Brzezinski and Mead discuss whether the U.S. is going to war with Iran and Syria.

On PBS, Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's National Security Advisor, told anchor Jim Lehrer that he is growing increasingly worried that the Bush administration may be seriously contemplating a military action against Iran or Syria.

He said that while the Bush administration could "use the failure of the Iraqis to meet the benchmarks [Bush set out in his speech] and, in effect, adopt a policy of blame and run, not cut and run, but blame and run," he thought that because the administration has created what he characterized as an "exaggerated horror scenario" with "all the dominos falling in the Middle East if we leave," he wondered whether the administration really could leave "because [of] all of these horrible things [they have said] will happen if we [do]."

"There are a lot of people still around here," he went on to say, "particularly the neocons, who would like us to have a crack at Iran."

Walter Russell Mead, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, indicated that he too thought the U.S. was "trying to tighten a noose around [Iran] or at least [was stepping up] the pressure."

As Mead pointed out, "We're substantially increasing our naval forces in the region. The diplomatic pressure is continuing. I understand an Iranian bank has just been sort of sanctioned by the U.S. The Europeans are working with the U.S. to go even beyond the latest U.N. sanctions. And let's not forget the bombing raids in Somalia as an indication, an indication that the Americans have teeth."

But, as Mead went on to say, he's not certain that these recent actions really do mean that the U.S. is really preparing to escalate or whether they are meant to simply create, as he put it, "a situation where negotiations and a real regional approach [can] become more feasible."

Brzezinski said he was ultimately pessimistic about the potential for victory in Iraq: "The fact is, the American effort in Iraq is essentially a colonial effort. We're waging a colonial war. We live in the post-colonial era. This war cannot be won because it is simply out of sync with historical times."

Mead, on the other hand, seemed to be cautiously optimistic: "One of the reasons is that I see today that the Ayatollah Sistani has issued a statement in which he says that the disarming of private militias is the right thing to do, the states should have a monopoly on force, and he encourages the disarming of militias, and not only of one sect.

"So there is more legitimacy in Shia opinion in Iraq for some of these measures. Now, that doesn't means this going to be a cakewalk or that there won't be a lot of resistance within the government or within the community to it, but that's something we did not have before, and I think it's pretty positive."

Bush authorizes CIA to go after Hizbollah in Lebanon

Yesterday the London Telegraph reported that in late December, Bush authorized the CIA to provide covert funding and logistical support to anti-Hizbollah groups in Lebanon in effort to help the Lebanese government thwart the group's growing influence in the country. Hizbollah is believed to be a proxy of Iran. This was described as a "non-lethal presidential finding" which presumably means the CIA is not authorized to assassinate anybody as part of this plan.

Bush reportedly made the decision after meeting with Saudi officials. Saudi Arabia, along with other Sunni states, in particular, Jordan and Egypt, and Israel are all growing increasingly alarmed about the possiblity Iranian hegemony in the region.

Prince Bandar, the former Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington, is, according to the Telegraph's sources, understood to have been a key force in the decision.

"There's a feeling both in Jerusalem and in Riyadh that the anti-Sunni tilt in the region has gone too far," an intelligence source is reported as saying. "By removing Saddam, we've shifted things in favour of the Shia and this is a counter-balancing exercise.

Prince Bandar, now the Saudi national security adviser, is supposed to have met with Elliot Abrams, the senior Middle East official on the NSC several times to work out this plan.

Rumors swirled last month that the former U.S. ambassador, Prince Turki, resigned abruptly when he found out that Prince Bandar had been having these secret meetings in Washington.

The Telegraph says that "as a quid pro quo to the Sunni Arab states, Mr Bush and Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, have agreed to work harder to re-start negotiations about a peace deal with the Palestinians."

According to the Swoop website (theswoop.net): "US officials point to the Israeli release of some tax monies owed to the Palestinian Authority as the first fruits of this approach."

Michael Ledeen: Did We Just Declare War on Iran and Syria?

Michael Ledeen at The Corner writes:

"Try parsing this carefully:
Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity – and stabilizing the region in the face of the extremist challenge. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.
I've read that last sentence maybe ten times. Those "networks providing advanced weaponry and training" certainly are based in Iran and Syria. It sounds like he said we are going after terrorist training camps and the IED assembly facilities, doesn't it?
Well?"

What to think about Bush's Iraq plan? Well, what do the NYT and the Council on Foreign Relations say?

