The Latest from Iran (18 October): Today's Bombings

NEW Iran Newsflash: National Unity Plan Submitted to Supreme Leader
NEW Video: Blame on Sunni Group Jundallah, US For Bombing
NEW Iran: Khamenei, Bahari, Hajjarian, and the "Semi-Normal"
NEW Iran: The Great Supreme Leader Health Mystery
Iran: The Supreme Leader Lives — The Picture (17 October)
The Latest from Iran (17 October): Back to Semi-Normal

Receive our latest updates by email or RSS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED
Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis

2000 GMT: The official death toll from today's bombing is now 42.

1950 GMT: Coincidence or Sabotage? A passenger train travelling from Tehran to Kerman derailed today, and a tea factory in Golestan burned to the ground.

1925 GMT: Mehr News is reporting that the explosion near the Oil Ministry in Tehran was from a faulty air tank.

Islamic Republic News Agency, repeating the air tank story, is reporting one person killed and 17 injured.

1910 GMT: Switching the Foreign "Enemy" from the US to Pakistan. This morning, when the Revolutionary Guard was claiming Washington was behind the bombings, we wrote, "Watch carefully to see if the Ahmadinejad Government maintains this line, which could derail 'engagement'."

There's a big clue tonight that Ahmadinejad has chosen engagement over the blame-US line. Fars News reports that the Iranian Cabinet has demanded that Pakistan bring forward those who carried out the bombings, a positioning reinforced by the summoning of the Pakistani Ambassador to the Foreign Ministry. There is no mention of the US anywhere in the Fars story.

1900 GMT: There are reports of an explosion near the Oil Ministry in Tehran.

1830 GMT: The Death Toll Rises.... The afternoon number of 31 dead from this morning's bombing will rise, though it is uncertain how much. Fars News reports that 35 victims have already been identified.

1625 GMT: National Unity Plan. It's alive, and it apparently has been submitted to the Supreme Leader (who is apparently also alive) for consideration. We've posted a separate entry on the newsflash.

1535 GMT: Iran's Nuclear Programme: This is Not Good. If the following report from Press TV is accurate, Iran's nuclear negotiators --- on the eve of the Vienna technical talks --- just laughed in the face of the "West": "A team of Iranian experts heads for the Austrian capital to discuss the terms of a deal to buy highly-enriched uranium without exchanging any of Tehran's low-enriched uranium."

The deal discussed quietly since June between Iran and other countries, including the US, is precisely for Tehran to transfer 80 percent of its low-enriched uranium to third countries for enrichment. Simply adding highly-enriched supplies to Iran's existing low-enriched stock has no appeal for Washington, which sees third-party enrichment as a way to ensure that Tehran stays below the 20 percent enrichment maximum for "civilian" uses of uranium.


1530 GMT: Another Suspended Sentence. A day after the five-year suspended sentence for Saeed Hajjarian, the same judgement has been handed down on Shahab Tabatabai, Head of Campaign 88 for young supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mohammad Khatami.

1430 GMT: Now Back to Politics. Mir Hossein Mousavi, writing on his website Kalameh (English summary on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) after a meeting with relatives of detained former Deputy Foreign Minister Mohsen Aminzadeh, says he will persist in efforts for reform in spite of the Government's attempts to suppress post-election protests:

Our people are not rioters. Reform will continue as long as people's demands are not met. Keeping these people in jail is meaningless. They should be released as soon as possible.

1340 GMT: On the international front, Fars News reports that Iran's delegation to the technical talks in Vienna tomorrow will include Ali Asghar Soltanieh, the Iranian ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Hamid Reza Asghari, deputy head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation, and Mehdi Khaniki, another IAEO chief executive. However, Ali Akhbar Salehi, the head of the IAEO is not going.

1330 GMT: Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani has also taken the line that Washington carries responsibility for today's bombings, "We consider this recent terrorist act to be the result of the U.S. actions and this is a sign of their enmity."

To repeat: US and Iranian officials are due to meet tomorrow in the next step of engagement, technical talks on Iran's uranium enrichment programme.

1240 GMT: The Islamic Republic News Agency is featuring a message from President Ahmadinejad, offering his condolences to the families of those killed this morning and expressing confidence that there would be a swift response to the "criminal action".

