Bush Will Speed Turn-over of Security Responsibilities
Maliki Skipped Weds. Banquet, Snubs Bush over Memo
Bush will speed the transfer of security responsibilities to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, it was announced at their summit in Amman. Al-Maliki has been pressing Washington for some time to give him the authority to order much bigger battle units into action without securing permission first from the US military. The PM has been frustrated that he isn't allowed to set security policy but then is blamed for not achieving security. He also assured Bush that he can handle the Sadr Movement and the Mahdi Army militia. The Sadrists in parliament suspended their membership in protest against al-Maliki's meeting with Bush. In an ordinary parliamntary system, al-Maliki would be considered a minority PM and might well lose a vote of no confidence. But Iraq actually seems to be run as an oligarchy, and too many of the major politicians now live in London to permit ordinary politics to play out.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki actually blew off US President George W. Bush and Jordanian King Abdullah II on Wednesday, declining to show up at a scheduled formal banquet! Talks between him and Bush have been postponed until today.
Bush talked to Abdullah II on a bilateral basis on Wednesday, and will meet one on one with Maliki today.
The no-show was presumably Maliki's protest against the highly critical memo of US National Security Council adviser Stephen Hadley about Maliki, leaked to the New York Times and published on Wednesday. Maliki needn't have bothered. Informed experts find the memo mediocre at best and wholly impractical at worst. I have to say I was shocked at Hadley's lack of understanding of the parliamentary system in which Maliki works, such that his government could easily fall.
Some have also speculated that Maliki minded discussing bilateral US-Iraqi affairs with King Abdullah II of Jordan in the room, and was annoyed at the Jordanian monarch's attempt to insert the Israeli-Palestinian issue into the talks.
Maliki may also have intended to show he was his own man, in the face of heavy criticism from the Sadr Movement members of parliament and of his own cabinet. Some 32 members of parliament loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr suspended their membership in the legislature at 6 pm on Wednesday, and the 5 Sadrist cabinet members also resigned contingently.
Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that Shiite cleric and leader of the largest bloc in parliament, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, also met Wednesday with King Abdullah II. But after the meeting, al-Hakim, head of the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was quoted as having said that if Iraq went to all-out sectarian civil war, the Sunni Arabs would be the losers. This belligerant threat provoked consternation among observers, presumably because it had been hoped that al-Hakim's meeting with a neighboring Sunni monarch was aimed at improving relations with Sunni Arabs.
Al-Zaman also notes that Iyad Allawi has flown to Amman [from London, where he now mostly resides along with many other Iraqi politicians]. The head of the Iraqi National List and formerly an appointed prime minister, a Shiite with a Baathist past, Allawi has been marginalized in Iraqi politics but still has patrons in Washington.
posted by Juan Cole @ 11/30/2006 02:13:00 AM
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9 Comments:
Now that Rummy is gone, it is time to start to work on getting rid of Hadley!
Whoever "leaked" Hadley's memo wanted to disgrace someone or influence Bush's talks with Maliki. It did not strengthen perceptions of the latter, suggesting that the US views the Iraqi PM as weak and disingenuous. But if this prompts him to be more assertive, is that not exacly what Hadley and Bush want? Either that, or send a signal that the WH wants other Iraqis to take his place. Unless the leak had the tacit consent of Bush, one would presume the leaker would already have been itentified and told to resign. The Hadley memo certainly did not have a lengthy list of authorized recipients. The outright release of a memo is more egregious a WH security concern than a Deputy Secretary of State with a penchant to blab with fellow conservatives about blond spies and mystery uranium.
An Exit Plan for Iraq
Here's a protocol for beginning to disengage from Iraq. This protocol is creative and forward-looking, and it takes responsibility for the chaos America under Bush has created. It cannot possibly be called "cut-and-run" or "defeatist."
A Middle East Peace Conference should be convened. Every country and faction should be invited, including Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Israel, Syria, Egypt, the militias, every stakeholder. All offensive or retaliatory operations by all participants are to cease for the duration of the Conference. The goal of the Conference will be to arrange a stable peace in Iraq so the U.S. can withdraw its forces and close its bases. The U.S. will commit to withdraw all of its forces when the peace plan is in place and will give a gesture of good faith by immediately withdrawing 10,000 troops. All parties must agree to the peace plan and must commit to the conference process until the plan is completed.
The U.S. should offer to participate in this interdependent process. A suitable, neutral moderator might be Desmond Tutu or Kofi Annan. Israel could be coerced into participating with a threat to cut off its military aid if it doesn't. The U.S. army immediately becomes a police force maintaining the peace rather than an invading army. The Conference would set its own agenda. Reconstruction, oil, power sharing, autonomy, and any other issue participants agreed to talk about would be addressed. Short-term solutions could be agreed upon to get Iraq functioning quickly. The plan is politically attractive for America. As satisfying as it might be to impeach Bush, that would not solve the Middle East problem.
