Franklin Met with Naor Gilon

The Israeli foreign ministry has confirmed that Lawrence Franklin, the Pentagon's top Iran desk officer, met repeatedly in Washington with "Naor Gilon, head of the political department at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and a specialist on Iran's nuclear weapons program."

Gilon appears already to have been under surveillance by the FBI. At one point Franklin is said to have offered him a document, which he declined to take, but asked what it said and got an oral report. Gilon was unaware that he was being monitored and clearly thought he would be safe as long as he did not have any incriminating paper in his possession (conversations can be denied or spun, as long as they aren't taped).

Franklin did succeed in giving a confidential draft presidential directive on Iran to AIPAC officials, who then passed it to someone at the Israeli Embassy, perhaps Gilon. It is telling that the official took hard copy from AIPAC, presumably because he trusted them implicitly, whereas Gilon had rejected it from Franklin.

That Gilon is a specialist in Iran's nuclear weapons program suggests that Franklin wanted to consult with him about what the US should do about that issue. Gilon was "Director of the Division for Strategic and Military Affairs in the Center for Policy Research in Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from 2000-2002." Franklin harbors feelings of profound hatred for the regime in Tehran and wanted to see it destroyed.

Israeli government officials and people like Dennis Ross at the AIPAC-funded "Washington Institute for Near East Policy" keep saying that this case makes no sense, since if Israel wanted to know something about US policy toward Iran, they could just make a call. This line of defense doesn't really help, though, since it suggests that there are no US government secrets to which Israel would be denied access on a simple request. That is an impossible proposition, and if it were true then it really would be the case that AIPAC runs the US government.

I continue to believe that Franklin was not seeking to give Israel information so much as he was soliciting input on the wording of the presidential directive on Iran. We have seen over and over again in the Bush administration how crucial it is to control key policy documents. Because Bush frankly is not a detail man, and cannot get his head around nuanced policy (he makes fun of the word), the ability of his smarter subordinates to control what paper is put in front of him is key to making things happen. Thus, the Neocons managed to put the false Niger uranium purchase story into the State of the Union address in 2003 despite the opposition of CIA director George Tenet, who knew by then that it was junk. Stephen Hadley, then the Neocon chief mole in the National Security Council, signed off on the insertion.

So, if you could work up a presidential directive on Iran that, e.g., threatened military action against the Iranian nuclear facilities at Bushehr, and could put it about the Pentagon that AIPAC and the Israelis had signed off on it, you might be able to make a US air attack on Bushehr happen. When the final draft was presented to Bush for his signature, Karl Rove (Bush's campaign chief) could be assured that Bush would get brownie points (big money and votes) from AIPAC if he signed. That is, in my view, why Franklin was willing to risk sharing confidential Pentagon policy documents with AIPAC and the Israelis. He was cultivating them as a key constituency for the aggressive policies he was formulating. Having them on board before the directive had been finalized would allow him to argue that it had to be shaped in a particular way in order to please AIPAC and the Israelis. If he could privately assure his superiors that Gilon approved, that would help him get his way in a Neocon-dominated part of the Pentagon.

The Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK or MKO) has a front organization, the "National Council of Resistance" or NCR. The NCR has been a significant source of charges about the Iranian nuclear program, and probably spies on Iran for both the Pentagon and Israel. (I am reasoning back from AIPAC's WINEP-associated "scholars" supporting the MEK, which is very odd unless there is a big quid pro quo). They probably exaggerate, playing a game similar to that of Ahmad Chalabi in Iraq. That would be another reason for which Franklin would try to stop its Iraq commanders being turned over to Iran by the US in return for top al-Qaeda leaders that Tehran holds.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Republican Convention "We did not seek this War"

The Republican National Convention in New York was All 9/11 All the Time. As one would expect, Senator John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani gave strong speeches (though Rudi came off as petty toward John Kerry in a way no one but Al Sharpton at the Democratic Convention came off toward George W. Bush). Unfortunately, these moderate Republicans don't run the party. Tom Delay and Dick Cheney and George Bush do.

Just two Middle-East related observations.

The speech-makers kept saying "we did not seek this war," and that it was imposed on us, and by God we were going to keep hitting back. That is, the rhetoric was that of righteous anger, of the avenging victim. While this argument works with regard to Afghanistan (which the US did not invade, only providing air cover to an indigenous group. the Northern Alliance), it is hollow with regard to Iraq. Only by confusing the "war on terror" with the war on Iraq could this rhetoric be even somewhat meaningful, and it is not a valid conflation.

No American president has more desperately sought out a war with any country than George W. Bush sought out this war with Iraq. Only Polk's war on Mexico, also based on false pretexts, even comes close to the degree of crafty manipulation employed by Bush and Cheney to get up the Iraq war. Intelligence about weapons of mass destruction was deliberately and vastly exaggerated, producing a "nuclear threat" where there wasn't even so much as a single gamma ray to be registered. Innuendo and repetition were cleverly used to tie Saddam to Usama Bin Laden operationally, a link that all serious intelligence professionals deny.

So, I agree that the war in Afghanistan was imposed on the US. But the war on Iraq was not. And pretending that the US had no choice but to attack Iraq and reduce it to a pitiful failed state is flatly dishonest.

The Republicans also had an Iraqi woman speak. Apparently they could not find an eloquent Iraqi with good English who still would come and support them. This woman at one point alleged that there have been recent free municipal elections in Iraq. I doubt that very much. Or, if any municipal elections have been held, they wouldn't be considered free or fair if done in the same way in Topeka, Kansas.

I also objected to the use of 9/11 and the US military for partisan purposes. 9/11 happened to all of us, Republican and Democrat. Is it really plausible that all those firefighters from Queens are Republicans? But that was the impression they tried to give. As for singing all the service songs, not all servicemen support Bush. One person with direct knowledge of the incident told me that a US officer in Iraq had had to threaten his tired, dusty, frightened men with being disciplined if they did not stop referring to Bush as "the Deserter."

I am frankly not impressed by the Bush administration response to al-Qaeda. Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri are at large, as are a large number of other high al-Qaeda operatives. The Bush administration missed a chance to get a number of important al-Qaeda figures from Iran, which wanted some Mojahedin-e Khalq terrorists in return, because the Neocons in the Pentagon have some sort of weird alliance with the MEK mad bombers. Most of the really big al-Qaeda fish have been caught by Pakistan, to which the Bush administration has just farmed out some of the most important counter-insurgency work against al-Qaeda. Is this wise?

Bush is characterizing the Iraq war as a "catastrophic success". This is the line that the US military succeeded so well so fast against Saddam's army that chaos naturally ensued.

Democrats are having a lot of fun with the phrase, but the real problem is that that analysis of what went wrong is incorrect. The Bush administration simply mismanaged Iraq. It dissolved the Iraqi army, throwing the country into chaos. That army was not gone and would have gladly showed up at the barracks for a paycheck. It pursued a highly punitive policy of firing and excluding members of the Baath Party, which was not done in so thorough-going a manner even to Nazis in post-war Germany. It canceled planned municipal elections, denying people any stake in their new "government," which was more or less appointed by the US. It put all its efforts into destroying Arab socialism in Iraq and creating a sudden free market, rather than paying attention to the preconditions for entrepreneurial activity, like security and services. It kept changing its policies-- early on it was going to turn the country over to Ahmad Chalabi in 6 months. Then that plan was scotched and Paul Bremer was brought in to play MacArthur in Tokyo for a projected two or three years. Then that didn't work and there would be council-based elections. Then those wouldn't work and there would be a "transfer of sovereignty." All this is not to mention the brutal and punitive sieges of Fallujah and Najaf and the Abu Ghuraib torture scandal, etc., etc.

So it wasn't a catastrophic success that caused the problem. It was that Iraq was being run at the upper levels by a handful of screw-ups who had all sorts of ulterior motives, and at least sometimes did not have the best interests of the country at heart. And Bush is the one who put them in charge.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Muqtada Plans Political Party

AP reports that the young Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr has called on his followers to cease fighting American and Coaltion troops and Iraqi police. He plans, his aides say, to have the Sadr movement contest the forthcoming elections to parliament.

Al-Hayat argues that Muqtada's decision was a compromise between hawks and doves within the Sadr movement. The hawks want continued anti-American action, whereas the doves want to seek political power at the ballot box. Muqtada decided to favor the doves at this juncture, in part, it says, because the Najaf debacle demonstrated to him that other significant Shiite political forces might well attempt to cut him out of political power.

That is, if I understand the argument, the al-Dawa Party and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq could jointly dominate parliament if the Sadrists boycott the elections, and could then use their governmental power to harm the Sadrists (as Allawi had done in Najaf, in alliance with local Najaf notables and with SCIRI). Unlike Fallujah, where the whole town rallied against the Marines, Muqtada's men were largely deserted and despised by the Najafis, and so could be massacred by the US, unlike the Fallujah guerrillas. Muqtada saw that he could be effectively and devastatingly isolated, and decided that participation in parliamentary politics would actually strengthen his position.

On the other hand, he had to appease the hawks, and so is arguing that they should not have to disarm, and should be allowed to keep their weapons.

The NYT's Eric Eckholm is very good on these developments, as well, today. He says that the Sadrists want to keep their guns, arguing that they are private property and that most America families have guns at home. He says that the Allawi government might allow the Mahdi Army men to keep their rifles, but wanted rocket-propelled grenades turned in. Eckholm writes:

' Sheik Bakhabi declined to describe the two sides' positions but said, "If we gave our rocket-propelled grenades to the government, but then they broke their promises, we couldn't get them back again."

