Sunday Telegraph's tribute to General Petraeus

The London newspaper named him as their Person of the Year:

...the reason for picking Petraeus is simple. Iraq, whatever the current crises in Afghanistan and Pakistan, remains the West's biggest foreign policy challenge of this decade, and if he can halt its slide into all-out anarchy, Gen Petraeus may save more than Iraqi lives.

A failed Iraq would not just be a second Vietnam, nor would it just be America's problem.

It would be a symbolic victory for al-Qaeda, a safe haven for jihadists to plot future September 11s and July 7s, and a battleground for a Shia-Sunni struggle that could draw in the entire Middle East. Our future peace and prosperity depend, in part, on fixing this mess. And, a year ago, few had much hope.

To appreciate the scale of the task Gen Petraeus took on, it is necessary to go back to February 22, 2006. Or, as Iraqis now refer to it, their own September 11. That was when Sunni-led terrorists from al-Qaeda blew up the Shia shrine in the city of Samarra, an act of provocation that finally achieved their goal of igniting sectarian civil war.

A year on, an estimated 34,000 people had been killed on either side - some of them members of the warring Sunni and Shia militias, but most innocents tortured and killed at random. US casualties continued to rise, too, but increasingly American troops became the bystanders in a religious conflict that many believed they could no longer tame.

As the Telegraph elaborates:

Top of the class of 1974 at West Point Military Academy and the holder of a PhD in international relations, he is the co author of the US military's manual on counter-insurgency, a "warrior monk" for whom the messy intrigues of asymmetric warfare hold more interest than the straightforward challenges of 2003's invasion.

Simply being the best and brightest soldier of his generation, however, would not be enough for Iraq in 2007, where a major part of the "surge" involves reconciling Iraq's warring political tribes...

"Petraeus has a rare combination of great geopolitical skills as well as tactical and military ones," says retired General Jack Keane, a fellow architect of the surge strategy. "He is good at working with ambassadors, with the Iraqi government, and he also knows how to cope with uncertainty and failure, which is what you get in an environment like Iraq."

Aspiring leaders should memorize what General Keane pointed out - that a leader needs to know "how to cope with uncertainty and failure" because that, in my opinion, is always the key differentiator between leaders and followers: Leaders find their way out of a mess, while followers are happy just to wallow or complain.

Now as the Telegraph duly acknowledges:

Things are far from perfect but, after four years in which events did nothing but get worse, the sight of a souk re-opening, or a Shia family being welcomed back home by their Sunni neighbours, has remarkable morale-boosting power.

Where once Iraqis saw the glass as virtually empty, now they can see a day when it might at least be half full.

And even if, as the Telegraph goes on to say, should in the end General Petraeus' accomplishment end up being a brief "hiatus in the collapse of Iraq" well, that wouldn't really diminish his achievement. As the Telegraph writes:

He has given another last chance to a country that had long since ceased to expect one. And for that, Gen Petraeus is Person of the Year.

Mullah Omar finally dumps one of his criminals

Mullah Omar is apparently waking up. The New York Times reports:

The Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, has ordered his chief commander expelled from the movement for disobeying Taliban rules, a spokesman said in a statement over the weekend.

As the report went on:

Local news reports suggested that he and his men were giving the Taliban a bad name through their criminal behavior, including robbery and extortion.

Naturally Mr. Dadullah, as the Times refers to him, protests the allegations:

Mr. Dadullah denied that he had been expelled and said that reports of his dismissal were baseless. He said he continued to respect and obey Mullah Omar.

I regret to inform you of the murder of cartoonist Abdul Art's brother

Reuters

Mohamed Muhuyidin Ali, the official spokesman for the anti-Islamist mayor of Mogadishu, Mohamed Dhere, was killed in a bombing the government claims was the work of Islamist insurgents.

Prior to serving as the mayor's spokesman, Ali was the editor of an independent newspaper for some two decades. He leaves behind a wife and three children.

Ali's brother, Abdul Arts, as regular readers will know, is the Somali refugee who regularly submits cartoons to this blog, cartoons that lament the damage terrorists do to his beloved faith, Islam.

And now he must lament the damage they have done to his family.

May God give them strength - and mercy. I do find myself asking, where is God's mercy in all of this?

