| Iraq |
| Red Herring Fatwas |
| 2008-05-25 |
| An article by Nibras Kazimi, Visiting Scholar at the Hudson Institute The Associated Press put out a wire report yesterday [on May 22] hinting that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani is about to declare jihad against the Americans. .... Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric has been quietly issuing religious edicts declaring that armed resistance against U.S.-led foreign troops is permissible a potentially significant shift by a key supporter of the Washington-backed government in Baghdad. .... Al-Sistani's new edicts which did not specifically mention Americans but refer to foreign occupiers were in response to the question of whether it's permitted to "wage armed resistance," according to the two Shiites who received them. .... The [AP] report reaches the pinnacle of duplicity when it casually adds that: In perhaps another sign of al-Sistani's hardened position, he has opposed disarming the Mahdi Army as demanded by al-Maliki, according to Shiite officials close to the cleric. If weve learned anything from the recent events in Basra, Sadr City and Mosul ... it should be that the reporters and commentators who are tasked to describe Iraq to American and western audiences are at worst dishonest and duplicious, at best some string pullers chorus of useful idiots. It is in this vein that this AP story is released; to distract from other things that could be reported in Iraq, such as how things are dramatically improving and how this war has been decisively won. Here are two other developments to mull over: al-Sadr is not a rival, not even by a long-shot, to Sistani as the AP supposes. And Sistani is no longer that relevant to politics in Iraq. So many things have changed since 2005, and many observers are still way behind the curve. ... A source close to Sistani denied that the Grand Ayotallah's about to announce jihad, saying that Sistani believes that occupation (...in a general sense) must be resisted by peaceful, not military, means under a given set of circumstances. Don't expect AP to release a retraction, though. ... |
| Link |
| Iraq |
| Iraq Gov Might Be Planning Campaign in Maysan Province |
| 2008-05-25 |
| An article by Nibras Kazimi, Visiting Scholar at the Hudson Institute .... all the following is classified under the category of gossip: The Iraqi Army and the Marines are preparing for a major campaign against Mahdi Army and Iranian targets in Maysan Province (Amara). Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki may even put the entire elected leadership of Amara many of whom are Sadrists out of a job, by flexing his authority under emergency powers. There is even talk of air strikes against military targets weapons depots, transportation vehicles and individuals on the Iranian side of the fence; these are targets that are arming and otherwise supporting the Special Groups throughout Iraq. Irans logistics trail goes from Maysan through southern Babil/Hillah Province (al-Hamza) and from there into central Iraq, i.e. Baghdad. Theres another route also going from Maysan into Qurnah and then onto Basra. The southern route has been effectively crippled. And the last stretch of the northern route that used to take weapons from south-western Baghdad all around to Sadr City has also been shut down. .... The talked-about airstrikes would take out forward Iranian border stations that have recently been moved into Iraqi territory, especially around oil fields. Then there are weapons depots of rockets, advanced RPGs and assorted weaponry right near the border ( on the Iranian side, though) that are on the target list, as well as buildings and Iranian individuals involved in facilitating logistics for the SGs, also on the Iranian side. .... |
| Link |
| Iraq |
| NY Times tries to sex up another routine story |
| 2008-04-14 |
| The opinion of Nibras Kazimi, Visiting Scholar at the Hudson Institute Here we go again: the New York Times tries to sex-up an already interesting story to score political points on its front-page. .... The story, written by Solomon Moore, makes its first mistake by sensationalizing the arms deal between Iraq and Serbia as a secret sale in its headline. How can something be kept secret if the Iraqi Ministry of Defense put out two press releases - with pictures - about the Defense Ministers two visits to Serbia during September and November of last year; then the Defense Minister held a press conference on December 9 announcing specifics about the deal; then the ministry put out a third press release announcing the formal signature of the deal and its total sum (230 million dollars) on December 24? All this was amply reported on by the Iraqi press, and some of this coverage found its way into the Arab press. Im