In Sadr City on Monday, armed fighters were seldom visible on the streets, but there was little doubt who was in control. When a stranger shows up, a neighborhood captain of the Sadr organization quickly offers a challenge. A signed note from a militia official or a local tribal leader is usually enough to pass muster. Posters everywhere depict Mr. Sadr. '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Brown's "Public Diplomacy Press Review

A really useful compendium of news items related to public diplomacy and Middle East policy is sent out by email by John Brown, a former Foreign Service officer, in conjunction with the University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy. It deals with "issues pertaining to foreign public opinion, anti-Americanism, propaganda, cultural diplomacy, U.S. international broadcasting, and the reception of American popular culture abroad." Mr. Brown says, "To receive the PDPR, please request it by e-mail at johnhbrown30 at hotmail d o t com."

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Hollings on AIPAC

I saw this in the press at the time, but a reader reminded me of it. Senator Hollings is retiring and speaking his mind. In my experience, this sentiment is very widespread on Capitol Hill, but politicians who are not retiring soon do not complain in public about it. Hollings said,

' But in any event [the Neocons say,], the better way to do it is go right in and establish our predominance in Iraq and then, as they say, and I have different articles here I could refer to, next is Iran and then Syria. And it is the domino theory, and they genuinely believe it. I differ. I think, frankly, we have caused more terrorism than we have gotten rid of. That is my Israel policy. You can't have an Israel policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here. I have followed them mostly in the main, but I have also resisted signing certain letters from time to time, to give the poor President a chance.

I can tell you no President takes office--I don't care whether it is a Republican or a Democrat--that all of a sudden AIPAC will tell him exactly what the policy is, and Senators and members of Congress ought to sign letters. I read those carefully and I have joined in most of them. On some I have held back. I have my own idea and my own policy. I have stated it categorically.

The way to really get peace is not militarily. You cannot kill an idea militarily. '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Johnson: FBI Furious at Leak

Many thanks to Ken Henderson for the following:

' In a later broadcast on MSNBC, former CIA officer and NBC analyst Larry Johnson
reported that for months he had been aware of an investigation that had led to tonight's revelation, one that had originally focused on the source of a forged document indicating that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger, presumably for making nuclear weapons. Johnson speculated that Israel may have been behind the forgery which was used by the administration to bolster its case for invasion. If so, he said, the espionage case could tie to an ongoing Justice Department criminal investigation into the outing of Valerie Plame as a covert CIA operative by right-wing columnist Robert Novak. Johnson also said the FBI was furious that news of the espionage investigation had leaked. Johnson opined that the investigation could lead from DOD to the National Security Council, and that the timing of the leak just before the start of the Republican convention was not coincidental. In a post on the dailykos weblog, one contributor noted that "when Tom Clancy and [Gen.] Zinni were running around flogging their book, they were on Deborah Norville. [During the show, Norville] asked Clancy of his impression of Wolfowitz. 'Is he working for our side?' [Clancy] replied."

It appears to be the case that someone in the Pentagon got wind that Larry Franklin had been flipped, and was terrified that the investigation might go on up the ladder at the Pentagon, in AIPAC, and with the Israelis. So they leaked news of the investigation to make sure that everybody clammed up and shredded everything.

The NYT piece today reflects continued efforts at the Pentagon to paint Franklin as a low-level desk grunt with little access to Paul Wolfowitz. This last is just a lie. In a conversation with me, Franklin indicated that he was in very close contact with Wolfowitz, and he offered to get me an audience. I said, "You don't read my web log, do you?"

CNN reports that AIPAC, which passed confidential Pentagon documents and information from Franklin to the Israelis, holds 2000 meetings a year with US Senators and Congressmen, leading to the passage of an average of 100 pro-Israel pieces of legislation every year!

Some readers have suggested that I have exaggerated AIPAC's hold on the US Congress. But I have direct knowledge of senators and congressmen being afraid to speak out on Israeli issues because of AIPAC's reputation for targetting representatives for un-election if they dare do so. And, it is easy to check. Look in the Congressional record. Is there ever any speech given on the floor critical of Israeli policy, given by a senator or representative who goes on to win the next election? And look at the debates in every other parliament in the world; there are such criticisms elsewhere. The US Congress is being held hostage by a single-issue lobbying organization that often puts Israeli interests above US interests, as the spying scandal, and the attempts to thwart the prisoner exchange by Iran of high al-Qaeda operatives for Mujahedin-e Khalq terrorists demonstrate.

Indeed, you would expect the revelation of the FBI case to provoke congressional investigations of AIPAC. There won't be any, for obvious reasons.

Again, I underline that the American Jewish community does not support most AIPAC positions (a majority are much closer to Americans for Peace Now), and that this issue has to do with a small fanatical leadership of a specific lobbying organization, nothing more.

Also, the Uggabugga blog has put up a diagram of the Franklin spying affair as far as it is known so far.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Baldauf: Najaf Standoff Helped Muqtada

CSM journalist Scott Baldauf, who has his ear to the ground in Iraq in a way that US officialdom seldom does, believes that Muqtada al-Sadr benefited politically from the recent standoff in Najaf. He writes,

' Six months ago, Sheikh Jawad al-Khalasi was what most would consider an Iraqi Shiite moderate. Critical of the militant ideas of fellow Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, Mr. Khalasi preached a more cooperative approach toward the Americans and the interim Iraqi government.

Then, last Thursday, when Iraqi snipers opened fire on him and thousands of demonstrators converging on Najaf, hoping to end the siege there and protect the shrine, Khalasi changed his mind. Now he's a radical, a troubling sign that Mr. Sadr has grown stronger from a three-week-long standoff that the Iraqi government once hoped might reduce Sadr to irrelevance. '

Meanwhile, fighting continued on Sunday in Iraq. The US bombed Fallujah yet again, and fought Mahdi Army militiamen in East Baghdad, killing 16 Iraqis during the two sets of clashes.

In downtown Baghdad, 250 Iraqis gathered to protest the ongoing US military actions in Iraq.

Another 35 Iraqis were wounded, and two guerrillas killed, in a clash between US forces and nationalists at Tel Afar in northern Iraq.

Dawn reports that

In Najaf Sunday morning, police raided an office of Grand Ayatollah Kadhim al-Husseini al-Hairi's representative and arrested several men, according to his supporters. Al-Husseini al-Hairi is believed to be Al-Sadr's mentor and he spent 25 years in the Iranian city of Kom.

Al-Husseini al-Hairi is more conservative than Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, who managed to persuade Al-Sadr's militia to withdraw from holy sites in Najaf on Friday. Also a spokesman for Al-Sadr in Basra told Arabic broadcaster al- Jazeera that Mahdi Army fighters were not responsible for an explosion at a pipeline near the southern oil fields of Rumeilah.

Actually, al-Haeri broke with Muqtada some time ago, and has denounced his use of an armed militia. So this raid on his offices has to do with something else. Al-Haeri is very anti-American, and it is likely just an attempt to curb any influence he may be building in Iraq, from which he has been exiled for decades, living in Qom, Iran.

In other Iraq news, the British also negotiated with Mahdi militiamen, in Basra, in an effort to end clashes with them there. Guerrillas blew up pipelines near Basra on Sunday, reducing Iraqi exports further.

And caretaker PM Iyad Allawi has signed an order abrogating the firing of Baath Party members in Iraq's ministries. Massive de-Baathification, which left many Iraqis jobless, had been implemented by Allawi's rival and distant cousin, Ahmad Chalabi.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Newsweek: Franklin Confesses
AIPAC Under Separate FBI Investigation

Laura Rozen directs our attention to the new Newsweek article by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, which has several new details on the Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal in the Pentagon.

First, Franklin's passing of confidential documents to AIPAC was discovered because AIPAC was already under FBI surveillance for possible espionage for Israel.

It was just a Washington lunch-—one that the FBI happened to be monitoring. Nearly a year and a half ago, agents were monitoring a conversation between an Israeli Embassy official and a lobbyist for American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, as part of a probe into possible Israeli spying. Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, in the description of one intelligence official, another American "walked in" to the lunch out of the blue. Agents at first didn't know who the man was. They were stunned to discover he was Larry Franklin, a desk officer with the Near East and South Asia office at the Pentagon.

So now the question is, what tipped the FBI to possible AIPAC spying efforts for Israel, and what is the substance of that investigation, which is apparently unrelated to the Franklin case?

Second, Franklin was flipped about a month ago, and admitted his Israeli contacts:

Officials say that Franklin began cooperating about a month ago, after he was confronted by the FBI. At the time, these officials say, Franklin acknowledged meetings with the Israeli contact.

A raft of articles appeared on Sunday based on interviews with Franklin's colleagues, which attempted to spin him as spacey and naive. Here is a reserve colonel, a Ph.D., a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, a man who knows several languages, is tough enough to play hardball inside the Pentagon. And he's a woolly-headed idiot? How likely is that? He is clearly a lamb being fattened. Franklin worked for or hung out intensively with Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Luti, Abram Shulsky, Harold Rhode, David Wurmser and a host of other officials known for their pro-Likud sentiments. So he takes it into his head all alone to pass confidential information to the Israelis? How likely is that?

Another way of soft-pedalling the story is to claim that he is a low-level desk officer without real influence or power. But Franklin is the Iran desk officer for the Pentagon. If Wolfowitz has a question about Iran, he calls Franklin. That isn't a "low level" position without influence.

Further, we know from UPI and Knight Ridder that the FBI investigation is not limited to Franklin.

I haven't seen any more on the Jerusalem Post's tantalizing assertion that Franklin attempted to block the trading of Mojahedin-e Khalq terrorists to Iran in return for five high-ranking al-Qaeda operatives in Iranian custody. But here is an Agence France Presse report from last December that explains the negotiations.

AFP, Dec. 10, 2003:

' Several Western diplomats have said Iran has been resisting handing over top-ranking Al-Qaeda fugitives, complaining that the United States had failed to deal with the People's Mujahedeen -- which has waged a brutal armed struggle against Iran's clerical rulers -- after its invasion of Iraq.

There have also been reports that Jordan's King Abdullah II was quietly trying to broker a deal between the United States and Iran over the issue.

Diplomats and Arab press reports have said Al-Qaeda detainees here include bin Laden's son, Saad, Al-Qaeda's spokesman, Sulaiman Abu Gaith, and its number three Saif al-Adel.

