A 3 minute 49 second history of the relationship between U.S. and Saudi Arabia

From the opening of the movie The Kingdom. You don't often get your history lessons so compressed. The movie is not bad either.

Report from (post-jihad?) Chechnya

From the New York Times:

Women stroll on sidewalks that did not exist last year. Teenagers cluster under newly installed street lights, chatting on cellphones. At a street corner, young men gather to race cars on a freshly paved road — a scene, considering that this is the capital of Chechnya, that feels out of place and from another time.

Throughout the city, local officials, most of them former rebels who waged a nationalist Islamic insurgency against Russia, lounge in cafes, assault rifles idled beside them.

Three years after a wave of guerrilla and terrorist attacks caused many analysts to say that Russia’s war against Chechen separatists could not be won, the republic has fallen almost fully under the control of the Kremlin and its indigenous proxies, led by Ramzan A. Kadyrov, the Chechen president.

Mr. Kadyrov’s human rights record is chilling, and allegations of his government’s patterns of brutality and impunity are widespread. Yet even his most severe critics say he has developed significant popular support, in part because of the clear changes that have accompanied his firm and fearsome rule.

As one Chechen told the Times:

“I compare how we used to live, and it is like we are in a fairy tale now,” said Zulika Aliyeva, 46, whose home was destroyed when Russia sacked Grozny in 1999 and 2000 and who spent years squatting in a ruined building. The building she moved to recently has been partly repaired.

Even experts are impressed:

Alexei Malashenko, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center who studies Chechnya and recently visited the republic again, said the pace of change was astounding. “I couldn’t believe I was in Grozny,” he said.

The Times sums up what seems to have happened:

Russia’s defeat of the heart of the rebellion in Chechnya appears to flow, in the simplest sense, from a two-stage formula: extraordinary violence, followed by extraordinary investment. One corollary has been that allegations of human rights abuses by both Russia and its local allies have been largely ignored.

The Times credits Kadyrov for all this:

At the center of this formula has been Mr. Kadyrov, the rebel turned Kremlin ally who was widely labeled an illiterate bandit when he entered public life three years ago after his father, then the president, was assassinated.

Mr. Kadyrov, like the republic he leads, has defied the dark projections. As Chechnya’s president since this spring, he has become a populist who has managed to embrace Sufi Islam, Chechen ethnic identity and Kremlin authority simultaneously.

His success has a paradoxical quality to it. Paramilitary units in his government are suspected of kidnappings, torture and extrajudicial killings. Combat has not fully stopped and sporadic fighting has spread to neighboring republics. Large graves are full of unidentified remains — the victims, human rights advocates say, of a campaign to kill people suspected of being insurgents and punish their families.

So apparently do many locals:

Mr. Kadyrov, they said, has driven his government to work and forced government-hired contractors to meet his harsh deadlines. “They are afraid of Ramzan,” said Linda Saraliyeva, 28, one of Ms. Aliyeva’s neighbors. “What he has done in only one year, no one else has managed to do.”

As for Kadyrov himself, he credits Putin - and his harsh tactics. As he told the Russian GQ in 2005:

"I've already killed who I should have killed. And I will kill all of those standing behind them, as long as I myself am not killed or jailed. I will be killing as long as I live… Putin is a beauty. He thinks more about Chechnya than about any other republic. When my father was murdered, he [Putin] personally came down and went to the cemetery. Putin stopped the war. Putin should be made president for life. Strong rule is needed. Democracy is an American invention… Russians never obey their laws. Everyone stole, and only Khodorkovsky is in jail."

Some experts agree that Putin has been critical in the pacification process:

Mr. Malashenko, at the Carnegie Moscow Center, said he saw the Chechen president differently, saying that Mr. Kadyrov had become an essential national figure. But he added that he worried that Mr. Kadyrov’s standing was connected to his personal relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

If Mr. Putin leaves office next year at the end of his second term, as required by Russia’s Constitution, he said, Mr. Kadyrov’s fortunes, and his life, could be at risk. “He is hated in Moscow by a lot of people,” he said. “Only Ramzan is able to be a national leader. If he disappears, there will be a quarrel between the clans.”

Another suicide bombing in Afghanistan

This time in Kabul. According to the New York Times report:

A suicide bomber wearing an Afghan military uniform approached a bus full of Afghan soldiers on their way to work early today and detonated a belt of explosives concealed beneath his clothes, officials said. The explosion transformed the vehicle into a smoldering husk of twisted steel and killed at least 27 people, including civilians, making it one of the deadliest suicide bombings in Afghanistan this year, officials said.

As the Times went on to note:

While suicide bombings in Iraq have been employed by the Sunni Arab insurgency to target the Shiite civilian population in an apparent effort to incite sectarian tensions, suicide bombers in Afghanistan have mostly attacked Afghan and foreign security forces.

Early this month, the United Nations said that in the first eight months of the year, Afghanistan had suffered a 69 percent increase in suicide bombings over the same period last year.

There have already been 100 bombings this year, killing at least 290 people, according to Afghan and international officials. A record 123 were carried out in 2006, inflicting some 305 deaths.

So what kind of Afghan - or foreigner, the case in half these bombings it appears - would blow himself up to kill his fellow citizens - or Muslims? As the Times went on to report:

A former Taliban commander told United Nations investigators that half of all suicide bombers had been foreigners and that “almost all undergo some form of training and preparation in madrasas based in Pakistan,” according to a United Nations report released earlier this month.

“Over 80 percent of suicide attackers pass through recruitment, training facilities or safe houses in North or South Waziristan en route to their targets inside Afghanistan,” the report added.

Many of the bombers appear to be young, poorly educated Afghans who had attended religious schools in Pakistan, investigators found. Suicide bombers also receive support from networks inside Afghanistan.

Reality sets in in Iraq: "The situation for al Qaeda today has shifted"

The Wall Street Journal's Robert L. Pollock talks to the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. Here are some excerpts from his write-up of that conversation:

"The situation for al Qaeda today has shifted," the prime minister tells me with characteristic understatement. "It has lost a lot of the bases where it was operating freely."

In part this is because of the "surge" of American and Iraqi forces, whom Mr. Maliki thanks repeatedly for their sacrifices. But "these recent successes were also achieved because of the ordinary citizen. The residents in these areas discovered the reality of al Qaeda."

I ask if this change of heart on the part of the Sunnis -- dubbed the "Anbar Awakening" -- can survive the killing of charismatic leaders like Sattar Abu Risha, who was murdered by an al Qaeda bomb on Sept. 13. Yes, he assures me, the movement is strong. Abu Risha's killing only "brought all the tribes together in condemnation." The "national reconciliation" continues.

Asked about the risks of the government not monopolizing force he responded:

"We worried about creating new militias while we were confronting existing ones."

But he tells me there is a solution to the problem: "When members of the tribes carry arms they will be part of the structure of the state." That is, they do so as members of the Iraqi Security Forces, not as representatives of this or that sheikh.

About the Shiite militants in Iraq, Pollock wrote:

Mr. Maliki also deserves more credit than he gets for moving against the Shiite militias associated with Moqtada al-Sadr: "We deal with all Iraqis on the basis of whether they are abiding by the law or not abiding by the law."

As to what the Iraqi prime minister thought about Gen. Petraeus' recent testimony before Congress:

"I thought he tried to be realistic," he says of Gen. Petraeus. "He talked about the difficulties and the challenges, but also about the successes."

Asked about Iraq's neighbors and what role they've been playing, Maliki responded:

"At the beginning it wasn't an issue of getting more support but suffering from their negative interventions and their breaking of the principles of good neighbors." But he says things have started to change for the better because the surrounding countries now worry that troubles in Iraq could spread. They have "started a dialogue" with us, he says, adding "it is the duty of the entire world to work with Iraq."

Regarding the threat of terrorism in general, the prime minister cautioned that:

[The] world must form a "united front that supports democracy and confronts terror. There is no country that can say that terrorism has nothing to do with me."

So what did Pollock conclude from his interview:

Sure, it might be nice to have an Iraqi prime minister with a ready smile, flawless English and the unquestioned loyalty of all the country's people. But given the fractured nature of the country we found, and our many missteps -- particularly the "proportional representation" electoral system, which encouraged sectarian politics -- we should be thanking our lucky stars we ended up with Mr. Maliki. He is decent, thoughtful and courageous. He deserves our support, and patience.

As Maliki went on to say:

"In the 1860s, your country fought a great struggle of its own" -- Mr. Maliki reminded the world in an article for this page in June (yes, he really did draft it himself) -- "a civil war that took hundreds of thousands of lives but ended in the triumph of freedom and the birth of a great power."

Check out this map

Here is a map of the world showing recent suspicious activities around the world. It's updated every 460 seconds, and you can modify the time-frame it displays and the types of incidents, and search for more information about whatever is listed.

It's a terrific resource for analysts, students, teachers, etc.

The Saudi perspective on what's going on in the Middle East, and an Israeli response

From an interview with Charlie Rose as transcribed by the International Herald Tribune.

After establishing Prince Saud's bona fides:

CHARLIE ROSE: Prince Saud al-Faisal has been the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia since 1975. His country is an American ally in the Middle East. It has also played a key role in the Israeli/Palestinian peace process. He was especially prophetic about the war in Iraq, warning in the year 2003 that it would destabilize the country and the region. Here's a part of what he said in interviews with CNN's Christiane Amanpour and the BBC's John Simpson.

SAUD AL-FAISAL: An occupation of Iraq is not a simple thing. How is 250,000 troops going to maintain order in a country like that? Especially if war leads to the instability that we think it will lead to, if it leads to the chaos that we think it will lead to. If the social order breaks down, who's going to be fighting whom? There's disorder, who's going to be paying the price for that?

We would hate to see American soldiers paying the price for an occupation that will do nothing but bring terrible consequences to everybody.

If change of regime comes with the destruction of Iraq, then you are solving one problem and creating five more problems. That is the consideration that we have to give, because we live in the region.

CHARLIE ROSE: And in a conversation with me in early 2004, he predicted the rise of ethnic and sectarian tensions in Iraq.

SAUD AL-FAISAL: And the fear that we had is that we knew that Iraq -- we knew that Iraq had many problems. Basically, the ethnic and sectarian situation in Iraq, which has been leaving Iraq on the edge of a pendulum, from complete chaos at one time to complete dictatorship at another time. And we thought that Saddam Hussein was not the cause of the problems of Iraq, he was a symptom.

Rose asked the Saudi foreign minister about the situation in Iraq:

CHARLIE ROSE: How long can you give the Maliki government and Ayatollah Sistani to come in and do something? How long can you live with the situation the way it is today?

SAUD AL-FAISAL: They should come yesterday, not today. I think it is already very late in the day. We have elections coming in the United States. We don't know what policies are going to be pursued in the United States, and certainly the United States is a prime mover and a prime actor in Iraq. And unless things move now, immediately, as I said, yesterday better than today, I'm afraid for the future. It doesn't bode well for all of us.

CHARLIE ROSE: What are you afraid for?

SAUD AL-FAISAL: Well, I'm afraid of conflict, of this conflict spreading in the region, of the violence continuing unabated, and for the countries of the region to be sucked into the conflict. This is the nightmare that everybody sees in Iraq if things continue as they are.

