repeated, since the conditions that caused it are no longer present. Among other changes, the country has adopted the dollar as its national currency, which eliminates the currency risk and instability that played a central role in the 1998-2000 economic collapse. Mexico 17) Details of Mexico's Dirty Wars From 1960s to 1980s Released Murders, Torture of Dissidents Chillingly Documented in Report Juan Forero, Washington Post, Wednesday, November 22, 2006; A15 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/21/AR2006112101740.html Mexican authorities have quietly released an 859-page report that describes how three Mexican governments killed, tortured and disappeared dissidents and political opponents from the late 1960s until 1982. The release of the "Historical Report to the Mexican Society" marks the first time that Mexico has officially accepted responsibility for waging a dirty war against leftist guerrillas, university students and activists. It includes declassified government records, photographs and details about individuals who were killed under the rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, the authoritarian party that ruled the country for 71 years before being ousted in 2000. [The National Security Archive has published the report online: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB209/index.htm] - 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.