sure that the Serbian media also covered it in some detail. But the NYTimes still maintains that it was all hush-hush .... .... why was Moore able to ask the Iraqi Defense Minister about the deal during an interview in February in his office? .... The timing of this February interview is very revealing, for it tells us that the NYTimes has been working on this story for some time now, but had decided to sit on it. I think they did so because there wasnt much of a story to tell: the NYTimes wanted to use the Serbian deal to paint the Iraqi government as corrupt and inept, and there wasnt enough meat on this skeletal narrative. So what changed? Standards did, of course. The NYTimes reporting on Iraq can be best described as anything goes as of late, so a story heavy on innuendo and factually meager can still go to press if it serves the editorial policy of this paper in painting everything about Iraq in dark hues. .... The NYTimes itself tells us that theres no evidence of corruption or wrongdoing, yet it reserves six whole paragraphs to insinuate that there may be something inappropriate anyway. .... This could have been a great story had it been an expose of how some pencil-necked paper-pushers over at the Pentagon are hampering the procurement and distribution of weapons to the Iraqi military by pedantically conforming to the protocols spanning hundreds of pages that shape the Foreign Military Sales program, or FMS. Two years ago, Iraq put up billions of dollars of its own money to buy U.S.-made weapons, but these weapons have yet to reach those Iraqi soldiers battling it out on the frontlines of the insurgency. Thats why al-Obeidi turned to other, more expedient sources for arms like Serbia. The reason that this story failed to be great was that it was leaked and spun by those same DoD pencil-necked paper-pushers that were worried that their failings would be exposed. So they did what many in Washington and the Green Zone have turned into a literal blood sport: Operation Blame It on the Iraqis. ..... So there you have it, the New York Times rushes yet another sexed-up yet leaky story to its front-page and further damages the reputation of its Iraq reporting. It is simply ridiculous to claim in the pieces opening paragraphs that anonymous American commanders had said that the Serbian equipment had turned out to be either shoddy or inappropriate for the militarys mission without fully fleshing out this accusation of shoddiness later in the piece. Not only was the arms deal not secret, not only was there no evidence of corruption, not only does it seem that al-Obeidi acted appropriately and with the backing of his government while the NYTimes sources over at the Pentagon had dropped the ball during a time of war, .... not only is there no elaboration of the tensions that have arisen between Iraqs executive branch and infantilizing American bureaucrats who are bristling at their fading ability to unilaterally command the situation, not only of so many other things that could have given this story more context; the NYTimes chose to mutilate an interesting story that could have taught us all about the myriad challenges being faced in Iraq into a badly-conceived and hastily-conjectured smear. .... |
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| Iraq |
| What Happens When Defeat Devours One' Will |
| 2008-04-08 |
| By Nibras Kazimi, Visiting Scholar at the Hudson Institute Not only has Maliki not backed down, but newly emboldened with wide political backing hes begun to smash through Sadr City itself and is threatening to banish the Sadrists to a political Siberia. Muqtada al-Sadr, the guy the media has us thinking had won, has prostrated himself at the feet of Grand Ayotallah Sistani, promising Maliki that he would indeed demobilize his militia if the wise old men of Shiism would have it so. Gone are the millenarian certainties of taking orders from the Mahdi, the messiah. Gone is all that bluster of al-Sadrs virile, confident Outspoken hawza contrasted with Sistanis supposedly feeble and retro Silent hawza. And he sends out his plea for clemency from Iran. FROM IRAN?!! .... Sadr surrendering his fate to Sistani and submissively muttering, Do as you please, Sir. Who would have imagined? It is almost as baffling as Malikis abrupt transformation from an incompetent administrator into a wartime commander-in-chief! And yet, the Sadrists keep sending out confusing signals signifying the confusion within their ranks. It happens, when defeat devours ones will. We will not disarm. |
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| Iraq |
| Getting the Score Right in Basra - Good Analysis |
| 2008-04-07 |
