Guerrilla Violence Kills 58
Khalilzad Accuses Iranians
A suicide bomber detonated his payload outside the major crime unit of the Ministry of the Interior on Thursday, killing 15 policemen and 10 civilians and wounding 35 others.
Then guerrillas blew up a market outside a Shiite mosque, killing 6 and wounding 20, with women and children among the victims.
Six bodies were found in Baghdad, and 8 were found in Fallujah, victims of night-time raids, kidnappings and killings.
There were other bombings of and firefights with Iraqi police in Baghdad that killed several people.
Interior Minister Bayan Jabr announced on Thursday that only a few hundred foreign jihadis (he called them "al-Qaeda") are left in Iraq, down from as many as 2000 in late 2005. The foreign element in the Iraqi guerrilla movement has long been over-estimated. Most of the violence is committed by Iraqi insurgents.
Thousands of Iraqi families have been internally displaced by sectarian violence or the threat of it.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari called on Thursday for the US and Iran to expedite the holding of joint talks on Iraq. He clearly believes that these bilateral negotiations on the limited subject of Iraq might lead to better US-Iranian relations on other issues, including the nuclear one. He said, ' "I hope the US and Iran will start their meetings and talks as soon as possible and the knot in relations between the two countries would be untied through the negotiations." '
US Ambassador in Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad accused Iran on Thursday of training and supplying both the Mahdi Army militia of Muqtada al-Sadr and elements of the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement. Neither allegation is plausible in context. Muqtada's men are mostly nativist Iraqi ghetto youth who often do not like Persians. The major force in Iraq trained by the Iranians is the Badr Corps of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a relative American ally. It is bizarre that Khalilzad should tie Iran to the Mahdi militia but not bring up Badr. Then to turn around and say that Iran is helping the Sunni Arab guerrillas who are blowing up Shiite Iraqis is just self-contradictory and wholly implausible.
Worse, I can't see why Khalilzad thinks the Iranians will talk with him while he is badmouthing them.
Al-Hayat reports that [Ar.] Adnan Dulaimi of the (Sunni fundamentalist) Iraqi Accord Front has pushed the dissolution of Shiite militias as a key issue in his negotiations with the (Shiite fundamentalist) United Iraqi Alliance on the formation of a national unity government. He says that American information suggests that entire units of the Interior Ministry are composed of militias. He said that the Americans have a responsibility to shut down the militias.
In response, Sadrist leader Amir al-Husayni said that the existence of the Mahdi Army militia is tied to the issue of the terrorist groups."
Abdul Karim Muhammadawi, an old-time fighter against Saddam, warned that the existence of such organized militias is paving the way to civil war.
posted by Juan Cole @ 3/24/2006 12:30:00 AM
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US Ambassador in Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad accused Iran on Thursday of training and supplying both the Mahdi Army militia of Muqtada al-Sadr and elements of the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement. Neither allegation is plausible in context.
I agree with you that Iran financing the Suni insurrection doesn't make sense. But why won't she finance the Mahdi Army of Al Sadr' ? The fact that Muktada's followers don't like Iran is not a sufficient argument IMO. The youngs of Al Sadr' city don't need to know where the money comes from. Al' Sadr's is emerging as a powerful political force in Iraq and Iran may want to secure good relationships with him. Iran IMO doesn't have any interest in a chaotic Iraq. If the Iranians view Al'Sadr as a potential peace broker between Sunis and Shiites, they may see an interest in offering him some funds. If this alliance of Suni/Shiites is able to ask and obtain the withdrawal of the US troops, then that would be all benefit for the Iranians. May be they bet that investing in the Mehdi army will lead to a more disciplined militia, one which they could somewhat control if they pay. It doesn't mean that Iran will continue to give money to Al'Sadr for ever. But it may be something they have interest to do now at this step : at the first step the Iranians let the US occupy Iraq without intervening, but taking advantage of the Shiites' alliance with the occupation; now during this step they may support forces calling for a US withdrawal; next step, they may finance and ally with whom in the Iraqi society has the power and is most favourable to their interests. As for Muktada, of course he is more nationalist than the SCIRI leaders, but does that imply he will ignore the benefits Iraqs can draw from good relationships with the Iranians ? he probably knows that the best bet for Iraq's economy rebuilding goes through Iranian help.
