Migrating Blog: Offline Temporarily

Sorry, folks, I have to migrate my blog to a different server and publishing software this weekend. As a result, the site will be offline temporarily.

You could bookmark the feedburner feed for access while it is offline.



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Israel's Netanyahu Blows Off Obama's Nuclear Summit

The audience at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference is said to have gone wild with applause when Liz Cheney announced the decision of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu not to attend next week's nuclear summit, called by President Barack Obama.

A person gets a little tired of pointing to the hypocrisy of the American right wing, which would have been up in arms if Democrats had sided with a foreign head of state against the American president, and, indeed, would have charged treason. The thing to remember is that to right wingers, only Republican presidents are really presidents. Democratic Presidents are always coded as usurpers. The politically immature are like 5 year olds who pick up their marbles and go home when they aren't winning.

Netanyahu's staff said he decided not to come because reports had reached the prime minister that Arab states attending the summit would attempt to "embarrass" Israel over its defiance of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its construction hundreds of nuclear warheads. Instead, deputy PM Dan Meridor will attend. Israel's nuclear arsenal was a primary impetus to the Iraqi nuclear research program in the 1980s, which in turn alarmed Iran and sparked Tehran's interest in acquiring at least the knowledge of how to enrich uranium. That is, Israel (and its enablers, France and Britain) kicked off the present nuclear crisis in the region, and Arab and Muslim states in attendance would be unlikely to allow Netanyahu to forget it.

Netanyahu's government recently humiliated Vice President Joe Biden when he was on a state visit to that country recently by announcing the building of 1600 new household units on Palestinian West Bank territory that Israel had unilaterally annexed to its district of Jerusalem. The announcement scuttled the talks with the Palestine Authority, the beginning of which Biden had come to celebrate. The Palestinians, have sensibly decided that they will refuse to negotiate with people who are actively stealing from them the very territory that is at stake in the negotiations. The Israeli slap in the face to Biden caused a subsequent Netanyahu visit to Washington to turn into a fiasco, with President Obama making forceful demands on the wily Netanyahu, and then leaving him on his own devices for dinner.

Thus, some observers believe that Netanyahu is playing hooky largely to avoid more pressure to take steps to restart peace negotiations. There are even rumors that Washington might put forward its own peace plan and then attempt to twist the arms of the Israelis and Palestinians to agree to it, and some observers suspect that Netanyahu was trying to avoid being cornered in that way.

But there is another possible explanation for Netanyahu staying away from a summit on nuclear security issues in Washington. It is that the Israeli prime minister is protesting a new White House policy of refusing visas to Israeli scientists, engineers and technicians who work at the Dimona Reactor/ nuclear bomb factory. Up until recently they had been free to attend technical and scientific conferences and pursue advanced classes at US universities. The visa denials were reported in the Israeli newspaper Maariv by Uri Binder on Wednesday April 7: "Nuclear Reactor Workers Not Wanted in United States." It was translated by the USG Open Source Center. The article reports that Israeli workers at the Nuclear Research Center Negev (NRCN) in Dimona are complaining bitterly at the humiliation of being excluded from the US, saying the turn-downs are an "offense" against them "and their families." (???) Moreover, the Dimona bomb plant is suddenly finding it difficult to import technical components and equipment from the United States. The restrictions, they say, are unprecedented. They also claim a double standard, alleging that the Obama administration is being "lenient" toward Iran.

In fact, Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is at the moment largely in compliance with it, has no nuclear arsenal, and does not even have a nuclear weapons program. (The treaty allows countries to enrich uranium for fuel, which is all that Iran is known to be doing). Yet the US has an extensive regime of economic sanctions on Iran, along with UN Security Council sanctions, both of which Obama is attempting to ratchet up. In contrast, Israel is actively constructing more and more nuclear warheads, which it is stockpiling, and which its leaders occasionally brandish at other Middle Eastern states. The Israeli arsenal, in turn, spurs a Middle East arms race.

Obama has just signed a new START treaty with Russia in Prague aiming to reduce the nuclear arsenals of each country by a third, to 1550. Obama appears to believe that by taking such a step, he can shore up the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, whereby signatories pledge not to develop nuclear weapons. He will have more moral authority to go to the UNSC and ask for more severe sanctions against Iran.

Obama's attempt to reduce warhead stockpiles in the US (he will need the Senate's ratification of the treaty) has been met with a campaign of ridicule and misinformation among Republican politicians and their television channel, Fox Cable "News." As usual in these matter, Jon Stewart at the Daily Show presents the best take-down of completely false RNC talking points:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Big Bang Treaty
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

(Note that the usually perspicacious Jon Stewart gets one fact wrong-- Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and is nowadays largely in conformity with it.)