The People's Mujahedeen, or Mujahedeen-e Khalq Organization (MKO) set up base in Iraq in 1986 and carried out regular cross-border raids in Iran, with which Iraq fought a bloody war between 1980 and 1988.

For many in Iran's leadership the struggle is also a personal one -- supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had his arm paralysed in a 1981 attack blamed on the group.'

By the time this article appeared, the al-Qaeda trade had already fallen through because powerful US politicians, some with Likud Party links, had intervened to protect the MEK.

This summer, 2003 NBC report is also suggestive:

"We have exclusive new details tonight on talks between the US and Iran, a nation the President said was part of an axis of evil. Iran can help the American fight against terrorism, but apparently they have named a price." NBC (Brown) adds, "These three, among the most wanted members of Al Qaeda. The alleged poison expert who got medical treatment in Iraq, [Abu Mussab al Zarqawi]. Bin Laden's third oldest son, [Sa'ad bin Laden], known to be planning new Al Qaeda operations. The Al Qaeda spokesman, [Suleiman abu Gaith], famous for introducing bin Laden in this videotape after 9/11. Many US officials believe that Iran is willing to turn them and other key Al Qaeda operatives over to the US or their home countries -- for a price -- in exchange for members of an Iranian opposition group called the Mujahadeen al-Khalq, or the MEK. The MEK has been attacking Iran's Islamic government from Iraq and is now there under US military control."

Iran is reported to have Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in custody in summer of 2003, and to be entirely willing to hand him over to the US in return for some high-ranking MEK terrorists. But first the neocon network, including Franklin, Harold Rhode and Michael Ledeen, intervenes to stop the trade (see below). Then, mysteriously, everything that goes wrong in Iraq from about January of 2004 begins being blamed on Zarqawi (is it alleged that Iran let him go, to deliberately disrupt Iraq by blowing up Shiites? More likely, when Iran won't accommodate the Neocons because of the latters' ties to MEK, the neocons decide to smear Iran as "harboring" terrorists and "sending" them to Iraq. They know this path might even lead to a US war on Iran, which is what they want. That is one reason they did not want the prisoner exchange to succeed).

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Pentagon/Israel Spying Case Expands:
Fomenting a War on Iran

Here is my take on the Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal in the Pentagon.

It is an echo of the one-two punch secretly planned by the pro-Likud faction in the Department of Defense. First, Iraq would be taken out by the United States, and then Iran. David Wurmser, a key member of the group, also wanted Syria included. These pro-Likud intellectuals concluded that 9/11 would give them carte blanche to use the Pentagon as Israel's Gurkha regiment, fighting elective wars on behalf of Tel Aviv (not wars that really needed to be fought, but wars that the Likud coalition thought it would be nice to see fought so as to increase Israel's ability to annex land and act aggressively, especially if someone else's boys did the dying).

Franklin is a reserve Air Force colonel and former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst. He was an attache at the US embassy in Tel Aviv at one point, which some might now see as suspicious. After the Cold War ended, Franklin became concerned with Iran as a threat to Israel and the US, and learned a little Persian (not very much--I met him once at a conference and he could only manage a few halting phrases of Persian). Franklin has a strong Brooklyn accent and says he is "from the projects." I was told by someone at the Pentagon that he is not Jewish, despite his strong association with the predominantly Jewish neoconservatives. I know that he is very close to Paul Wolfowitz. He seems a canny man and a political operator, and if he gave documents to AIPAC it was not an act of simple stupidity, as some observers have suggested. It was part of some clever scheme that became too clever by half.

Franklin moved over to the Pentagon from DIA, where he became the Iran expert, working for Bill Luti and Undersecretary of Defense for Planning, Douglas Feith. He was the "go to" person on Iran for Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and for Feith. This situation is pretty tragic, since Franklin is not a real Iranist. His main brief appears to have been to find ways to push a policy of overthrowing its government (apparently once Iraq had been taken care of). This project has been pushed by the shadowy eminence grise, Michael Ledeen, for many years, and Franklin coordinated with Ledeen in some way. Franklin was also close to Harold Rhode, a long-time Middle East specialist in the Defense Department who has cultivated far right pro-Likud cronies for many years, more or less establishing a cell within the Department of Defense.

UPI via Dawn reports,

' An UPI report said another under-investigation official Mr Rhode "practically lived out of (Ahmad) Chalabi's office". Intelligence sources said that CIA operatives observed Mr Rhode as being constantly on his cell phone to Israel, discussing US plans, military deployments, political projects and a discussion of Iraq assets. '

Josh Marshall, Laura Rozen and Paul Glastris have just published a piece in the Washington Monthly that details Franklin's meetings with corrupt Iranian arms dealer and con man Manuchehr Ghorbanifar, who had in the 1980s played a key role in the Iran-contra scandal. (For more on the interviews with Ghorbanifar, see Laura Rozen's web log). It is absolutely key that the meetings were attended also by Rhode, Ledeen and the head of Italy's military intelligence agency, SISMI, Nicolo Pollari, as well as Rome's Minister of Defense, Antonio Martino.

The rightwing government of corrupt billionnaire Silvio Berlusconi, including Martino, was a big supporter of an Iraq war. Moreover, we know that the forged documents falsely purporting to show Iraqi uranium purchases from Niger originated with a former SISMI agent. Watch the reporting of Josh Marshall for more on this SISMI/Ledeen/Rhode connection.

But journalist Matthew Yglesias has already tipped us to a key piece of information. The Niger forgeries also try to implicate Iran. Indeed, the idea of a joint Iraq/Iran nuclear plot was so far-fetched that it is what initially made the Intelligence and Research division of the US State Department suspicious of the forgeries, even before the discrepancies of dates and officials in Niger were noticed. Yglesisas quotes from the Senate report on the alleged Iraqi attempt to buy uranium from Niger:

' The INR [that's State Department intelligence] nuclear analyst told the Committee staff that the thing that stood out immediately about the [forged] documents was that a companion document -- a document included with the Niger documents that did not relate to uranium -- mentioned some type of military campaign against major world powers. The members of the alleged military campaign included both Iraq and Iran and was, according to the documents, being orchestrated through the Nigerien [note: that's not the same as Nigerian] Embassy in Rome, which all struck the analyst as "completely implausible." Because the stamp on this document matched the stamp on the uranium document [the stamp was supposed to establish the documents bona fides], the analyst thought that all of the documents were likely suspect. The analyst was unaware at the time of any formatting problems with the documents or inconsistencies with the names or dates. '

Journalist Eric Margolis notes of SISMI:

SISMI has long been notorious for far right, even neo-fascist, leanings. According to Italian judicial investigators, SISMI was deeply involved in numerous plots against Italy’s democratic government, including the 1980 Bologna train station terrorist bombing that left 85 dead and 200 injured. Senior SISMI officers were in cahoots with celebrated swindler Roberto Calvi, the neo-fascist P2 Masonic Lodge, other extreme rightist groups trying to destabilize Italy, the Washington neocon operative, Michael Ledeen, and the Iran-Contra conspirators. SISMI works hand in glove with US, British and Israeli intelligence. In the 1960’s and 70’s, SISMI reportedly carried out numerous operations for CIA, including bugging the Vatican, the Italian president’s palace, and foreign embassies. Italy’s civilian intelligence service, SISDE, associated with Italy’s political center-left, has long been a bitter rival of SISMI. After CIA rejected the Niger file, it was eagerly snapped up by VP Dick Cheney and his chief of staff, Lewis Libby, who were urgently seeking any reason, no matter how specious, to invade Iraq. Cheney passed the phony data to Bush, who used it in his January, 2003 address to the nation in spite of warnings from CIA . . .

So Franklin, Ledeen, and Rhode, all of them pro-Likud operatives, just happen to be meeting with SISMI (the proto-fascist purveyor of the false Niger uranium story about Iraq and the alleged Iran-Iraq plot against the rest of the world) and corrupt Iranian businessman and would-be revolutionary, Ghorbanifar, in Europe. The most reasonable conclusion is that they were conspiring together about the Next Campaign after Iraq, which they had already begun setting in train, which is to get Iran.

But now The Jerusalem Post reveals that at least one of the meetings was quite specific with regard to an attempt to torpedo better US/Iran relations:

The purpose of the meeting with Ghorbanifar was to undermine a pending deal that the White House had been negotiating with the Iranian government. At the time, Iran had considered turning over five al-Qaida operatives in exchange for Washington dropping its support for Mujahadeen Khalq, an Iraq-based rebel Iranian group listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department.

The Neoconservatives have some sort of shadowy relationship with the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization or MEK. Presumably its leaders have secretly promised to recognize Israel if they ever succeed in overthrowing the ayatollahs in Iran. When the US recently categorized the MEK as a terrorist organization, there were howls of outrage from "scholars" associated with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (a wing of AIPAC), such as ex-Trotskyite Patrick Clawson and Daniel Pipes. MEK is a terrorist organization by any definition of the term, having blown up innocent people in the course of its struggle against the Khomeini government. (MEK is a cult-like mixture of Marx and Islam). The MEK had allied with Saddam, who gave them bases in Iraq from which to hit Iran. When the US overthrew Saddam, it raised the question of what to do with the MEK. The pro-Likud faction in the Pentagon wanted to go on developing their relationship with the MEK and using it against Tehran.

So it transpires that the Iranians were willing to give up 5 key al-Qaeda operatives, whom they had captured, in return for MEK members.

Franklin, Rhode and Ledeen conspired with Ghorbanifar and SISMI to stop that trade. It would have led to better US-Iran relations, which they wanted to forestall, and it would have damaged their proteges, the MEK.

Since high al-Qaeda operatives like Saif al-Adil and possibly even Saad Bin Laden might know about future operations, or the whereabouts of Bin Laden, for Franklin and Rhode to stop the trade grossly endangered the United States.