| In the opening game of the baseball season between the Boston Red Sox and the Oakland Athletics in Japan, 11 runs were scored. That lede would be unsatisfying to most sports fans, because it doesn't indicate which team won. But it is very like most of the reporting of battles in Iraq: "The deadliest clashes were in Basra, where at least 47 people were killed and 223 wounded in the two days of fighting," wrote the AP's Kim Gamel in a dispatch March 26. Ms. Gamel was writing about the opening clashes of Operation Knight's Charge, the effort by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki to take control of Iraq's second most populous city from Iranian-backed militias, chiefly the Mahdi Army nominally headed by the Moqtada al Sadr. Fighting subsided after Mr. al Sadr called for a cease fire Sunday. The cease fire "is seen as a serious blow" to Mr. Maliki, because "he had vowed that he would see the Basra campaign through to a military victory," wrote Erica Goode and James Glanz of the New York Times Monday. But Nibras Kazimi, an Iraqi who is a visiting scholar at the Hudson Institute, says his sources in Iraq tell him "the Mahdi army is losing very badly." So who's right? It is rare in the annals of war for the side which is winning to seek a cease fire. And though Mr. al Sadr has said he wants one, Mr. Maliki hasn't said he'll grant one. "Security operations in Basra will continue," he said Monday. "The Iraq army has cordoned off the city and is methodically advancing to allow residents to leave the city amidst the fighting, militants to turn over arms, while gradually isolating the factions they intend to uproot," a Marine liaison officer to the Iraqi security forces said in an email Tuesday to radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt. Why might Mr. al Sadr have sought a cease fire? "Sources in Basra tell TIME that there has been a large scale retreat in the oil-rich port city because of low morale and because ammunition is low due to the closure of the Iranian border," TIME reported Sunday. "They were running short of ammunition, food and water," a U.S. military officer told Bill Roggio of the Long War Journal. "In short, (the Mahdi army) had no ability to sustain the effort." That sure doesn't sound like al Sadr's forces were winning. It is easier to maintain the illusion that they were when friendly, enemy and noncombatant casualties are lumped together. His sources in the U.S. military tell him the Mahdi army was getting pounded, Bill Roggio said. "According to an unofficial tally... 571 Mahdi army fighters have been killed, 881 have been wounded, 490 have been captured, and 30 have surrendered over the course of seven days of fighting." "The U.S. and Iraqi military never came close to inflicting casualties at such a high rate during the height of major combat operations against al Qaida in Iraq during the summer and fall of 2007," he said. The Mahdi army has won by surviving, media analysts say. But it seems apparent the Mahdi army survived by quitting. Mr. al Sadr offered the cease fire after travelled to Iran to meet with the head of the Qods (Jerusalem) force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the McClatchy Newspapers reported. The lawmakers urged Brigadier Gen. Qassem Suliemani to lean on Mr. al Sadr (who is in Iran) to offer the cease fire. If true (Mr. Kazimi's government source in Baghdad described it as a "naive fabrication"), the McClatchy story indicates the Mahdi army is under Iranian control. Why would Iran want the fighting to stop? "The Iranians have realized that they no longer can use the Shiite militia threat to force Washington's hand on Iraq without jeopardizing their own interests," speculated STRATFOR, a private intelligence service. Fighting among Shia factions, and the increasing independence of Shia factions they thought they controlled has virtually dashed hopes Iran would be able to dominate Iraq through Shia proxies, STRATFOR said. "The mullahs know that they are losing," said Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute. "Their great dream of driving America out of Iraq, which seemed to be about to be fulfilled just a year and a half ago, has now turned into the nightmare of humiliation and defeat for the Islamic republic. The Maliki government is attacking the remnants of the Mahdi army in Basra, that same government the mullahs thought they had under control." |
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| Iraq |
| There's a New Sheriff in Basra |
| 2008-04-02 |