CHARLIE ROSE: Some say you have 18 months to do something, because if there's a change of administration -- and there will be -- and it is any of the Democratic candidates is elected president, there will be a demand for withdrawal sooner rather than later. And if American troops leave, what are the consequences?

SAUD AL-FAISAL: Well, from following the political dialogue in America about leaving or not leaving, I think there is some sort of a consensus emerging that you can't leave the country in disarray.

CHARLIE ROSE: Exactly. Well, you said that at the beginning, that we have to leave Iraq in a better shape than we found it. That seems like an awfully tall mountain to climb.

SAUD AL-FAISAL: Well, if you jump into the fray, you have to pay the price for that.

CHARLIE ROSE: And what is that price now? What is it from the United States that we have to do?

SAUD AL-FAISAL: Well, I don't want to presume that I would know what the United States has to do better than the United States government. They have set up a program of action that include national consensus, that resolves many of the issues, outstanding issues -- the issue of militias, the issue of equality in the eyes of the law for all Iraqis. These are the elements that have to be done.

As I said, it is not the concept of -- or the conception of what needs to be done in Iraq, it is just doing it. It's going ahead and doing it. If you're accused of imperialism -- and God forgive me for saying that -- be a (inaudible) imperialist.

So what does Prince Saud suggest the United States should do?

SAUD AL-FAISAL: You must make every Iraqi equal in the eyes of the law. You must disband militias. You must make everybody share in the benefits of economic well-being in Iraq. You must bring a government that does not have any restrictions on Iraqis of qualification just because they are Ba'athist or other political affiliation. You must bring the professional soldiers, the professional policemen, who had the experience of governing Iraq, brought back into (inaudible). These are the issues that have to be dealt with.

Rose also asked Prince Saud about what is going on in Anbar Province.

CHARLIE ROSE: The president likes to point to Anbar province now, where Sunni tribal leaders have recognized that joining forces with al Qaeda is counterproductive and they've turned on al Qaeda. Do you think that idea can spread?

SAUD AL-FAISAL: I hope so. We would hope the idea would spread everywhere, that cooperation with al Qaeda is counterproductive. It is dangerous. It is -- the violence that al Qaeda preaches brings no solutions to anybody. Whoever seeks to have a settlement of a problem certainly won't find it with al Qaeda. You will find only pure terror for no other purpose than to terrorize.

He asked Prince Saud about Al Qaeda:

CHARLIE ROSE: Are they stronger than they were before this war started?

SAUD AL-FAISAL: They have more causes to use for recruitment, for -- to justify their actions, to show that they are in a war to protect Muslims everywhere. And that is dangerous, of course. We want to reduce the amount of -- their capability to recruitment, because unless you go to the heart of the recruitment issue, you are really not solving the terrorist problem.

CHARLIE ROSE: As you know, some of those recruits come from your country. Why do you think they go to Iraq to fight for al Qaeda? Saudi young men?

SAUD AL-FAISAL: You know, when you see the violence that is happening in Iraq, in Palestine, and every day you see it on television and you see your brethren being killed, and it moves people. It is not the first time that this has happened, that people go to fight other wars in other countries. Many idealists from America went to the war in Spain...

CHARLIE ROSE: Yes, indeed.

SAUD AL-FAISAL: ... and lost their lives there. This is not unsimilar to that. But if you have...

CHARLIE ROSE: What do they see as the cause, though? If al Qaeda is not the cause...

SAUD AL-FAISAL: If you have somebody -- if you have somebody like al Qaeda utilizing this and directing it in a manner that is evil, that is pure evil, because al Qaeda has nothing to offer -- they certainly are not going to liberate Iraq. They went to Lebanon and created havoc in Lebanon. They went to other places and only killed -- who did they kill? They killed Muslims! Tens of times more Muslims than anybody else. They have nothing...

Rose then asked Prince Saud about Iran.

SAUD AL-FAISAL: We don't have an inherent opposition to Iran.

The policy that we would like to see Iran follow is a policy of fighting sectarianism, of not conceiving of themselves as the protectors of Shiites and -- in Iraq, for instance, because it's a false premise. If you are protecting Shiites in Iraq, you must remember that there are more Shiites as minorities in Sunni countries than majority in Muslim countries. And if you are worried about the Shiites, then you have to worry about these communities, which are now integrating in the society.

CHARLIE ROSE: You have said that the worst two things you can think about are, one, a nuclear Iran, and, two, an attack on Iran to prevent a nuclear Iran. Both bad options.

SAUD AL-FAISAL: Indeed. And that is why we are at a quandary about this in the Middle East. They've promised that they are not going to build atomic weapons. We hope that it comes true, that they are not going to develop atomic weapons. But the spread of nuclear weapons is something that is so immensely dangerous, not only because of the threat of conflict with atomic weapons, which is so destructive, but because of the fears that they would fall into the wrong hands, into terrorist hands.

Finally Rose asked Prince Saud about the prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

SAUD AL-FAISAL: This is conceived of as being so difficult, so intricate a problem, that only perhaps the involvement of a deity can solve a problem like that, and not mere mortals. Whereas, in fact, it is a border dispute, isn't it? They are fighting for the same territory. Why on earth this mystery?

CHARLIE ROSE: It's more than that, though.

SAUD AL-FAISAL: This complication? It is more than that? It has been brought to more than that. Now, religious issues put into it because of Jerusalem. Security issues are put as the prime concern for the solution of the problem. But there have been many border disputes settled, and many guarantees of security have been settled. Why not in Israel and Palestine?

CHARLIE ROSE: Well, your king, your friend, has made a significant effort with his own peace plan. Here's what Tom Friedman said writing in "The New York Times."

"I would humbly suggest the Saudi king make four stops. His first stop should be to Al Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam. There he, the custodian of Mecca and Medina, could reaffirm the Muslim claim to Arab East Jerusalem by praying at Al Aqsa. From there, he could travel to Ramallah and address the Palestinian parliament, making clear that the Abdullah initiative aims to give Palestinians the leverage to offer Israel peace, with the whole Arab world in return for full withdrawal.

And he might add that whatever deal the Palestinians cut with Israel regarding return of refugees or land swaps, so some settlements might stay in the West Bank in return for the Palestinians getting pieces of Israel, the Arab world would support.

From there, King Abdullah could helicopter to Yad Vashem, the memorial to the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust. A visit there would seal the deal with Israelis and affirm that the Muslim world rejects the Holocaust denialism of Iran.

Then he could go to the Israeli parliament and formally deliver his peace initiative."

What do you think of that idea?

SAUD AL-FAISAL: What if what Mr. Friedman says does not work?

CHARLIE ROSE: That's the problem, isn't it? Can't take that risk if it doesn't work.

SAUD AL-FAISAL: The issue -- the issue is not for somebody who's not in the conflict to take risks for peace. It is those in conflict that must risk peace.

Israel has lived now for the last six or seven decades on the concept of security based on brute power, brute military power. It is guaranteed that power by the United States. The United States assures Israel of keeping it capable of facing any combination of other forces, and we see the superiority in the military field that Israel has.

It is not for King Abdullah to risk for this peace. He presented a plan that would allow for the security of Israel in the Arab world, by having the Arab countries accept to make peace with Israel, that would lead to normalization, that would lead to working together, to cooperation.

The one who should take the risk for peace is Israel, instead of gambling on war to keep it. Why not accept...

CHARLIE ROSE: Everybody has to take a risk for peace, don't they?

SAUD AL-FAISAL: ...[King Abdullah] has come forward, put his proposal on the table, which was -- the risk was that he was -- that he was taking, that it was not going to be accepted or be popular, in his country or in other Islamic countries. But he took the risk. He came out with the proposal, and he convinced his Arab colleagues to accept the proposal.

It was out of hand refused by Israel, without any response or a different proposal from them that would be of equal consequence. You don't know how to act with something like that. Somebody who tells you that it's my security that is the arbiter for peace.

What is Israeli security? At one time, in their studies that they make, a security study, they said that their security extends from the Indus River to the Atlantic Ocean. How is that conceivable for a country of 3 million people, or 4 million people, or 5 million people, to conceive of these ideas? My God! We just want to live our lives in our country, build our country, have our citizens receive the education and economic level that we think they deserve. Where do these grandiose ideas come from? I don't know how they develop these ideas.

They are there to live as part of the Middle East. They must live with the Palestinian, not with the United States. They must achieve acceptance in the neighborhood that they have come to. They have come by force, but they cannot remain by force. They can only remain by acceptance. And this is what was offered to them, on the table, acceptance, normalization. A country as small as that has to have normal relations.

CHARLIE ROSE: You know what they would say, with respect? They would say that suicide bombings continue, the violence against Israelis continues...

SAUD AL-FAISAL: It continues because of the violence that's perpetrated...

CHARLIE ROSE: ... not just the territories, but also within Israel.

SAUD AL-FAISAL: It continues because it is perpetrated by the violence that they use against the Palestinians.

CHARLIE ROSE: Beyond what....

SAUD AL-FAISAL: For one shot fired from a house in the West Bank, the whole house is razed and the family is driven out. Every time that some crazy from one of the militias in the West Bank or Gaza fires a Katyusha missile that hits a farm, or maybe sometimes it injures somebody, the whole section of the city that it came from is destroyed. The infrastructure is -- Palestinians are living in misery. These are the most educated people in the Middle East. A man or a woman cannot know what their family is going to -- whether they can feed them, whether they can put them to school, whether they can clothe them, whether they can even see them grow up.

What on Earth would drive a girl, a 16-year-old girl, to put dynamite on herself and blow herself up? A 16-year-old girl! And she's a human being, just like the Israelis, just like that Saudis, just like the Americans. Except they're scared. They are scared. They see no way through for themselves to get anything in life, except by doing these violent -- violence. They have closed every option for them to work as human beings, with the dignity that this requires of human beings.

CHARLIE ROSE: All right. But what's wrong with what Tom Friedman suggested? Have King Abdullah...

SAUD AL-FAISAL: This is theater. What...

CHARLIE ROSE: Theater?

SAUD AL-FAISAL: Theater.

CHARLIE ROSE: Well, Anwar Sadat went to Jerusalem.

SAUD AL-FAISAL: Well, did he make peace for the Middle East?

CHARLIE ROSE: He made a peace between Egypt and Israel.

SAUD AL-FAISAL: All he could do was get Egyptian territory out of the Israelis. Although he was hoping for a breakthrough that would allow for total peace in the region.

At this point Rose got the Israeli response to King Abdullah's plan from the Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni.

CHARLIE ROSE: What's wrong with the Arab initiative? I mean, are you getting from Saudi Arabia, what they did in Mecca with respect to Hamas and Fatah and their effort to restart the Abdullah initiative? Does it have any potential?

TZIPI LIVNI: The Arab initiative represents the Arab narrative. And you asked me what's wrong. Well, basically, there are some good things in the Arab initiative. The problem is that it represent parameters and conditions for final status. I believe that it represents the Arab narrative, and it's OK. But I believe that the role of the Arab world is to support any outcome that comes from the Israeli/Palestinian dialogue. Instead of putting parameters and conditions, they need to help the pragmatic leaders.

Now, any agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is based and is going to be based on compromises by both sides. So the Arab world, instead of putting, you know, this set of conditions, saying that there's a need to get '67 borders, Jerusalem the capital, plus something with refugees, need to support the dialogue.