The FBI has evidence that Franklin passed a draft presidential directive on Iran to AIPAC, which then passed it to the Israelis. The FBI is construing these actions as espionage or something close to it. But that is like getting Al Capone on tax evasion. Franklin was not giving the directive to AIPAC in order to provide them with information. He was almost certainly seeking feedback from them on elements of it. He was asking, "Do you like this? Should it be changed in any way?" And, he might also have been prepping AIPAC for the lobbying campaign scheduled for early in 2005, when Congress will have to be convinced to authorize military action, or at least covert special operations, against Iran. AIPAC probably passed the directive over to Israel for the same reason--not to inform, but to seek input. That is, AIPAC and Israel were helping write US policy toward Iran, just as they had played a key role in fomenting the Iraq war.

With both Iraq and Iran in flames, the Likud Party could do as it pleased in the Middle East without fear of reprisal. This means it could expel the Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan, and perhaps just give Gaza back to Egypt to keep Cairo quiet. Annexing southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, the waters of which Israel has long coveted, could also be undertaken with no consequences, they probably think, once Hizbullah in Lebanon could no longer count on Iranian support. The closed character of the economies of Iraq and Iran, moreover, would end, allowing American, Italian and British companies to make a killing after the wars (so they thought).

Franklin's movements reveal the contours of a rightwing conspiracy of warmongering and aggression, an orgy of destruction, for the benefit of the Likud Party, of Silvio Berlusconi's business in the Middle East, and of the Neoconservative Right in the United States. It isn't about spying. It is about conspiring to conscript the US government on behalf of a foreign power or powers.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Israeli Spy in Pentagon Linked to AIPAC

CBS is reporting that a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst detailed to Undersecretary of Defense for Planning Douglas Feith's Office of Special Plans is under FBI investigation for spying for Israel. The person passed to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee confidential documents, including those detailing Bush administration policy toward Iran, and AIPAC then passed them to Israel. There are wiretaps and photographs backing up the FBI case (the FBI agents involved are extremely brave to take this on).

But this espionage case is too narrow. Consider what journalist Jim Lobe wrote about Feith's Office of Special Plans and the Pentagon Near East and South Asia office:

' key personnel who worked in both NESA and OSP were part of a broader network of neo-conservative ideologues and activists who worked with other Bush political appointees scattered around the national-security bureaucracy to move the country to war, according to retired Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who was assigned to NESA from May 2002 through February 2003. The heads of NESA and OSP were Deputy Undersecretary William Luti and Abram Shulsky, respectively. Other appointees who worked with them in both offices included Michael Rubin, a Middle East specialist previously with the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI); David Schenker, previously with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP); and Michael Makovsky; an expert on neo-con icon Winston Churchill and the younger brother of David Makovsky, a senior WINEP fellow and former executive editor of pro-Likud Jerusalem Post. Along with Feith, all of the political appointees have in common a close identification with the views of the right-wing Likud Party in Israel. '

Karen Kwiatkowski was an eyewitness in NESA, and Lobe reports:

' she recounts one incident in which she helped escort a group of half a dozen Israelis, including several generals, from the first floor reception area to Feith's office. "We just followed them, because they knew exactly where they were going and moving fast." When the group arrived, she noted the book which all visitors are required to sign under special regulations that took effect after the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks. "I asked his secretary, 'Do you want these guys to sign in?' She said, 'No, these guys don't have to sign in.'" It occurred to her, she said, that the office may have deliberately not wanted to maintain a record of the meeting. '

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is a lobbying group that used to support whatever government was in power in Israel, and used to give money even-handedly inside the US. My perception is that during the past decade AIPAC has increasingly tilted to the Likud in Israel, and to the political Right in the United States. In the 1980s, AIPAC set up the Washington Institute for Near East Policy as a pro-Israeli alternative to the Brookings Institution, which it perceived to be insufficiently supportive of Israel. WINEP has largely followed AIPAC into pro-Likud positions, even though its director, Dennis Ross, is more moderate. He is a figurehead, however, serving to disguise the far right character of most of the position papers produced by long-term WINEP staff and by extremist visitors and "associates" (Daniel Pipes and Martin Kramer are among the latter).

WINEP, being a wing of AIPAC, is enormously influential in Washington. State Department and military personnel are actually detailed there to "learn" about "the Middle East"! They would get a far more balanced "education" about the region in any Israeli university, since most Israeli academics are professionals, whereas WINEP is a "think tank" that hires by ideology.

I did some consulting with one US company that had a government contract, and they asked me about WINEP position papers (many of them are just propaganda). When I said I would take them with a grain of salt, the guy said his company had "received direction" to pay a lot of attention to the WINEP material! So Discipline is being imposed even on the private sector.

Note that over 80% of American Jews vote Democrat, that the majority of American Jews opposed the Iraq war (more were against it than in the general population), and that American Jews have been enormously important in securing civil liberties for all Americans. Moreover, Israel has been a faithful ally of the US and deserves our support in ensuring its security. The Likudniks like to pretend that they represent American Jewry, but they do not. And they like to suggest that objecting to their policies is tantamount to anti-Semitism, which is sort of like suggesting that if you don't like Chile's former dictator Pinochet, you are bigotted against Latinos.

As can be seen by Lobe's list, WINEP supplies rightwing intellectuals to Republican administrations, who employ their positions to support Likud policies from within the US government. They have the advantage over long-time civil servants in units like the State Department's Intelligence and Research division, insofar as they are politically connected and so have the ear of the top officials.

So, passing a few confidential documents over is a minor affair. Pro-Likud intellectuals established networks linking Defense and the national security advisers of Vice President Dick Cheney, gaining enormous influence over policy by cherry-picking and distorting intelligence so as to make a case for war on Saddam Hussein. And their ulterior motive was to remove the most powerful Arab military from the scene, not because it was an active threat to Israel (it wasn't) but because it was a possible deterrent to Likud plans for aggressive expansion (at the least, they want half of the West Bank, permanently).

It should be admitted that the American Likud could not make US policy on its own. Its members had to make convincing arguments to Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush himself. But they were able to make those arguments, by distorting intelligence, channeling Ahmad Chalabi junk, and presenting Big Ideas to men above them that signally lacked such ideas. (Like the idea that the road to peace in Jerusalem ran through Baghdad. Ha!)

It was these WINEP and AIPAC-linked US Likud backers in the Defense Department who had the Iraqi army dissolved as soon as Saddam was overthrown. This step threw Iraq into chaos and led to the deaths of nearly a thousand US servicemen so far, since an Iraq without an army would inevitably depend on the US military. But with the Iraqi army gone, and with Egypt and Jordan neutralized, Syria was left the only country anywhere near Israel that could make active trouble for Sharon if he completely screwed over the Palestinians. And Syria was now weak and isolated. So Sharon has had a free hand in his expansionist aggression. And, because the US public has been preoccupied with Iraq, the Likud could pursue its annexation of West Bank land and its expropriation of even more Palestinians without anyone over here even noticing. It is the best of all possible worlds for the heirs of Ze'ev Jabotinsky.

The Likud policies of reversing Oslo and stealing people's land and making their lives hell has produced enormous amounts of terrorism against Israel, and the Likudniks have cleverly turned that to their political advantage. Aggression and annexation is necessary, they argue, because there is terrorism. Some of them now openly speak of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians, using the same argument. But when the Oslo peace process looked like it would go somewhere, terrorism tapered off (it did not end, but then peace had not been achieved).

The drawback for the US in all this is that US government backing for Sharon's odious policies makes it hated in the Muslim world. (Note that Muslims who oppose Israeli aggression are often tagged as "terrorists" by the US government, but rightwing Jews who go to Palestine to colonize it, walking around with Uzi machine guns and sometimes shooting down civilians, are not "terrorists.") This lack of balance is one big reason that Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri hit the US on September 11. In fact, Bin Laden wanted to move up the operation to punish the US for supporting Sharon's crackdown on the Second Intifada.

Likud apologists have carefully planted the false story that al-Qaeda did not care about Palestine, but that is absurd. Bin Laden always complained about the occupation of the three holy cities (Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, the first two because of US troops in Saudi Arabia, and the third under Israeli occupation). When Bin Laden came back from Afghanistan to Jidda in 1989 his first sermon at the local mosque was about the Israeli repression of Palestinians during the first Infifada.

Now US occupation of Iraq is making it even more hated in the Muslim world. It is a policy hatched in part by AIPAC, WINEP, and their associated "thinkers." The cynical might suggest that they actively want the US involved in a violent struggle with Muslims, to make sure that the US remains anti-Palestinian and so will permit Israeli expansion.

All this can happen because there is a vacuum in US political discourse. A handful of special interests in the United States virtually dictate congressional policy on some issues. With regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and a few allies have succeeded in imposing complete censorship on both houses of Congress. No senator or congress member dares make a speech on the floor of his or her institution critical of Israeli policy, even though the Israeli government often violates international law and UN Security Council resolutions (it would violate more such resolutions, except that the resolutions never got passed because only one NSC member, the US, routinely vetoes them on behalf of Tel Aviv.) As the Labor Party in Israel has been eclipsed by the Likud coalition, which includes many proto-fascist groups, this subservience has yoked Washington to foreign politicians who privately favor ethnic cleansing and/or agressive warfare for the purpose of annexing the territory of neighbors.

On the rare occasion when a brave member of congress dares stand up to this unrelenting AIPAC tyranny, that person is targeted for unelection in the next congressional campaign, with big money directed by AIPAC and/or its analogues into the coffers of the senator or congressman's opponent. Over and over again, AIPAC has shaped the US congress in this way, so successfully that no one even dares speak out any more.