| An article by Nibras Kazimi, Visiting Scholar at the Hudson Institute .... The United Alliance List delegation ... evidently made al-Sadr an offer he couldnt refuse when they sat down for a friendly chat in Tehran two days ago: the Iraqi state was willing to go all the way in smashing the Sadrist movement arresting all the leaders and shutting down all the offices if he didnt play along with Operation Cavalry Charge and hand over those operatives whose names appear on the wanted lists. See, Maliki went to Basra with a long-ish list of names comprising all those involved in oil smuggling, drug dealing and the various other crimes that have wracked Basra. It just so happens that many of them claim to be Mahdi Army commanders. The Mahdi Army in Basra is only an army in the sense that soldiers and cappos are rankings in the Cosa Nostra. .... Maliki made the calculation that he can take on these cartels and withstand the wrath of the other affiliated Mafiosi familias that got unleashed in other parts of Iraq. The criminal syndicate knows that once Operation Cavalry Charge squashes their sweet set-up in Basra, then other pockets of criminality are going to be next, so thats why they are going to the mattresses. Well, so far several dozen of these Most Wanted folks have been killed, while tens of others are wounded or in hiding. At least 50 of them are under arrest. The outbreak of violence in places other than Basra was an occasion for the Iraqi Army and police to act on arrest warrants that have been outstanding since 2004, for example, several such dangerous outlaws were taken into custody in Karbala and Hillah. ..... .... today he [Maliki] is perceived as a statesman commanding a strong and motivated army that can impose law and order on once-powerful forces that have run amuck. If thats not a benchmark of success, then what is? .... Operation Cavalry Charge was a reality warp for all those whove internalized the rhetoric that Iraq is a failed state. Instead of being dismissed as a Green Zone politician, Maliki took his war cabinet to Basra and went all Untouchables on the Al Capones of Iraqs oil-rich south; plenty of journalists and experts simply could not grasp these dramatic changes to the political topography of Iraq. Maliki won, pure and simple. The western media invented the narrative that Maliki was at war with the Sadrist movement, even though no such declaration was ever made. .... Malikis approach is piece-meal: hes taken out the intimidation factor that kept much of the Sadrist sway in place and hes done that by showing them that they are no armed match for a better-disciplined, better-supplied Iraqi Army with plenty of stamina. The Sadrists are left with some political gains that theyve accrued from joining the political process, such as government posts and lucrative contracts that theyd be loathe to part with and thats their collateral for good behavior from now on. .... Now the Sadrist will have to sway voters their way with words and entreaties, rather than threats and drills. Most of the crime cartels are also on notice that the days of the Wild, Wild South are over and theres a new sheriff in town. .... Maliki has promised to keep arresting the names on his list, and he has demonstrated that hes a man who means what he says. .... The regular folks Ive been speaking to are so admiring of Maliki. The political elite in Baghdad is freaked out by Malikis newfound stature and they must all go back to the drawing boards to recalculate this new dynamic in the political equation. ..... Today, Basra is calm and Iraqs national army is in charge, not the Mahdis. Well done, Mr. Maliki. |
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| Iraq | ||
| Operation Calvary Charge (New Info) | ||
| 2008-03-28 | ||
| An article by Nibras Kazimi, Visiting Scholar at the Hudson Institute Operation Cavalry Charge in Basra is going much better than anticipated; solid leadership coupled with a much-diminished enemy is harvesting very quick results. Here are the key points on Day 2 of the operation: * The word from Hayyania, one of Basras most populated and poorest neighborhoods, is that the situation is calm and under control. The Iraqi Army has taken up positions in the main thoroughfare while the criminal gangs and the Sadrists seem to be sitting this one outtheyre not engaging the government troops and are instead keeping a low profile. * Both the Army commander of Operation Cavalry Charge, Lt. Gen. Mohan Hafidh al-Freiji, and the police commander, Maj. Gen. Jalil Khalaf al-Muhammadawi, are very able commanders and brave men, with al-Muhammadawi, an ex-tank officer in the Iraqi Army, tending towards brutality. Hes also helped by the fact that he can draw upon important tribal relations in the all-important Albu-Muhammed tribe of nearby Amara Province. * The Iraqi Army is operating with the utmost restraint which reflects their good training and new ethos; this in not the Saddam-era Army whose first instinct is to level rebellious neighborhoods to dust. Maliki has given the criminal cartels 72 hours to come out with their hands over their headsthis is not a battle, its rather a law-enforcement stand-off.