In fact, nuclear warheads are extremely dangerous to all of us, and the fewer there are in the world, the better. How many do you really need for deterrence? Pakistan's 14 little bombs are alleged to have deterred an Indian attack on that country in the summer of 2002. If only one of the 14 was dropped on Delhi, after all, the devastation would have been enormous. With the big nuclear powers, the size of the arsenal itself should be a form of deterrence. It is not impossible that an extensive nuclear exchange could blow away the ozone layer, which keeps us from being sunburned to death. It could throw up so much dust into the atmosphere that two years of night would ensue, which would kill all life on earth (i.e., the dreaded 'nuclear winter.') As Stewart noted, Ronald Reagan's own negotiations with the Soviet Union aimed at reducing warheads by a third, in his own day.

Obama appears to have a nuclear strategy that deploys arsenal reduction among the great powers as a platform on which to pursue non-proliferation and perhaps even the roll-back of some existing nuclear stockpiles. As with Israel's stubborn insistence on continuing to steal Palestinian land and to blockade the Gazans-- which ensures continued violence-- so its rogue nuclear operation is ultimately a threat to the international security of the United States.

The Israeli scientists at Dimona have it backwards. It is they who are providing a justification to Iran and giving it a motivation to close the fuel cycle and have at least nuclear latency or the 'Japan option,' as a way of countering Israel's policy in the region.


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Air Farce: Qatari Diplomat Cuffed on Plane for Smoking, & Bad Joke

Karl Marx once remarked that every historical event occurs twice, first as tragedy and then as farce.

On Wednesday evening we got the farcical version of the shoe bomber when the third secretary of the Qatari Embassy appears to have sneaked a smoke in the lavatory of a plane headed for Denver. The flight attendants noticed the smoke, and confronted Mohammad Yagoub al-Madadi, 27. When asked what he had been doing in there, he appears to have made a sarcastic remark about setting his shoes on fire. Big mistake.

The alarmed flight attendants called on air marshalls, who firmly marched al-Madadi back to his first class seat and sat on either side of him. The pilot kept the plane low, and two F-16s scrambled to escort the plane (and no doubt prevent it from being misused if taken over). The whole scenario reminds me of a Monty Python skit.

Al-Madadi is destined to enter the annals of persons who joked around about serious security matters on planes or at airports, and who came to rue the day. There was the pilot who as a practical joke paraded around in front of passengers conspicuously reading a book, "How to Fly a Plane." He was fired. And then there are all the passengers who earned themselves an extra long interview at security checks in airports by making jokes with the TSA inspectors that included the word "bomb." Some things you don't make light of.

There are only about 200,000 native, citizen Qataris. They are among the richest populations in the world per capita, since their small Gulf country sits atop an ocean of natural gas. Their emir gives the US an airbase, al-Udeid, and has been instrumental in capturing key al-Qaeda fugitives. Qataris are often pro-American, and Qatari pilots flew missions against Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War alongside US pilots.

Al-Madadi might have diplomatic immunity. But he doesn't have Late Night immunity, and should get ready to be the butt of many jokes. Although it is true that the incident might not have been taken quite o seriously by the authorities of it had not involved an Arab, lots of Euro-Americans have run into trouble, as I noted, for inappropriate and lame attempts at comedy at airports or on planes. This story is one of undue arrogance on al-Madadi's part. Likely a Swede who behaved and spoke the same way would also have been frog-marched off the plane.

Also al-Madadi should recognize that he has a bad nicotine addiction and give up smoking, which will give him lung cancer and tragically shorten his life (not to mention put him in compromising positions like sneaking a few puffs in an airplane bathroom). I've often thought that Arabs are always worrying about nefarious plots against them by Americans, but then they voluntarily smoke American cigarettes like chimneys and put themselves in early graves. Many more of them have died in this way than from direct American military or covert action.


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Sadrist Straw Poll selects Ibrahim Jaafari as candidate for Prime Minister

The straw poll conducted by the Sadr Movement, led by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, produced the following results:

Ibrahim Jaafari, (National Reform Trend): 24%
Jaafar al-Sadr (State of Law), 23%
Qusay al-Suhail (Sadr Movement) 17%
Nuri al-Maliki (State of Law/ Da'wa): 10%
Iyad Allawi (Iraqi National Movement): 9%
Baha' al-A'raji (Sadr Movement): 5%
Ahmad Chalabi (Iraqi National Alliance): 3%
Adil Abdul Mahdi (Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq), 2%
Rafi al-Isawi (Iraqi Islamic Party [Sunni]): 2%

Although there is not really a clear winner, the Sadrists seem to be coalescing around Jaafari.

Jaafari leads a splinter of the Islamic Mission Party or Da'wa, and served as elected prime minister from spring 2005 through spring 2006. He was widely seen as ineffectual, and managed to anger all the major political players, especially the Kurds. He was accused of seeking Turkish help to forestall the absorption by the Kurdistan Regional Government of the oil province of Kirkuk.

The Sadrists only got 39 seats in the parliamentary election of March 7, in a parliament of 325. They are far too small to impose Jaafari on the other parties, many of which have a critique of him. In order to form a government, several parties will have to join together to get 163 seats. Moreover, al-Hayat quotes other members of the Iraqi National Alliance of Shiite fundamentalist parties as saying that they do not consider the referendum relevant to their choice for prime minister. Thus, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, led by young cleric Ammar al-Hakim, will not back Jaafari.