AIPAC is not all that rich or powerful, but politics in the US is often evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. Because many races are very close, any little extra support can help change the outcome. AIPAC can provide that little bit. Moreover, most Americans couldn't care less about the Middle East or its intractable problems, whereas the staffers at AIPAC are fanatics. If some congressman from southern Indiana knows he can pick up even a few thousand dollars and some good will from AIPAC, he may as well, since his constituents don't care anyway. That there is no countervailing force to AIPAC allows it to be effective. (That is one reason that pro-Likud American activists often express concern about the rise of the Muslim-American community and the possibility that it may develop an effective lobby.) Moreover, AIPAC leverages its power by an alliance with the Christian Right, which has adopted a bizarre ideology of "Christian Zionism." It holds that the sooner the Palestinians are ethnically cleansed, the sooner Christ will come back. Without millions of these Christian Zionist allies, AIPAC would be much less influential and effective.

The Founding Fathers of the United States deeply feared that a foreign government might gain this level of control over a branch United States government, and their fears have been vindicated.

The situation has reached comedic proportions. Congress is always drafting letters to the president, based on AIPAC templates, demanding that lopsided US policy in favor of Israel be revised to be even more in favor of Israel. US policy recently changed to endorse the expansion of Israeli colonies in Palestinian, West Bank territory.

Where Israel is in the right, this situation obviously is innocuous. The United States should protect Israel from aggressive attack, if necessary. United Nations members are pledged to collective security, i.e. to protecting any member nation from aggression at the hands of another. But given that Israel is a nuclear power with a vast arsenal of weapons of mass destruction; given that Egypt and Jordan have long-lived peace treaties with Israel; and given that Syria and Lebanon are small weak powers, there is not in fact any serious military threat to Israel in its immediate neighborhood. In contrast, Israel launched wars against neighbors in 1956, 1967, and 1982 (all of which it won so easily as to bring into question the necessity for the wars in the first place if they were defensive), and has since 1967 been assiduously colonizing Palestinian land that it militarily occupied--all the while attempting to avoid becoming responsible for the Palestinian populations on that land. This latter policy has poisoned the entire world.

AIPAC currently has a project to shut up academics such as myself, the same way it has shut up Congress, through congressional legislation mandating "balance" (i.e. pro-Likud stances) in Middle East programs at American Universities. How long the US public will allow itself to be spied on and pushed around like this is a big question. And, with the rise of international terrorism targeting the US in part over these issues, the fate of the country hangs in the balance.

If al-Qaeda succeeds in another big attack, it could well tip the country over into military rule, as Gen. Tommy Franks has suggested. That is, the fate of the Republic is in danger. And the danger comes from two directions, not just one. It comes from radical extremists in the Muslim world, who must be fought. But it also comes from radical extremists in Israel, who have key allies in the US and whom the US government actively supports and against whom influential Americans are afraid to speak out.

If I had been in power on September 11, I'd have called up Sharon and told him he was just going to have to withdraw to 1967 borders, or face the full fury of the United States. Israel would be much better off inside those borders, anyway. It can't absorb 3 million Palestinians and retain its character, and it can't continue to hold 3 million Palestinians as stateless hostages without making itself inhumane and therefore un-Jewish. And then I'd have thrown everything the US had at al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and frog-marched Bin Laden off to justice, and rebuilt Afghanistan to ensure that al-Qaeda was permanently denied a base there. Iraq, well, Iraq was contained.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Thousands Stream into Shrine of Ali
Muqtada orders Followers to Disarm

CNN's Kianne Sadeq continues her excellent reportage from Najaf. She and her team report that supporters of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani streamed into the shrine of Ali in Najaf. After reaching an agreement with Sistani, Muqtada pledged to ask his men to leave the shrine. Sistani wants Najaf and Kufa to be demilitarized. Muqtada al-Sadr's men used the microphones ordinarily employed for the call to prayer to relay his message that the Mahdi Army should lay down its arms. Wire reports suggest that some were obeying the order. With all those pilgrims now in the shrine, it will be easy for the Mahdi Army fighters to slip away if they so choose.

Sadeq also says that Qasim Dawoud, the Minister of State for Military Affairs, has pledged that Muqtada al-Sadr would be a free man as a result of the agreement he reached with Sistani. Dawoud said,

"Muqtada al-Sadr is free to go anywhere he likes. ... He is as free as any Iraqi citizen."

Meanwhile, the full extent of the destruction inflicted on Najaf by the US military may never be fully appreciated in the U.S. itself. How many civilians did our troops kill in their campaign in a densely populated urban area against the Sadrist street gangs--especially in the first days of the conflict before most city residents fled the old city? I find chilling the words of John Burns and Dexter Filkin of the New York Times

' One of the last American actions before the cease-fire went into effect involved the use of a 2,000-pound, laser-guided bomb to strike a hotel about 130 yards from the shrine's southwest wall, in an area known to American commanders as "motel row." '

Chris Allbritton, an eyewitness writes to remind me that by this time, the area was completely deserted by civilians, so this strike did not kill any. My point was only that especially in the first week of the three-week battle, there seem to have been civilian casualties, and we don't know anything about them-- how many, how bad, etc., despite sporadic reports and statistics from the Iraqi Health Ministry.

Al-Hayat reports that while he was in London, a delegation of Iranians came to see Sistani and to request that he support a bigger role for Iran in Iraq. He is said to have rejected this overture vehemently, and to have decided in the aftermath to return to Iraq without coordinating that step with the British, American or Iraqi governments. [This claim of non-coordination is coming from Sistani circles in London and is not plausible-- the British had to be in this up to their eyeballs.]

Winners and losers:

I think the big losers from the Najaf episode (part deux) are the Americans. They have become, if it is possible, even more unpopular in Iraq than they were last spring after Abu Ghuraib, Fallujah and Najaf Part 1. The US is perceived as culturally insensitive for its actions in the holy city of Najaf.

The Allawi government is also a big loser. Instead of looking decisive, as they had hoped, they ended up looking like the lackeys of neo-imperialists.

The big winner is Sistani, whose religious charisma has now been enhanced by solid nationalist credentials. He is a national hero for saving Najaf.

For Muqtada, it is a wash. He did not have Najaf until April, anyway, and can easily survive not having it. His movement in the slums of the southern cities is intact, even if its paramilitary has been weakened.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Cole on Lehrer, CNN

I will be on the Lehrer News Hour tonight talking about Sistani and the settlement he has reached with Muqtada al-Sadr.

Also on CNN Headline News either at 7-7:30 or 7:30-8:00 EST
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Sistani Arrives in Najaf
Dozens Dead in Kufa Mosque Mortar attack

Abdul Hussein al-Obeidi of AP reports that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has arrived in Najaf and gone to a house about a mile from the besieged shrine of Ali. He has asked the thousands of marchers with him to wait outside the city.

Caretaker Prime Minister announced a 24-hour truce in Najaf. American-appointed Najaf Governor Adnan al-Zurfi threatened that if the mosque crisis is not resolved in 24 hours, he will begin military operations again (the clip was shown on al-Jazeerah).

Iraqis in Kufa who went to a mosque to pray before walking to Najaf came under mortar fire, which killed dozens and wounded a large number. The Sadrists blamed the US military, which denied having mortar emplacements anywhere near the shrine. The US military suggested that the Mahdi Army has engaged in wild, undisciplined mortar fire. (This is true, but unless a clear target is identified near the mosque that they might have actually been aiming at, it seems a little unlikely that they would hit their own mosque with hundreds of worshippers inside.) The main source of violence in Kufa in the past 24 hours has been Iraqi police or national guards, who have fired on unarmed demonstrators.

Before Sistani's arrival, protesters from Diwaniyyah to Najaf's east who arrived at that side of the holy city had received fire from Iraqi police, and there were an unknown number of casualties.

Iraqi police also fired on peaceful demonstrators in Hilla who were heading for Najaf, killing at least two and wounding 23, according to Australian Broadcasting.

Al-Jazeerah is quoting ccasualties during the previous 24 hours from Iraqi health officials as 74 dead, 300 wounded.

Tony Karon at the Time Magazine weblog, has a fine overview of the situation which does an excellent job of explaining Sistani's political dilemma and the way he is trying to resolve it.


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Cole as Issue in Oklahoma Senate Campaign

In this month's Wired magazine, an article entitled "The Dean Machine Marches On" looks at the internet, blogging, and political campaigns. In the profile on p. 141 of Brad Carson, a Native American and Blue Dog Democrat running for an Oklahoma senate seat, it is written:

"But the new tactics can be risky. The National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a press release titled "Brad Carson: A-Blogging He Will Go," which attacked Carson for linking to "the Web sites of radicals," including DailyKos and Juan Cole.

This all happened a while ago, of course, but what is exciting to me is where it is reported. Many, many thanks to Carson and to the National Republican Senatorial Committee for getting me a mention in Wired, one of my favorite magazines.

Carson's Web Log is very much worthwhile checking out.

And, please send him a hefty campaign contribution. :-)

Carson is behind in the polls in Oklahoma, but some think he has a chance of pulling ahead.


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Sistani in Najaf Today

As I write very early Thursday morning, Sistani 's convoy had left Basra on its way to Najaf several hours to the north. Al-Jazeerah says his convoy is being accompanied by Iraqi police.

The Guardian's Michael Howard scored a coup with an interview with Ayatollah Muhammad Bahr al-Ulum, who is close to Sistani and laid out his plan of action for Thursday.

' Mr Bahr Ul Uloum said the grand ayatollah would spend the night in Basra, before travelling to Najaf today, gathering supporters in the southern cities of Nassiriya, Samawa and Diwaniya. He said he and a delegation of tribal and religious leaders from Najaf and the surrounding region would meet the ayatollah and his supporters on the edge of the holy city and march with them to the shrine. "If the fighting is still going on, the ayatollah will call on everyone to put down their guns," Mr Bahr Ul Uloum said. "Then he will go the holy shrine, pray, and receive the keys to the holy shrine." After that the political process would take over to resolve "outstanding issues" between Mr Sadr and the interim government, he said. '

Al-Hayat reports that Sistani will put forward a 4-point plan: 1) An immediate ceasefire will be called; the Mahdi Army will leave Najaf and so will the American military, turning security over to the Iraqi police. 2) The shrine of Ali will be returned to the supervision of the Pious Endowments Board headed by Husain al-Shami. 3) Najaf will be declared a security (i.e. non-combat) zone. The source to whom the newspaper's journalists spoke declined to reveal the fourth point.