* Many parts of Baghdad where one would assume the Sadrists could potentially be troublesome such as Husseiniya, Bunook, Shia Ghazaliyya, and Washash experienced no acts of violence. The places where there was limited violence and tension were Sadr City, Bayaa, and very sporadically in al-Shula. In fact, most of the people who Ive spoken to throughout the day, many of whom were out and about travelling across wide swaths of Baghdad, seemed surprised that the situation was that calm.
* The Sadrists can only keep the shops and schools closed through intimidation, including spraying some shop owners with gunfire in the Bab al-Shargi neighborhood. But it is also interesting that one form of intimidation taken by Sadrist activists has been to take photographs of shops that have remained open despite the call for a strike. This sort of behavior indicates that although the Sadrists may not be able to anything about this defiance now, theyll remember these scabs and settle these accounts later. This shows weakness. * The radically Sunni al-Sharqiyya TV (owned by Saad al-Bazzaz, who in recent years has financed his media conglomerate with monies from the dethroned ex-ruler of Qatar, the Barzanis and the U.S. Department of State) is curiously propagating and amplifying Sadrist ( maybe Iranian) psyops. Whats even funnier is that al-Sharqiyyas bogus reporting is looping back into western reporting on the situation in southern Iraq. It seems that news of the situation in the provinces of Diwaniyya, Kut and Hillah have been widely exaggerated by al-Sharqiyya and consequently by certain western media outlets that are pretending to be covering the story when what theyre really doing is taking questionable reporting by an openly hostile TV station and passing it on to the western news consumer as original and objective reporting. * Ahmad Chalabi is trying to reconcile the Sadrists with Maliki. No word on whether Maliki is receptive to this overture. | ||
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| Iraq |
| Operation Cavalry Charge |
| 2008-03-26 |
| An article by Nibras Kazimi, Visiting Scholar at the Hudson Institute .... Today [March 25], the Iraqi Army launched its first major military operation to fully control Basra, the second largest city in Iraq, without any - ANY - Coalition assistance. One source tells me that during the preparation phase of this campaign the Americans offered to position some U.S. Special Forces and air-cover near the Basra battle theater to act as back-up if needed but their Iraqi counterparts planning this operation politely turned down the offer. This is Operation Cavalry Charge.... Its chief objective is to flush out the organized crime cartels that control the port of Basra and the oil pipelines of the province. One major criminal force in the Basrawi scene are groups that affiliate themselves with the Sadrist movement and its Mahdi Army. Many of these criminal rings are also associated with certain factions of Irans Revolutionary Guard that operate in Basra both for intelligence/sabotage purposes as well as enriching themselves. By knocking out these egregious manifestations of lawlessness, Operation Cavalry Charge will have the accrued benefit of mashing up the more subtle patterns of Irans malignant influence in Iraqi Shiisms foremost economic prize, the oil fields and port of Basra. |
| Link |
| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Links Between Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Assassination of Rafiq Hariri |
| 2007-10-11 |
| The opinion of Nibras Kazimi, Visiting Scholar at the Hudson Institute .... Yesterday, the Hezbollah-friendly Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar began to publish the initial sworn testimonies of the Al-Qaeda-related cell members who were arrested in Lebanon during January 2006. .... There are two new revelations in Al-Akhbars stories: the first is that Faisal Akbars nationality is reaffirmed as a Saudi rather than a Syrian. Faisal Akbar was one of an Al-Qaeda cell arrested by the Lebanese Government immediately after the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in early 2005. The linked article contains details. The second - this blew my mind - is the mention in two sets of affidavits of a character called Nabil. Both Faisal Akbar and [another member of the cell] Hani al-Shenti mention Nabil as a high-level member of their cell who was killed in Iraq in