The two largest blocs garnered 91 and 89 seats in parliament respectively. Were the Iraqi National Alliance, which groups Shiite fundamentalist parties, including that of Sadr, to swing behind either of the frontrunners, it could put them in striking distance of forming a government. But the Sadrists deeply dislike incumbent PM Nuri al-Maliki of the Islamic Mission Party, and they likely aren't wild about Iyad Allawi, a strong secularist, either.)

The main effect of the straw poll and the announced result is to make it harder for the Sadrists to rush into a coalition. The move also gives them a bargaining chip in negotiating with the parties of Iyad Allawi and Nuri al-Maliki. For instance the Sadrists may be attracted to the State of Law list as a partner, but not want prime minister al-Maliki to lead the resulting coalition. They could now offer to give up Jaafari if their prospective partner would likewise give up its favored leader, so that a less well-known compromise candidate might emerge.

The negotiations over forming a new government probably just got lengthened, and they could well go into August.

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Tomgram: Engelhardt, Numbers to Die For | TomDispatch

Tomgram: Engelhardt, Numbers to Die For | TomDispatch:

"* Believe it or not, the Defense Logistics Agency shipped 1.1 million hamburger patties to Afghanistan in the month of March 2010 (nearly doubling the March 2009 figure). Almost any number you might care to consider related to the Afghan War is similarly on the rise. By the fall, the number of American troops there will have nearly tripled since President Obama took office; American deaths in Afghanistan have doubled in the first months of 2010, while the number of wounded has tripled; insurgent roadside bomb (IED) attacks more than doubled in 2009 and are still rising; U.S. drone strikes almost doubled in 2009 and are on track to triple this year; and fuel deliveries to Afghanistan have nearly doubled, rising from 15 million gallons a month in March 2009 to 27 million this March. (Keep in mind that, by the time a gallon of gas has made it to U.S. troops in the field, its cost is estimated at up to $100.)"

To be read in conjunction with my posting below.


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Karzai called Erratic, even Druggie; In fact, he is posing as liberator in shadow of Empire

Here is the reason it is so important that President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has begun behaving so erratically. It is because the path President Obama chose in Afghanistan requires a strong, upright, and relatively efficient local partner. Moreover, the US needs to gain hearts and minds, but a series of costly errors of judgment have scandalized the Afghan public. Put the two developments together, and you get a 'surge' that so far is not going well and in which the loyalty of America's partners cannot be taken for granted.

President Obama had two choices in fall of 2009 in regard to Afghanistan. He could have pursued a limited counter-terrorism strategy, involving targeting of armed extremists but gradually extricating US troops from that country. Instead, he signed on to a major counter-insurgency project that implies a certain amount of state-building. US and Afghanistan National Army [ANA] troops would take territory, clear it of insurgents, hold it in the medium term so they would not return, and build services and infrastructure.

This strategy of counter-insurgency is far more dependent on expanded military and governmental capacity than the course of counter-terrorism would have been. The army and police are to be much expanded and given basic training. The civil bureaucracy is to be encouraged to provide more services.

But at the head of the security forces and the civil bureaucracy is Hamid Karzai. The president stirred controversy last week by asserting that the problem of ballot fraud in last summer's presidential election was actually caused by foreign troops. Both the US and the UK have vigorously denounced Karzai's comments. (In fact, the ballot fraud appears to be the work of Karzai's own supporters).

Then last weekend, according to the Wall Street Journal, Karzai met with a handful of US congressmen and senators. During the meetings, Karzai is said to have warned the US that if it went on acting so heavy-handedly in his country, it would create the Taliban as national liberators and make them popular.

But then he went further and warned that he himself might join the Taliban if he were subjected to too much American pressure. The US legislators who leaked these details did not think they should be taken seriously.

But the remarks underline that Karzai is a loose cannon. They provided an opening for former deputy UN envoy to Afghanistan, Peter Galbraith, to accuse Karzai of being unbalanced. Galbraith, a former US ambassador to Croatia and a representative of Kurdish interests in Iraq (along with being an investor in Kurdistan petroleum development), was at loggerheads with Karzai last fall because of the way the Afghan politician stole the presidential election. Galbraith was fired over his stance.

In an interview with AFP, Galbraith said that Karzai is given to extreme temper tantrums and suddenly becomes very emotional. He added that there are rumors that Karzai uses heroin, and that that drug use helps explain his outbursts. I fear Mr. Galbraith undercut his credibility by retailing this unsubstantiated rumor, which does not actually fit with the facts he is reporting. Heroin users are notoriously laid back and emotionally detached even on occasions when emotion is called for.

Karzai's problems do not derive from being crazed or a drug addict. Rather, he is in an impossible situation. He knows that the Obama administration came into office last year determined to remove him as indecisive and more of a problem than a solution. He responded by rigging the presidential election to ensure his hold on power. He presented the Americans with a fait accompli, which they reluctantly acknowledged and even embraced.