Well, all I mean is that financing the Mehdi army is a possibility to consider, not the same nonsense as with the Sunnis. I find it funny that the two are put at the same level by Khalilzad. After all, if US and Iran are beginning to hold talks, it may just be pre-negotiation rethoric, in which the US makes clear whom the Iranians allies can be in Iraq and whom they can't.
maybe zalmay is doing it on purpose so iran pulls out of the talks and the US can say that the iranians arent serious partners yadda yadda yadda
Dear Professor Cole
From the Mearsheimer Walt paper
"As for so-called rogue states in the Middle East, they are not a dire threat to vital US interests, except inasmuch as they are a threat to Israel. Even if these states acquire nuclear weapons – which is obviously undesirable – neither America nor Israel could be blackmailed, because the blackmailer could not carry out the threat without suffering overwhelming retaliation. The danger of a nuclear handover to terrorists is equally remote, because a rogue state could not be sure the transfer would go undetected or that it would not be blamed and punished afterwards. The relationship with Israel actually makes it harder for the US to deal with these states. Israel’s nuclear arsenal is one reason some of its neighbours want nuclear weapons, and threatening them with regime change merely increases that desire."
It looks like The US Ambassador might have gone in the wrong direction by talking to the Iranians, and is now backtracking. This will allow the Iranians to be painted as a completely hostile force, about to develop nuclear weapons next week to turn over to Hizb' Allah the following week.
Somewhere in Alice in Wonderland someone says "If I say it often enough it becomes true"
I blogged on this today, but I'd like to place these resources someplace where people may actually read them...
3/24/2006 Los Angeles Times: "Bush's Requests for Iraqi Base Funding Make Some Wary of Extended Stay"
3/20/2006 A.P.: "Iraqis think U.S. in their nation to stay"
2/4/2006 Washington Post: "Biggest Base in Iraq Has Small-Town Feel"
3/7/2006 Philadelphia Inquirer: "U.S. bases hold clue in Iraq"
Rumsfeld indicated yesterday that the U.S. combat role in Iraq will decrease. This is exactly what Seymour Hersh reported late last year: America will replace combat troops with airpower to bolster the Iraq army. The Washington Times: "Rumsfeld vows Iraq drawdown will continue"
"Hussein - Al-Queda link" is back
For those who follow the war in Iraq attentively, "Hussein - Al-Queda link" is beyond any serious discussion, it belongs to the same realm as IWMD. However, exactly like with IWMD, neoconservative PR machine does not stop working on it.
So, recently there was yet another Iraqi documents dump, and ABC News returned to this sad old theme again - with a number of caveats. As for Russian liberal Gazeta.ru, it reported same development with 100% certainty, their readers are supposed to believe that Hussein - Al-Queda link is nothing less than a proven fact. Even further, Gazeta suggests that ABC dump can help prosecution of Hussein trial in some way - as if the trial and Al-Queda issues have anything to do with each other.
1.Judy Mathewson. ABC News says Saddam OK'd bin Laden contact
A pre-war Iraqi document obtained and recently released by the U.S. government says an official representative of Saddam Hussein's government met with Osama bin Laden in Sudan in February 1995, ABC News reported.
The document says the meeting was approved by Saddam, ABC said on its Web site. Saddam also agreed to a request at the meeting by bin Laden to broadcast the lectures of a radical Saudi preacher and to carry out ''joint operations against foreign forces'' in Saudi Arabia, ABC said.
U.S. intelligence officials, who last week released the first batch of Iraqi documents out of more than 2 million seized, have warned that the U.S. can't confirm their authenticity.
2. Gazeta. V.Sergeev. Hussein linked with Bin Laden
Sadr appeared a conference in Tehran and said that if the US bombs Iran, the Mahdi Army would fight to defend Islam. (This was in response to a question from an Iranian military official. It may have even been scripted.)
Here is a link
Sadr and the Iranians are allies. Beyond the fact that Sadr believes what he said, he made the statement while visiting Iran in a context that was obviously related to Iran's nuclear issue.
I fully expect that Sadr gets assistance from Iran.
On Khalizad saying that Jaafari will not be prime minister, period: After Iraq's US-approved constitutional process produced Jaafari as the candidate this should end the illusion if anyone was still holding it, that the US believes in democracy in the Middle East.
I'm skeptical that the reason is to protect oil. There is not much oil to protect, and I can't figure out who the oil is supposedly being protected from.
Khalizad's clear implication that the US prefers civil war to Jaafari being prime minister indicates to me and I'm sure to others that the US primary objective in Iraq is to ensure that Iran is prevented from becoming a stronger strategic rival to Israel, which would be the result of Jaafari's Iraq probable alliance with Iran.
But since it seems that everybody in the region sees this clearly, I'm not sure how much leverage Khalizad holds to prevent it.
Is the US a group of good-hearted bumblers in Iraq? What if the United States really is not the good guys?
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Prof. Cole
Commentators on the Right have, as part of their offensive on the media, that one of the good news of the past several months is a drop in American casulaties. However we have seen an increase of civilians and Iraqi security forces casulaties climb (between 60-80 dead per day). Could this mean that the disparate groups that where fighting the U.S. have now switched their focus on the Iraqi forces therefor making the U.S. largely irrelevant?
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