the summer of 2005. Al-Shenti adds that Nabil was also known as Abul Ghadieh. This would make him Abul Ghadieh Al-Souri, the pseudonym of Khalid Suleiman Darwish, who was killed in the town of Al-Qaim on the Iraqi-Syrian border during June 2005 in an American airstrike, and who was later eulogized by Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi. Abul Ghadieh was a veteran of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. He was a dentist by profession. It seems that he relocated to Jordan in the 1980s where he married a Palestinian-Jordanian lady. He joined Zarqawi in the Herat camp in Afghanistan in early 2000, and was instrumental in building-up the Zarqawi network in Iraq. In many ways, there would have not been a Zarqawi had it not been for Abul Ghadieh. This is the first time whereby Abul Ghadieh is being publicly linked to the Al-Qaeda cell that allegedly had some role in assassinating Hariri. This would mean that someone like Ahmed Abu Ades, who was shown in a video taking credit for the Hariri assassination on behalf of this cell, was not linked to second or third tier flunkies in the Zarqawi network, but was rather linked directly to Zarqawis right-hand manAbu Ghadieh! Abul Ghadieh was killed four months after Hariri was assassinated. I had speculated back in January 2006 about a possible role for Abul Ghadieh: Interested parries should also look into a possible role, if any, for Syrian terrorist Abul Ghadieh Al-Souri, another Zarqawi aide killed in June 2005. I'd wager that the multi-talented Al-Souri was the mastermind behind establishing Al-Qaeda's recruiting/funding/operations network in Lebanon and Syria. This new information about Abul Ghadiehs alleged role lends further credibility to Al-Qaedas culpability in assassinating Hariri: such an operation would have had to be micro-managed from the very top of Zarqawis network, and Abul Ghadieh would fit such a bill. I now find that this idea - that Zarqawi was directly involved in killing Hariri - very convincing. Surely, I will get plenty of flak for this statement from those whose are wedded to allegation that the Syrian regime was behind the assassination. Maybe Syria controlled Abul Ghadieh? Who knows? But as far as Im concerned, the Whodunnit? part of the murder mystery - the smoking gun and the finger on the trigger - has traveled a great distance towards being solved with todays revelation about Abul Ghadiehs role in all this. .... |
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| Iraq |
| Sunni Tribes Made It Personal Against Al-Qaeda |
| 2007-09-26 |
| An opinion written by Nibras Kazimi, Visiting Scholar at the Hudson Institute Last weeks murder of Sheikh Sattar Abu Risha was tragic, but not catastrophic. His death does not change the vastly improved situation in Anbar Province, since his role in its pacification was exaggerated from the beginning. Anbar stabilized for a variety of reasons that had nothing to do with Abu Risha or Americas counterinsurgency efforts theresomething that the U.S. military command has yet to figure out. Abu Risha found himself in the limelight at the right time and place, and the Americans fighting the terrorists in Anbar seized upon him as the poster-boy of a new strategyempowering Iraqs defunct tribal structurethat they had hoped would make belated sense of the positive transition and would allow them to claim credit, and medals, for it. . I believe the insurgency failed because it had bad ideas and unrealistic expectations. When the price paid by the local population for these ideas and expectationsfighting the Shiites and re-establishing Sunni hegemonybecame too steep, Sunnis turned against the insurgents and tried to find shelter, yet again, under the central government. This latter trend is the one that should be reinforced: Sunnis should be encouraged to throw in their lot with the New Iraq, rather than falling back into the tribal identities of Iraqs past. Tribes are now part of Iraqi folklore; they dont matter anymore. We found out the hard way, said Abu Seif, a man who once sold me on his own importance as a tribal leader from Anbar. This was said to me recently at an office in Amman, where Abu Seif now manages his business affairs. A long time ago and in a career far, far away, I had turned myself into a tribal expert, focusing specifically on the tribes of Anbar, and the ones that surround Baghdad. Consequently, I had to often deal