And another idea I would like to say. According to the Arab initiative, there is a vision of normalization with Israel -- and this is a good vision -- normalization with Israel at the end of the peace agreement, or when peace between Israel and Palestinians comes.

I would like to offer something else to the Arab world. It's called normalization in stages. When Israel takes a step towards the Palestinians in terms of releasing prisoners, easing the life of the Palestinians, and since the current Palestinian government cannot deliver something in return, I think that the Arab world can help Israel to take the right steps. You're talking about Israeli leaders and the need to explain to the Israeli people why we are doing so when there is a very weak government on the other side.

If I can say that this is part of a process which doesn't relate only to the Israeli and Palestinian conflict, but it's going -- we have all the Arab world on board, I think that this can send the right message. But I am optimistic. This is just the beginning.

Sheikh al-Oadah's Ramadan address to Osama

Sheikh Salman b. Fahd al-Oadah was a leading opposition cleric in Saudi Arabia until just recently. Among his followers were Osama Bin Laden. In the West he known as the cleric behind the fatwa urging Muslims to go fight jihad in Iraq in spite of their governments.

Now, after apparently recognizing the death and destruction he has helped visit upon the world, the Sheikh appears to have had a change of heart, if he was being sincere in a televised address he directed at Bin Laden on September 14, 2007, the second day of Ramadan. While I blogged about the Sheikh's remarks earlier, because I think his message is important, below I post the complete transcription of what he actually said. From Islam Today, a website the Sheikh now oversees:

Brother Osama:

How much blood has been spilled? How many innocent children, women, and old people have been killed, maimed, and expelled from their homes in the name of “al-Qaeda”?

Are you happy to meet Allah with this heavy burden on your shoulders? It is a weighty burden indeed – at least hundreds of thousands of innocent people, if not millions.

How could you wish for that? – after knowing that Allah’s Messenger said: “Whoever as much as kills a sparrow in vain will find it crying before Allah on the Day of Judgment: ‘My Lord! That person killed me in vain. He did not kill me for needful sustenance.”

This religion of ours comes to defense of the life of a sparrow. It can never accept the murder of innocent people, regardless of what supposed justification is given for it.

Didn’t you read where the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “One of the prophets once sat under a tree and was bitten by an ant. Because of this, he burnt the ant’s nest. Thereupon, Allah inspired to him: ‘Why not only the one ant?’ ” [Sahîh Muslim]

Allah revealed to that prophet: “What? Just because one ant had bitten you, you have set fire to an entire nation that extols Allah’s glory!” [Sahîh Muslim (2241)]

If this is the case for a nest of ants, consider how much worse it must be to visit harm upon human beings.

Who is responsible for all of those young Muslim, who are still in the bloom of their youth, with all the zeal of their age, who have strayed down a path they have no idea where it is headed?

The image of Islam today is tarnished. People around the world are saying how Islam teaches that those who do not accept it must be killed. They are also saying that the adherents of Salafi teachings kill Muslims who do not share their views.

However, the reality of Islam is that our Prophet (peace be upon him) did not kill the treacherous hypocrites in his midst, even though Allah had revealed to him who they were and informed him that they were destined for the deepest depths of Hell. Why did he stay his hand? He gave the following reason: “I will not have people saying that Muhammad kills his companions.”

Brother Osama, what happened on September 11 – crimes that we have condemned vociferously since that very day – was the murder of a few thousand people, possible a little less than three thousand. This is the number that dies in the airplanes as well as in the towers. By contrast, Muslim preachers – who remain unknown and unsung – have succeeded in guiding hundreds of thousands of people to Islam, people who have ever since been guided by the light of faith and whose hearts are filled with the love of Allah. Isn’t the difference between one who kills and one who guides obvious?

Our Lord tells us: “Whosoever kills a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the Earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the lives of all mankind.” [Sûrah al-Mâ’idah: 32]

Guiding one soul to knowledge and faith is a momentous achievement. It is what will earn us great blessings.

Brother Osama, what is to be gained from the destruction of entire nations – which is what we are witnessing in Afghanistan and Iraq – seeing them torn them with plague and famine? What is to be gained from undermining their stability and every hope of a normal life? Three million refugees are packing into Syria and Jordan alone, not to mention those who are fleeing to the East and the West.

The nightmare of civil war which now reigns supreme in Afghanistan and Iraq brings no joy to the Muslims. When the Prophet (peace be upon him) heard about a man named Harb (meaning “war” in Arabic), he promptly changed his name to something else, because the Prophet hated war.

Allah says: “Fighting is prescribed for you, though you detest it.” [Sûrah al-Baqarah: 216]

War is something hateful that must only be resorted to under the most dire and compelling of circumstances when no other way is found.

Who stands to benefit from turning a country like Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon, or Saudi Arabia – or any other country for that matter – into a battlefield where no one feels safe? Is the goal to obstruct the government? Is that, then, the solution for anything?

Is this the plan – even if it is achieved by marching over the corpses of hundreds of thousands of people – police, soldiers, and civilians, even the common Muslims? Are their deaths to be shrugged off, saying: “They will be resurrected in the Hereafter based on the state of their hearts.”

Indeed, all of those who are slain will be resurrected based on the state of their hearts. The question we must ask ourselves, however, is in what state are we going to be resurrected? How are we going to find ourselves when we meet our Lord? How will it be for someone who has all those countless deaths weighing down upon him, whether he wants to own up to them or not?

The concern for conveying Islam’s message to humanity is one that can influence others and convince them. This is a far greater and far weightier concern than that of using brute force and violence to bend others to one’s will. “Allah sent His Messenger (peace be upon him) as a guide for humanity, not as a tax collector.” as `Umar b. `Abd al-`Azîz used to say.

Who is responsible – brother Osama – for promoting the culture of excommunication which has torn families asunder and has led to sons calling their fathers infidels? Who is responsible for fostering a culture of violence and murder that has led to people to shed the blood of their relatives in cold blood, rather than nurturing the spirit of love and tranquility that a Muslim family is supposed to have?

Who is responsible for the young men who leave their mothers crying; who abandon their wives; whose small children wake up every day asking when daddy is coming home? What answer can be given, when that father may very well be dead, or missing with no one knowing of his fate?

Who is responsible for Western governments pursuing every charitable project in the world, so that the orphans, the poor, and the needy throughout the globe are deprived of food, education, and other essential needs? Who is responsible – brother Osama – for filling the prisons of the Muslim world with our youth, a situation which will only breed more extremism, violence, and murder in our societies?

Muhammad (peace be upon him) – my source of guidance as well as yours – is what he came with not enough for you? He was sent as a mercy for all humanity. Allah says: “And We sent you merely as a mercy for all humanity.” [Sûrah al-Anbiyâ’: 107]

The word “mercy” is not to be found in the lexicon of war. Where is the mercy in murdering people? Where is the mercy in bombing places? Where is the mercy in making people and places into targets? Where is the mercy in turning many Muslim countries into battlefields?

The Prophet (peace be upon him) brought all of Arabia under his sway without a single slaughter, despite all of the battles that were waged against him. The number of people who were killed during the twenty-three years of his mission were less than two hundred people. The Muslims who were killed during that time by their enemies were many times in excess of that number.

What do a hundred people in Algeria, or double that number in Lebanon, or likewise in Saudi Arabia hope to achieve by carrying out acts of violence – or as they say, suicide attacks? These acts are futile.

Let us say – purely hypothetically – that these people manage to take power somewhere in the world. What then? What can people who have no life experience hope to achieve in the sphere of good governance? People who have no knowledge of Islamic law to support them and no understanding of domestic and foreign relations?

Is Islam only about guns and ammunition? Have your means become the ends themselves?

That ideology that so many young people have embraced in many parts of the world, is it revelation from Allah that cannot be questioned or reconsidered? Or is it merely a product of human effort that is subject to error and to being corrected?

Many of your brethren in Egypt, Algeria and elsewhere have come to see the end of the road for that ideology. They realize how destructive and dangerous it is. They have also found the courage to proclaim in their writings and on the air that they were mistaken and that the path they had been on was the path of error. They admit that it cannot lead to anything good. They have sought Allah’s forgiveness for what has passed and have expressed their sincere regrets for what they had done.

Those with brave hearts need just as much to have courageous minds.

Do you not hear the voices of the pious scholars, those who worship Allah day and night and are truly heedful of Allah – don’t you hear them crying out with the very same words that the Prophet (peace be upon him) used when Khâlid b. al-Walîd, the commander-in-chief of his army, acted in error: “O Allah! I plead my innocence to You from what Khâlid has done.”

These same words still echo after 1400 years in the cries of the scholars of Islam: “O Allah! I plead my innocence to You from what Osama is doing, and from those who affiliate themselves to his name or work under his banner.”

Life, Osama, should not be a single lesson. We must face numerous lessons throughout our lives, and these lessons are of a great variety.

I am no different than that of a lot of other people who are concerned with Muslim affairs. My heart pains me when I think of the number of young people who had so much potential – who would have made such great and original contributions to society, who had so much to offer that was constructive and positive – who have been turned into living bombs.

Here is the vital question that you need to ask yourself and that others have the right to demand and answer for: What have all these long years of suffering, tragedy, tears, and sacrifice actually achieved?

I ask Allah to bring everyone together upon the truth and right guidance. I pray that he guides us all to what pleases Him.

– Salman b. Fahd al-Oadah

Level-headed analysis of proposed Saudi arms deal

From F. Gregory Gause, a Saudi and something of a shaykh himself - as Director of the University of Vermont's the Middle East Studies program. Here are some excerpts from recent his testimony before Congress:

The Saudi government views the regional landscape essentially through a classic balance of power lens. It is preoccupied now with the growth of Iranian regional power, reflected in the expansion of Iranian influence in Iraq, Lebanon (through Hizballah) and among Palestinians (through Hamas). It is also concerned about the Iranian nuclear program.

Saudi Arabia, Gause argues, became concerned enough to become proactive in its foreign policy in late 2006, fearing that, as he writes, the "Iraq Study Group report might lead to an American withdrawal from Iraq, leaving the field open for the Iranians." As he continues:

It was then that Saudi diplomacy became more activist. On Iraq itself, one sign of that activism was King Abdallah’s declaration at the Arab summit in March 2007 that the foreign presence in Iraq is “illegitimate.” This can be seen as the entry price to dealing with Sunni groups in Iraq, which have consistently opposed the American presence in the country (even while some of those groups are now making tactical alliances with our forces there). While there is no evidence in public sources about Saudi government ties to Sunni tribes and groups, one can draw an interesting connection between the signs of Saudi activism in Iraq from late 2006 and the beginnings of the turn among many Sunni groups and tribes against al-Qaeda in Iraq’s influence. There is more circumstantial evidence of active Saudi support for efforts by opponents of Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, led by former Prime Minister Allawi, to form an alternative parliamentary coalition to oust Maliki from office.

The new Saudi activism on Iraq is paralleled by the Saudi initiative in February 2007 to try to bring Hamas and Fatah together in a coalition government in the Palestinian territories. While that initiative was a failure, it was inspired by Saudi fears that the split between the two Palestinian parties would drive Hamas further into the Iranian camp. Saudi support for the Lebanese government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, in the face of pressure from Hizballah and Syria, predates this spate of new diplomatic activism, but it is driven by the same factor. Hizballah is Iran’s closest ally in Lebanese politics; Syria is the Arab state with the closest relationship with Iran. Blocking an increase in their influence in Lebanon is part of the Saudi strategy to limit Iran’s reach in the region.

