Libertarian Leanings

The Arab Tony Blair

According to Hayder Al-Khoei who blogs as Eye Raki, that would be Nouri al Maliki.  Maliki was in London this past weekend looking to attract investors to Iraq's growing economy and to persuade Iraqi ex-patriots to return and take part in the reconstruction.

'On Saturday evening over 500 Iraqi expats packed the King's Suite in the Hilton Metropole on Edgware Road to listen to PM Maliki and to have a chance to ask him questions face to face. Almost every sect, political ideology and denomination was represented in the hall.

Maliki was pretty impressive, and reminded me of an Arab version of Tony Blair. Although he looked grumpy the whole time, he was calm and confident when he spoke and answered questions. Maliki lacks the charisma of Blair and Obama, but like many other good politicians he has mastered the art of answering a question without really answering it. Sometimes people hear just what they want to hear, and applaud anyway.

Speaking to the professionals living outside Iraq, he urged them to come back and help build up their country. He argued "You say you cannot come back until everything is secure and Iraq is prosperous, but I say Iraq will not be prosperous until you come back and help in the reconstruction effort... It is the chicken or egg dilemma... Of course you will not enjoy the same services you enjoy in the UK or the same salaries, things will be different but you have to make sacrifices because your country needs you"

He added "I appreciate many of you cannot simply lock your houses and leave everything behind, as I did in Syria, and that many of you have children growing up and studying here, but those willing to make the sacrifice can come back with me". He quipped "My plane back to Baghdad is empty" and the crowd applauded at the gesture.

The security was extremely tight, nothing like when Talabani or Hakim were in London, although of course this time half the executive government was sitting in the same room. Security would regularly walk up and down the rows of chairs scanning faces and talking quietly into their microphones.

The only incident of the day happened when a Ba'athist told Maliki "Those who killed and hurt the Iraqi people remain Iraqi". Although technically what he said was correct, it did not go down too well with the crowd, who jeered at him and cut him off. One man got up and tried to confront the Ba'athist but was forced to sit back down. The Ba'athist did the right thing and walked out as soon as he saw the hostile reaction from the people. Maliki did nothing, he just sighed and rolled his eyes.'

Interesting to note that Iraqi ex-pats are far less hostile to American support in Iraq than than many Americans.  Maliki was able to attract 300 companies who are willing to invest in Iraq. No mention was made of his success in persuading his displaced countrymen to return. 

I wonder how long the invasion of Iraq will be considered the worst foreign policy blunder in American history.

Maliki puts it on the line

Sami Moubayed, Forward Magazine editor-in-chief and Syrian political analyst, describes a last minute parliamentary scramble over the Status of Forces Agreement between Iraq and the U.S.  Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, originally unenthusiastic about the agreement, now says he will resign if it is not ratified, and he wants it to pass by a convincing parliamentary majority.   A narrow victory, he fears, will deepen political divisions among Shi'ites, Kurds and Sunnis.

Iraq was given the right to say "no" to the Americans if they wanted to launch a war from its territory on neighboring countries. It was previously feared, by the Iranians and their Iraqi proxies, that the agreement would be used to legitimize the use of Iraqi territory to launch a war on Iran. Now that Iran is assured, Iraqi Shi'ites of the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) can approve such an agreement. Not only is the UIA now lobbying for the SOFA - to please the Americans who helped bring it to power during the last parliamentary elections - Maliki also is threatening to resign if the agreement does not pass on Wednesday.

It will be fascinating to see how all this goes down with the Iraqi people, and for that matter, with the rest of the Arab world.  Mr. Moubayed sees the deepening divisions arising in the debate, but I suspect unity will win out in the end, and it will win out in a big way.  The debate has not been conducted in secret.

Watching the weekend debate, which was broadcast live on Iraqi TV, one gets a feeling of how polarized Iraqis have become. The 44 members of the Iraqi Accordance Front, the 30 members of the Sadrist bloc, 11 members of a small Sunni bloc the Iraqi Dialogue Front, and the 15 members of the Fadila Party, are all likely to vote negatively, if a deal is not struck in advance with the prime minister.

Kurds, Shi'ites, and Sunnis are all into hard bargaining for the political power that can be secured in exchange for supporting the agreement.  The Iraqi people, and perhaps the rest of the Arab world, are watching as Arab democracy plays out on TV.  It's hard to imagine this having anything but a lasting impact.  It's huge.

Surprising origins of hope for Iraq

Strategy Page reports on the Americanization of Iraq:

October 23, 2008: Many Iraqis have become infatuated with the American military. Not just the efficiency with which they fight, but also how they go out of their way to avoid civilian casualties, and try to help Iraqis recover from decades of tyranny and terrorism. This doesn't get a lot of publicity, but it is changing Iraq on a fundamental level.