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat says that Sayyid Muhammad Musawi, one of Sistani's more important aides, warned the Americans against damaging or raiding the shrine of Ali (where Mahdi Army militiamen are holed up). He said that if the Americans behaved this way, it would provoke "general" (i.e. nation-wide) protests and result in a "very bad" situation. This is a threat that Sistani will bring out large urban crowds against the Americans if they do not back off. He can do it, so it is not an empty boast. And those panglossian American military planners who think they have 10 years to get things right in Iraq will find themselves tossed out summarily from the country.

Al-Zaman reports that a procession toward Najaf has already begun from the other Shiite holy city of Karbala, to the northwest of Najaf.

It also reports that Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, has fully endorsed Sistani's call for a march on Najaf. SCIRI is represented on the caretaker government by Finance Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi.

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat says that Muqtada al-Sadr has issued a communique also calling on Shiites to come to Najaf. The Sadrists will inevitably attempt to piggy-back on Sistani's new activism. But since he is insisting that they leave the shrine, they are playing a weak hand.

The interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, dispatched two cabinet ministers to consult with Sistani. They are Minister of State Qassim Dawoud and Minister of Provincial Affairs, Judge Wael Abdul Latif.

The stakes here are enormous. If Iraqi police fire on the peaceful demonstrators again, or if US troops refuse to make way for Sistani, there could be a big social explosion in Iraq. If Sistani is successful in his plan, on the other hand, it will further increase his authority in the Shiite South and perhaps even transform him into a nationalist hero.

All this is important because Sistani is insisting on the January elections being held on time. If they are postponed he will almost certainly send his followers into the streets to protest, and could well bring down Allawi.


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Iraqi Police fire on Kufa Demonstrators

Peaceful, civilian Shiite demonstrators in Kufa heeding Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani's call for a march on Najaf (which is just next door to Kufa) were fired on Wednesday afternoon, suffering two killed and five wounded. Apparently the firing came from the Iraqi police. The Australian Herald Sun reports:

' Abbas Hamid, 32, told AFP from his hospital bed that the demonstration in support of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr began at 4pm outside the Kufa mosque. "We were heading towards Najaf but when we reached the Al-Abassiya bridge, Iraqi police opened fire," he said. He said the demonstrators had not passed a multinational force position, where witnesses had said the gunfire broke out. '

Al-Jazeerah was rather dramatically reporting that the Kufa crowd was fired on by American troops, which appears not to be the case, and the Sadr spokesman they interviewed by telephone gave the impression of rather more casualties and chaos than AFP reports. CNN had footage of the firing, and to be fair it did also look to me like a bigger incident than the print wire services describe.

The motivation for the Iraqi police to fire on the peaceful protesters appears to have been that they believed them actually to be members of the Mahdi Army militia, even if temporararily going about unarmed. (There does not appear to be any reason to believe this charge other than simple prejudice--the footage from AP television clearly shows a peaceful crowd.) Christopher Allbritton is in Najaf and reports an unsuccessful foray to the shrine of Ali, frustrated by heavy American fire and sniping all around it. On his return to the hotel, he and the other journalists were rounded up at gunpoint and taken to see the police chief of Najaf, Ghalib al-Jazairi. He reports what he heard at this weird ("can't miss it-- no, I mean really, you won't be allowed to miss it") press conference:

" The Shrine would be stormed tonight, he said, and we would be allowed to get on a bus and go visit it tomorrow to see the damage the Mahdi Army had done to it. The Sistani protesters in Kufa were really Mahdi guys and they had to be killed. Oh, and thank you for coming. A few of us put up a fight, demanding why they couldn’t just invite us down for a presser instead of kidnapping us. Oh, no, the commander said, that must have been a mistake. I just asked them to bring you to me… There was no order to brandish weapons, push journalists around and fire into the air. One cop, a lieutenant, just smiled at us when we pointed our fingers at him and said he was the one leading the raid, yelling and pointing his side arm at us. These are Najaf’s finest. They’re like the old regime, only less disciplined."

Abdul Hussein al-Obeidi has more on this incident and others in Najaf on Wednesday. He reports that Jazairi "advised" Iraqis not to come to Najaf because it might be dangerous. If Sistani ever gets any practical power in Najaf, I can only imagine that Jazairi's days in that position are numbered.

The Kufa incident underlines the potential for police/crowd violence (and perhaps US military/ crowd violence) as Sistani's supporters converge on Najaf.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Sistani Returns, Launches March
Sadrist Ceasefire Announced

Al-Hayat is reporting that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani defied his physicians' advice and insisted on returning to Iraq midday on Wednesday. He landed in Kuwait and went overland to Basra, where he is staying at the home of prominent Shiite Ali Abdul Hakim.

Reuters says that Sistani's aide Hayder al-Safi read out a statement by the grand ayatollah saying ' "We ask all believers to volunteer to go with us to Najaf . . . I have come for the sake of Najaf and I will stay in Najaf until the crisis ends." '

The Scotsman writes that
Sistani crossed into Iraq in a convoy of sport utility vehicles. He had an escort of Iraqi police and national guardsmen, who had their sirens blaring. It says,

' After meeting with al-Sistani, Basra Governor Hassan al-Rashid told reporters that the cleric would lead a march to Najaf tomorrow . . . “The masses will gather at the outskirts of Najaf and they will not enter the city until all armed men, except the Iraqi policemen, withdraw from the city,” he said. '

If I read this aright, the Basra governor is talking like this.

Sistani will leave Basra for Najaf at 7 am Thursday morning Iraq time.

Sistani's offices in London, Karbala and Beirut also announced that he was calling on Shiite civilians to mount a peace march to Najaf to save the shrine of Imam Ali. He also called on both Mahdi Army militiamen and American military forces to vacate the city. The Karbala communique, acquired by a German wire service, spoke of the need to "expel the Americans from Najaf."

Al-Jazeerah is reporting that Sadr spokesman Aws Khafaji has announced a ceasefire by the Mahdi Army in honor of Sistani's return, and to ensure his safe passage through the south to Najaf. The Mahdi Army has been fighting British troops fiercely in Basra, Kut, Amarah and elsewhere in the south.

Sadr spokesman Ahmad Shaibani announced that the Sadrists were entirely willing to obey any command of Sistani's and would cooperate with him completely.

I am told that some middle class Shiites in Najaf are complaining that Sistani's intervention may prevent the finishing off of the Mahdi militia, and that the idea of a march and a convergence on the city may in fact bring more Sadrists in. The Sadrists are not popular in largely middle class Najaf, being from the shantytowns of the southern cities in the main.

ABC is reporting that American-appointed Najaf governor Adnan al-Zurfi ' said Iraqi security forces had "taken all needed measures to prevent any crowds from entering the province," calling it a "military area." ' Al-Zurfi is probably bluffing, since it he doesn't have that many men loyal to him, and none of them would fire on a peaceful crowd of Shiites led by Sistani. But if he does try to fire on the crowds, it could cause a lot of trouble. The Shah tried that sort of thing on Black September and it contributed to his overthrow.

Meanwhile, Australian Broadcasting is reporting that

' Tens of thousands from Baghdad and southern Iraq pledged to answer the Iranian-born ayatollah's call to march on the besieged city of Najaf in a mission to resolve the crisis peacefully.

He was determined to "save Najaf," the head of his London office Hamad al-Khaffaf told Al-Arabiya television, calling on all Iraqis to join the march . . .

Sadr supporters barricaded in the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf also greeted Sistani's call with joy. "The situation is getting worse day by day and only God's intervention can save us. And I think this march is a gift from God," Mohammed al-Batat said.

A senior Shiite official said Sistani wanted all foreign troops and weapons out of the city and for Sadr's Mehdi Army to leave the shrine and the city.

The Allawi government arrested Sadr aide Sheikh Ali Sumaisim, along with three other persons, charging him with possession of a Koranic antiquity and a large amount of dollars in cash (the implication is that he may have been involved in antiquities theft and trafficking from the Imam Ali shrine).

The US military continued to use tanks and warplanes to pound Mahdi Army positions near the shrine of Imam Ali, shattering its windows. Some damage has already been inflicted by the Americans on one of the compound walls. It is this sort of scene that horrifies Sistani.

US tanks had the shrine tightly surrounded.

A physician at the clinic of the shrine announced that at least 30 persons within had serious injuries that required their evacuation, and that he feared many more wounded were caught in nearby areas. In the last 24 hours, 6 bodies and 20 wounded had been brought to the clinic, he said.

Sistani's return raises many questions. Note that he did not fly into American-controlled Baghdad but rather to Kuwait, traveling overland to Basra. Since Basra is in British hands, with a Shiite governor that seems pro-Sistani, it seems possible that Sistani's people coordinated his return with the British and with the Basra authorities rather than with the United States and the Allawi government. Indeed, America's most militant asset in Najaf, governor Ali al-Zurfi, seems dead set against Sistani returning with crowds this way. You have to wonder if the British MI6 and military are showing some insubordination toward the Americans by allowing all this, as a mark of their disapproval of the gung-ho Marine attacks in Najaf, which have caused trouble in the British-held South and endangered the British garrisons. Likewise, one wonders if Basra governor Hassan al-Rashid is entirely loyal to Allawi. A lot of southern Shiites would be pretty upset with the way Allawi and his two main henchmen, Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib and Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan have been reviving old Baathist stereotypes about the Shiites and pursuing iron fist policies in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.

If Sistani does lead a popular march of the sort the press is describing, it might be the most significant act of civil disobedience by an Asian religious leader since Gandhi's salt march in British India. And it might kick off the beginning of the end of American Iraq, just as the salt march knelled the end of the British Indian empire.