So are they plotting to attack Teheran with these new weapons. No, argues Gause:

Riyadh does not seek a direct confrontation with Teheran. King Abdallah has received a number of high-ranking Iranian officials, including President Ahmadinejad, during 2007. The Saudis have publicly acknowledged that they are consulting with Iran about a solution to the Lebanese political stand-off. The King even received a delegation of Hizballah leaders in early 2007. The Saudis fear the consequences of an open confrontation with Iran. They lived through that during the 1980’s, with Ayatallah Khomeini castigating them as “un-Islamic” puppets of the United States and Iran supporting Shi’a opposition groups throughout the Gulf. They did not like it then and would prefer to avoid it now. They know that, in any direct American-Iranian confrontation, Iranian responses would most likely be directed at U.S. allies in the Gulf. They seek to block Iran’s efforts to expand its influence in the Arab world more indirectly, but that is their goal.

As to whether Riyadh fears Iranian hegemony or Shi'a, this is what Gause surmises:

It is admittedly difficult to separate the issues. Iran tends to extend its influence in the Arab world through relations with Shi’a groups (though not exclusively – Hamas). With Iraqi politics now defined in sectarian terms, “blocking Iran” means “blocking Iran’s Shi’a Iraqi allies” by supporting Sunni Arab and more secular Iraqi groups. There have been a number of very high-profile Saudi clerics and salafi activists who have explicitly framed the Iraq issue as a sectarian fight, calling for Sunnis to rally to support their co-religionists and condemning the Shi’a as non-Muslims. However, the balance of the evidence indicates that the Saudi leadership is animated more by the fear of Iranian power than by sectarian animus against the Shi’a.

You can read his report to see how he arrives at this conclusion - but to sum it up, he's not just randomly guessing. In other words, the case is carefully made.

As to whether this means the Saudis will ally with Israel given that they now seem to share the same enemy, Gause writes:

It is true that nothing brings countries together like a common enemy. It seems that a high-ranking Saudi official (speculation centers on Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former ambassador to the U.S. and current national security adviser) met with a senior Israeli official (speculated to be Prime Minister Olmert) to discuss common interests in 2006. We should not, however, expect too much movement on this issue from the Saudi side. The Saudis feel constrained by their own public opinion, which remains decidedly anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian.

So what is the Saudi position then? According to Gause:

In the case of the Arab-Israeli peace process, the Saudis would demand up-front guarantees that their engagement with Israel would lead almost immediately to a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza before they would take the significant step of publicly engaging the Israeli government in any serious way.

What about concerns that the monarchy in Saudi Arabia is on the verge of being overthrown by Al Qaeda or destabilized because of feuding in royal family? Don't bet on either happening in the foreseeable future, says Gause.

And can the Saudis really be considered reliable allies, isn't their interpretation of Islam the same as Al Qaeda's? Nope, says, Gause.

Since September 11, 2001, and more urgently since the QAP campaign against the regime began at home in May 2003, the Saudi government and the official clergy have preached (literally and figuratively) against extremism. They have condemned Usama bin Laden and his ideology. Saudi-funded international Muslim organizations have propounded interpretations of jihad that are almost parallel to Christian just war theories. The Saudi state has undertaken an extensive campaign to re-educate those among its citizens who have been arrested for involvement in radical activities. The official clergy has publicly discouraged Saudis from going to Iraq to fight. The Saudi media has condemned and ridiculed the radicals and given large amounts of airtime and print space to those who have recanted such views.

That said, as Gause duly notes:

It is difficult in a few years to delegitimate intellectual trends that date back decades. The celebration of jihad in the Saudi Islamic context dates back to the Saudi (and American) supported jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union in the 1980’s...

While the Saudi government now campaigns against this interpretation of Islam and brutally suppresses those of its citizens who challenge the regime on the basis of this interpretation, it treads much more lightly around those Saudi religious scholars who, while not openly opposing the government, encourage intolerant and radical interpretations of Islam.

This is points out is why Saudis still comprise the largest number of foreign fighters in Iraq, because as long as they just advocate jihad against forces other than the Saudi government's they are still largely free to operate.

Now will the arms deal will make the Saudi regime even more unpopular because these arms are American? Gause is doubtful on this point too:

It is hard to imagine that, if this arms sale was not concluded, the regime’s opponents would think any better of it or that they would believe that the Saudi regime’s reliance on the United States was diminished. Will bin Laden’s criticism of the regime end if this arms sale does not go through? I doubt it. If the U.S. wants to distance itself from Riyadh, it will have to do much more than take back one arms deal. If we think we can maintain a close relationship with the Saudi government but shield it from the public opinion consequences of that relationship just by holding back one arms sale, we are fooling ourselves.

Finally, the bottomline of Shaykh Gause's analysis:

Aside from simple economic interest, to secure sales for American companies that would otherwise go elsewhere, is there any reason to support the deal? There might be one, but it is speculative and long-term. The arms sale would reassure the Saudi elite of continued American support, in the face of growing Iranian power and with the prospect of an American withdrawal, sometime down the line, from Iraq. Such reassurance could be an important lever of influence with the Saudi regime if, someday, Iran does acquire a nuclear capability. In the face of an Iranian nuclear breakout, the Saudi regime would be faced with two choices: a) rely on American promises of support in exchange for not trying to match the Iranians by getting their own nuclear forces, or b) try to acquire an off-the-shelf nuclear capability from an existing nuclear power. If the Saudis are confident in the American commitment, they would be more receptive to American pressure not to proliferate themselves. If they are not confident in the American commitment to their security, they would be more likely to try to go nuclear themselves.

Pakistan's latest gizmo

Interstellar Bedford Bus Fleet and Karachi Kickbot Air& Space Show, originally uploaded by perfectlymadebirds.

Pakistan

Smile, originally uploaded by KamiSyed (Back to work).

Pakistan

Lemo pani, originally uploaded by KamiSyed (Back to work).

More good news: Tuareg rebels in Niger and Mali are NOT branches of Al Qaeda

Why we optimists are having a series of field days!

Tuareg girl photographed by Abuja

Reuters reports:

Uprisings by Tuareg nomads in Niger and Mali may be destabilising the southern Sahara but there is little evidence to suggest direct links to Islamist militants also active in the world's biggest desert.

Tuareg-led rebels have launched attacks on military targets in the remote north of both countries in recent months, killing soldiers and civilians and taking hostages to demand more development for the impoverished region.

As Reuters notes, it is not that Islamist militants haven't tried to coopt the Tuareg struggle:

Salafist insurgents from Algeria, Tablighi clerics from Pakistan and Wahabist missionaries from Saudi Arabia -- all seen as potential threats by Western intelligence services -- have tried to gain a foothold in the region in recent years.

By and large, they have failed.

Now why would this be so? As the Reuters report goes on:

"Mali was Islamicised hundreds of years ago in the 11th-13th centuries and the form of Islam that has developed here is very devout, very tolerant, very open to dialogue with other civilisations," said one Western diplomat in Bamako.

In other words, like the Iraqi Sunnis, the Tuareg have no desire to submit themselves to the totalitarian interpretation of Islam that Al Qaeda insists people adopt wherever they go.

As Reuters goes on to report, Al Qaeda in North Africa has used Tuareg land in the past to train recruits in explosives and small weapons, but when they then tried to, as Reuters puts it, "introduce a foreign and violent form of Islam" to the Tuaregs, the rebels kicked their butts out (ok this was my paraphrase, this last clause). As Reuters goes on to note, it's not just the most extreme Salafis like Al Qaeda, who the Tuareg have resisted:

Attempts by other foreign forms of Islam to gain influence have also been resisted by Mali and Niger's Tuareg communities.

Wahabist preachers from Saudi Arabia who funded new mosques in the ancient Malian caravan town of Timbuktu wanted one of them to become the main site for Friday prayers, but local Imams recently rejected the proposal, an Islamic expert there said.

A few years ago Pakistani preachers from the Jama'at al-Tabligh missionary society, whose converts include British "shoe bomber" Richard Reid and the "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh, tried to win over former rebels in Kidal, the seat of Mali's Tuareg insurgencies in the 1960s and 1990s.

Diplomats say they appear largely to have since given up.

Now this report passes the common sense test in my mind. Because it is the Tuareg, after all, who host the Festival of the Desert every year. And I have to say, I could never quite square reports about them being allied with Al Qaeda with all the music they make, their lifestyle (the men veil, the women don't), not to mention their fierce independence (they've run the desert caravans across the Sahara since Biblical times). I could never quite imagine Bin Laden and company suddenly being enthroned in Tuareg lands. I could imagine, however, all the little Bin Ladens, running off to the Festival, saying, "Come on Dad, let us go to at least this concert, Tuareg music is Islamic!"

Anyway, the Iraqi Sunnis get it, and it appears the Tuareg do too: that this, that these Al Qaeda people are never happy just being offered refuge, or someplace to live and educate their kids in safety and prosperity, what they also want is to rule, and in their particularly obnoxious way.

Be sure to check out the Festival of the Desert link to see for yourself what I mean about the Tuareg being, well, not exactly susceptible to the Al Qaeda ethos, not even remotely in my view.

Bedouin thoughts

Bedouin thoughts, originally uploaded by BidWiya.

“Your Heritage is your identity, never disregard it”
-BidWiya

Isfahan, Iran

, originally uploaded by HORIZON.

to get lost in

to get lost in, originally uploaded by HORIZON.

More of Horizon's genius.

What is really happening in Pakistan

The Perfectlymadebirds Epic: dOvemaster Series One.

In Baghdad at least, the glass is looking half-full

Well, to us optimists, at least. From the New York Times:

American and Iraqi forces control a little more than half of Baghdad’s neighborhoods but 8 percent are “free of enemy influence” and are being secured primarily by Iraqi units, according to a senior American commander.

As the Times continues:

In another 46 percent of the city’s neighborhoods, he said, American and Iraqi forces were able to prevent the area’s use by insurgent forces and protect the population. That is up from 42 percent in late June and 28 percent in late May. “The level of violence is way, way down,” General Fil said.

In 16 percent of Baghdad neighborhoods, American and Iraqi troops still face problems protecting residents, while in 30 percent operations are under way to “remove all enemy forces and eliminate resistance,” General Fil said.

Neighborhood militias are an important part of the new Baghdad security strategy. Yes, as critics point out, there is a risk these armed militias could eventually turn against the Iraqi security forces and Maliki-led government. Then again, they could also be co-opted.

I think it's still too early to tell how all this is going to pan out but for now, I'm among the cautiously optimistic.

"These are the last days of al-Qaeda"

Thus spoke Abu Omar al-Mahalawi, described as a senior figure in the Abu Mahal tribe, a Sunni tribe in Anbar Province, Iraq, an area that was formerly under the control of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

As Al-Jazeera, of all sources, goes on to report, the Sunni tribes are now reaching out to their Shia counterparts.

"Shia tribes are being attacked by al-Qaeda just like we are, so now is the time for Shia and Sunni to unite; after all we all belong to one tribal community in Iraq," Mahalawi reportedly told the newspaper.

Abu Mazen al-Obaidi, a member of the al-Obaidi tribe in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, told Al-Jazeera, "We discovered [al-Qaeda's] real agenda ... They did not come to liberate Iraq. The tribes know this now. They are our most dangerous enemy."

