I’m looking ahead to the June 30 “handover” of power in Iraq with increasing trepidation. As this NYT story indicates, the handover is shaping up to be a complete sham (more on this from Nathan Brown, guest commentator for Juan Cole). Anybody silly or corrupt enough to join the new “government” will be in the same position as the Iraq governments of the British Mandate/Treaty period, taking responsibility for policies dictated by a foreign occupying force, while having no effective power over anything that matters.
From the category archives:
International Politics
There’s been surprisingly little blog comment on the release of Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli atom whistle-blower. He’s been released subject to outrageous restrictions on his freedom of association and movement. Jonathan Edelstein has a “fairly balanced and moderate post”:http://headheeb.blogmosis.com/archives/024458.html on the subject, Gene at Harry’s place has “a somewhat sneering one”:http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2004/04/21/the_cult_of_mordechai_vanunu.php . But despite Edelstein’s reasonable tone, I can’t agree with him when he writes
bq. Vanunu betrayed his country and chose illegal rather than lawful means to pursue his political agenda; it was his choice to go to a foreign newspaper with classified information rather than addressing his concerns to left-wing Israeli lawmakers.
The “betrayal of country” accusation strikes me as somewhat dubious. There have been plenty of whistleblowers in Britain — such a Clive Ponting, Sarah Tisdall and, most recently, Katharine Gun — who have gone to the press with details of possibly illegal and certainly immoral behaviour by Britain’s governments and defence establishment. But no-one has called them traitors. As far as I can see his crime was not to weaken Israel’s security by revealing genuine secrets, but to bring into the light of day facts about Israel’s nuclear programme that everyone knew but which couldn’t be admitted openly for political and diplomatic reasons. Do such revelations a traitor make? As for the accusation of using illegal means, that’s pretty laughable given that Vanunu was illegally kidnapped in Italy! Or is illegality ok for states but and not for their citizens?
Iraqi police recruits, children on a school bus and many others were killed today in a series of bomb attacks in the British-controlled city of Basra that claimed at least 68 lives…
The explosions sowed panic across Basra, which had been relatively peaceful during this month’s upsurge of violence in other parts of central and southern Iraq.
US officials believe al-Qaida linked Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was behind the Irbil, Baghdad and Kerbala attacks. They claim an intercepted letter revealed a strategy to foment civil war between Sunni and Shia Muslims to make the country ungovernable.
Basra’s governor also blamed Osama bin Laden.
Ahmed Chalabi, being interviewed by the Australian Broadcasting Commission,, and urging that Australian troops remain in Iraq, had this to say (emphasis added).
Obviously, this assessment suited Chalabi’s argument on the day, but it’s closer to the truth than anything anyone else associated with the Administration has been willing to say.I think that we wasted a year now. The security plan for Iraq that was put forward by the Coalition has collapsed. We must face this fact and we must involve Iraqis right away in the training and the recruitment of the police. I believe that a year to 18 months of hard work on the right track will be sufficient to train an important and significant security force.
Following up on Brian’s post, I looked at this much-linked piece by Camille Paglia, and was struck by its dated references to television and the 60s[1]. She goes on to talk about computers, but apparently sees the computer as nothing more than a turbocharged TV set. This impelled me to dig out a piece I wrote nearly ten years ago, making the point that far from privileging visual media, the computer, and particularly the Internet are contributing to a new golden age of text. Blogs weren’t thought of when I wrote this piece, but the argument anticipates them, I think.
fn1. Oddly enough, although the main argument is a restatement of positions that were familiar 50 years ago, the piece is full of references to the young, as though the current generation of young adults has been, in some way, more saturated in TV than were the baby booomers.
The day before Tony Blair turns up in Washington to give yet another demonstration of support for the mess Bush is making of Iraq, we have the spectacle of Bush and Sharon tearing up the “roadmap for peace”, one of the key elements on which Blair sold the Iraq war to the British Labour Party, and Bush endorsing Sharon’s plans to annex most of the West Bank. It’s hard to imagine that Blair could stand for such a gratuitous insult, but equally hard to imagine him doing anything about it.
Since the situation in Iraq seems to have stabilised momentarily, this might be a good time to think about measures that could prevent a renewed downward spiral. An essential starting point, and a relatively easy measure, would be to dump both Bremer and Chalabhi. Every major decision Bremer has made has been a disaster, from the dissolution of the Iraqi army to the failed attempt at rigged elections based on “caucuses” to the decision to pick a fight with Sadr. The cumulative result is that the Coalition is stuck with a promise to hand over power on June 30 and no-one remotely credible to hand it to.
The other party in all of this is Chalabhi, who is still apparently Bremer’s preferred candidate, despite the fact that he has zero credibility in Iraq or, for that matter, anywhere outside the Pentagon. It might not be feasible to remove him from the Governing Council, but he should be dumped from any administrative position he holds, and particularly from his role in the disastrous de-Baathification campaign.