with tribal leaders, or sheikhs. . The U.S. should work with tribal leaders but shouldnt exaggerate their importance. . It is one thing to be proud of ones tribe I take pride in being a NakhaI but its a whole different matter to take orders from ones nominal tribal sheikh. These social structures have been fraying under the myriad forces of sedentarization, urbanization, nation states, sectarianism, land reform and dictatorship to the point where tribal sheikhs are now rendered a quaint, savage aristocracy that the men in powernow wearing Western suitswould tolerate and do small favors for. Tribal leaders held on to some lingering prestige accorded to them by their ancestry; their dress and mannerism harked back to romanticized notions of Arabian chivalry. The tribes turned into job placement agencies; the sheikhs would petition the powerful over low-grade government jobs for the desperate young men who still came to them for help. Thats how the sheikhs held on to their social relevance, by becoming a 'civil society' lever between a small segment of the population and the all powerful, all benevolent welfare state, much like the neighborhood mukhtar does. They are useless for mass mobilization, and could never rival a civil society institution such as the religious hawza in Najaf; something that was clarified by the failure of tribal chiefs, and the politicians who relied on them, at the polls. Abu Rishas story was the stuff of powerful narrative: a pro-American tribal sheikh who had courageously confronted Al-Qaedas menace and eventually evicted them from his province, but was then killed by a treacherous bomb planted by the terroristsAl-Qaedas Islamic State of Iraq took credit for it. In war, icons are invented and Abu Risha was such an icon: he looked authentic and trim in his flowing Arabian robes, said the right things, and was always available for media comment. But he was creature for an American audience rather than an Iraqi one, and his American minders fell into the trap of believing their own propaganda. Interestingly, Abu Rishas tribe is numerically insignificant by Dulaim standards, and only number in the hundreds. . There had been many sheikhs in Anbar who wanted to be part of the new Iraq from the very beginning, men like Abu Seif or the CIAs guy, Sheikh Majid. Later, others confronted Al-Qaeda head-on: credible leaders like Sheikh Nasr Abdel-Karim al-Mikhlif (of the Albu-Fahed tribe in Anbar, held a PhD in Agriculture, one of the few tribal sheikhs in Iraq who could claim a level of authority over his tribe) and opportunists such as Sheikh Usama al-Jeryan (of the Karabilah tribe in Qaim), only to be killed off by Al-Qaeda. . None of these men achieved Abu Rishas fame, simply for the fact that he had better timing, and an American audience willing to be charmed. . As one Iraq observer put it to me, tribes are a barometer of power; they swarm around whoever has the upper hand. The danger now is that the Americans are trying to resuscitate a clannish social system that had withered away in Iraq, and turning it into a power in of itself. . Maybe whats important here are tribal tactics in warfare, rather than the institution of a the tribe itself: the insurgency had imposed its terror (and control) on Iraqi society by being very up-close and personal: they knew the name, address and genealogies of those who stood against them among their own kind, and would strike out at them from the shadows, in a way similar to how Saddam's totalitarian regime worked, which isn't surprising since many insurgents worked in Saddam's security organs. The U.S. military had been trained to target regimental colors rather than individualsits a depersonalized method of war, seemingly in place to make the act of murder more palatable to Western sensibilities. But an insurgents willingness to kill was made easier by knowing who he was going to kill; punishing the alleged individual guilt of the victim. What succeeded against Al-Qaedas methods was the tactic of turning cousins on cousins: all of a sudden America had allies on the ground who fought in the same way Al-Qaeda was fightingthey made it personal. |
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| Iraq |
| The NYTimes and political mathematics |
| 2007-09-26 |