As Obaidi was quoted as saying, "[Al-Qaeda] came to fight the US occupation, they told us, but they have been unable to do that, so now they are killing Iraqis - Shia, Sunni, and Kurd. And all Iraqis will fight back. These are the last days of al-Qaeda."

Al-Mahalawi reportedly agreed, saying, "Al-Qaeda has been implementing the same strategy as the Iranian militias, which is to target Sunnis, destroy Arab unity, and create chaos in Iraq....all tribes, from al-Anbar to Salahadin to Diyala, are seeking unity to combat al-Qaeda."

Al-Jazeera goes on to report that now there is a Mosul Salvation Council as well, that hopes to combat al-Qaeda using the same approach the Anbar Salvation Council did. As Sheikh Fawaz al-Jarba, the head of this new council, told Al-Jazeera, "We are determined to clean Mosul from al-Qaeda's evil net."

Good for the tribes. I hope they succeed.

Exclusive report from Afghanistan: Is the Taliban serious about being ready for peace?

Waillulah Rahmani, in Afghanistan

Waillulah Rahmani, a Kabul-based analyst who follows jihad and terrorism in Afghanistan, wrote in to speculate on prospects regarding the Taliban’s recent indications that they are ready to negotiate a peace settlement with the Karzai-led government.

The key issue, as he correctly points out, is whether the Taliban is really being serious here and whether this is same Taliban that is at war with NATO and Afghan forces.

Rahmani emails from Kabul:

Following the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the group divided into three subgroups – one group joined the government, another group – led by Mullah Omar - remained committed to Al Qaeda, and a third group hesitated. This last group didn’t know whether they should join the Afghan government, remain on their own, or to join the radical faction of the Taliban allied with Al Qaeda.

Even here in Afghanistan it is not at all clear who the Taliban claiming to be ready for peace negotiations represent.

But consider the context. The Taliban claim to have received some $20 million in exchange for the 23 Korean hostages they were holding. They have tried to widen the war they are fighting from the Pakistani border areas to cities around Kabul. They now have a strong presence in Ghazni, the province neighboring Kabul. The Taliban engaged in this fight are basically an arm of Al Qaeda.

Moreover, the fact that Bin Laden swore allegiance to Mullah Omar as Amir, or Leader of the Faithful, means that Mullah Omar is now the spiritual leader of Al Qaeda throughout the world.

This to me suggests that whoever is trying to negotiate a peace settlement with the government does not represent the Taliban in any meaningful sense. That is, the Taliban representing themselves as potential peace partners are not speaking for the Taliban under the command of Mullah Omar, the Taliban that is strongly aligned with Al Qaeda, and the Taliban that is waging war with NATO and Afghan forces.

At least that’s the way it looks here in Kabul.

Well, all I can say is, let’s hope Rahmani is wrong in his assessment as for his country’s sake, he hopes he’s wrong about this too.

How to deal with the Taliban

Interesting analysis by Ahto Lobjakas in Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty:

NATO officials like to portray insurgents in Afghanistan -- grouped under the name of the Taliban -- as a straightforward hierarchy in which Islamist zealots preside over opportunistic foot soldiers that they recruit using money, intimidation, or other means.

But, as Lobjakas goes on to report:

[T]here is evidence that the "Taliban" insurgency is a more complex phenomenon that needs a more nuanced approach.

He goes on to report about another type of Taliban fighter, one who has no idea what NATO is doing in Afghanistan and is only fighting the international security forces because he resents the Western military presence. As Lobjakas writes:

This is the view expressed by Hajji Gul, an elder in the Taliban-infested Dand district in Kandahar Province, in an interview on September 10.

Hajji Gul argues that the Taliban is essentially a flip side of the fiercely independent-minded Pashtun society. He says using force against it spawns resentment, and will lead to new recruits going to the Taliban.

"If you work with us, if you work with the government, if you work with the district and local people, [Taliban fighters] should never come to these districts, they should never destroy security here," he said. But "if you just bombard us, if you just fight the Taliban, the Taliban is going to increase in numbers. You should talk to the Taliban and make them happy."

Hajji Gul also criticizes the civilian fatalities that have sometimes accompanied ISAF operations. He extends his criticism to NATO's aggressive methods, its daily high-speed forays in armored convoys through local neighborhoods, which scare the locals and put their lives at risk. NATO says its cautionary measures are necessary for force protection.

Others Lobjakas interviewed corroborated Hul's view:

In Oruzgan Province, which has seen heavy fighting in recent years, Dutch officer Captain Tjip "Chip" Prins told me there is no such thing as a single, uniform "Taliban."...He said more than half of the fighters are locals who believe they are defending their livelihoods, or are following guidance they receive from their mullahs and elders, reacting against corruption among local officials, or seeking redress for other local or personal grievances.

Lobjakas concludes that local elections, if and when they are held, could be a way of addressing the grievances and sense of disconnect from the central government that spurn the insurgency.

Seems to me to be a simple enough solution to try.

Prospects for peace in the Middle East dim as usual

Dan Murphy writing in the Christian Science Monitor has a good recap today of the prospects for upcoming US-led peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. As usual, there doesn't seem to be much hope in the holy land of the monotheists.

Here is the intro:

Israel declared the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian territory currently controlled by Hamas, to be an "enemy entity" on Wednesday. The move has created speculation that Israel may be trying to turn the general population of Gaza against the group. Additionally, with US led peace talks months away, Israel's classification of Gaza and an unclear agenda have many already doubting the meeting's potential for success.

Summing up The Associated Press view of the situation, the Monitor writes:

[Israel's] security leadership took the latest step in response to rocket attacks on Israel emanating from Gaza. The [AP] radio report also indicated that the declaration will make it easier for Israel to squeeze Hamas and the residents of Gaza.

Summing up Hamas's response, the Monitor writes:

[Hamas] called Israel's designation of Gaza an "act of war."

Then there was the reaction of Haaretz, a leading left-leaning Israeli daily, which the Monitor writes:

said the designation of Gaza as an enemy territory is part of new Israeli measures designed to create hardship in Gaza that might lead average citizens to turn against Hamas. Israel said it would disrupt power and fuel supplies, but would not cut off water.

Regarding the upcoming peace negotiations, the Monitor quotes from The Washington Post:

Arab nations, notably Saudi Arabia, are looking for specific timelines and language on the most controversial issues, including the final status of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, eventual borders between the two states and security guarantees. "If this conference will not discuss serious topics aimed to resolve the conflict, put Arab initiative as a key objective, set an agenda that details issues as required and oblige Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories, this conference will not have any objective," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told reporters last week...

So this is what, as the monotheists would say, God's plan looks like how many thousand years later? To me this makes monotheism, at least that which prevails in the holy lands, seem like it's all about endlessly disputing who owns what.

Shiite sheiks now looking to the U.S. as an ally against extremists

More signs that sanity is returning to Iraq. From the Associated Press via Fox:

American commanders in southern Iraq say Shiite sheiks are showing interest in joining forces with the U.S. military against extremists, in much the same way that Sunni clansmen in the western part of the country have worked with American forces against Al Qaeda.

Sheik Majid Tahir al-Magsousi, the leader of the Migasees tribe here in Wasit province, acknowledged tribal leaders have discussed creating a brigade of young men trained by the Americans to bolster local security as well as help patrol the border with Iran.

He also said last week's assassination of Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, who spearheaded the Sunni uprising against Al Qaeda in Anbar province, only made the Shiite tribal leaders more resolute.

"The death of Sheik Abu Risha will not thwart us," he said. "What matters to us is Iraq and its safety."

As the report continued:

"It's an anti-militia movement ... Shiite extremists of all stripes," said Wade Weems, head of a Provincial Reconstruction Team leading the dialogue in the Wasit province southeast of Baghdad.

"We see consistently expressed deep frustration or anger with the activities of militia that appear to be untethered to any sort of guiding authority, appear to be really criminal in nature," he added.

No kidding.

More evidence Bin Laden is a loser and Al Qaeda has lost - in Saudia Arabia

Arab News, Saudi Arabia's leading English-language daily, reports:

In a major blow to the ideology of Osama Bin Laden and his followers in the Kingdom, Sheikh Salman ibn Fahad Al-Oudah, a popular Saudi religious scholar, has criticized the way in which Bin Laden has ruined Islam's global image. "We as scholars of Islam reject what Osama does," Al-Oudah wrote in an open letter posted on his website www.islamtoday.com. Al-Oudah also questioned the validity of Al-Qaeda using violence. "What have we gained from the destruction of a whole country such as Iraq and Afghanistan?" Al-Oudah said, adding that these wars have led to civil wars in the region. "Who benefits from turning countries like Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Morocco into insecure places?" he asked.

Indeed. As Arab News went on to report:

Many experts considered the letter as a major setback to Al-Qaeda's ideology, as it comes from an influential Saudi scholar, who is not part of the official religious establishment.

Among other questions Al-Oudah is said to have posed:

--"Brother Osama. How many wars and how much bloodshed have occurred in the name of Al-Qaeda? How many innocents, old men, children are killed in the name of Al-Qaeda? Are you happy to meet God carrying this heavy burden on your shoulders?"

--"Who is responsible for promoting the culture of killing and violence that has led to the destruction of families and societies? Who is responsible for the youths sent to wars leaving their crying mothers and sons?"

--"Who is responsible for pursuing every charitable project in the world?"

Al-Oudah also accused Bin Laden of filling prisons with Muslim youth, causing the deaths of thousands of human beings with the 9/11 attacks, and ruining the image of Islam.

As he reportedly pointed out:

"The image of Islam is not the one it used to be. The world is talking of Muslims killing non-Muslims. Even the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) did not kill hypocrites who were mentioned in the Qur'an for fear of people describing the Prophet as a man who kills his companions," Al-Oudah reminded Bin Laden in his letter.

I have to say, I agree with every word the Sheikh said here.

Note to Bin Laden: You might want to think of something other than a dye job to improve your image. As what Al-Oudah is pointing out here is that your waning popularity has nothing at all to do with your appearance.

Anbar Province will remain Al Qaeda free

Or so it seems to me if this New York Times report is true:

Abu Risha's fellow tribal leaders, along with U.S. military officials, vowed to protect the Anbar Salvation Council and carry on his mission, and said they expected his death would galvanize further support. Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, a leader of the Dulaim confederation, the largest tribal organization in Anbar, and a rival of Abu Risha's, lamented the loss. "His death has squeezed our heart and made us terribly angry."

"Now, I swear to God, if we will hear anyone is with al-Qaeda, even if he is still inside his mother's womb, we will kill him," Suleiman said. "The man was one of the swords of the council in the province. If one sword falls, other swords will rise."

Iraqi officials imposed a state of emergency in Anbar following the assassination. Under tight security, tribal leaders met and appointed Abu Risha's elder brother, Ahmed, to take the helm of the Anbar Salvation Council.

"I am hopeful that what has been started by Abu Risha and his colleagues will not be reversed," said Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih. "This crime should make us more determined to support the communities in Anbar and elsewhere against the terrorists."

Terrible news in Iraq

The New York Times reports on the death of Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi, the leader of the Anbar Salvation Council, the major Sunni alliance that got together to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq.