At the same time, Karzai faces an ongoing insurgency (some of it Taliban, some of it other groups less seldom studied). The insurgents have a rhetorical advantage over Karzai, insofar as they can freely paint themselves as guardians of the national heritage and freedom fighters determined to expel the foreigners. This stance is leant plausibility by some US actions, a recent mistaken raid that left women dead and which was covered up. The impact of such actions on Afghan and especially Pashtun nationalism and male self-image cannot be over-estimated.

Karzai has responded to this difficult situation by blaming the US for some of his troubles, by reaching out to negotiate with figures such as Gulbadin Hikmatyar (not Taliban but mujahid or 'freedom fighter' in Ronald Reagan's terms)-- with whom the US would probably prefer he not be talking-- and then by adopting the rhetoric of mujahid or freedom fighter himself. There is a little resemblance between Karzai's current strategy and that in 2008 of Iraq's PM Nuri al-Maliki. Al-Maliki sent troops to Basra against US advice, and then negotiated a US troop withdrawal that Bush-Cheney did not want but which they had no choice but to accept if foreign troops were to remain in the area.

Karzai would very much like to likewise position himself as having brought greater security to his country and as having forced the US to set a withdrawal timetable for its exit. Karzai's outbursts and his apparently erratic statements actually just mark off his peculiar, almost DeGaulle-like situation (in being in his own mind a national liberator who in fact is deeply dependent on foreign allies. That humiliation and contradiction once led DeGaulle to warn that missiles could be aimed as easily at the US from France as toward the Soviet Union.

Karzai's jejune threat thus bespoke his own internal contradictions.

But if Gen. Stanley McChrystal's counter-insurgency campaign depends on Karzai's support and on the latter supplying a 'government in a box' for the provinces, then it may well be in trouble.

Karzai seems to have forgotten to ask the Taliban whether they would have him, but the answer appears to be 'no.' Here is an article translated by the USG Open Source Center on the state of play in Afghanistan politics:

Taleban dismiss Afghan leader's alleged joining the Taleban remarks
Afghan Islamic Press
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 ...
Document Type: OSC Translated Text...

Taleban dismiss Afghan leader's alleged joining the Taleban ...

Text of report by private Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency:

Kandahar: "We neither have information about Karzai's remarks, nor can we say anything about them."

A Taleban spokesman has denied reports that the Taleban has said that Karzai will be the Taleban's brother if he separates himself from foreigners.

In a telephone interview with Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) Taleban spokesman Qari Yusof Ahmadi said: "We neither know what Karzai has said nor have we reacted to anything like that."

He added: "Some media take opinions about such sensitive issues from people who identify themselves as Taleban and we consider such reports as an irresponsible action. The Islamic Emirate has specific spokespeople and we hope that the official position of the Islamic Emirate will be taken from these spokespeople."

AIP asked what would be the Taleban's position if President Karzai had really said, or if he says, that if foreigners do not stop meddling in Afghanistan he will join the Taleban. Ahmadi replied: "This is drama. Karzai wants to draw people's attention away from bigger issues, such as the invasion of the country, the killing of people and other big facts. Such remarks have no importance for the Taleban."

Some media reported that the Taleban's regional spokesman had said: "If President Hamed Karzai separates himself from foreigners, then he is our brother."

(Description of Source: Peshawar Afghan Islamic Press in Pashto -- Peshawar Afghan Islamic Press in Pashto -- Peshawar-based agency, staffed by Afghans, that describes itself as an independent "news agency" but whose history and reporting pattern reveal a perceptible pro-Taliban bias; the AIP's founder-director, Mohammad Yaqub Sharafat, has long been associated with a mujahidin faction that merged with the Taliban's "Islamic Emirate" led by Mullah Omar; subscription required to access content; http://www. afghanislamicpress. com)

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Wikileaks Video Shows US Killing of 2 Reuters Newsmen

Wikileaks on Monday released a 17 minute video of a US helicopter gunship attack on a group of Iraqi men in New Baghdad in 2007. The pilots mistakenly identified the camera of a Reuters photographer who was with the men as a rocket propelled grenade launcher, and the US attack killed two civilian Reuters news personnel. Two children were also wounded in the firing. A US military man dismissed the children's death as the fault of those who had been killed, saying , "well it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle."

Reddit.com has a good discussion of the video, in which the main conclusions appear to be these:

1. The cover-up of the pilots' mistake in killing the Reuters cameramen and mistaking their cameras for an RPG is the worst thing about this episode

2. While the pilots who fired at apparently armed men (and at least 3 were actually armed) thought they were saving US ground troops who had been pinned down from men with small arms, they had less justification for firing on the van. Indeed, the latter action may have been a war crime since the van was trying to pick up the wounded and it is illegal to fire on the wounded and those hors de combat.

3. While many actions of the pilots may not have been completely wrong under their rules of engagement, nevertheless they often acted inexcusably, and their attitude is inhuman and deplorable.

See Glenn Greenwald on why the USG attempt to suppress wikileaks matters.