The NYT said with this plan, Bush is "taking a risk, challenging not only the Democratic leadership in Congress but also some members of his own party, who are openly skeptical that the new policy will work and who, unlike the president, will be running for re-election."

The Times acknowledges that "Wartime clashes between presidents and the Congress are a familiar thread in American history." But not since Nixon, has an American president, in the Times own words, "so boldly expanded an unpopular war."

Bush rejected the option to scale back combat forces in Iraq and focus on engaging Iran and Syria because according to the Times, this would only lead to a "graceful exit." Bush is only interested at this point in "victory" in Iraq. Bush believes that at this point, Iraq cannot quell the sectarian violence on its own.

As the Times reminded its readers, "This is the same president who, after winning re-election in 2004, famously told reporters that he had 'earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.'"

The Council on Foreign Relations, a non-partisan think tank asked some of its experts what they thought of Bush's new plan. These were some of their responses:

Peter Beinhart: "Contrary to earlier press reports, America will now only surge if Nuri Maliki's government makes a deal to share oil wealth and reintegrate former Baathists, things it has shown no willingness to do. Whether the Bush administration really makes the surge contingent on such moves will depend not only on what happens in Iraq in the months to come, but what happens in Washington in the coming hours and days."

Stephen Biddle: "Changing the mission of U.S. troops to emphasize population security for Iraqi civilians, for example...So is the replacement of the old, open-ended U.S. commitment with a new willingness to make our presence conditional on Iraqi political progress toward reconciliation.

"But there are also some important shortcomings. In particular, the new troop commitments still leave us well short of the usual rules of thumb for the number of troops needed to pacify a city the size of Baghdad, much less the rest of central Iraq.

"So the new strategy is a long-shot gamble...After all, failure in Iraq would do grave damage to U.S. interests—it may be worth a long shot gamble to get even a small chance at averting disaster."

Max Boot: "Pulling out now could turn Iraq into a Rwanda-style genocidal civil war...There are only two realistic alternatives: decrease or increase the size of U.S. forces. The former strategy runs a great risk that the Iraqi Security Forces, even if provided with more U.S. trainers, will disintegrate in the face of greater sectarian violence. The latter strategy is far from foolproof but offers probably the greatest chance of improving conditions on the ground.

"Will 21,500 extra troops make a big difference? Based on classic counterinsurgency calculations (1 soldier or policeman per 40 or 50 civilians), pacifying Baghdad, a city of 6 million people, requires a force of some 150,000. The beefed-up U.S. force in Baghdad still will be less than 40,000 strong. Even if the Iraqis provide some reliable forces to work with them, this would be sufficient to control only a portion of the city—Sunni and mixed Sunni-Shia neighborhoods. Sadr City, where some 2 million Shia live, would probably remain in the grip of the Mahdi Army. This is far from ideal, but if a mixed Iraqi-U.S. force could have success in stabilizing even a good chunk of Baghdad this would represent major progress. At best the troop surge will buy time for much-needed reforms, assuming that the Iraqis are willing to make them. At worst it will have no impact at all. But I think it is worth one last shot before we throw up our hands in despair and concede defeat."

Steven Cook: "The Bush administration seems to want to correct past mistakes, but does not have the resources to do so effectively. More interesting than the so-called "surge" is the administration's emphasis on devoting additional resources to reconstruction and job creation for Iraqis. In the abstract, these initiatives are positive, but they are based on the premise that economic development can ameliorate the logic of sectarian and insurgent violence in Iraq. This is a dubious assumption as it gives short shrift to the primary political issues that contribute to uncertainty and instability in Iraq. The Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds have widely divergent views about who should control Iraq, how the country's resources should be distributed, and how the basic governing institutions will function. Unfortunately, given circumstances on the ground there is very little the United States can do militarily or politically to alter this state of affairs. It is difficult to admit, but Iraq may very well be lost."

Michael Gerson: "For the first time since the fall of Baghdad, the president has set out a realistic plan to secure the citizens of that city in order to allow political and economic progress to move forward. Much will depend on the performance of the Iraqis themselves, but America at least has defined a necessary, measurable goal, and promised the resources and troops to meet it. In the process, the president has shown that he is unimpressed by the conventional foreign policy wisdom. Instead of going to Iran as a supplicant, he is sending a carrier strike group to the region. Instead of abandoning a struggling democracy, he asserts that democracy is worth fighting for, and that our long-term security depends on democratic progress. Instead of seeking cover for retreat, he points out that retreat may also have unintended consequences, including genocidal levels of violence in Iraq. This new approach is likely to put his critics on the defensive, at least for a time. The commander-in-chief has proposed a new course, and skilled military leaders believe it will work. Given the stakes, it is hard to argue that America should not even try."