He was reportedly killed in a bombing near his house in Anbar. The Sheik was a natural leader and a unifier too. Under his leadership, the Council had been reaching out to southern Shia tribes too. While this is certainly a devastating setback, as the Times reports, this isn't the first loss the Sunni tribes have suffered in the battle against Al Qaeda. In June, they lost four others in a suicide bombing in a Baghdad hotel.

May the Sheik rest in peace along with the others, and may the tribes name the most able among them as his replacement.

If you scroll down or do a search on Sattar, you can see I've posted about the Sheik many times.

Iraq progress report

The Wall Street Journal sums up Ambassador Crocker's and General Petraeus' testimony before Congress:

So the two men best qualified to give an honest and comprehensive account of events in Iraq have marched through Congress to say--and show--that the surge is working and America's goals are still within reach. Yet it's a sign of the U.S. political debate that their evidence of progress seemed to make the headlines in none of our leading news sources yesterday.

That is:

The U.S. is gaining ground in Iraq--often in the least expected of ways.

Here were the highlights of Ambassador Crocker's testimony, according to the Journal:

At a recent conference in Dubai, "hundreds of Iraqi businessmen met an equal number of foreign investors newly interested in acquiring shares of business in Iraq." Iraqi oil is now flowing out of the country via Turkish pipelines, and the International Monetary Fund predicts economic growth for Iraq of 6% this year.

In the vicinity of Abu Ghraib, 1,700 men--many of them former Sunni insurgents--have joined the Shiite-dominated Iraqi Security Forces. The Iraqi government is quietly offering jobs or retirement packages to thousands of former soldiers, many of them one-time members of the Baath Party. Significantly, it is doing so without taking the politically sensitive steps of declaring a general amnesty or enacting legislation on de-Baathification.

And from the U.S. military commander:

In his testimony, General Petraeus noted that violent civilian deaths have declined by 45% in Iraq and 70% in Baghdad. Car and suicide bombings are down by nearly 50% since March, another astonishing turnabout. Here, too, the good news comes from the least expected of places: Anbar province, where Sunni tribal leaders and many former insurgents have realized their best interests lie with the U.S. and a democratic Iraqi government in which they have a say, and not with al Qaeda.

Fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq

Check out Michael Yon's 3-part eyewitness report. His photos are great.

The situation in Anbar Province

Former seat of the Sunni insurgency and Al Qaeda's Islamic State of Iraq as reported by Fouad Ajami in today's Wall Street Journal:

"We liberated the Anbar, we defeated al Qaeda by denying it religious cover," Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Reisha said with a touch of pride and impatience. This is the dashing tribal leader who has emerged as the face of the new Sunni accommodation with American power. I had not been ready for his youth (born in 1971), nor for his flamboyance. Sir David Lean, the legendary director of "Lawrence of Arabia," would have savored encountering this man...

We were in Baghdad, and the sheikh gave me his narrative. There was both candor and evasion in the story he told. Al Qaeda and its Arab jihadists had found sanctuary and support in the Anbar; they had recruited the "criminal elements" and the "lowly," they had brought zeal and bigotry unknown to the Iraqis. Initially welcomed, they began to impose their own tyranny. They declared haram (impermissible) the normal range of social life. They banned cigarettes, they married the daughters of decent families without the permission of their elders. They violated the great code of decent society by "shedding the blood of travelers on routine voyages." The prayer leaders of mosques were bullied, then murdered.

Abu Reisha and a small group of like-minded men, he said, came together to challenge al Qaeda. "We fought with our own weapons. I myself fought al Qaeda with my own funds. The Americans were slow to understand our sahwa, our awakening. But they have come around of late. The Americans are innocent; they don't know Iraq. But all this is in the past, and now the Americans have a wise and able military commander on the scene, and the people of the Anbar have found their way. In the Anbar, they now know that the menace comes from Iran, not from the Americans."

Abu Reisha spoke of the guile of the Iranians: They have schemes over the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, he said. He said the Anbar was in need of money, that its infrastructure was shattered. He welcomed a grant of $70 million given the Anbar by the government, and was sure that more was on the way.

An Iraqi in the know, unsentimental about his country's ways, sought to play down the cult of Abu Reisha. American soldiers, he said, won the war for the Anbar, but it was better to put an Iraq kafiyyah than an American helmet on the victory. He dismissed Abu Reisha. He was useful, he said, but should not be romanticized. "No doubt he was shooting at Americans not so long ago, but the tide has turned, and Abu Reisha knew how to reach an accommodation with the real order of power. The truth is that the Sunnis launched this war four years ago, and have been defeated. The tribes never win wars, they only join the winners."

As for Iraqi Shiites, as Ajami continues reporting:

"Historically we are winning." The words were those of Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi. This is a scion of Baghdad Shiite aristocracy, at ease with French and English, a man whose odyssey had taken him from Marxism to the Baath, then finally to the Islamism of the Supreme Islamic Council. "We came from under the ashes, and now the new order, this new Iraq, is taking hold. If we were losing, why would the insurgents be joining us?" He had nothing but praise for the effort that had secured the peace of Baghdad: "Petraeus can defend the surge," he said. "He can show the 'red zones' of conflict receding, and the spread of the 'blue zones' of peace. Six months ago, you could not venture into the Anbar, now you can walk its streets in peace. There is a Sunni problem in the country which requires a Shiite initiative. The Sunni problem is power, plain and simple. Sunni society grew addicted to power, and now it has to make this painful adjustment."

Mr. Mahdi was not apologetic about what Iraq offers the United States by way of justification for the blood and treasure and the sacrifice: "Little more than two decades ago, in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution and the Lebanon War of 1982, the American position in this region was exposed and endangered. Look around you today: Everyone seeks American protection and patronage. The line was held in Iraq; perhaps America was overly sanguine about the course of things in Iraq. But that initial optimism now behind us, the war has been an American victory. All in the region are romancing the Americans, even Syria and Iran in their own way."

Is the Taliban moving towards talks in Afghanistan?

It's a little confusing but this does seem like a start to something. From RFE/RL:

The Taliban said today it is ready for talks with the Afghan government, one day after President Hamid Karzai offered negotiations in a bid to end the ongoing insurgency.

However, a purported spokesman for the insurgent group, Yusuf Ahmadi, said that it does not believe Karzai's suggestion for talks is "sincere."

Speaking by phone with RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan, Ahmadi said Karzai wants the Taliban to come forward to "apologize for their actions and put down their weapons." But at the same time, he said, the Afghan government's Western supporters "have put a several-million-dollar bounty on the Taliban leaders' heads."

Maybe soon there will be some relief from all the bombings:

The United Nations says 183 Afghan and 10 international soldiers have been killed so far this year by suicide bombings blamed on the Taliban.

Planning for the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq

Or "defeat" as an article by George Packer terms it in the headline in the latest issue of New Yorker:

While serving on the assessment team, [Australian counterinsurgency expert David] Kilcullen drew up a list of core American interests in Iraq, which he later gave to senior officials at the White House and the State Department. In order of priority, the list contained the following items: maintain the flow of oil and gas in the region; prevent the establishment of an Al Qaeda safe haven in Iraq; contain Iranian influence; prevent a regional war; prevent a humanitarian catastrophe on the scale of Rwanda; and restore American credibility in the region and in the world (which Kilcullen called “the master interest,” and which doing all the others would go a long way toward achieving). Some interests, he acknowledged to me, might be incompatible: for example, undermining both Sunni-led Al Qaeda and Shiite Iran.

Most proposals for withdrawal emphasize at least three of the interests on Kilcullen’s list.

Which to me suggests his list is worth studying.

And unfortunately, nobody including Packer seems to be able to offer any kind of real prescription for Iraq other than continuing the slog against the "insurgency." As Packer reports:

Predictions that a departure will actually strengthen America’s position are not so different from the wishful thinking of the Bush Administration. They see only the benefits of withdrawal; they refuse to face the brutal trade-offs that either staying or leaving would impose. A more honest argument says that it’s simply not a core American interest to prevent Iraqis from being massacred: the result of a withdrawal may be a humanitarian tragedy but a strategic footnote. (Obama’s statement implied as much.) This viewpoint has recently brought together hard-nosed realists, antiwar progressives, and isolationist conservatives. Even in narrow strategic terms, though, American interests would be harmed by large-scale slaughter in Iraq. The spectacle, televised around the world, would deepen the feeling that America is indifferent to human, especially Muslim, life. It would brand the U.S. as untrustworthy to potential allies and feckless to potential enemies. And it would destroy what’s left of American prestige. Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at Queen Mary College of the University of London, who also served on the strategic-assessment team, told me, “What has defeated America in Iraq, apart from the failure of the state and its own incompetence, are a bunch of radicals with nothing more sophisticated than reëngineered artillery shells and rocket-propelled grenades. That is a loss of cataclysmic proportions.”

[Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at Queen Mary College of the University of London, who also served on the strategic-assessment team] comes out of the British left and vehemently opposed the war. But this summer, when we met at his London office, he spoke of withdrawal as a prelude to catastrophe. “What are the U.S. troops going to leave?” he said. “They’re going to leave behind a free-for-all where everyone will be fighting everyone else—a civil war that no one actor or organization will be strong enough to win. So that war will go on and on. What will result in the end is the solidification of pockets of geographical coherence. So if you and I were mad enough to jump in a car in Basra—pick a date, 2015—and we tried to drive to Mosul, what we’d be doing is hopping through islands of comparative stability dominated by warlords who, through their own organizational brilliance, or more likely through external support, have managed to set up fiefdoms. Those fiefdoms will be surrounded by ongoing violence and chaos. That looks a lot to me like Afghanistan before the rise of the Taliban. Or Somalia. That’s where Iraq goes when Americans pull out.”

...A military officer with extensive experience in Iraq was less polite. “I just think it’s dishonest when people say we could go to advisory, get to fifty thousand troops, focus on training, still do the counterterrorism thing but not counter-insurgency,” he said. The reality of Iraq is bound to defeat the fantasies of Washington, the officer suggested. “What about the enemy, man?” he said. “Are we going to ask them to conform to our plan?”

Good advice for terrorist hunters and from Pakistan

From today's Washington Post:

"If you want to stop al-Qaeda on the communications front, you should concentrate on their IT manager instead of Osama," said Muhammad Amir Rana, director of the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, a research group in Lahore, Pakistan, that studies militant groups.

And then this:

Asad Durrani, a retired chief of Pakistan's powerful spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence bureau, said it would take more than military intervention to capture al-Qaeda leaders.

Durrani said U.S. bombing campaigns along the Afghan-Pakistani border had thoroughly alienated civilians who otherwise might help root out al-Qaeda commanders. "The first instinct you Americans have is military power -- dropping bombs," he said. "This was absolutely 100 percent guaranteed not to succeed, and it's continued that way for the past six years."

He said it would take a concentrated, methodical approach to find bin Laden and his deputies, relying on human intelligence and simple detective work.

"If they are there, sit back, be patient," Durrani advised. "The good hunter hunts on foot."

Good advice, it seems to me.

No comment from this quarter about Osama's dye job, though I do wonder who his hairdresser is. Maybe that's a lead. I wonder if Dr. Zawahiri is vain about his appearance too. Gauging from his health* as they say in South Asia, I doubt it.

*In the West we (when we're being nice) refer to this as girth.

Now this is taking fashion too far

From the Associated Press:

Suspected terrorists blew up a tailor's shop Thursday in northwest Pakistan for making Western clothes, an official said, in the latest attack on un-Islamic habits along the Afghan border.