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Metro Times Profile

Curt Guyette's profile of me at the Detroit Metro Times is now available on the internet.
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Attempted Assassinations of Ministers Fail
Iraqi Troops Move into Najaf: "We are in the Last Hours"

Reuters and AFP report via Dawn that the assassination attempt on the Minister of Education, reported here yesterday, was followed by another such attempt against the Minister of the Environment, Mishkat Moumin. Dawn quotes her:

' "Serving the Iraqi people is not a crime that deserves this," an outraged Moumin said after the blast.

The attack shocked local residents. "I opened the door to leave for work and the blast knocked me over," said Ali al Tai, standing in front of his home only metres from the blast site where Moumin was targeted, blood from victims splattered on his shirt. '

The Jordanian-led terrorist group, al-Tawhid, claimed credit for the attempt.

Meanwhile, the US continued to bombard Mahdi Army positions in Najaf, and to tighten their "squeeze" of the militiamen. Dawn writes,

'The advance was carried out by 50 Iraqi servicemen and came after US helicopters fired missiles and strafed militants dug in at a cemetery near the mosque, where most of the fighters have holed up since the uprising in the city began three weeks ago.

A US soldier guided the men in. They were shot at by Mehdi militiamen and returned fire. "We are in the last hours. This evening, Iraqi forces will reach the doors of the shrine and control it and appeal to the Mehdi Army to throw down their weapons," Defence Minister Hazim al Shalaan said at a US army base outside Najaf. "If they do not, we will wipe them out." '

I saw Shaalan speaking in Arabic on al-Jazeerah, and he said, "If Muqtada al-Sadr will surrender himself, that would be superb. He will be given safe passage and treated with perfect respect. But if he refuses, he will face either death or prison." or words to that effect. Obviously, the al-Hayat report that PM Iyad Allawi was trying to rein in Shaalan was incorrect; either that, or Shaalan has more pull with the Americans than Allawi does.

Some Sadr spokesmen rejected Shaalan's offer, with one calling it "garbage." Others seemed more conciliatory.

The Mahdi Army fighters appeared to be thinning out at the Shrine of Ali. Al-Jazeerah also had footage of the Iraqi army moving into position in the Old City of Najaf. Interestingly, the anchors were saying that the coming confrontation would be between two sets of Iraqis. I would have expected them to insist that the Iraqi forces were just American proxies, but at least on Wednesday evening EST that wasn't their line.

Muslim political and religious figures continued to denounce the US actions in Najaf on Tuesday, as a form of desecration of a holy place. The speaker of Iran's parliament said the actions were spreading hatred for the US in the region. Pakistani satellite tv said that the Pakistani senate had passed a resolution demanding that all foreign troops leave the holy city of Najaf. The Pakistani senate is a generally conservative body, dominated by landlords and by supporters of the pro-American "president," Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf met Tuesday with Bosnian President Sulejman Tihic, who delivered a speech praising the United States for saving the Bosnian Muslims from certain genocide. So these aren't reflexively anti-American political circles there in Islamabad, but the senators are disturbed by the American role in the Najaf events.

Muqtada and his main aides have disappeared from the shrine, as I had predicted they would. As I suggested, there are probably underground tunnels. Muqtada has plenty of safe houses in Iraq, since he eluded Saddam for four years, and he won't be easy to find if he doesn't want to be found.

My guess is that the Sadr Movement will now go into an active, long term guerrilla resistance. They will hope that bombings and assassinations will give heart to the public and provide a model for resisting what they see as the occupation. They will hope for an Algeria-style end game, in which the Americans and British are tossed out of Iraq. The drawback for the Mahdi Army is that they are just untrained Shiite ghetto youth, with perhaps a few older vets among them, and their ability to wage an effective guerrilla struggle is untested. So far they have fought far more stupidly than the resistance fighters in the Sunni Arab areas, attempting to take and hold territory and behaving like a mainstream army but without the necessary skill set.

If they move in this direction, they will at least have moral support of a wide range of Sunni and Shiite clerics, who jointly called for all Muslims to support the resistance to what they call the US occupation of Iraq. The signatories include prominent figures in the Sunni Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, in Lebanon's Shiite Hizbullah, and in Yemen's Sunni fundamentalist movement. Most of the clerics signing the call want an Islamic state in their country, with Islamic law the law of the land, and so can be called fundamentalists. But most of them are not radicals in the sense of wanting a violent and immediate revolution. Some, like Yusuf Qaradawi, explicitly permitted Muslims to fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan in the US military or alongside it. But Qaradawi and the others see Iraq in a different light, as an Arab, Muslim society that has been colonized by an outside force, the US.

The low intensity guerrilla fighting in Amara against the British base, which left at least 12 dead and 54 wounded there, may be a sign of things to come. There were also clashes in the southern oil port of Basra.
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George H.W. Bush on Why Invading Iraq was a Bad Idea

George Gedda of AP reminds us of the opposition to an American invasion of Iraq expressed after the Gulf War by George Bush senior and his secretary of state, James Baker. Bush wrote in his memoirs:

' Incalculable human and political costs" would have been the result, the senior Bush has said, if his administration had pushed all the way to Baghdad and sought to overthrow Saddam Hussein after the U.S.-led coalition ousted the Iraqi army from Kuwait during the Persian Gulf war in 1991.

"We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect rule Iraq," Bush wrote. "The coalition would have instantly collapsed. ... Going in and thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations mandate would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish.

"Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different - and perhaps barren - outcome." '

Baker wrote an op-ed in 1996 that said,

"Iraqi soldiers and civilians could be expected to resist an enemy seizure of their own country with a ferocity not previously demonstrated on the battlefield in Kuwait.

"Even if Hussein were captured and his regime toppled, U.S. forces would still have been confronted with the specter of a military occupation of indefinite duration to pacify the country and sustain a new government in power.

"Removing him from power might well have plunged Iraq into civil war, sucking U.S. forces in to preserve order. Had we elected to march on Baghdad, our forces might still be there."

One thing Gedda neglects in his account is the enormous pressure the first Bush administration received from Middle East allies not to go in. The Saudis were afraid the Shiites would take over, strengthening Iran and perhaps becoming influential in the oil-rich al-Hasa province of Saudi Arabia, which traditionally had a Shiite majority. The Turks were afraid of Kurdish nationalism being unleashed, such that it might spread back to Turkey. The Jordanians were also afraid of chaos, which might blow back on them. The Egyptians objected to a Western army invading a Muslim country.

Even more recently, in 2002 - 2003, King Abdullah II would have much preferred that the war had never been fought. He warned Bush that it might cast the entire region into flames. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak warned that it would produce a thousand Bin Ladens. Was he wrong?

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The Fighting in Iraq

Reuters is reporting that guerrillas detonated a car bomb early on Tuesday, killing 2 persons and wounding 3 others. They were trying to assassinate Education Minister Sami al-Mudhaffar, but he escaped unscathed.

Knight Ridder's Hannah Allam was trapped in the Imam Ali Shrine on Monday when fighting suddenly intensified, and she filed via her satellite phone. She reports numerous strikes against the Mahdi Army in the sacred cemetery of the Valley of Peace, and elsewhere in the city. The US military "squeeze" of the militia continued, with what look like increasing success (from a purely military point of view). She writes:

'At nightfall, U.S. attacks increased. The buzz of an AC130 gunship could be heard. Nine or 10 times by midnight, aircraft could be heard circling overhead, then a whistling sound and the explosion of a bomb. Shrapnel flew into the shrine's courtyard.

Members of the Madhi's Army -- as al-Sadr's militia is known -- kept their spirits up with chants of "We're with you, Muqtada. We'll die for you, Muqtada." They staged an impromptu rally at midnight, marching through the courtyard.

Wounded militia members were brought in throughout the evening to a makeshift trauma center in the shrine. A little girl hit by shrapnel was carried in.

Outside the shrine, militiamen and U.S. troops continued their mutual hunt for the enemy throughout the day. '

Meanwhile, the violence in Najaf provoked a demonstrationof about 200 persons in Multan, Pakistan (where the Shiites have some demographic weight. The Malaysian government condemned the fighting in Najaf.

Al-Hayat reports that PM Iyad Allawi has forbidden Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan and Interior Minister Falah al-Naquib from speaking publicly about the Sadr movement.

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Bush and Iraqi Soccer

From Bush press conference on Tuesday

' QUESTION: You’re not going to Athens this week, are you?

BUSH: Athens, Texas?

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: The Olympics in Greece.

BUSH: Oh, the Olympics. No, I’m not.

QUESTION: Have you been watching?

BUSH: Yes. It’s been exciting.

QUESTION: Did a particular moment stand out?

BUSH: A particular moment?

I liked the -- let’s see -- Iraqi soccer. I liked seeing the Afghan woman carrying the flag coming in.

I loved our gymnasts. I have been watching the swimming. I have seen a lot. '

He had earlier said,

BUSH: . . . You know, we’ve got a great record when you think about it. Led the world in the war on terror. The world is safer as a result of the actions we’ve taken. Afghanistan is no longer run by the Taliban. Saddam Hussein sits in a prison cell. Moammar Gadhafi has gotten rid of his weapons. Pakistan is an ally in the war on terror.

There’s more work to be done in fighting off these terrorists. I clearly see that. I understand that we’ve got to use all resources at our disposal to find and bring these people to justice.

Bush in these remarks continued to try to exploit the presence of Afghanistan and Iraq at the Olympics for his presidential campaign. The problem is, he has a different definition of "freedom" than do the people of whom he is speaking.

The Bush campaign is defining freedom as the absence of indigenous tyranny. Thus, they claim to have liberated 50 million persons (25 each in Afghanistan and Iraq) since September 11, insofar as they overthrew the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.

But to date, no one in either country has been freely and openly elected by the popular electorate. The US has more or less appointed the governments of both countries (in consultation with other international actors). Even one Iraqi cabinet minister admitted last spring that the then Interim Governing Council was no more representative than had been the Baath government.