More Christmas cheer

And more heartwarming Christmas news, again from Iraq. This time the Associated Press reports:

Thousands of Iraqi Christians made their way to church through checkpoints and streets lined with blast walls, many drawing hope from a lull in violence to celebrate Christmas Mass in numbers unthinkable a year ago...

The pews were almost full—women toward the back and on the right side of the church, the men on the left—and still more people streamed in. Outside, police armed with automatic rifles manned a checkpoint at the corner of the narrow street, searching every passing car for possible bombs...

Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, leader of the ancient Chaldean Catholic Church and Iraq's first cardinal, celebrated Mass before about 2,000 people in the Mar Eliya Church the eastern New Baghdad neighborhood of the capital.

"Iraq is a bouquet of flowers of different colors, each color represents a religion or ethnicity but all of them have the same scent," the 80-year-old Delly told the congregation.

Muslim clerics—both Sunni and Shiite—also attended the service in a sign of unity.

"May Iraq be safe every year, and may our Christian brothers be safe every year," Shiite cleric Hadi al-Jazail told AP Television News outside the church. "We came to celebrate with them and to reassure them."

Christmas message from Iraq

Via the NY Times. From Rev Thaer al-Sheik of Baghdad's Chaldean Sacred Heart on Christmas Eve:

"We must practice being humane to each other."

Indeed we must. And, on that note, Merry Christmas to all.

The Iraqi surge

The (London) Guardian reports:

Attacks plummet as Shias join Sunnis in neighbourhood patrols to tackle militants and reunite communities.

As the Guardian continues:

...thousands of young Baghdadi men to have joined neighbourhood security groups, which have mushroomed over the last year and are a crucial factor in the dramatic decline in civilian deaths. US soldiers call them "concerned local citizens"; Iraqis just call them sahwa (awakening) after the so-called Anbar awakening in western Iraq, which has seen Sunni tribal sheikhs take on foreign-led Islamists.

There are now an estimated 72,000 members in some 300 groups set up in 12 of Iraq's 18 provinces, and the numbers are growing. They are funded, but supposedly not armed, by the US military. "It is Iraq's own surge," said a western diplomat, "and it is certainly making a difference."

Major General Joseph Fil, the outgoing US commander for Baghdad, said this week that the number of attacks in the capital had fallen almost 80% since November 2006, while murders in Baghdad province were down by 90% over the same time period, and vehicle-borne bombs had declined by 70%

Focusing closer in on the situation, the Guardian interviews Muhammad, a member of one of these neighborhood militias.

"We grew tired and angry about the killing, and so decided to act," said Muhammad. He said his group, made up of friends and acquaintances mostly in their early 20s, began patrolling the streets of his neighbourhood six months ago. Sunni militants from a nearby area had driven into his district, which is still home to Shia and Sunni residents, and shot at a popular bakery. Three people were killed and four wounded as they queued for their morning bread.

"We learned we could not trust anyone who is not from our neighbourhood," said Muhammad. "This is our area, but it is for all people equally, no matter how or whether they pray."

...But Muhammad, a Sunni Arab, and his Shia colleagues in the neighbourhood watch group are determined to reverse the ethnic cleansing. Last month, the group agreed to protect a Sunni mosque in his street from local Shia militias. They have also been mediating between the divided communities either side of the highway.

The result was an understanding: Sunni families would return to their former homes in the heavily Shia areas, while Shia families crossed back into the mainly Sunni streets. The two communities agreed to guarantee the safety of the returnees. Such was the popular backing for the deal that even the local Mahdi army commander had to acquiesce.

"We've been neighbours for 25 years and we feel like brothers," said Muhammad. "We will help them to guard and respect their mosques, and they won't harm me or my family."

What can I say? More positive news.

And I don't even make this stuff up. The AP reports:

BAGHDAD — Violence in Iraq is at its lowest levels since the first year of the American invasion, finally opening a window for reconciliation among rival sects, the second-ranking U.S. general said Sunday as Iraqi forces formally took control of security across half the country.

Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the man responsible for the ground campaign in Iraq, said that the first six months of 2007 were probably the most violent period since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The past six months, however, had seen some of the lowest levels of violence since the conflict began, Odierno said, attributing the change to an increase in both American troops and better-trained Iraqi forces.

"I feel we are back in '03 and early '04. Frankly I was here then, and the environment is about the same in terms of security in my opinion," he said. "What is different from then is that the Iraqi security forces are significantly more mature."