More on Al Qaeda losing Iraq

Frederick Kagan writes about how Iraqi Sunnis have turned against Al Qaeda in Iraq in the latest issue of the Weekly Standard. Some key excerpts:

Although much of AQI's support originally came from locals who sought its aid, by 2006 the takfiris had made themselves so unpopular that their continued presence relied on their continuous use of violence against their hosts. As Anbari tribal leaders began for various reasons to resist AQI's advances, AQI started attacking them and their families. Outside of Anbar Province, AQI regularly uses exemplary torture and murder to keep locals in line. The principles of takfirism justify this, as anyone who resists AQI's attempts to impose its vision of Islam becomes an enemy of Islam. AQI then has the right and obligation to kill such a person, since, in the takfiri view, execution is the proper punishment for apostasy. It is a little harder to see the pseudo-religious justification for torture, but AQI is not deterred by such fine points...

The movement against the takfiris began as AQI tried to solidify its position in Anbar by marrying some of its senior leaders to the daughters of Anbari tribal leaders, as al Qaeda has done in South Asia. When the sheikhs resisted, AQI began to attack them and their families, assassinating one prominent sheikh, then preventing his relatives from burying him within the 24 hours prescribed by Muslim law. In the tribal society of Anbar, this and related actions led to the rise of numerous blood-feuds between AQI and Anbari families. The viciousness of AQI's retaliation and the relative weakness of the Anbari tribes as a military or police force put the locals in a difficult position, from which they were rescued by the determined work of coalition and Iraqi security forces...

Thousands of Anbaris began patrolling the streets of their own cities and towns to protect against AQI, and coalition commanders were flooded with information about the presence and movements of takfiris. By the beginning of August, AQI had been driven out of all of Anbar's major population centers, and its attempts to regroup in the hinterland have been fitful and dangerous for the takfiris. The mosques in Anbar's major cities have stopped preaching anti-American and pro-takfiri sermons on the whole, switching either to neutral messages or to support for peace and even for the coalition.

The battle is by no means over. AQI has made clear its determination to reestablish itself in Anbar or to punish the Anbaris for their betrayal, and AQI cells in rural Anbar and surrounding provinces are still trying to -regenerate. But the takfiri movement that once nearly controlled the province by blending in with its people has lost almost all popular support and has been driven to desperate measures to maintain a precarious foothold. The combination of local disenchantment with takfiri extremism, a -remarkable lack of cultural sensitivity by the takfiris themselves, and effective counterinsurgency operations by coalition forces working to protect the population have turned the tide.

The outlook, according to Kagan:

AQI--and therefore the larger al Qaeda movement--has suffered a stunning defeat in Iraq over the past six months. It has lost all of its urban strongholds and is engaged in a desperate attempt to reestablish a foothold even in the countryside. The movement is unlikely to accept this defeat tamely...AQI can again become a serious threat if America chooses to let it get up off the mat.

But as he goes on to caution, we should be careful about the general lessons we draw from what's happened in Iraq:

This is not to say that the United States should invade Waziristan and Baluchistan, or launch preemptive conventional assaults against (or in defense of) weak Muslim regimes around the world. Each response must be tailored to circumstance. But we must break free of a consensus about how to fight the terrorists that has been growing steadily since 9/11 which emphasizes "small footprints," working exclusively through local partners, and avoiding conventional operations to protect populations. In some cases, traditional counterinsurgency operations using conventional forces are the only way to defeat this 21st--century foe. Muslims can dislike al Qaeda, reject takfirism, and desire peace, yet still be unable to defend themselves alone against the terrorists. In such cases, our assistance, suitably adapted to the realities on the ground, can enable Muslims who hate what the takfiris are doing to their religion and their people--the overwhelming majority of Muslims--to succeed. Helping them is the best way to rid the world of this scourge.

Anyway, read the whole thing.

Pakistan: Is continued military rule the best alternative for Pakistan?

Joshua Hammer analyzes Pakistani politics in this month's The Atlantic:

The nightmare scenario for U.S. policy makers—and one reason they remain heavily invested in Musharraf—is an Islamic revolution in Pakistan. A tide of anti-American sentiment, some analysts fear, could bring to power Islamists, who would give free rein to the Taliban, spread nuclear technology to rogue states and terrorist groups, and support the mujahideen in Kashmir...

Yet despite their clout in parliament and their seeming strength on the street, the Islamists are not widely popular: Their parties won only 11 percent of the vote in the 2002 elections (gerrymandering gave them a share of seats far greater than their numbers). Even in their stronghold, the North-West Frontier Province, they polled only 26 percent. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to the MMA’s growth is its abysmal record of governance: In the North-West Frontier Province, which the alliance controls, social services are disintegrating. Unless anti-Western sentiment reaches sustained and unprecedented levels, the Islamists seem highly unlikely to muster enough votes to gain control of parliament in the next decade.

As to whether former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto will emerge as Pakistan's Thomas Jefferson, finally ushering in a genuine democracy, Hammer is decidedly skeptical:

Though she remains by far the best-known civilian politician in Pakistan, her popularity is questionable. Many members of her party say she has stifled the emergence of fresh faces by clinging to leadership in exile, and a gulf is widening between the landowning elite that sets her party’s agenda and the working class that constitutes the bulk of its support.

That the only other major contender is Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister Musharraf deposed in 1999, now living in exile in Saudi Arabia, as one Pakistani parliamentarian summed up the situation:

“With 342 seats in the National Assembly, and 100 in the Senate, and the same in the provincial parliaments, we can’t find one person, besides Benazir and Sharif, who can be a prime minister or a president. It is a shame for this country.”

As Hammer concludes: "Whatever happens to Musharraf, the presidency, and the parliament, there is little doubt that the military will remain the dominant player in Pakistan for as long as it chooses." As he goes on to report:

The army has dramatically increased its role in the public sector since Musharraf took over... Retired generals and brigadiers have taken over as chancellors and vice chancellors at Pakistani universities; they also run the post office, the tax authority, the housing authority, and the education department. Retired generals serve as the governors of two of Pakistan’s four provinces...

Rao Khalid Mehmood, former defense correspondent for the Nation newspaper in Islamabad and now the Islamabad bureau chief at a startup Pakistani television news channel, told me that at present, the military is the gateway to private-sector employment. Many people believe that “the only way to get a job is to know someone in the army,” he says.

Ayesha Siddiqa, a well-known analyst in Islamabad and the author of Military Inc.: Inside the Pakistani Military Economy, says that the armed forces are major players in real estate, agribusiness, and several other industries. The empire includes banks, cable-TV companies, insurance agencies, sugar refineries, private security firms, schools, airlines, cargo services, and textile factories.

As to the military's alleged support of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, a Pakistani major who agreed to talk to Hammer as long as he didn't use his real name summed up the situation this way: "This is not our battle. This is your battle, and we’re paying the price.” As he went on to tell Hammer:

“We know that the United States tomorrow won’t hesitate to forget us. They’ve done it before,” he said. The only reason that Musharraf had signed on to the war on terrorism, he said, was that his government “has a gun to its head, and it has no other options.” He returned to the theme that Pakistan was fighting a proxy war for an untrustworthy ally. “If we had to face bullets [to save Pakistan], we’d go, but why do that for someone who’s not loyal to you [when Pakistan is not threatened]? This is not our war; Taliban, al-Qaeda are not criminals in our country.”

As Hammer concluded:

Pakistani officers in their 30s do not believe that the U.S. wants a long-lasting relationship with Pakistan; they have little camaraderie with U.S. soldiers, and they feel little empathy for U.S. political or diplomatic positions.

And while the military aims to do the opposite, it is slowly destabilizing Pakistan. Eight years of usurpation of power by Musharraf have weakened secular parties, corrupted the judiciary, and implanted army men in every facet of civilian life. Pakistan’s population is now doubling every 38 years, creating severe social pressures. If the political process remains stunted, the Islamists may continue to gather strength until the country reaches a tipping point. “We are not going to collapse if Musharraf goes tomorrow; Pakistan will go on, insha’allah,” I was told by Mohammed Enver Baig, a senator with the Pakistan People’s Party. “But the 2007 elections could be a turning point for all of us. If the elections are not fair, don’t be surprised if next time—after five years—you come and see me, I might have a long beard myself.”

Major Khaled, the young officer corroborated the view that democracy is the answer. As he reportedly told Hammer:

[B]ack when he joined the army, “we went through villages during military exercises, and people welcomed us and gave us water, assistance. It’s the opposite now. They think I’m a rich guy just because I’m a soldier. I feel the resentment; I see the bad looks. People say we’ve hung around too long.” This widening gap between civilians and military has led to intense questioning among the junior officers, he told me. “A few days back, six of us were discussing the options, and we said, ‘The army can exit and call for a fair and impartial election. Let the exiled leaders come back to Pakistan and install a civilian government. Democracy is the right way.’”

I wasn’t sure whether Khaled was just spouting a line that he wanted me to hear, but the more he spoke, the more emphatic he became: “Our neighbor India has had democracy for 60 years. But the problem here persists. The courts are pathetic; judges are not independent; the police are illiterate, low-paid, and not fair; and corruption is rampant. A 50-year-old cop with five kids is getting $100 a month. What is he supposed to do?” The military, Major Khaled said, “should have strengthened the institutions instead of weakening them.”

You really have to check this link out.

Flickrvision. We really do live in a whole new world.

Iraq's insurgents

Don't believe the GAO report on Iraq say military leaders

From today's New York Times:

A bleak portrait of the political and security situation in Iraq released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office sparked sharp protests from the top U.S. military command in Baghdad, whose officials described it as flawed and "factually incorrect."

As to what they find wrong in the report, the Times reports:

The military officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Petraeus will give the official military position in testimony Monday, took particular exception to the GAO statement that a drop in sectarian attacks could not be confirmed. The final version of the report softened the draft's initial conclusion that "U.S. agencies differ on whether such violence has been reduced," saying instead that "measuring such violence may be difficult since the perpetrator's intent is not clearly known."

One military official called even the revised version "factually incorrect," saying that "we absolutely disagree with their characterization of sectarian violence." Such attacks have fallen significantly this year, he said.

Some good news from Iraq

Direct from the Centcom release:

The recent declaration by Muqtada al-Sadr calling on all members of Jaysh al-Mahdi to end their violence is encouraging. It is particularly notable that Sadr gave his word of honor that Jaysh al-Mahdi will stop attacks.

The Multi-National Force-Iraq joins the Government of Iraq in welcoming Sadr's commitment to peace.

If implemented, Sadr's order holds the prospect of allowing Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces to intensify their focus on al-Qaeda-Iraq and on protecting the Iraqi population, as well as on helping Iraq rebuild its damaged infrastructure and improve basic services, all without distraction from Jaysh al-Mahdi attacks.

An end to Jaysh al-Mahdi violence would also be an important step in helping Iraqi authorities focus greater attention on achieving the political and economic solutions necessary for progress and less on dealing with criminal activity, sectarian violence, kidnappings, assassinations, and attacks on Iraqi and Coalition Forces. We call on all parties and all elements to support and enforce this new initiative.

To build on the additional security that Sadr's order could bring, the Coalition will continue to support Iraqi Security Forces in their enforcement of the law against those individuals who commit acts of violence.