1230 GMT: EA's Mr Smith checks in with detail on Jundallah and the bombing: "We would normally dismiss the Iranian allegations of foreign interference as the usual anti-West yarn from Tehran, but the claims against [Jundallah leader Abdolmalek] Rigi warrant extra attention. He is an extremely shadowy figure who appears to be well-protected, to the extent that his own brother has been caught and sentenced to death [Hamid Rigi was reprieved at the last minute although 13 other Jundullah members were executed] by the Iranian authorities but he himself is still at large.

"He has appeared several times on Voice of America Persian, under the label "Leader of the 'Popular Resistance Movement of Iran', which is something VOA made up --- it's not quite the Persian translation of Jundullah. Exactly how the VOA got hold of him for a live interview, via satellite phone, is quite unexplained, as is the prominence and deference accorded to him. This interview caused a serious backlash in the Iranian blogosphere and seriously discredited VOA Persian."

1215 GMT: Press TV's reporting is not only emphasising Jundallah's responsibility for the bombings but playing up a US connection. In a video we've posted in a separate entry, Press TV claims --- from an interview with the captured brother of Junduallah's leader, Abdolmalek Rigi --- that the group "has been in constant contact with the US Embassy in Islamabad [Pakistan] and this has been certified by different groups and sources [of Press TV]".

1200 GMT: The latest from Iranian state media puts the death toll from this morning's larger bombing at 29, including six senior Revolutionary Guard commanders, with 28 injured. The Sunni rebel group Jundallah is reported to have claimed responsibility for the attack. The Revolutionary Guard continue to allege that the US is involved, while state television has also blamed Britain.

0945 GMT: We've moved our initial morning analysis, considering the politics of the Supreme Leader's health, the release on bail of journalist Maziar Bahari, the suspended sentence for Saeed Hajjarian, and more arrests, to a separate analysis.

0920 GMT: Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting has identified the site of the larger of the two bombings as the gates of a conference hall, where the Revolutionary Guard meeting with tribal elders was to take place, in the city of Sarbaz in Sistan-Baluchestan.

0845 GMT: Press TV adds an interesting detail on the bombing, pointing to coordinated attacks: "At around the same time, another group of IRGC commanders were caught in an explosion as their convoy came under attack at a road junction" in the town of Pishin in Sistan-Baluchestan.

0840 GMT: No new details on the suicide boming, but Revolutionary Guard officials have issued a communique saying "foreign elements" linked to the US were responsible.

Watch carefully to see if the Ahmadinejad Government maintains this line, which could derail "engagement". US and Iranian delegations are due to meet tomorrow in the "5+1" technical talks on Iran's uranium enrichment.

0725 GMT: Iranian state media is reporting that "several" senior commanders have been killed by a suicide bombing in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchestan Province in southeastern Iran, which left 60 dead and injured.

Those killed include General Noor Ali Shooshtari, the deputy commander of the IRGC ground forces, and Rajab Ali Mohammadzadeh, the IRGC's commander in Sistan-Baluchestan.

The IRGC commanders had gathered to meet tribal elders, purportedly for Shia-Sunni reconciliation. (English summary avaiable via Associated Press)

Comments

[Bruineyes]

Just a small note: Bahari was arrested since 21 June and not July!

[Breaking: Top Commander’]

[...] Breaking: Top Commander’s Killed in Iran Finding it just now coming out.  http://enduringamerica.com/2009/10/18/the-latest-from-iran-18-october-semi-normal-indeed-khamenei-ba... [...]

[Megan]

I am not sure if I buy the Sunni Insurgency. I think Khamenei is close to flat lining and the power struggle among regime thugs have started. I do not know any of IRG who were killed in the blast and their alliances. I would like to hear from people who know them, e.g., were they Khamenei or Ahmadi loyalist or were they closet Green.

[cyrus]

@Megan, I saw a report while back about the Sunni Insurgency, the report claimed that the CIA indirectly funds the Sunni groups in South-east Iran, however the timing of the attack is suspicious, in regards to Khamenei health rumours. As for the Commanders that died, they are Khamenei loyalists, Khamenei did alot of reshuffling before the election to get rid of all suspected reformist loyalists.

[Scott Lucas]

Bruineyes,

Sorry --- my slip. Have corrected.

S.

[Amy]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/10/18/iran.suicide.attack/" rel="nofollow">According to CNN, Ali Larijani also is blaming US.

[Amy]

Any US involvement would be rogue. President Obama is committed to engagement. Others here want to be sure it doesn't happen.
(my opinion, of course)

[Samuel]

The Mossad could very well be involved in the current attack. The Zionist have a well known history of working with and arming separatist and/or minority movements (e.g., Maronites in Lebanon, Kurds in Iraq and Iran) in order to weaken Arab and Islamic nations.