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Pakistani Taliban kill 51 in strikes at Heart of US Presence, and at Secular Party

Although in the US the big news out of Pakistan on Monday, understandably, was a Taliban attack on the american consulate in Peshawar that killed 5 persons, including two Pakistani policemen guarding the consulate, in Pakistan itself the subsequent bombing of a political rally that left around 45 persons dead and 100 others wounded was equally a source of anxiety.

Five well-armed and well-trained guerrillas of the Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (TTP or Taliban Movement of Pakistan) launched the attack on the consulate with rocket propelled grenades. It appears that three of them were killed prematurely when one accidentally detonated the bomb in his vehicle. Two of the dead were found with sophisticated suicide bomb vests that they had not had the opportunity to set off at the consulate. It is chilling that only the bombers' own mistakes prevented the attack from being much more devastating.

Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the Movement of Pakistani Taliban in the city of Miranshah, announced to reporters that the attack on the consulate was intended to be revenge for US drone attacks in the tribal regions and for the role the US played in pushing the Pakistani military to mount military campaigns against the TTP in Swat and South Waziristan. Dawn quotes him as saying "“We will continue attacks on the Americans in Pakistan and Afghanistan."

AP has video:



In Timergara, 171 km from Peshawar, a Taliban suicide bomber killed 45 and wounded 100 at a rally. The secular Pashtun party, the Awami National Party, held a big celebration to commemorate the renaming of the North-West Frontier Province as 'Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa.' The new name combines a famous place name (the Khyber Pass) with the ethnic name of most of the people of the province, Pukhtuns or Pashtuns. The other Pakistan provinces were already named for their major ethno-linguistic group. The renaming was a victory for Pashtun subnationalism and therefore poses a threat to the Taliban, who seek their support from the Pashtuns, as well. Most Pashtuns reject the extreme religious and political ideas of the Pakistani Taliban, and the ANP, which controls the state legislature, is promoting a form of Pashtun ethnic pride. This is not the first time the Pakistani Taliban have lashed out at their secular rivals. That there is a powerful anti-Taliban political tendency in Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa is often overlooked by outsiders.

GEO satellite television said in its broadcast of "Today With Kamran Khan" on Tuesday, April 6, 2010:

'Kamran Khan establishes telephonic contact with Mian Iftikhar Hussain, NWFP senior minister, and asks him whether the local leadership of Awami National Party (ANP) did not take a risk while arranging a public meeting in Lower Dir because two or three major terrorist attacks have taken place there in recent weeks. Sidestepping the question, Hussain says: the ANP is in "forefront" of war against terror and it is supporting and siding with the security agencies at all cost and, so, the terrorists are naturally targeting the ANP. Hussain adds that the ANP has, however, accepted the challenge of terrorists and it will neither be "frightened" nor "surrender" in fight against terror. Hussain says: "there may be many more martyrdoms, but we have made a resolve, a firm resolve, that our jihad would continue until the elimination of terrorists." When asked why Dir is being particularly targeted by terrorists, Hussain says Dir borders Bajaur and Mohmand Agency which had been strongholds of terrorists and as their strongholds are being gradally dismantled (in military operations), terrorists want to have their presence felt through some isolated attacks. When asked whether attackers of US consulate have been identified, Hussain says: faces of five of the attackers are beyond recognition and only the face of one remaining attacker is slightly recognizable and he appears to be "foreigner," but this would be confirmed only after the completion of investigation. Hussain pays tributes to the security agencies for foiling the "well prepared" terror attack.'

The outbreak of Taliban guerrilla attacks in the northwest did not forestall the Pakistani government's major political move. President Asaf Ali Zardari is attempting to speed up the passage of legislation that would strip the president of the right arbitrarily to fire the prime minister and dismiss parliament. Zardari, oddly enough, addressed parliament in English, speaking for the last time as a political figure-- before being reduced to a political symbol. This movement by the Pakistani government does return it to a parliamentary model that is more democratic than the high-handed president's rule fostered by military dictatorships since the early 1980s, though from the point of
view of the Pakistan public, the deterioration in the country's security is probably the more pressing issue.

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Bombings in Iraq kill 41, Wound 237; Attempt to tarnish al-Maliki's reputation for improving Security;

The LAT says that at least 41 persons were killed and 237 were wounded by three suicide bomb attacks targeting the Iranian and German embassies and the Egyptian consulate. Most of those killed or injured were civilians who happened to be in those areas.

The bombings likely are aimed at hurting the chances of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for a second term. His claim to fame had been that he restored some security to Basra and Baghdad. His rival, the Iraqi National Movement of Iyad Allawi, immediately took advantage of the bombings to complain about poor security measures. But an official quoted in the al-Hayat article below pointed out that the bombers had hoped to drive their vehicles into the embassies, and had been prevented from doing so by Iraqi security, thus foiling what would have been a major blow against the Iraqi government's standing with the outside world. Another Iraqi observer is quoted by Sawt al-Iraq as saying that the bombers were sending a message to the outside world that Iraq is still too dangerous to open an embassy there.

The pan-Arab London daily Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that actually the third bomb was set off between a residence used by the German embassy and the Syrian embassy. Correspondent Jawdat Kadhim in Baghdad says that the Egyptian government confirmed that four consulate employees were injured in the blast, which it roundly condemned. He says that an off-duty guard for the German establishment is also reported killed.