James Hoge: "Counterinsurgency experts find wholly inadequate to the security challenge the number of additional troops and the short time envisioned for their activation. Unless conditions in Iraq noticeably improve, Bush will lose his remaining leverage and will finish out his presidential term isolated and marginalized. As the 2008 elections draw near, division will grow sharper within Republican ranks between supporters and doubters of escalation. And Democratic presidential candidates will feel heat from the party's base to embrace a quick disengagement. The most realistic outlook is for civil strife between Shias and Sunnis to rage on for a number of years until there is a clear winner, a compromise borne of exhaustion or a break up of the country. The challenge for the United States will be to keep the entire, oil-rich region from descending into chaos. No more important crisis faces the United States in the year ahead."

William Nash: I found the president's speech incomplete and disappointing. On the diplomatic side he once again antagonized Iran and Syria, and left no room for any cooperation. Politically, his "benchmarks" for Iraqi progress and goals for democracy were weak and unrealistic. He failed to articulate the consequences of Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks. Militarily, he promised priority on Baghdad and Anbar and increased activity in countering Syrian and Iranian interference, but not how the latter would be accomplished—empty threats or more conflict? The use of sectarian-based Iraqi forces to bring security to Baghdad is problematic—some army and police units are the problem, not the solution. The ability to double our reconstruction teams in a reasonable time is suspect. Finally, he returned to his long-used scare tactics about what the consequences of failure in Iraq would mean—vastly overstated.

Vali Nasr: "This is not a strategy that can turn Iraq around, but runs the danger of worsening things. There are not enough troops to impose an iron will on Iraq, but an increase in troops suggests that the United States is looking to expand the scope of its security commitment, especially by going after Shia militias which could provoke a broader Shia insurgency in Iraq. The president's strategy also lacks a political roadmap for reconciliation. There is violence in Iraq because there is no political agreement among Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds. The new strategy presents no roadmap out of this. It puts benchmarks before a failed national unity objective without specifying why a plan that has failed for a year will now work—after a period of escalation of tensions. There is no detail as to how Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds will be brought to the table, what is the framework of negotiations, and how can Shias and Kurds be assured that concessions they make will be met by a reduction in the insurgency (a year of U.S. concessions to Sunnis made no dent in the insurgency). In fact, it sounds as if the administration understands that reconciliation is not possible so why bother dwelling on details. At best this new strategy will keep Iraq on its current course; and at worse it will exacerbate the situation, something that would require more surges."

Gideon Rose: The changes the president has suggested to the Bush administration's policy in Iraq are generally sensible, and the logic behind them is sound. But given how badly the situation there has deteriorated over the last three and a half years, the new approach is unfortunately much too little, much too late. Stuff has happened, as Donald Rumsfeld might say, and there is no good reason to believe that Iraq's descent into further chaos and open civil war can be reversed. The president is correct to point out that failure will be a disaster for Iraq, the Middle East more generally, and the United States itself. One can only wish that his administration had taken this concept to heart from the beginning and planned and acted accordingly. Unfortunately, the real tasks at hand now are managing the failure so as limit its fallout and transitioning to a post-Iraq American foreign policy.

Steven Simon: "By framing the effort as 'a supporting role,' the president puts the onus on the Iraqi government to staunch the violence and work harder to lure Sunnis into a unity government. So the new approach serves two purposes: it responds to Americans who want to see a change of course, while creating the impression that if it does not work, it will be because the Iraqis have failed us."

Gary Samore: "Unfortunately, an American withdrawal from Iraq under current conditions is likely to leave Iraq itself and the region as a whole in even greater peril."

And here's the "nightmare" case for Iraq

To counterbalance the positive spin of today's WSJ editorial by Edward Luttwak, here is a summary of yesterday's news analysis feature, "If Iraq Worsens, Allies See 'Nightmare' Case."


The WSJ polled a variety of experts and observers to see what their worst-case thinking looked like and these are the two basic scenarios they came up with:


1. Kenneth Pollack at the Brookings Institution and Daniel Byman of the Rand Corp. think Iraq could becomes the world's premier sanctuary for terrorism, and this would incite minority uprisings in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and Turkey.