[Shelia]

Emmm Its all a bit to convenient to me, could this be in fact a justification of the death sentences recently handed down to reformist. This regime is capable of anything, those killed in the bombings today could very well be just sacrificial lambs to protect this regimes image.

[dmnari]

Iran also "blaming" foreign agents. Where have we heard that act before? I wont put this blast past the guards themselves, they probably orchestrated this whole thing to further "choke" the Iranian people.

[Amy]

Shelia & dmnari
Interesting and ironic idea. Totally feasible.

(all in all, we are a cynical lot here, and with good reason)

[florence achard]

Shelia,

These IRG killed in the bombing aren't exactly my idea of lambs! ;)

[Tony in London]

Think you will find Rigi's brother has NOT been executed, although a number of his pals were a month or three back. There has been much speculation, and fevered Iranian denials, that the failure to execute Rigi suggests negotiations with his brother over a secret deal. Probably out of the question now though! The last report indicated the brother had still not been transferred to the judiciary officials responsible for carrying out the sentence. (See Fars News agency October 4 - Iran serious about executing Jundullah No 2) -
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8807121361

[lissnup]

They are clearly still negotiating with his life. Rigi should be aware that Iranian Regime are more than capable of having killed his brother already.

Is Ali Larijani still expected to attend the talks tomorrow?

[Scott Lucas]

Tony,

Thanks for this important correction. Will update now.

S.

[Frank Glodek]

Potential ramnifications

Will the regime use this act to come up with much harsher treatment of its critics?

It's possible in the short run but not for very long What Iran's regime badly needs now with things going badly on too many fronts is to encourage unity via concessions.

Of course the regime may remain as blindly inflexible as usual until the consequences come home to roost. Any mass roundup of reformers, especially leaders, will simply add to the regime's isolation and alienate even more people. That makes poor strategic sense.

Admittedly, thinking more than one step ahead hasn't been this regime's strong point. So much has backfired (rigged election, show trials, mass persecution), yet the ham-handedness has continued. On the other hand Let's look at some recent examples of similar situations that moderated behavior and policy.

In Iraq, the US and recent enemies joined together to battle Al Queda in Rahmadi and other areas of Anbar province because both saw Al Queda as the worse of two alternatives. It took years for most Sunnis to reach that conclusion. In the meantime they had been allied with Al Queda. That took more time than Iran has I think.

In World War II, the need to survive and solely that need forced an alliance between the USA and the Soviet Union.

In similar situations, Iran has had to put aside extreme policies for common sense, as during the Iran-Iraq war and afterwards. At home, the need for unity led to some liberalization at home. Secondly, Iranian leaders had to make an arms deal with the so-called Great Satan. Thirdly, Iran greatly reduced the export of terrorist to Europe because it needed normal trade relations.

The latter is another reason why it cannot long afford the present abnormal situation in which foreign journalists are totally banned and foreign tourists rare, including Iranian expatriates who may be arrested at any time on a whim. Everything is so arbitrary. Members of all of these groups have been arrested and persecuted and it won't be forgotten. Look at how China and other nations have benefitted from emigre support and some return of the educated. Look at Iran by contrast.

Meanwhile the economy continues to go down, creating more discontent as well as more pressure for change. If the latest shock sends more money out of the country, that will accelerating the economic decline. When people lose trust in an economy or in a regime's survival and that of its currency they do such things for the same reason so many officials in the Third Reich began to hoard diamonds and gold.

[Samuel]

Frank Glodek,
"Will the regime use this act to come up with much harsher treatment of its critics?"

Well I certainly hope so.

"Admittedly, thinking more than one step ahead hasn’t been this regime’s strong point. So much has backfired (rigged election, show trials, mass persecution), yet the ham-handedness has continued."

That's becaue it hasn't "backfired". The guard and the Basij are stronger everyday thanks to the reorganizations that began in 2007 by Jafari in coordination with the SL. The Basij is being prepared to lead a "long march" through Iranian institutions on a permanent basis. Expect the Student Basij to become really prominent at the High School level for example.

"In Iraq, the US and recent enemies joined together to battle Al Queda in Rahmadi and other areas of Anbar province because both saw Al Queda as the worse of two alternatives."

AL Queda in Iraq was always an outside entity that never grew real roots in Iraqi soil. The real reason for the reduction in violence is that Shiite Militias under Sadr were able to drive out most of the Sunnis out of mixed areas. As Mao wisely noted guerrillas "swim like fish in the sea of the people"; once the Shiite militias drained that sea the guerrillas were helpless.