An eyewitness to the attack on the Egyptian consulate in the western district of al-Mansur said, "The suicide bomber was alone, driving a small Kia truck. He headed toward the building housing the Egyptian consulate. When the guards requested that he stop, he continued even faster. When they opened fire on him, he immediately detonated his vehicle.

The Iranian ambassador to Iraq, Hasan Kazemi Qomi, condemned the attack in Karrada near his embassy as an act of terrorism. He added, "We are not positive that our embassy was the target." He said that none of his employees had been injured.

The attacks are the most deadly since January 25, when bombers killed 36 and wounded around 70. Two one-day bombing campaigns in August and October 2009 were also similar, though they demolished government buildings attached to ministries.



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Bombings Target Foreign Embassies, Kill Dozens; 25 Iraqis Killed by Sunni Extremists; Sadrists close referendum vote

The headlines out of Iraq Sunday are mainly owing to the consequences of the US troop withdrawal from that country.

Update Three suicide bombs rocked the capital Sunday morning, in different districts, but each appearing to target foreign embassies, killing dozens. The Iranian and German embassies were among the targets. The Times of London correspondent also heard a report that a security firm may have been another target.

In a pre-dawn Saturday raid, Sunni Arab militants dressed as Iraqi army troops or US soldiers attacked families of the Jubur tribe. As long as the US military was actively patrolling Iraqi cities, and while it was paying the Awakening Council fighters directly, they were relatively safe. But as US troops have pulled back and as the government of PM Nuri al-Maliki has reduced the pay of these fighters and most often declined to induct them into the security forces, they have become increasingly vulnerable to such attacks. And this attack could well be the beginning of a vaster trend toward reprisals as the US departs and those who cooperated with it are coded as collaborators. (And as the US withdraws, foreign embassies and other institutions will require special protection by the Iraqi security forces or insurgents will try to force them out.)

Aljazeera English has video:



In other news, the Sadr Movement closed their two-day referendum on which prime ministerial candidate their party should support. The vote has been criticized for having insufficient safeguards to prevent multiple voting by a single individual and other forms of fraud. The referendum is in a sense non-binding, since it was held at the bidding of Muqtada al-Sadr and is not mandated in the constitution.

That Muqtada al-Sadr should have emerged as the kingmaker in Baghdad is also an artifact of the US withdrawal from Iraq. As the US fades, those movements that are able to mobilize the masses will no longer be curbed by the US military, and so can assert themselves politically.

Welcome to the glimmers of a post-American Iraq . . .


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Pakistan Moves Further Toward Democracy; Could become a Role Model for Other Muslim states

The Pakistani government on Friday tabled a proposed 18th amendment to the constitution, which if enacted will be an enormous advance toward democratization in the country.

I was watching Bill Maher last week and Christopher Hitchens remarked on the Iraqi elections that they "didn't used to happen" under Saddam Hussein. Likewise, free elections did not happen under Gen. Zia ul-Haq in 1980s Pakistan, or in 1999-2007 under Gen. Pervez Musharraf. And in the 1990s, presidents kept using the martial law amendments to the constitution of Gen. Zia to arbitrarily dismiss elected prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.

But US hawks and Neoconservatives are not celebrating this epochal bill in Pakistan. I ask myself why.

I think it is because Neoconservatism and the arguments of all those who favor democratization at the barrel of a gun are fundamentally Orientalist in character. In some ways they go back to Karl Marx, who in his journalism on India argued that the capitalist British Empire was necessary to shake Indian villages out of their millennia-long sluggishness, from which they could never escape on their own.

During the past 3 years, the Pakistani public has demonstrated repeatedly and on a large scale in favor of the rule of law and the reinstatement of the Supreme Court justices dismissed by dictator Gen. Musharraf. Mind you, they are making a case for civil law and the civil supreme court, not for sharia or Islamic law. They voted in the center-left Pakistan People's Party in February 2008, and the return to parliamentary rule ultimately, in August 2008, allowed the political parties to unite to toss out of office Gen. Musharraf, who had had himself declared a civilian 'president' and was in danger of being impeached for alleged corruption.

That is, the Pakistani public has conducted a 'color revolution' of its own, in the teeth of opposition or skittishness in Washington, and managed to overturn a military dictatorship that had been backed to the hilt by Bush-Cheney, restoring parliamentary governance.

This bill will take that process even further. The president will lose the power, so abused in the 1990s, to dismiss the prime minister at will. Presidents will not be able to prorogue or cancel parliament. They won't be able to unilaterally appoint the Chief of Staff. The legislative reforms in Pakistan will also give more autonomy to the provinces within the Pakistani federal system. The long-suffering Pashtun people (unfairly branded as all 'Taliban' by some observers) will finally get a provincial name recognizing them, as Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan recognize their majority ethnicities.

But none of these achievements is being praised by the right of center US press or the liberal imperialists.