JC: The no-show was presumably Maliki's protest against the highly critical memo of US National Security Council adviser Stephen Hadley about Maliki, leaked to the New York Times and published on Wednesday. Maliki needn't have bothered. Informed experts find the memo mediocre at best and wholly impractical at worst. I have to say I was shocked at Hadley's lack of understanding of the parliamentary system in which Maliki works, such that his government could easily fall.
Casablancan shock, Claude Raines shock, that very brief medical episode will have been, no doubt!
The McClatchy "informed experts" are of considerable interest in their own right, but the Grand Expert Of The Day as regards the S. Hadley memo leakage episode can only be St. Helena of just world peace, concerning whom I addressed my hard disk as follows:
Meanwhile, _my_ idea of top-flight expertise is Helena Cobham,
<< http://justworldnews.org/archives/002255.html >>
the only commentator I've yet encountered who more or less saw the flabbergasting bribery business for what it is. She's a trifle too dismissive, however:
"There are some passages that explicitly urge that the US should pay Maliki off with hard cash if he goes along with the Bushites' scheme... The US should, Hadley writes, 'Consider monetary support to moderate groups that have been seeking to break with larger, more sectarian parties, as well as to support Maliki himself as he declares himself the leader of his bloc and risks his position within Dawa and the Sadrists; and Provide Maliki with more resources to help build a nonsectarian national movement . . .' Well, I guess these kinds of thing go on all the time in the conduct of internatinal affairs. But it is really depressing to see not only how bullying and imperialistic this top-level adviser is trying to be, but also how very clueless and intellectually bankrupt he is. This makes the situation even more dangerous."
Such things do NOT go on all the time in our wicked world, however. The idea of undertakin' to corrupt a neo-régime installed by one's own agency, not a racket found already in existence and in corruption, is unprecedented, so far as I know. S. Hadley and the Little Brother Party will be remembered as bold innovators in the practices of bullying and imperialism if they can make such a scheme work -- although, to be sure, there isn't the faintest chance that it will.
_________
(Not to dispraise anybody else, you understand, but only to laud St. Helena.)
God knows best. Happy days.
.
Dr. Cole: Have you seen Tom Haydens post on the Huffington Post describing a peaceful coup underway in Baghdad?
I may be remiss in asking the next question if you have responded to Hayden in an earlier post which I didn't find in a cursory search, but lately Hayden has been giving some remarkable news straigtht from sources in country. Reports involving intricate political machinations attributed to reliable sources and so on. Can you provide any insight on the efficacy of these reports and Mr. Haydens credentials as a reporter on these events? Any resonse would be greatly appreciated.
If I may argue with Mr. John Koch only under the shadow of Informed Comment, and not specifically referring to it?
His view is tribiguous at least, either (A) (with me) he assumes that the S. Hadley leak was leaked by the GOP in the GOP interest, or (B) he wants us to associate it with the former Zelnikow, who could after all have just as well leaked after resigning as beforehand, or (C) the loyalist Bushies are now rummagin' thru all their closets and lookin' under all their beds and sofas for some as yet unknown Major Leaker who really dunnit.
I have guessed my own guess, but of course I do not really know what our great GOP geniuses are up to.
The "WH idea" of a "security concern" is perhaps not quite exactly my Uncle Sam's idea of a US security concern. Any hostile spook who can discern something about the GOP's neo-Iraq in S. Hadley's "trip report" that he mightn't have gleaned from the New York Times coverage of hormone-based invasionism and conquest and occupation and insurrection and then at last fiasco (more or less) is a hostile spook that I really gotta doff my hat to! Plus alway wonder, "What could he have seen that I somehow missed?"
But God knows best. Happy days.
Even Saddam managed to preserve some kind of Health Service in Iraq, and that was during the sanctions. Not so, apparently, the geniuses of the Coalition:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35584
Should Shiites attack Shiites on Bush's say so, then more fool them.
As T.E.Lawrance said: "As long as Arab fights Arab they will be a little people, a silly people".
And so it will be.
Our own "Best and Brightest" brought us quagmire in Vietnam.
Our own "Worst and Dullest" brought us quagmire in Iraq -- only faster.
I don't even want to think of what we will get next from our political/economic/military "leadership."
As the old song "Defenders of the Flag" has it: "If these guys are the good ones, I don't want to know the bad."
And if anyone should think I exaggerate my dread, simply recall that time not too long ago when all the movers-and-shakers in America called Enron's crooked management team "The Smartest Guys in the Room."
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