"Thirdly, Iran greatly reduced the export of terrorist to Europe because it needed normal trade relations."

What terrorists did Iran send to Europe? Iran's activities were concentrated in Lebanon and other Shiite communiites in the Middle East.

"Look at how China and other nations have benefitted from emigre support and some return of the educated. Look at Iran by contrast."

Bad, very bad example to make your point. A lot of China's progress was after it, correctly in my opinion, cracked down HARD on China's "Green Movement" AT Tiananmen Square.

Iran's main problem has been not to follow the example of China at Tiananmen Square or, better yet, Imam Khomeini's example in 1988 when he cracked down on the MOK and similar opponents of the Revolution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_executions_of_Iranian_political_prisoners

[Frank Glodek]

Cyrus,

Why would you want the regime to use the attack as an excuse to crackdown on its critics?

Is it because you support the regime or because you expect a crackdown will backfire? If the latter, you contradict your own argument further on that regime blunders don't lead to backfires.

You say the rigged elections, subsequent torture and rapes, show trials, etc.
haven't backfired but your rebuttal points solely to things the IRCG indisputably did to strengthen itself PRIOR to those blunders. That was already a done deal. Can't you see that my post deals with the consequences of those blunders--not what the regime achieved pre-coup in terms of strengthening itself but what it did post coup to weaken itself.

Definition of "backfire": When a regime policy not only fails to achieve what was intended but tends to produce the opposite.

I say say the regime never expected such a strong public reaction to its rigged election, expecting it could pull the wool over people's eyes. The regime thought it could--as in the past--get away with so many crimes against the protestors afterward without exposure. Did it prove wrong on both assumptions or not? Has torture intimidated critics or merely forced it to change tactics? Who is more likely to be viewed as a Satan and who as Satan: Khamenei or Kourrabi? Was that so before June 12th?

Who has more credibility today: the state media or Saint Kourrabi and others? Like its homosexual and heterosexual rapes and its show trials (who believes thos confessions?) lies such as "Nedia was killed by her fellow protestors" simply arouse revulsion and teach folks how shameless immoral the regime and all its supporters truely are. This regime is so self-tainted in the public eyes it can never regain the public's trust.

You also seem to assume success consists of achieving SHORT-TERM tactical successes that anyone already in full control of state organs and having all the guns could hardly fail to achieve--cheating on election day, stopping large-scale protests with numbers of 3 million or more. Winning the battles where the deck is loaded means nothing is you lose the war.

BACKFIRES EXEMPLIFIED

Backfire: the regime has alienated a growing number of people permanently and irreconcilably.

Backfire: An increasingly radicalized public has moved on to much greater demands than those the regime might easily have managed just after elections.

Backfire: What once still retained considerable respect prior to June 12 and subsequent events (the Supreme Leader, the Islamic Republic) now enjoys much more widespread contempt.

Backfire: Even the means of achieving temporary tactical successes become corrupted and weakened as time passes. The more people are bused from small towns into the city to control demonstrators and the more basilj have contact with demonstrators, the more word travels to every point in the land of what is really happening. At the same time, the more demoralized Basilj become, a process clearly well underway.

re: Ramadi and Anbar Province.

Al Sadr's militia has no presence there and hence no impact. In fact, in many places in southern Iran (Basra especially) people became fed up with the Al Mahdi army and other Islamist milita for the same reason Arabs in Anbar Province became fed up with Al Queda and Iranians with Khamenei's crowds. Islamist rule is intolerable and, for Iranians, democracy far more preferable. In Anbar province Arabs saw the USA, seen as the lesser of two evils.

re: lot of China’s progress was after it, correctly in my opinion, cracked down HARD on China’s “Green Movement” AT Tiananmen Square.

True and I know this is exactly what hardliners are hoping will happen in Iraq. However, historical analogies only work to the degree the two situations are identical. The less this is so, the more worthless the comparison. For example, note how the Munich analogy was constantly misapplied to Vietnam.

I wrote a long post describing all the many reasons why the regime cannot expect that they could pull off what the Chinese did with Tianneman--too many variables are different. Nevertheless the regime proceded from precisely the kind of mistaken assumptions from which you seem to proceed.

[Frank Glodek]

WHY THE TIANNEMAN SQUARE MODEL WON'T WORK FOR IRAN'S HARD LINERS

That seems to be an illusion common to regime hardliners and their supporters like Samuel (Why the fake English/American name?). The illusion may explain some of the regime's stubborness.