| An analysis by Nibras Kazimi, Visiting Scholar at the Hudson Institute This is what The New York Times had to say about the stability of Prime Minister Nouri al-Malikis government today (Alissa J. Rubin, Maliki Gains Time, but Faces a Daunting Task, September 25, 2007): Seventeen ministries now are without a minister and those ministers who are left are in many cases doing double duty, making it difficult to improve the performance of the agencies and allow them to deliver desperately needed services like electricity and water. This may look like me splitting hairs, but I think its important to set the record straight: the NYT may have gotten the number 17 by adding up 6+6+5 (6 Sadrist ministers, 6 Consensus ministers, and 5 Allawi ministers), but the reality is that 11 ministries are now without a minister since 4 of Allawis ministers are still at their jobs ( the only one who seems to have followed Allawis orders is his relation, Muhammad Tawfiq Allawi over at Telecommunications, who keeps telling people in private that hell be back on the job soon), and another minister from the Consensus bloc, Ali Baban, whos in charge of the Ministry of Planning, has returned to his job and was consequently expelled by the Islamic Party for not toeing the party line. Ironically, the head of the Islamic Party, Tariq Hashemi, has not resigned from his post as Vice-President. Whats also interesting is that all these parties - the Sadrists, Consensus and Allawi - have not pulled out any of their guys who serve as Deputy Ministers, let alone withdrawing their loyalists and appointees who occupy positions further down the bureaucratic chain. The point of the NYT's News Analysis piece can be summed in these paragraphs: Some are making lists of members of Parliament who would support a no-confidence motion to see if it is possible to obtain the 138 votes necessary to remove him. Under Iraqi law, the prime minister and his government can be removed by a vote of no confidence that is supported by a simple majority in the 275-member Parliament. .... But if the NYT cant accurately report on whether 11 or 17 ministries are vacant, then they sure wont have the capacity to tally-up 138 no confidence votes; its interesting that the reporter didnt press Mr. Shahbandar on whether or not Allawi can deliver all 25 votes from his bloc alone towards the movement to yank out Maliki. At least four MPs on Allawis list have recently expressed their desire to secede from his bloc and form their own coalition with other dissident MPs (Safia al-Suheil, Mahdi al-Hafiz, Hachim al-Hassani and Wail Abdel-Latif). The political situation in Baghdad is far more dynamic and fluid, and with many more moving parts, than the picture that is being relayed by this newspaper report: new alliances are being made, and new loyalties are being formed; someone in an established position of authority, such as Maliki, has plenty of space to maneuver and make promises here and here to win over the fence-sitters. It's coalition politics, and the operative word here is patronage. |
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| Iraq |
| Jihadist Meltdown |
| 2007-03-12 |
| by Nibras Kazimi, NY Sun There is always a moment during a raging battle when one side realizes that the field has been won, and the other side collapses in retreat and confusion. The curious thing about the Iraqi insurgency is that this moment has arrived, yet both the victors, in this case the Americans and the Iraqi government, and the losers, Al Qaeda and the other jihadist groups, are reluctant to acknowledge it. But make no mistake, the battle has been turned and we are witnessing the beginning of a jihadist meltdown. . . . Go read it all: it's long, detailed, and very contrary to what you hear in most of the press. There is no greater joy for someone who cares about Iraq than to watch Al Qaeda and these other jihadist groups go at each other with the bloodthirsty abandon and frenzy that only crazed zealots can muster. The bloodletting has gone far beyond the point of any possible reconciliation, for Al Qaeda must destroy all the others in order to survive, and ditto for the others as they face down Al Qaeda. It has turned into an all-or-nothing fight among the most dangerous insurgents, and it is heartening to see them engaged and distracted in destroying each other. Now if only the American press would report on this jihadist meltdown so that policymakers in Washington can rally the martial spirit to bring this battle to a crushing end for the enemy. |
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