2. The Iraq Study Group believes that if ethnic cleansing gets out of hand in Iraq, eventually it will draw in the country's neighbors: Turkey, to prevent the emergence of an independent Kurdish state; and Iran to seize control of the Shiite areas - not to mention the oil fields. They think this scenario could take decades to play out and include, in the reports own words, "the radicalization of populations, mass movements of populations, and regime changes."


As the WSJ reports, the Saudis have already "warned the Bush administration that they are prepared to aid the Sunni militias in Iraq if the Sunni population there becomes imperiled ...[and] Jordanian officials have told the Pentagon that they may move troops into Iraq's uninhabited western desert as a buffer if events there spiral out of control."


The graphic the WSJ provided is worth at least a 1,000 words so I'll publish it here.

Luttwak: The Iraq war has indeed transformed the Middle East

In today's WSJ, Edwark Luttwak from CSIS makes the case that the U.S. doesn't need to make Iraq into successful democracy in order to get the regional transformation we want, exploiting the ancient hostilities between Shiite and Sunni will work just as well.

It is this ancient animosity, he argues, that drove the anti-American head of Iraq's ruling Shiite party, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, to come to Washington in December, to seek U.S. protection for Iraq's Shiites against their Sunni compatriots.

And it is the threat of this ascending "Shiite crescent," that is drawing the region's Sunnis closer to Washington as well. Even though the U.S. may be blamed for unleashing this new Shiite power, the Sunni states recognize that the United States is still their most important protector as both share a common enemy in this fight - namely, Iran.

Where this new regional dynamic can be seen playing out, Luttwak says, is in Lebanon. There the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are backing the Sunni-led regime against the seditious Shiite faction, Hezbollah, which has the backing of Iran and Syria. If only Syria would recognize that it is on the wrong side, Luttwak argues, this would be the tipping point in a positive regional transformation.

Luttwak even seems optimistic that Syria will in fact eventually pull away from Iran, cognizant of the fact that by remaining so closing aligned to Tehran, it has to share its pariah status. With Saddam now no longer a threat to the Assad regime, Syria would have more to gain - for example in aid and economic investment - by drawing closer to its Arab neighbors. Not to mention that this is the only path that will enable it to get out from under U.S. sanctions.

As Luttwak sums up the situation, "The Iraq war has indeed brought into existence a New Middle East, in which Arab Sunnis can no longer gleefully disregard American interests because they need help against the looming threat of Shiite supremacy, while in Iraq at the core of the Arab world, the Shia are allied with the U.S. What past imperial statesmen strove to achieve with much cunning and cynicism, the Bush administration has brought about accidentally. But the result is exactly the same."

Dennis Ross clears up Carter's confusion

In today's NY Times, Dennis Ross "sets the record straight" about what really happened at the Clinton-initiated Middle East peace talks in 2000 because he says that President Carter has it all wrong in his controversial new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

According to Ross, President Carter muddled the terms of the deal Arafat rejected to the extent that "the reader is left to conclude that the Clinton proposals must have been so ambiguous and unfair that Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, was justified in rejecting them." Ross says the reality is totally different.

Ross can claim authority on the subject since as Clinton's envoy to the Middle East, he was the principal author of the proposals. As he says, "I know what they were and so do the parties." In other words, it is Carter who doesn't know what he is talking about.

According to Ross, "the Clinton parameters would have produced an independent Palestinian state with 100 percent of Gaza, roughly 97 percent of the West Bank and an elevated train or highway to connect them. Jerusalem’s status would have been guided by the principle that what is currently Jewish will be Israeli and what is currently Arab will be Palestinian, meaning that Jewish Jerusalem — East and West — would be united, while Arab East Jerusalem would become the capital of the Palestinian state."

Moreover, "The Palestinian state would have been 'nonmilitarized,' with internal security forces but no army and an international military presence led by the United States to prevent terrorist infiltration and smuggling. Palestinian refugees would have had the right of return to their state, but not to Israel, and a fund of $30 billion would have been created to compensate those refugees who chose not to exercise their right of return to the Palestinian state."

Ross says it's important to know the truth about what really happened since "there has emerged a mythology that seeks to defend Mr. Arafat’s rejection of the Clinton ideas by suggesting they weren’t real or they were too vague or that Palestinians would have received far less than what had been advertised. Mr. Arafat himself tried to defend his rejection of the Clinton proposals by later saying he was not offered even 90 percent of the West Bank or any of East Jerusalem. But," as Ross says, "that was myth, not reality."