My suggestion for the next step would be to send Powell to Baghdad to take personal charge of the proposed transition. Although he’s been compromised like everyone else in the Administration, he’s by far the most credible person they have.
I’m going to try hard from now on to avoid debating whether the war with Iraq was a mistake, and to focus on the question of what should be done from here onwards.
I’ve argued for some months that the most plausible option for a stable allocation of power in Iraq is a de facto two-state solution in which the Kurds get effective autonomy and a share of the oil and the rest of Iraq gets a government which will be dominated by the Shiites. With luck, they won’t try and settle too many scores and will recognise the need to keep much of the Sunni professional elite on side. The government would be Islamist, but not a direct theocracy like Iran.
The key to all this, almost certainly, is Ayatollah Sistani. He’s not the person I’d want running my country (or more precisely acting as the eminence grise for its day-to-day rulers), but he seems like the only plausible choice who wouldn’t be an absolute disaster.
Following Fallujah, I see that liberal and leftie bloggers who are pro-war (such as “Oliver Kamm”:http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2004/04/hitchens_is_ans.html , “SIAW”:http://marxist-org-uk.blogspot.com/2004_04_01_marxist-org-uk_archive.html#108102268775079976 and “Norman Geras”:http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2004/04/falluja_3.html ) have been linking to “a WSJ piece by Christopher Hitchens”:http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110004903 which argues that the disgusting behaviour of the Fallujah mob vindicates the decision to go to war. (If we hadn’t acted now, the whole of Iraq would have become like this, in time ….) I have to say that my reaction to their reaction is somewhat sceptical. If the people of Iraq are happy and peaceable (as claimed by some opinion pollsters) then this is supposed to vindicate the war; if they are rioting and murderous, then this also vindicates the war! One has to wonder whether there is _any_ development in Iraq that Hitchens wouldn’t use as confirming evidence for his worldview and which wouldn’t then be cited in this way by pro-war bloggers! Perhaps the news of increased antagonism from a section of the Shia will make new demands on Hitchens’s ingenuity?
[Lest this post be taken as more hostile to the pro-war bloggers than intended, I’d add that it seems appropriate to ask of everyone who seems certain of the rightness of their position on the war, whether there are any developments that would lead them to say, “OK, I was wrong.” For instance, if there is a functioning and independent Iraqi democracy within two years, which lasts for at least a further five, then I think that ought to shake the convictions of hardened opponents. But I don’t think that’s likely.]
As Richard Clarke’s unsurprising revelations continue to receive blanket coverage around the blogosphere and elsewhere, I’ve been increasingly puzzled by the failure of the Zarqawi scandal to make a bigger stir. As far as I can determine, the following facts are undisputed
* Abu Musab Zarqawi, leader of the group Ansar al-Islam is one of the most dangerous Islamist terrorists currently active. He is the prime suspect for both the Karbala and Madrid atrocities and the alleged author of a letter setting out al Qaeda’s strategy for jihad in Iraq. Although he has become increasingly prominent in the past year, he has been well-known as a terrorist for many years
* For some years, until March 2003, Ansar al-Islam was based primarily at Kirma in Northern Iraq, in part of the region of Iraq generally controlled by the Kurds and included in the no-fly zone enforced by the US and UK. In other words, the group was an easy target for either a US air attack, a land attack by some special forces and/or Kurdish militia or a combination of the two
* Nothing was done until the invasion of Iraq proper, by which time the group had fled
These facts alone would indicate a failure comparable in every way to the missed opportunities to kill or capture bin Laden before S11. But the reality appears to be far worse.
Where I come from, a “Removal” is when the body of a recently deceased person is transported from their house or the Funeral Home to the Church, where it awaits the funeral ceremony. I believe the phrase “The Viewing” is roughly equivalent in the United States. Which is why “Patrick Belton’s words”:http://oxblog.blogspot.com/2004_03_21_oxblog_archive.html#107999854522914337 threw me off for a few moments:
bq. Haaretz has a number of good pieces about the removal this morning of Sheikh Yassin: … Dichter argued against Yassin’s removal … while Europeans considered Yassin’s removal (to my mind, dubiously – has anyone seen a fleshed-out argument?) as a violation of international law …
Now, Patrick also quotes a news report that uses the correct word in this context — i.e., “assassination” — so I’m wondering why he avoids it himself. I can’t think of any good argument to prefer a euphemism like “removal” to “assassination,” or even to “killing.” Is it well-established in this context? Is the unarticulated implication here that actions of this sort cannot count as assassinations because they are carried out by the State? This seems obviously wrong. Better to just “come out and say”:http://www.jnewswire.com/news_archive/04/03/040322_yassin.asp that you thought they were right to kill him, I think, than let a euphemism do the work for you. If not, then should I expect to read about “removal attempts” in future? And what does this new usage imply about companies who carry out furniture removals?