The Western press often confuses a government that reflects the composition of the country with a "representative" one. Thus, the Interim Governing Council had and the new national advisory council has representatives from all over Iraq, and some journalists have said the council is the most representative body Iraq has had since 1958. But this allegation ignores the undemocratic way in which it was chosen.

As for Afghanistan, the Bush administration simply turned it back over to the pre-Taliban warlords who had fought the Soviets in alliance with the US and then had fallen to squabbling when the US walked away, reducing much of the country to rubble. Herat province is ruled by Ismail Khan, Mazar by Abdul Rashid Dostam, etc., etc. Even really bad guys like Abu Sayyaf have their fiefdoms in the Pushtun areas (although he broke with the Taliban, it would be hard to distinguish his ideas and style of ruling from theirs). This is not to mention the revival of the poppy trade, which fuels heroin smuggling to the tune of $2 billion a year, nearly half Afghanistan's gross national product.

The parliamentary elections scheduled for summer, 2004, in Afghanistan have been postponed until at least spring, 2005. Presidential elections are to be held this fall, but American-installed Hamid Karzai has enormous advantages of incumbency. These advantages recently spurred his 23 rivals to call for his resignation, threatening a boycott of the elections if he declines. There is widespread voter registration fraud.

The human rights situation is infinitely better now than under the Taliban, but the Bush administration has reneged on its pledge of a new Marshall Plan and massive reconstruction in Afghanistan. What little economic progress there has been has mostly derived from individual entrepreneurs, and some of it derives from smuggling and drugs (which have a way of backfiring as economic engines of growth because they cause so many other problems.) Getting rid of the Taliban is not the same as bringing democracy to Afghanistan. We have yet to see if that is even feasible.

Most Iraqis would define liberation as the end of the American military occupation and their ability to choose a government of their liking. It seems highly likely that the Iraqi elections scheduled for January 2005 will be postponed for a good long time, allowing caretaker Prime Minister Iyad Allawi to consolidate his power (though whether the ongoing resistance to the occupation will allow him to do so is in doubt).

Liberation as self-determination is not in evidence in either Afghanistan or Iraq. That is why the Iraqi soccer team spoke out against Bush. Samples:

' Talking to Sports Illustrated, Iraqi midfielder Salih Sadir expressed dismay at being used in Bush's re-election propaganda: "Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign. He can find another way to advertise for himself."

"My problems are not with the American people; they are with what America has done in Iraq: destroy everything," Coach Adnan Hamad added. "The American Army has killed so many people in Iraq. What is freedom when I go to the [national] stadium and there are shootings on the road?"

Ahmed Manajid, whose cousin was an insurgent killed by US soldiers, went even further, saying he would "for sure" be fighting the occupation as a member of the Iraqi resistance were he not playing soccer. '

and

' One of the team's midfield players, Ahmad Manajid, accused Mr Bush of "slaughtering" Iraqi men and women. "How will he meet his God having slaughtered so many? I want to defend my home. If a stranger invades America and the people resist, does that make them a terrorist?" he said. '

and

' Hamad said: "One cannot separate politics and sport because of the situation in the country right now."

He said the violence which continues to afflict Iraq, more than a year after Bush declared major combat there was over, meant the team could not fully enjoy its success.

"To be honest with you, even our happiness at winning is not happiness because we are worried about the problems in Iraq, all the daily problems that our people face back home, so to tell you the truth, we are not really happy," he said. '

So, the Bush definition of "liberated" and the Iraqi definition are two entirely different things.

Given that the Bush administration has turned Iraq into a failed state and a country in flames, the condition of which is far worse than the US public is allowed to know, it is quite outrageous that Bush should be trumpeting Iraq as an achievement. That he is doing so in connection with the Olympics is just tacky and probably illegal.

Will any of the Iraqi soccer players get interviewed on US television?
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5 US Soldiers Killed in 24 Hours, 1 Wounded

Australian Broadcasting reports that guerrillas killed one US soldier in Mosul on Sunday with a roadside bomb. Guerrillas on Saturday killed three US Marines in separate attacks in al-Anbar province (the home of Fallujah and Ramadi). If George Will is right that the Baath is planning a big October offensive, it is being planned in al-Anbar Province and may be launched from there. Likewise, a fifth troop died in al-Anbar in a vehicle collision.

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Egyptian Mufti: Volcano of Anger over Najaf

The claim by Mahdi Army fighters that US bombing damaged part of a wall of the Ali shrine complex could be explosive. Wire services report:

Explosions and gunfire shook Najaf’s Old City in a fierce battle between US forces and Shiite militants, who remained in control of a revered shrine here as negotiations dragged on for its handover to religious authorities.

Late yesterday, US warplanes and helicopters attacked positions in the Old City for the second night, witnesses said. Militant leaders said the Imam Ali Shrine compound’s outer walls were damaged in the attacks.

But the US military said it had fired on sites south of the shrine, from which militants were shooting, and did not hit the compound wall.

These sorts of incidents speak to morale issues in Iraq and elsewhere. Hannah Allam of Knight Ridder explores the reluctance of Iraqi police to fight the Mahdi Army. Often they have cousins in it, and besides, they don't like killing Iraqis on behalf of the Americans (that is how they see it).

Just how explosive the news of damage to the shrine could be is demonstrated by the reaction in Egypt to the fighting so far.

Shaikh Ali Gumaa (Jum`ah), the Mufti of Egypt, has warned of a "volcano" erupting in the Muslim world as a result of the U.S. military action in Najaf. Al-Jazeera.Net quotes him as saying,

"After the attack on the shrines of the Prophet's noble companions, after the humiliations and the terrorizing and killing of civilians, the world cannot expect… that a volcano of anger and indignation will not explode," Gumaa said . . . Gumaa said since occupation forces claimed to have saved Iraq from dictatorship, "the Dar al-Ifta cannot accept any justification… that enables them to play this ugly role, rejected by the world's reasonable people and lovers of peace".

Sunni Islam most resembles, it seems to me, Protestant Christianity in its authority structures. Sunni ulama or clerics are more like pastors than like priests. As in Protestantism, there is no over-arching authority. (The caliphate lapsed in 1258, and, despite occasional attempts to revive it-- most recently by the Ottoman sultans from 1880 until 1924-- Sunnism remains decentralized).

As with Protestantism, Sunnism now tends to be organized by country. Each country will have a government-appointed Mufti or jurisconsult, who issues written opinions on issues brought to him. He is not a court judge with practical cases to judge (that would be a qadi). His fatwas or rulings are for the most part advisory, and tend to address more abstract issues.

Egypt is a great center of Sunni learning because it is the seat of the prestigious al-Azhar seminary/ university, to which Muslims from all over the world come to study. The Rector of al-Azhar is probably the highest Sunni official in the country, and his voice resonates throughout the Sunni community. The Mufti of Egypt is the second highest Sunni official in Egypt.

Gumaa sees Ali ibn Abi Talib, who is buried in Najaf, as a "companion" of the Prophet Muhammad. This point of view is different than in Shiite Islam, where Ali is the Imam and wali amri'llah, the vicar of the Prophet both spiritually and temporally.

But note that Gumaa still has a highly reverential attitude toward Ali (considered the fourth Caliph by Sunnis) and toward his shrine city of Najaf. This attitude is common among pious Sunnis.

Note also that Gumaa sees the U.S. as attacking Najaf and its holy sites, not as defending it from the depredations of Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. This perception is very widespread in the Muslim world. Indeed, I suspect that it represents 99 percent of Muslims outside Iraq itself. American commentators often feel that they have played a trump card when they point out that it is Muqtada who has desecrated the shrines, not the U.S., which is only trying to rid them of his goons. While this argument may be convincing to some Americans, it just doesn't fly in the Muslim world. Americans don't get to tell Muslims which arguments Muslims find convincing. The U.S., as a foreign, Christian force, is seen as not having any business in Najaf, and as rampaging around there like an enraged elephant.

Al-Jazeerah did "person on the street" interviews on the Najaf issue in Cairo and Beirut. The Egyptians said things like, "this is an American attack on Islam." Not on Najaf, or Shiism, or on Iraq. On Islam. That's what a lot of Muslims think, and they are absolutely furious.

Some of my readers have suggested to me that it doesn't matter what Americans do, since Muslims hate them anyway.

This statement is silly. Most Muslims never hated the United States per se. In 2000, 75 percent of Indonesians rated the US highly favorably. The U.S. was not as popular in the Arab world, because of its backing for Israel against the Palestinians, but it still often had decent favorability ratings in polls. But all those poll numbers for the US are down dramatically since the invasion of Iraq and the mishandling of its administration afterwards. Only 2 percent of Egyptians now has a favorable view of the United States.

It doesn't have to be this way. The US is behaving in profoundly offensive ways in Najaf. U.S. military leaders appear to have no idea what Najaf represents. I saw one retired general on CNN saying that they used to have to be careful of Buddhist temples in Vietnam, too. I almost wept. Islam is not like Buddhism. It is a far tighter civilization. And the shrine of Ali is not like some Buddhist temple in Vietnam that even most Buddhists have never heard of.

I got some predictably angry mail at my earlier statement that the Marines who provoked the current round of fighting in Najaf, apparently all on their own and without orders from Washington, were behaving like ignoramuses. Someone attempted to argue to me that the Marines were protecting me. Protecting me? The ones in Najaf are behaving in ways that are very likely to get us all blown up. The US officials who encouraged the Mujahidin against the Soviets were also trying to protect us, and they ended up inadvertently creating the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Such protection, I don't need.

Radical Islamist terrorism is a form of vigilanteism. Angry young Muslim men see their own governments doing nothing about Israeli dispossession of the Palestinians, and bowing to US adventures like Iraq, and they grow disgusted. They have no hope of getting their governments to do anything about what they see as profound injustices. So they form small groups of engineers or other professionals and take matters into their own hands.

That is exactly the kind of phenomenon Gumaa is warning against. He is right about the volcano of anger.

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