He continues, "Nothing has done more to perpetuate the conflict between Arabs and Israelis than the mythologies on each side. The mythologies about who is responsible for the conflict (and about its core issues) have taken on a life of their own. They shape perception. They allow each side to blame the other while avoiding the need to face up to its own mistakes. So long as myths are perpetuated, no one will have to face reality."

It would seem that Prince Bandar, then the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. and another key participant, would likely corroborate Ross's recollection, or at least that is the impression his biographer, William Simpson, gives. In his book, The Prince, Simpson says that Bandar told him he told Arafat at the time that "This is the best deal you are ever going to get and I would take it now because it will take years and years if you don't." (p. 263)

Simpson also says that Bandar believes that "any Palestinian, man, woman, or child who died in Gaza or West Bank from January 2001 [the day Arafact rejected the proposal] until today did not have to die."

When Simpson asked Bandar why he thought Arafat had rejected the offer, the Saudi prince replied that in his view, Arafat "could not make the transition from revolutionary leader to statesman."

To illustrate what he meant by that, Bandar contrasted the two Egyptian presidents, Nasser and Sadat. "Nasser was the revolutionary leader; he precipitated a misguided war - gave the enemy a chance to fight him in 1967 in the Six Days War, lost a lot of his country - Sinai - and never managed to figure out how he could regain it by being a statesman.

"[Sadat, on the other hand] looked at the whole situation and said, 'I have to be a statesman. The only way I can regain this land is being a statesman. I cannot use the lingo, the rhetoric, the behavior of Nasser, who lost the land, if I am to regain the land.'

"[So Sadat,] being a statesman, he created the environment to have a war that had an objective and that objective was to move the political landscape forward, not to win or lose the war. So he prepared for a war; he initiated a war; and then agreed immediately to a ceasefire to preserve his gains, which were, in the big scheme of things, limited. But on the other hand, they were big, because they changed the equation. And then went to the negotiating table and through that negotiation he got back all his land."

Then, indulging in some speculation, he added. "And for whatever it is worth, my prediction is that...Abu Mazen is Sadat....Although he doesn't have the same charisma and the same popularity of Arafat, he is going to deliver a Palestinian state that at the end of the day, regardless of what you say about Arafat's qualities, he couldn't deliver. And regardless of what you say about Abu Mazen's lack of charisma, he will deliver."

NYC subway bomb plotter sentenced to 30 years

A Pakistani immigrant was sentenced on yesterday to 30 years in prison for plotting to blow up the Herald Square subway station, beneath Macy's department store, to avenge U.S. abuses of Iraqis.

Shahawar Matin Siraj, 24, was arrested in August 2004, on the eve of the Republican National Convention. Though prosecutors did not link him to any terrorist organization and there is no evidence he ever obtained the materials to carry out his intentions, his intentions were apparently deemed ominous enough to convince U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon that he was indeed, as prosecutors argued, the "driving force" of a "workable terrorist plot" and cause her to sentence him to 30 years though defense attorneys had argued that their client was merely "a confused and misguided youngster" who should not be sentenced to a prison term longer than 10 years.

A key witness for the prosecution was a police informant, Osama Eldawoody, 50, who got Siraj to admit he was "ready to do anything" after hearing that U.S. soldiers were sexually abusing Iraqi girls, "I don't care about my life" he can be heard saying on the tape recording Eldawoody had secretly made of their conversation inside the bookstore of a local mosque.

Eldawoody, who made Siraj believe he was a co-conspirator, told Siraj that any plan he came up with would be backed by a fictitious organization called "The Brotherhood." Siraj also considered blowing up NY bridges or killing Microsoft founder Bill Gates as other targets.

Testifying in his own defense, Siraj admitted that he had indeed taken steps to carry out his intentions, but only because he was being egged on by Eldawoody. Prior to coming under the influence of the older man, Siraj claimed he had never entertained thoughts of violence.

Kuwaiti MPs want to severe ties with Arab countries critical of Saddam's execution

The Agence France Presse is reporting that some Kuwaiti Members of Parliament are pressing for the government to sever diplomatic relations and stop foreign aid to any Arab countries that criticise the execution of Saddam Hussein.

In 1990, Saddam invaded and annexed Kuwait and his forces killed some 1,000 Kuwaitis before he was driven out by a U.S.-led coalition.

"The foreign minister must reconsider Kuwait's ties with Libya, Yemen and some Palestinian factions like Hamas," MP Khaled al-Adwah is quoted as saying.

Other Kuwaiti MPs are asking the government to reconsider its relations with Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Algeria and Tunisia as well.