Much of the value of a blog like Crooked Timber is in the comments threads, but the signal to noise ratio is inevitably low, especially when flame wars erupt. I thought this point by Donald Johnson responding to Chris’ post on the Spanish election (and disregarded in subsequent comments) was valuable enough to justify more prominence.
Exactly right. The idea, that by doing what al Qaeda (supposedly) wants[1] we are sending a message that will influence them to do more of the same directly contradicts the overwhelming evidence that al Qaeda is unconditionally committed to terroristic war against us, and cannot be dissuaded from it (evidence that has been stressed more on the right of the blogosphere than anywhere else). They cannot be influenced, only incapacitated.If al Qaeda has the capability to plant bombs and kill hundreds of people, they’re going to do it however they interpret the Spanish election. They might plant their bombs before elections if they think they can influence them, or they might plant their bombs where there are large crowds on some special date, or they might choose some big symbolic target again, like the Pentagon or the WTC. The point is to stop them, not to worry about how they might read election results except to the extent that understanding what they think might give clues on what their next target is going to be.
fn1. This applies equally to the Spanish election result and to Bush’s decision to pull US troops out of Saudi Arabia.
There’s good reason to be wary of applying historical analogies to current events – comparing the Iraq war and Vietnam is usually as loaded and unhelpful as, say, comparing the Iraq war and World War II. However, there’s one way in which the US debate about Iraq is starting to look like the debate about Vietnam. It’s becoming ever less focused on Iraq as an actual place (to the extent that it ever was) and ever more concerned with Iraq as a battlefield in a vague and ill-defined war against the forces of evil, in which any setback gives succour to the enemy.
Even after the conduct of the Vietnam war became indefensible, many argued against pulling out because they said that a US defeat would embolden the forces of international Communism. Similarly, there’s a lot of talk today among the war blogs about Spanish “appeasement” and how a Spanish withdrawal from Iraq will strengthen and encourage al Qaeda. As John has already “said”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001514.html, this interpretation does some violence to the actual motives of Spanish voters. Nor are the Socialists wimps on terrorism – the main reason that they lost power in 1996 was because of their vicious and illegal tactics in the ‘dirty war’ against ETA (torture, kidnapping, murder etc). If this is a victory for al Qaeda, it’s not a victory because the Spanish are seeking to appease terrorism. It’s a victory because it will be perceived by the current US administration and its supporters as being a defeat.
Update: see also “Jim Henley”:http://www.highclearing.com/archivesuo/week_2004_03_14.html#005161.
Update 2: Also “Jacob Levy”:http://volokh.com/2004_03_14_volokh_archive.html#107937019778104920, a supporter of the Iraq war, who’s written the most sensible and judicious post on Spain and ‘appeasement’ that I’ve read so far.
The warblogosphere has gone into a predictably frenzy over the Spanish election results. In my previous post, I argued, from an antiwar position, that it was a mistake to interpret the result as punishment for Aznar taking a prominent stance in the struggle against terrorism. Now, following Micah’s advice I’ll present a couple of points that might be more convincing to those on the other side of the fence from me (or at least the subset who are open to argument of any kind).
First, it seems to be universally agreed, and was certainly believed by the PP government, that it would have electorally beneficial had it turned out that the bomb was planted by ETA. But the Aznar government was notable for its hardline stance against ETA. If the Spanish people were the cowards painted by their erstwhile admirers, this would make no sense.
Second (as far as I know), there has been no suggestion from the Socialists that Spanish troops should be withdrawn from Afghanistan[1]. If the Spanish people are terrified of bin Laden and want to appease him, it seems strange to show this through continued backing of attempts to capture or kill him and prevent the restoration of the only government that’s ever openly embraced him.
fn1. Of course, the same point applies to most opponents of the war in Iraq. The great majority supported the overthrow of the Taliban. Of the minority who opposed the Afghanistan war, most did not do so on prudential grounds but from a position of routine opposition to US foreign policy (eg Chomsky).
The Economist has an “article”:http://www.economist.com/World/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2478574 this week on John Kerry’s popularity with Europeans. The argument is twofold – Europeans are rooting for Kerry to win, but they’re likely to end up disappointed if he does.
bq. whoever is in the White House, tensions between European and American approaches to the world seem sure to persist. The heyday of Atlanticism came to a close with the end of the cold war. … Indeed, in some areas, such as trade, the quarrels between the sides could get worse … Mr Kerry might explain American views more tactfully than Mr Bush. He might even do it in French. But transatlantic tensions would endure.
As a piece of international relations analysis, it’s an odd mixture of the obvious and the wrongheaded. Of course, transatlantic disputes aren’t going to go away if Kerry becomes President. But they’re likely to be transformed – much of the sting will go out of them.