That is because the United States did not spur these developments. The Pakistani public (including humble street crowds) did it themselves, and if anything the US was nervous about losing its favorite military dictator and terrified that democracy would bring instability or provide an opening for the Taliban to take over the country. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton preposterously called Pakistan the 'most dangerous country in the world.' Australian gadfly and security consultant David Kilcullen said rather bizarrely in a WaPo interview last year this time that the Pakistani government could fall to the Taliban and al-Qaeda within six months. Pakistan, by democratizing from within and challenging the paradigm of liberal imperialism, either falls off the US radar (it isn't our project, so why even pay attention?) or is actively disparaged as a form of 'instability.' It all has to be about us.

In contrast, the March 7 parliamentary elections in Iraq have been widely lauded by the US right as vindication of George W. Bush's illegal invasion and occupation of that country. Iraq is a basket case, full of smoldering rubble and an army of displaced people, as well as masses of widows and orphans created by the violence that broke out when Bush created a power vacuum. The party most likely to play kingmaker is the Sadrists, followers of fundamentalist Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Iraqi politics are far less secular than Pakistan's. For all the recent violence in Pakistan, it is a much more secure country than Iraq, possessing a large and professional army. Iraq is being lauded as a role model not because it is a success but because it is an American project, in which the little brown irrational people have allegedly once again have had the precious tutelage of white Europeans (and Euro-Americans) generously bestowed upon them.

Pakistan, which at the moment has had a much better political outcome, is ignored or disparaged because the hand of the West is hard to discern in its achievements. The move to weaken the president is not, of course, being taken purely out of altruism. The Muslim League-N wants the PPP president taken down a notch. President Asaf Ali Zardari's own alleged corruption weakens him and makes it hard for him to resist the demand that the president's powers be curbed.

What the Pakistani public is doing has much more lasting implications for democratization in the Muslim world than anything Bush did. Pakistan is a Sunni Muslim-majority country, so it has more hope of being seen as exemplary by the 90% of Muslims in the world who are Sunnis, than does Shiite-dominated Iraq. That Pakistan's politicians are themselves implementing these reforms gives them an authenticity that the US-authored procedures in Iraq largely lack.

Pakistan has a host of daunting problems, including high levels of corruption, the continued undue power of the military and of Inter-Services Intelligence, Taliban-driven political violence, and a legacy of support for terrorism in Kashmir and Afghanistan-- neither as yet entirely abandoned. High population growth rates, lack of land reform, and relatively low literacy and internet use all threaten to erode the impressive political achievements of the past 3 years. Even the new bill does not provide any parliamentary checks and balances on the power of the prime minister to appoint persons to high-level positions, and so is deeply flawed.

But there is some good news to be found in Pakistan's political development from time to time, and this weekend is one of those moments. Americans and Europeans should try a little humility, and find it in themselves to praise these positive accomplishments even if no Western troops set them in motion.

The long arm of the military dictators is losing some of its grasp on Pakistani political institutions, and the country is moving toward a strong parliamentary system. It is something to be happy about, even if the next round of reforms may have to rein in the prime minister himself.

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Obama Phones Hu over Iran Sanctions; China Stresses Peaceful Resolution; India Reviving Iran Pipeline Plan

As part of his press for increased sanctions on Iran over its civilian nuclear enrichment program, President Barack Obama called Chinese President Hu Jintao on Thursday. The US has few bargaining chips to induce China to play ball on Iran, which supplies 8% of China's imported petroleum. (For the importance of Iran to the Chinese economy see this Reuters article.) For China's energy needs in general, see Michael Klare at Tomdispatch.

One issue that has caused tensions between Washington and Beijing is US pressure on Beijing to revalue its currency, which economists consider undervalued. Artificially keeping the yuan low helps China's manufacturers to export their goods more readily, and hurts the manufactures of other countries (such as the US itself) that let their currencies float and be assigned a value by the market.

It may be that Obama will let the Chinese revaluation issue slide in order to get better cooperation on increased sanctions. If so, it would be a bad deal. Reviving US industries through more competitive exports is light years more important than ratcheting up sanctions on Iran, especially since the kind of sanctions that can likely get through the Security Council will be powerless to deter Iran's nuclear enrichment program.

Even then, China will not want measures that hurt Iran's ability to export oil and gas. China is now the world's second largest importer of petroleum, at about 4 to 4.8 mn. barrels a day. (The US is importing about 11 million b/d, though its appetite has decreased in the past 18 months because of the deep recession.) China desperately needs energy from Iran if it is to go on growing, and Beijing is highly unlikely to anything to harm that supply.

Meanwhile, a key player with regard to Iran will be missing at the UN Security Council talks, i.e. India. New Delhi just yesterday broached reviving a plan to bring natural gas from Iran through Pakistan and thence to India. The $8 billion plan has been in limbo for two or three years. First, the US pressured the Asian Development Bank not to underwrite the project, raising the question of where the $8 bn. will come from. Then, there were ethnic disturbances by Baluch tribesmen in the area through which the pipeline would run, raising questions about how secure it would be (a question you would want answered before sinking $8 bn. into it) Finally, Iran asked for an unrealistically high price for the natural gas.