Is this really considered justice in the Islamic Republic?

Powerline is alerting readers today to the plight of Iranian teenager Nazanin Fatehi, who was sentenced to death January 3, 2006 by the Islamic Republic of Iran for murdering a man she claims tried to rape her and her 15-year-old niece.

According to the Iranian daily Etemaad, Nazanin (then 17) and her niece were in a public park with their boyfriends when three men approached and began menacing them, causing the boys to flee.

When the men then tried to force themselves on the girls, Nazanin pulled out a knife and stabbed two of the men, one in the hand and the other ultimately fatally, in the chest.

According to Wikipedia, an Iranian political group identified the girls' assailants as members of the Bassij, a paramilitary force that became famous when the Ayatollah Khomeini recruited its child members to participate in "human wave" attacks against Iraq during the 1980s, in which groups of children were tied together and then sent to the front to clear the battlefields of mines.
Though Nazanin was a minor by U.S. standards at the time she committed the crime, in Iran, girls as young as nine may be sentenced to death. However the minimum age for which boys may be convicted of a capital offence is fifteen. If Nazanin fails to win her appeal, she will most likely be executed by hanging.

It bears noting that in Iran, hangings are usually done from cranes - a particularly inhumane way of carrying out this method of punishment as usually in these types of hangings, the victim's neck is not broken and so death does not come quickly.

Update: An interesting sidebar to this story is Denis MacEoin's essay, "Why Do Muslims Execute Innocent People," in the Middle East Quarterly. MacEoin has a Ph.D. in Persian studies and has taught Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University.

Saddam speaks from beyond the grave, justifies execution

The NYT is reporting that in the Baghdad court where Saddam is being prosecuted posthumously, along with his cohorts, for the deaths of some 180,000 Kurds in the 1980s, he can be heard saying on audio tape that the chemical attacks only he could order would kill “thousands.”

In response to questions posed by Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, his vice president and a notorious hard-liner, he can be heard saying, “Yes, they’re very effective if people don’t wear masks....they will kill thousands.”

Court officials did not indicate how they obtained the recordings, which were deemed to be authentic according to those familiar with Saddam's voice.

Saddam can be heard saying that the chemicals “will prevent people eating and drinking the local water, and they won’t be able to sleep in their beds... they will force people to leave their homes and make them uninhabitable until they have been decontaminated.” And then adding, “I don’t know if you know this, Comrade Izzat, but chemical weapons are not used unless I personally give the orders.”

The prosecution went on to show a video of the aftermath of the Halabja attacks, in which thousands of Kurds were gassed. In the video, a father can be seen wailing as he discovers his children, as the NY Times describes the scene, "lying along a street littered with bodies; dead mothers clutching gas-choked infants to their breasts in swaddling clothes; young sisters embracing each other in death; and trucks piled high with civilian bodies."

"I ask the whole world to look at these images, especially those who are crying right now," the Times quoted the Iraqi prosecutor, Munkith al-Faroun as telling the court, referring no doubt to his compatriots and others around the world who were outraged at the way Saddam's execution had been carried out.

It was Faroun, the reader will recall and as the Times reported that was the only person present at Saddam's execution who called for restraint. As Saddam stood with the noose around his neck about to be hanged, Faroun implored the others in attendence to be respectful. "Please, no!" he can be heard saying on the illicit tape made of the moment, "The man is about to be executed."

George Packer, Know The Enemy

George Packer, in his December 18 article in The New Yorker, wonders whether social scientists can redefine the "war on terror."

He asks this question because a social scientist, an Australian by the name of David Kilcullen is being asked to do just that by the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, Henry Crumpton.

According to Kilcullen, the war on terror would be better defined as a global counterinsurgency. As Packer writes, to Kilcullen, "a war on terror suggests an undifferentiated enemy." He argues that the U.S. needs to avoid mapping the various conflicts around the world onto a global jihad because it will be far easier in the long run to address local grievances. As Packer reports Kilcullen saying: "Let's not talk about bin Laden's objectives - let's talk about your objectives. How do we solve that problem? You don't play to the enemy's global information strategy of making it all one fight."

As Packer writes, in Kilcullen's view, this fight is less about religion or ideology and more about social networks. It is one's friends, family and associates who will ultimately determine which side somebody ends up on. To combat this war then, Kilcullen believes that the U.S. has to establish competing networks - of friendly mosques, community leaders, professional associations - in order to provide a social context that enables people to choose a way other than jihad.