Note how well I blew that argument apart earlier:

http://iran.whyweprotest.net/news-current-events/38461-why-irans-hardliners-think-people-will-get-over-regime-crimes.html

By the way, who but a regime propagandist would blame Israel for recent attacks clearly linked to Al Queda (see your above post). Let's face it: the regime itself alienated the public. What's to like about a brutally oppressive government that clearly rules for a few, hands them the whole economy as well and brutally mismanages the rest--all this why endlessly persecuted religious and ethnic minorities and anyone who dares think for themself or question any crime (an offense known as "slander" or even I "crime against God" by the regime).

From such charges I gather Khamenei and God (Allah) are identical. What arrogance this regime has as well as brutality and mendaciousness!

[Samuel]

Frank Glodek,

Cyrus didn't argue for using the attacks to crack down on the Greenies, I did. There is a reason why Islam forbids the consumption of alcohol. :-)

I did it because I believe that a decisive crackdown is necessary now just like it was necessary in 1988. China and Iran are different cases, what a brilliant piece of analysis! I only brought China up because it is a bizarre argument on your part to use China as an example when China had its own harsh crackdown.

Closer to home one can cite the Syrian crackdown on the city of Hama in 1982 which effectively put an end to Sunni Fundamentalist activity in that country. I prefer the example of Imam Khomeini in 1988 as an example of an effective crackdown, an example by the way which was never condemned by your leading Green reformers of the present day.

"Note how well I blew that argument apart earlier:" I notice that you are very, very good at complimenting yourself, I like that.
You seem to like the definition of words, here's one: Narcissism, the trait of excessive self-love, based on self-image or ego.

Re: Blaming Israel
The Israelis are well known to push minority sects and separatist movements to weaken Arab and Islamic states and I cited two specific cases, the Maronites and the Kurds. I can also cite the Druze as well as other Middle East Christian communities (other than the Maronites). As befits a colonial settler state the Zionists believe in "divide and conquer" and Iran is the most important threat they've faced in a generation.

[Samuel]

Frank Glodek,

A section of the population has become radicalized. That was true before June 12 and it is true now. That sector does not want the Islamic Revolution, they do not want Guardianship of the Jurisprudent (Velayat-e faqih), they do not want to be involved in the affairs of Lebanon or Palestine, in short they want to be secular westerners.

This sector does not want "reforms" and they will not be mollified or pacified by anything short of the overthrow of the Revolutionary system and the abandonment of the Imam Khomeini legacy. Oh sure they'll go along with the Greenie leaders and their hypcritical appeals to the example of "Khomeini the liberal reformer" a Khomeini that never existed in the real world. Even now you hear the grumbling from the street that Mousavi is too moderate, too willing to compromise etc.

I understand the opposition perfectly, they really do want "death to Khamenei" and "death to AN" and to Jafari etc., etc., There is nothing to compromise and there wasn't on June 14th either.

The truth is that this is a struggle to the death between the Islamic Revolution and those that want "death to the Islamic Revolution" and it will be resolved the way all such conflicts have been resolved. In the past with the sword, today with the Kalashnikov. I referenced the "Battle of the Camel" in another post and the fact is that we are heading for another such event in Shiite history.

The choice is simple for those who can't stand the Islamic Revolution: Emigrate, Submit or Fight. I despise the MOK but I respect them for fighting for what they believe in. As opposed to the Greenies they did not try to overthrow the Revolution while pretending that they were simply implementing the "true" doctrine of Imam Khomeini.

[Samuel]

Frank Glodek,

By the way your friends in Anbar Province are having second thoughts about their collaboration with the Americans. The poor whiners feel "abandoned". See the excellent and entertaining recent article from the Washington Post.

Money quote: "The Americans left without even saying goodbye. Not one of them," Sabah said in his villa in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, once the cradle of Iraq's insurgency. "Even when we called them, we got a message that the line had been disconnected."

Somewhere in Anbar he knows there is a sharp knife with his name on it. Could not happen to a better guy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/02/AR2009100205346_pf.html

In Anbar, U.S.-Allied Tribal Chiefs Feel Deep Sense of Abandonment

By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 3, 2009

RAMADI, Iraq -- There was once a swagger to the scotch-swilling, insurgent-fighting Raed Sabah. He was known as Sheik Raed to his sycophants. Tribesmen who relied on his largess called him the same. So did his fighters, who joined the Americans and helped crush the insurgency in Anbar province.