Muqtada al-Sadr's declaration holds the potential to reduce criminal activity and help re-unite Iraqis separated by ethno-sectarian violence and fear. We look forward to confirming the reduction of violence that will result if those involved fulfill their commitment to following Sadr's direction.

Let's hope his word is good and his followers follow him up on this.

More on the tribal revolt in Anbar Province, Iraq

Here is what David Kilcullen, senior counterinsurgency advisor to the Multi-National Force in Iraq, thinks now that he's completed a long tour in Iraq (from Small Wars Journal):

The uprising began last year, far out in western Anbar province, but is now affecting about 40% of the country....for years the tribes treated the terrorists as “useful idiots”, while AQI in turn exploited them for cover and support. One person told me that AQI’s pitch to the tribes was “we are Sunni, you are Sunni. The Americans and Iranians are helping the Shi’a – let’s fight them together”. But this alliance of convenience and mutual exploitation broke down when AQI began to apply the standard AQ method of cementing alliances through marriage. In Iraqi tribal society, custom (aadat) is at least as important as religion (deen) and its dictates, often pre-Islamic in origin, frequently differ from those of Islam. . .

Marrying women to strangers, let alone foreigners, is just not done. AQ, with their hyper-reductionist version of “Islam” stripped of cultural content, discounted the tribes’ view as ignorant, stupid and sinful.

This led to violence, as these things do: AQI killed a sheikh over his refusal to give daughters of his tribe to them in marriage, which created a revenge obligation (tha’r) on his people, who attacked AQI. The terrorists retaliated with immense brutality, killing the children of a prominent sheikh in a particularly gruesome manner, witnesses told us. This was the last straw, they said, and the tribes rose up.

But as he continues, women apparently weren't the only issue:

The tribes run smuggling, import/export and construction businesses which AQI shut down, took over, or disrupted through violent disturbances that were “bad for business”.

And be sure to file this little detail in your investigate-further folder:

Another factor was the belief, widespread among the tribes (and with at least some basis in fact) that AQI has links to, and has received funding and support from, Iran.

Now what this all means on the ground, as Kilcullen goes on to observe:

The uprising against AQI has dramatically improved security. In Ramadi, Hit, Tikrit, Fallujah and other centers the rate of civilian deaths has dropped precipitously, and overall attacks are down far below historic trends, to almost nothing in some places. For anyone familiar with these places from earlier in the war, it can be quite disorienting to watch Iraqis walking safely and openly in streets which, a year ago, would have required a major operation just to traverse. . .

Other provinces are experiencing similar patterns: in one farming district south of Baghdad, a treaty between an enterprising company commander and community elders has dramatically reduced bombings: by late May, one road that was attacked twice a day last year had not seen a single IED attack since the agreement was established in March. The locals have formed a neighborhood watch, are policing their own community, and are enrolling in the Iraqi police under government control and cooperating with local Iraqi Army units. And recently Shi’a tribes in the south have approached us, looking to cooperate with the government against Shi’a extremists.

As he duly notes:

Of course, this is motivated primarily by self-interest. Tribal leaders realize the extremists were leading them on a path to destruction, and have seized the opportunity to dump the terrorists and come in from the cold. They are also, naturally, looking forward to the day when coalition forces are no longer in their districts, and want to ensure that they, nor AQI, are in charge once we leave. . .

Internal tribal dynamics also play a part. Many older leaders, who consider themselves the true heads of clans or tribes, fled Iraq in 2003 because they were implicated in dealings with Saddam, and are now in exile in Syria or Jordan. The on-the-ground leaders are a younger generation, concerned to cement their positions vis-à-vis the old men in Damascus, who may one day want to return. By joining forces with the government, these leaders have acquired a source of patronage which they can re-direct to their people, cementing themselves in power and bolstering their personal positions.

Again, this is utterly standard behavior for tribal leaders pretty much anywhere in the Arab world: you can trust a tribal leader 100% – to follow his tribe’s and his own interests. And that’s OK. Call me cynical, but I tend to trust self-interest, group identity and revenge as reliable motivations – more so than protestations of aspirational democracy, anyway.

And there's a variation on this theme going on in Baghdad too. As to what the implications of this are, Kilcullen is not afraid to admit that well, maybe what this means is that we were wrong in thinking Jeffersonian democracy was the way to go in Iraq:

[W]e have spent the last four years carefully building up and supporting an Iraqi political system based on non-tribal institutions...There were good reasons for this at the time, but we are now seeing the most significant political and security progress in years, via a structure outside the one we have been working so hard to create. Does that invalidate the last four years’ efforts? Probably not, as long as we recognize that the vision of a Jeffersonian, “modern” (in the Western industrial sense) democracy in Iraq, based around entirely secular non-tribal institutions, was always somewhat unrealistic. In the Iraqi polity, tribes’ rights may end up playing a similar role to states’ rights in some other democracies. They will remain a competing power center to the religious political parties, and hence will probably never be popular with Baghdad politicians, but if correctly handled they have the potential to actually enhance pluralism in Iraq over the long-term, by restraining the excesses of any central government or sectarian faction. . . .

[P]erhaps this is what T.E. Lawrence had in mind when he wrote that the art of guerrilla warfare with Arab tribes rests on “building a ladder of tribes to the objective”. . . But we should remember that this uprising against extremism belongs to the Iraqi people, not to us – it was their idea, they started it, they are leading it, it is happening on their terms and on their timeline, and our job is to support where needed, ensure proper political safeguards and human rights standards are in place, but ultimately to realize that this will play out in ways that may be good or bad, but are fundamentally unpredictable. So far so good, though….

Kilcullen makes a lot of sense to me. Check out my earlier posts about him here and here.

NYPD: Radicalization in the West

The NY Police Department just published its report Radicalization in the West; The Homegrown Threat.

Here are some of its key findings:

Jihadist or jihadi-Salafi ideology is the driver that motivates young men and women, born
or living in the West, to carry out “autonomous jihad” via acts of terrorism against their
host countries. It guides movements, identifies the issues, drives recruitment and is the
basis for action.

The report delineates four distinct phases in the process of radicalization: Pre-Radicalization; Self-Identification; Indoctrination; and Jihadization.

While not every terrorist follows this exact path, the report does conclude that those who do are "quite likely to be involved in the planning or implementation of a terrorist act."

Most terrorists, the NYPD found, started out as "unremarkable." They were ordinary in every way and generally had no criminal history. They were not even particularly religious. They became drawn to Salafi Islam as the result of some crisis - perhaps the loss of a job or loved one, or after suffering some type of humiliation, real or imagined.

During the indoctrination phase, they often use the Internet to deepen their knowledge of jihadist-Salafi Islam and connect with like-minded individuals or groups. A "spiritual sanctioner" is often key to ushering the individual or group into the jihadist stage as he (and it is always a he) convinces them that it is their religious duty to fight jihad.

This is when they begin preparing for some type of jihad operation, perhaps travel to a jihad front or a terrorist attack. During this phase, "group think" becomes a key variable. As the report notes: "It acts as a force-multiplier for radical thought while creating a competitive environment amongst the group members for being the most radical."

Rather than coming from the ranks of the poor and despondent, the report concluded that Western jihadists are activists, people who want to change the world. Men ages 15-35 seem to be the most vulnerable - this is when they have to sort out their role in the world and are also the most attracted to a warrior ethos.

While Al Qaeda provides a role model for Western jihadists, most act independently of Al Qaeda.

Moreover, not everyone who is attracted to jihadist Islam will become a mujahideen or terrorist, as the report notes - some will just go on to serve as mentors or agents to the next generation.

On that note, I recommend you read the whole report.

Hitchens on Iraq

Don't miss Christopher Hitchens being interviewed by Peter Robinson on Uncommon Knowledge.

As Hitchens says, "you don't have to believe [the surge is] going well to support it."

The two crucial tasks that have to be accomplished in Iraq, says Hitchens, are that Al Qaeda cannot be allowed to have any sense of victory, no matter how small. Secondly, any gains that have been made by secular democrats, for example in the Kurdish region, are not rolled back.

Our job, he says, is to empower the center and prevent sectarianism from taking permanent hold.

Bay of Bengal, Pondicherry, India

This was the area submerged under the tsunami in December 2004.

On the boardwalk, Pondicherry.

Great paint job, I thought.

Dubai

It was pretty hot outside, but still great.

Near Meena Bazaar.

In Karachi fashion at the Madinat Jumeirah.

Why my last name is Chadha; The story of how my husband's family ended up in Punjab

Regular blog readers will remember that a few weeks ago I posted what scientists at The Genographic Project were able to determine about my ancestors' migration patterns from a sample of my DNA.

The Genographic Project is a joint venture sponsored by National Geographic and IBM that aims to map human migration patterns by analyzing DNA samples.

Analyzing his Y-chromosome then, this is what the Project's scientists were able to tell us about his father's family history.

First some general background:

Skeletal and archaeological evidence suggest that anatomically modern humans evolved in Africa around 200,000 years ago, and began moving out of Africa to colonize the rest of the world around 60,000 years ago.

Now my husband's first signpost ancestor, to quote the report, "probably lived in northeast Africa in the region of the Rift Valley, perhaps in present-day Ethiopia , Kenya, or Tanzania, some 31,000 to 79,000 years ago. Scientists put the most likely date for when he lived at around 50,000 years ago."

Incidentally, this same ancestor, the report goes on to say, is shared by every non-African man living today.

Scientists believe that this ancestor left Africa because of global warming.

But note this curious detail:

In addition to a favorable change in climate, around this same time there was a great leap forward in modern humans' intellectual capacity. Many scientists believe that the emergence of language gave us a huge advantage over other early human species. Improved tools and weapons, the ability to plan ahead and cooperate with one another, and an increased capacity to exploit resources in ways we hadn't been able to earlier, all allowed modern humans to rapidly migrate to new territories, exploit new resources, and replace other hominids.

Like my ancestors, the first stop out of Africa for his was the Middle East. But while mine left Africa in the first wave, his were part of the second mass exodus.

Then around 40,000 years ago, the earth became colder again. The grasslands of the Sahara reverted to desert and his ancestors were forced to follow the big game animals they hunted, the giant herds of buffalo, antelope, and woolly mammoths across the grass-covered plains of what would today be Iran and the steppes of Central Asia. As the report continues:

Eventually their path was blocked by the massive mountain ranges of south Central Asia—the Hindu Kush, the Tian Shan, and the Himalayas.

The three mountain ranges meet in a region known as the "Pamir Knot," located in present-day Tajikistan. Here the tribes of hunters split into two groups. Some moved north into Central Asia, others moved south into what is now Pakistan and the Indian subcontinent.

Another ice age that turned the grasslands of the southern steppe into desert forced his ancestors northward for a time, into what would be today the area spanned by Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, or southern Siberia. To survive this ice age, his ancestors had to become adept at building better shelters, warmer clothes, and refining their hunting techniques by the introduction of blades and spear heads. As the report notes: "[His] ancestors' resourcefulness and ability to adapt was critical to survival during the last ice age in Siberia, a region where no other hominid species is known to have lived."

Eventually, sometime during the last 10,000 years, his ancestors found their way into the Punjab area of the Indian subcontinent, where he was born in the last half of the last century.

And they could tell all this from an anonymously submitted cheek swab. Pretty amazing, huh?

Daughter-in-law of Punjab visits Sikh Gurudwara in Delhi, August 2007.