In his view, social scientists are the ideal persons to identify these individuals and alternative networks but there's one problem. Most social scientists are unwilling to assist the U.S. government, a legacy of the Vietnam War era.

Packard interviews one of the few who is willing to do so, an anthropologist who works for the Pentagon, Montgomery McFate. She describes herself as a rebellious daughter of "hippie parents" who says she grew up believing that the Cold War was just a "bunch of lies the government fed us to keep us paranoid." Her rebellion began, she says, when she finally realized that "there was a thing called the Cold War, and we nearly lost. And there was no guarantee that we were going to win."

Since 9/11, as she told Packer, she has been on an "evangelical mission" to get the Department of Defense to understand the importance of "cultural knowledge" because in her view, the government has no choice but to understand its adversaries.

The Pentagon seems to be convinced enough of the need for this type of knowledge that it has formed a Cultural Operations Research Terrain that is planning to send out teams of social scientists to act as cultural advisors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Steve Fondacara, the head of this effort, says it's difficult to recruit people for this mission. Aside from the not insignificant risks involved, many scientists still shun the idea of working for the U.S. government.

For McFate, the good she can do outweighs the risk, both personal and academic, "I see there could be misuse," she told Packer, "But I just can't stand to sit back and watch these mistakes happen over and over as people get killed, and do nothing."

While it does seem that social scientists could indeed help redefine the "war on terror" and in a positive way, perhaps the real question Packard was asking was will they?

Kagan's Plan for Victory in Iraq

Frederick W. Kagan, the miltary historian at AEI, makes a compelling case for why, to use his words, "victory in Iraq is vital to America's security" arguing that "defeat will likely lead to regional conflict, humanitarian catastrophe, and increased globabl terrorism."

Moreover he contends that "America, a country of 300 million people with a GDP of $12 trillion and more than 1 millioin soldiers and Marines, has the resources to stabilize Iraq, a state the size of California with a population of 25 million and a GDP under $100 billion."

What's refreshing about Kagan is that he doesn't just indulge in criticism or try to show off his knowledge of military history but lays out the specifics of a plan.

Maybe this is the last word on Saddam's execution

David Gelernter in The Weekly Standard makes a worthwhile point:

"Those infractions of execution etiquette ought not to have been allowed, but don't kid yourself: No execution is ever pretty. And in this squeamish, fastidious nation it is easy to forget the significance of a hanging; a British royal commission once spelled it out. Hanging is 'a peculiarly grim and derogatory form of execution, suitable for sordid criminals and crimes.'

"In any case, those who criticize the manner of Saddam's execution invite the world to contemplate the ways in which the convict himself did the deed. How much dignity did his thug henchmen allow Iraqis who were about to be fed into industrial shredders or to have nails driven into their skulls?"

US helps contain Somalia’s Islamist forces

Let's hope this Financial Times report is right

"US-led naval task force off the Somali coast has been boarding ships in recent days as part of efforts to prevent Islamist militants fleeing the country.

"The task force is taking part in a broader US military effort to stop Islamist fighters in Somalia moving into neighbouring countries following a rout by Ethiopian forces. Kenya has officially closed its border with Somalia on in an effort to stem the transit of militants, officials said."

Charles Krauthammer has the last word on Saddam's execution

In his Washington Post column, Charles Krauthammer seems to me to have gotten Saddam's execution precisely right. And I quote:

"The whole sorry affair illustrates not just incompetence but also the ingrained intolerance and sectarianism of the Maliki government. It stands for Shiite unity and Shiite dominance above all else.

"We should not be surging American troops in defense of such a government. This governing coalition -- Maliki's Dawa, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Sadr's Mahdi Army -- seems intent on crushing the Sunnis at all costs. Maliki should be made to know that if he insists on having this sectarian war, he can well have it without us."

Maliki announces assault to take back Baghdad

CNN is reporting that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced on Saturday that Iraqi forces "will hunt down all outlaws regardless of their sectarian and political affiliations." He is also reported as saying that Iraq "will also severly punish those who do not carry out orders or operate in a partisan or sectarian way."

Let's see if he makes good on his promise.

Israel denies it is planning to attack Iran

The Associated Press is reporting that Israel's Foreign Ministry denied the report published in The Sunday Times of London that Israel has drawn up plans to attack Iran's nuclear facilities using tactical nuclear weapons. "If diplomacy succeeds, the problem can be solved peaceably," spokesman Mark Regev is quoted as saying. Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, however, declined to comment. "We don't respond to publications in The Sunday Times," spokewoman Miri Eisin was quoted as saying.