Great news

ABC is reporting:

Afghanistan's government flag was raised Wednesday on what had been one of the biggest strongholds of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan and a leading world center of heroin production.

Cool new audio service by The Economist

Now you can listen to their news. Here's their Middle East report.

Celebrating Christmas no longer offensive

At least not in Britain. Who woulda thunk? The Christian Science Monitor reports:

"It's time to stop being daft about Christmas. It's fine to celebrate and it's fine for Christ to be star of the show," said Trevor Phillips, chairman of the [Britain's] Equality and Human Rights Commission.

So he joined forces with minority religious leaders to put out a blunt message to the politically correct: leave Christmas alone.

Muslim Council of Britain spokesman Shayk Ibrahim Mogra said, "To suggest celebrating Christmas and having decorations offends Muslims is absurd. Why can't we have more nativity scenes in Britain?"

"Hindus celebrate Christmas, too. It's a great holiday for everyone living in Britain," said Anil Bhanot, general secretary of the UK Hindu Council.

Sikh spokesman Indarjit Singh said: "Every year I am asked 'Do I object to the celebration of Christmas?' It's an absurd question. As ever, my family and I will send out our Christmas cards to our Christian friends and others."

When you start to look for good news...It's all over the place!

The New York Times reports:

Afghan and NATO troops retook the town of Musa Qala in southern Afghanistan on Monday, forcing the Taliban to withdraw from the only sizable town they hold in the country, Afghan and NATO officials said.

As the report went on to say:

Wali Muhammad, police chief of the neighboring district, Sangin, said Afghan and NATO forces entered the town at 2 p.m. after heavy fighting. “The Taliban are gone,” he said. “They faced humiliation and heavy casualties.”

A large Taliban force attacked Sangin just before dawn Monday, apparently as a diversionary tactic, but the Afghans fought them off and suffered no casualties, he said.

So bad was this trouncing apparently that even the Taliban had to admit defeat:

The Taliban conceded that their fighters had pulled out at 2 p.m., saying it was a tactical withdrawal to avoid their own and civilian casualties. A spokesman for the Taliban, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, who said he was with the Musa Qala force, said the Taliban had pulled out but were not far away.

“We will carry out a hit-and-run war,” he said. “Losing Musa Qala doesn’t mean that we will stop fighting.”

No, I'm sure it doesn't but as even Osama had to admit, nobody likes the losing horse. Indeed the loss of this stronghold doesn't bode well:

The Taliban have broad freedom of movement in the southern provinces, but Musa Qala was one of the few towns in its district fully under their control. It had become an important base for their insurgency, and losing the town will be a blow.

And even more good news

The AP reports from Baghdad on Iraq's first cardinal, recently elevated by Pope Benedict:

Under heavy guard and broadcast live on Iraqi state television, the [Cardinal Delly's first] service was capped by a handshake from a visiting Shiite imam—a symbolic show of unity between Iraq's majority Muslim sect and its tiny Christian community...

The frequent target of Islamic extremists, Iraq's Christians have been forced to flee by the tens of thousands or to isolate themselves in barricaded neighborhoods if they choose to remain.

"We pray today for the sake of each other and to forgive each other, as well to be directed to do good deeds," Delly said. "That is my demand for the Iraqis, moreover I urge the return home for displaced people and immigrants to their ancestral land."

As the report continued:

Many people who filled the pews at the elegant brick Church of the Virgin Mary said they were taking advantage of a lull in violence to attend services and to congratulate Delly. The imam of a nearby Shiite mosque shook hands with him in the church's courtyard after the service.

"I came here to show the unity of the Iraqi people," said the black- turbaned imam, Jassim al-Jazairi. "We are happy with the cardinal. We are very proud of any person, whether Christian or Muslim, who raises the name of Iraq in the international arena."

More good news - again if true

Count on this blogger to always be the first to spread good news - or at least news that sounds good.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (that would have been the CIA in the old days) just released their findings on Iran's nuclear program.

To quote the report itself:

We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. We judge with high confidence that the halt, and Tehran’s announcement of its decision to suspend its declared uranium enrichment program and sign an Additional Protocol to its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Safeguards Agreement, was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran’s previously undeclared nuclear work. . .

As the report goes on:

Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005. Our assessment that the program probably was halted primarily in response to international pressure suggests Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously.

Anyway, read the whole report and make your own assessment. Again, I just bring you the good news from the world.