But Pakistan is pledging to ensure security for the pipeline. The Pakistani military has shown in Swat and South Waziristan that it can do counter-insurgency if it is willing to invest enough manpower and equipment, which may make its pledge about Baluchistan more credible to India. As for prices, the coming on line in the past five years of shale gas in the US works to keep them relatively low. Shale gas is profitable to extract at about $4 per million British Thermal Units, ensuring that when the price rises sufficiently, the increased US production from shale will force it right back down, for the foreseeable future. The US has now reemerged as the world's largest producer of natural gas, ahead of Russia. This introduction of new shale production will have disciplined Iran's expectations, perhaps making it more likely that Tehran will offer India a realistic price. (Natural gas has the advantage of producing far less carbon dioxide than coal. It has the disadvantage of being extracted through methods that use a lot of water and potentially disturb the environment; also, the extraction process could release methane gas, which is several times worse as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.)

The United States immediately urged Pakistan to shelve the project, saying it is "not the right time" for it. Neither Pakistan nor India is likely to yield to Washington on this issue. India cannot directly intervene in the UNSC discussions of tightened sanctions on Iran, but it can work through friendly countries such as the Russian Federation to make its concerns known. And, if the choice is being energy-starved, it may at some point just break the US sanctions regime and take the consequences.

The USG Open Source Center translated the following report from Chinese; it underlines that China still hopes for a negotiated settlement and certainly disapproves of the use of force. Are we getting to a point where China might over-rule Israel in the Middle East?

PRC FM spokesman: China 'Remains Committed' to Peaceful Solution of Iran Nuke
By reporters Tan Jingjing and Hou Lijun: "Qin Gang Says China Continues To Remain Committed to a Peaceful Settlement of the Iran Nuclear Issue"
Xinhua Domestic Service
Thursday, April 1, 2010 . . .
Document Type: OSC Translated Text . . .

Beijing, 1 Apr (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang reiterated at a regular news conference on 1 April that the Chinese side will continue to remain committed to finding a peaceful solution to the Iran nuclear issue.

In response to a question on the Iran nuclear issue, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang confirmed that Iranian Supreme National Security Council Secretary Jalili arrived in China on 1 April for a visit, during which State Councilor Dai Bingguo and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi will separately meet and hold talks with him.

Qin Gang said: On the night of 31 March Beijing time, the general directors of the foreign ministries' political departments of China, Russia, the United States, Britain, France, and Germany held a teleconference to exchange views on the Iran nuclear issue. They agreed to continue to maintain contacts through various channels.

Qin Gang said: The Chinese side is highly concerned about the situation currently facing the Iran nuclear issue and is stepping up efforts to conduct communications with the relevant parties to push for an appropriate solution to the nuclear issue and strive for results. The Chinese side will continue to make constructive efforts for a diplomatic settlement of the Iran nuclear issue.

He reiterated: On the Iran nuclear issue, the Chinese side stands for safeguarding the international nuclear nonproliferation system and also safeguarding regional peace, security, and stability. When discussing this issue, the Chinese side always proceeds from these two points.

(Description of Source: Beijing Xinhua Domestic Service in Chinese -- China's official news service (New China News Agency))

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Sadrists are Holding Referendum on PM; Allawi says Would go to Iran, form Gov't of National Unity

The party of Muqtada al-Sadr in the Iraqi parliament, with 39 seats, intends to hold a referendum on which prime ministerial candidate to support on this Friday and Saturday, according to al-Hayat writing in Arabic. Sadrist party offices and other party-affiliated buildings will be used for the polling stations. Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission refused to oversee the referendum, saying that their charge from the constitution is to simply ensure that parliamentary elections are upright. Spokesman Qusay Abdul Wahhab said that anyone would be allowed to vote in the referendum, not just known members of the Sadr Movement. Voters will be allowed to vote for one of five prominent candidates for prime minister: Iyad Allawi, Nuri al-Maliki, Jaafar Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, Adil Abdul Mahdi, and Ibrahim Jaafari. Allawi is an ex-Baathist secular Arab nationalist of Shiite heritage. Nuri al-Maliki, the current prime minister, heads up the State of Law coalition. Jaafar Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr ran on the State of Law slate (which has the Da'wa or Islamic Mission Party at its core), but as the son of the "First Martyr," Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, he has a natural charisma should the State of Law decide to dump incumbent al-Maliki so as to stay in power. Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, a major Iraqi cleric, was killed at Saddam's hands in 1980. The list also includes Adil Abdul Mahdi, currently one of 2 vice presidents, who represents the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. Finally, Ibrahim Jaafari, the first post-Saddam prime minister, who broke off from al-Maliki's Islamic Mission Party, is a possibility for voters.

Al-Hayat also reports that the Iraqiya list of Iyad Allawi is miffed that it was not invited to Iran this past weekend. He offered to go to Iran to work for a coalition, he said. Allawi expressed a willingness to go to Tehran if that is where the government is being formed. Both al-Maliki and Allawi are now showing flexibility and the willingness for the first time to form a government of national unity.


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