Reuven Pedatzur, an Israeli defense analyst and columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz, told the AP that "It is possible that this was a leak done on purpose, as deterrence, to say: 'Someone better hold us back, before we do something crazy.'"

As Ephraim Kam, described as a former senior intelligence official now at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Strategic Studies, told the AP, "No reliable source would ever speak about this, certainly not to the Sunday Times."

How did the USG link 9/11 to bin Laden?

There is a terrific detail in Lawrence Wright's July New Yorker article, "The Agent: Did the C.I.A. stop an F.B.I. detective from preventing 9/11?" that you might have missed. In this article, Wright unearths how exactly the U.S. government determined that the 9/11 hijackers were in fact members of al Qaeda.

An F.B.I. agent, Ali Soufan, was in Yemen at the time of the attacks investigating the U.S.S. Cole bombing. He knew that an al Qaeda leader who was in Yemeni custody, one Abu Jandal, had nursed one of the hijackers back to health while he was staying at an al Qaeda guesthouse in Kandahar in 1999.

After he was given pictures of the hijackers, he asked Abu Jandal whether he knew any of them. He reluctantly admitted knowing Marwan al-Shehhi, but he didn't know that at the time he was being questioned, that he was the pilot of the plane that had crashed into the second tower and that he was already dead. Abu Jandal then went on to identify six others, again not knowing that they were also dead. He did know about the attacks but he couldn't believe that Muslims were responsible or that al Qaeda was involved. As Wright reports, he told Soufan that "The Sheikh is not that crazy," referring to bin Laden. He was certain that the attacks had to have been the work of Israelis.

As Wright goes on to report the exchange that then occured between the two men:

"I know for sure that the people who did this were Al Qaeda guys," said Soufan. He took seven photographs out of the book and laid them on the table.
"How do you know?" Abu Jandal asked. "Who told you?"
"You did," said Soufan. "These are the hijackers. You just identified them."
Abu Jandal turned pale. He covered his face with his hands. "Give me a moment," he pleaded. Soufan walked out of the room. When he came back, he asked Abu Jandal what he thought now. "I think the Sheikh went crazy," he said. And then he told Soufan everything he knew.

Zarqawi's death improved al Qaeda's fortunes in Iraq, says Kohlmann

In today's NYT's Week in Review section, there is an excellent graphic derived from Evan Kohlmann's work tracking the insurgency in Iraq. According to Kohlmann, al Qaeda was losing ground in Iraq until 2006 when two events fortified their position and intensified the insurgency.

The first event was when al Qaeda blew up one of the Shiite's most important shrines, the Askariya Mosque in Samarra. As Kohlmann reportedly told the Times, "that event opened the door to bloodletting between Sunnis and Shiites."

The second event that improved al Qaeda's fortunes in Iraq, according to Kohlmann, was when U.S. forces killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Because Zarqawi was Jordanian and not Iraqi, Kohlmann argues, he was never able to garner the support of those Iraqis who resented the influence of outsiders. But given the fact that al Qaeda in Iraq quickly named another outsider, an Egyptian, Abu Hamza al-Mujahir (a.k.a. Abu Ayyub al-Masri) to replace Zarqawi, how does this square with Kohlmann's assessment that al Qaeda now has a distinctly Iraqi face in Iraq?

Implicit in Kohlmann's complete report which can be accessed here, is the third seminal event of 2006: the formation in January of the Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC), an umbrella that was created to consolidate all of the individual Sunni jihadist groups, including al Qaeda in Iraq, into a single organization while still being able to preserve essential parts of their own identity and independence. The head of this group is an Iraqi, Abdullah Rashid al Baghdadi. Over the course of the year, the group claims to have been joined by almost a dozen jihadist organizations and some 30 Sunni tribes.

One indication that al Qaeda and its related organizations have indeed gained ground in Iraq in 2006 was the announcement on October 15 that the MSC, its superceding organization, was officially declaring an Islamic State of Iraq, comprised of eight Iraqi provinces including Anbar, Baghdad, Dijala, Tamim, Salahuddin, Nineveh, Babil, and Wasit.

Is there any good news to be found here? Perhaps. According to statistics kept by Iraq Body Count and maintained by the Brookings Institute's Iraq Index, 88 percent of the civilians killed in Iraq since the war began were in the areas that are now supposedly encompassed by this new Islamic State. We can hope that providing security at home will be seen as the first order of business of this new Islamic State.