The new Iraqi Army wants to be just like their American counterparts. Iraqi military uniforms look very much like the U.S. ones. The weapons and vehicles are the same. And the Iraqis are emulating how U.S. troops move, as well as how they look. In combined operations, it's often difficult to tell, at a glance, who are the Americans, and who are the Iraqis. More than once, during a firefight, an American soldier dives for cover next to what he thinks is another G.I. But when he talks to the other "American", he comes face-to-face with an Iraqi face talking back to him in Arabic. Fortunately, both armies use the same hand signals (a form of sign language used during combat, when voice commands cannot be heard, or when you want to maintain silence.) So the two will communicate with hand signs and get on with the battle.

Read the rest at Strategy Page.

Dead end?

Iraq's prime minister Nouri al Maliki has reportedly said that negotiations over the long-term security agreement between the U.S. and Iraq are at a dead end. American proposals "violate Iraqi sovereignty," he said.  While the prime minister's words offer no hope that an agreement will be reached, an al Maliki adviser says things may not be so bad.

A senior al-Maliki adviser, Yassin Majid, said at Amman that despite the "impasse," negotiations were "still continuing" in a bid to overcome the deadlock.

What was rejected was the "preliminary draft" presented by both sides, "but there are alternative ideas that will be presented to the negotiating table at an upcoming meeting," he said.

He declined to say when the meeting was to take place, but other Iraqi officials accompanying the prime minister said the impasse came about "because the ceiling of American requests were extremely high."

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the main point of contention was the issue of the continued American troop presence in Iraq.

Failure to strike the security deal soon would leave the future of the American military presence in Iraq to the next administration. Mr. al-Maliki's stance increased doubts the deal could be struck before the upcoming American presidential election.

Iraqi opposition to the deal has mainly focused on concerns that the agreement would cement American military, political, and economic domination of Iraq.

American officials have refused to release details of the talks while they are still under way but have expressed their respect for Iraqi sovereignty.

The top State Department adviser on Iraq, David Satterfield, told reporters this week that the two sides would meet a July target date to finish the agreement, which must be ratified by the Iraqi parliament.

President Bush said this week in Germany that he was also confident that a deal would be reached.

We'll see fairly soon if this amounts to anything more than haggling.

Soft Power

Frederick Kagan thinks it odd that the Democrats oppose soft power initiatives just when the administration begins to employ them.  Their problem:  Bush is employing them in Iraq.

It is particularly odd that the antiwar party that has been so loudly trumpeting the need to use soft power rather than hard power is now attempting to undo years of effort to develop a sophisticated political-economic-social-military program in Iraq to secure America's objectives. Having failed to force American troops out of Iraq, Congress is now trying to strip them of all the enablers they need to win. And it is not scare-mongering to state a fact that any brigade commander in Iraq will bear out: cutting off assistance, particularly the CERP money that brigade commanders rely on to establish and maintain good relations with local populations who reciprocate by helping track down terrorists and protect key infrastructure (including the "concerned local citizens," now renamed "Sons of Iraq" who are the lynchpin of this effort), will lead to more American casualties.

I disagree with Mr. Kagan on one minor point.  It is predictable, rather than odd.  The Democrats would happily torpedo Iraqi political, economic, and military gains.  The party's opposition to the liberation of Iraq, as well as all efforts to secure and rebuild it, is has been above all else rooted in their dread at seeing George W. Bush succeed at anything.  To the Democrats Iraq is a domestic issue.  It's all about winning the next election.  "Odd" is not the word I would use to describe a political party whose members openly side with terrorists.

The reincarnation of Ahmed Chalabi

The London TimesOnline reported that most of the street lights in Baghdad went on last week for the first time in years. Although it represents a small improvement in the quality of life in Baghdad, it is quite a victory for Ahmed Chalabi who was put in charge of restoring essential services to the capital earlier this month by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

When you considering that he failed to win a seat in the Iraqi parliament two years ago, he has been blamed for goading America to war on bogus intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, and he has been accused of passing US secrets to the Iran, Chalabi's comeback can be seen as nothing short of remarkable.

...he has become an indispensable Mr Fix-it in a nation where civil society has broken down.

He still sees Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, the Shi’ite spiritual leader, and is relatively trusted by the radical cleric, Moqtadr al-Sadr, who has sought his advice on several occasions during the past three years when his Mahdi Army has run into trouble. Sadr called a ceasefire in August, which appears to have had a dramatic effect on the number of sectarian killings in the capital.

Sunni tribal leaders who denounced Chalabi as a stooge of the Americans now visit his fortified compound in Mansour, a plush suburb of Baghdad, hoping his influence with the American military will secure them extra resources to fight the remnants of Al-Qaeda.

Chalabi lives outside the protective bubble of the international “green zone” and has cultivated the air of a can-do politician who is not beholden to any faction.

He travels the country in a heavily protected convoy, cajoling Sunni tribal leaders into taking back Shi’ite refugees and finding out what services are required in each area.

His latest reincarnation began when he was appointed last February to head a committee which aimed to win popular support for the troop surge. It was Chalabi’s job to arrange compensation for damage to Iraqi homes and cars caused by aggressive US security sweeps in the hope of maintaining the support of the local population.

Chalabi now presides over a committee on services that includes American monitors and oversees the work of eight ministries, including those responsible for oil and electricity.

The challenges ahead are daunting, but for now the lights are on in Baghdad and Iraqis are coming home.