Sabah still likes his scotch -- Johnnie Walker Black, with Red Bull on the rocks -- but these days, as the Americans withdraw from western Iraq, he has lost his swagger. His neighbors now deride him as an American stooge; they have nicknamed his alley "The Street of the Lackeys."

"The Americans left without even saying goodbye. Not one of them," Sabah said in his villa in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, once the cradle of Iraq's insurgency. "Even when we called them, we got a message that the line had been disconnected."

Nowhere is the U.S. departure from Iraq more visible than in Anbar, where the 27 bases and outposts less than a year ago have dwindled to three today. Far less money is being spent. Since November, more than two-thirds of combat troops have departed. In their wake is a blend of cynicism and bitterness, frustration and fear among many of the tribal leaders who fought with the troops against the insurgents, a tableau of emotion that may color the American legacy in a region that has stood as the U.S. military's single greatest success in the war. Pragmatism, the Americans call their departure. Desertion, their erstwhile allies answer.

As the United States leaves the province, acknowledged Col. Matthew Lopez, the Marine commander here, "you're going to have individuals who are unhappy."

Sabah freely admits he is one of them.

"We stood by them, we carried out their requests, we let no one hurt them," he said in a rushed clump of words, near certificates of appreciation from the Marines and the U.S. Army that gather dust in a mother-of-pearl cabinet. "They weren't supposed to abandon us."

As he sat with other tribal leaders who joined the American-led fight in 2006 and 2007, his reticence seemed to rival his fatalism, the sense that foes outnumber friends. "I expect I'll die at any time," he worried. "Today, tomorrow, maybe the day after."

'The British Had Foresight'

Steeped in desert traditions of pride, dignity and honor, no one in Anbar, perhaps the most Arab of Iraq's Arab regions, would contend that any foreign occupation was good, and the Americans remain deeply unpopular in some quarters here. But true or not, there is a prevailing sense in this vast, arid region bisected by the Euphrates that, as far as occupations go, the British were better at it than the Americans.

There are bridges still nicknamed "British bridges," built after the British defeated the Ottoman Empire and occupied Iraq at the end of World War I. One spans the Euphrates in Ramadi. The descendants of some sheiks jealously guard pictures of their forefathers posing with British potentates. One of them bragged that Gertrude Bell, the British diplomat and adventurer, wrote about his ancestor, the powerful sheik Ali Sulaiman.

"One of the most remarkable men in Iraq," she declared in a letter to her father.

"The British had foresight and, we can't say credibility, but they had more patience than the Americans. They understood how to take time to win someone to their side," said his great-grandson, Ali Hatem Sulaiman. "The Americans, no. With them, it's either shoot you or give you money, it's either hire you or beat you up."

The Americans, he said, used a jackhammer to shape a diamond.

Deliberate Disengagement

To be fair, Lopez, the colonel in Ramadi, is no jackhammer.

His tenure in Iraq started in 2003 in Karbala, part of the Shiite Muslim heartland. He ends his latest tour, this one in Iraq's Sunni hub, next month. He dismissed the idea that allies were somehow abandoned or friends shown any disrespect.

The day after he took command, Lopez ordered the construction of a diwan, a kind of reception hall requisite in any sheik's house. Forty-eight hours later, it was done, complete with eight Persian carpets, overstuffed furniture, ample ashtrays and even pink plastic flowers in the corner. On the wall is a clock with the 99 names of Allah in Arabic.

"All the nuances," Lopez described it, "all the cultural sensitivities."

His Marines train their Army successors in the etiquette of brewing Turkish coffee, or as one soldier put it, "espresso times 10." Well-sugared tea should be served as soon as the sheiks sit down in Lopez's diwan. "You want to be Johnny on the spot every time," Cpl. Jared Jones insisted. In serving meals, put lamb in the middle, he said, chicken to the side. Take plastic silverware out of the wrapper; doing otherwise is considered tacky.

"We can't stress how much this matters," Jones lectured the impromptu class of a half-dozen soldiers. "We mess it up, we pay the price. Now, are there any questions about chow?"

But even Lopez's efforts can't rewrite the arithmetic of postwar Iraq. He acknowledged that "the sheer mathematics" of the withdrawal mean U.S. officers are simply less engaged with some of the sheiks who joined them in the fight against insurgents, a battle widely viewed as one of the crucial pivots in the American experience in Iraq. As he describes it, the military has also disciplined itself to better target which sheiks it wants to court -- the 20 or so whom they have deemed most prominent here.

"I think that's one of our institutional lessons learned," Lopez said.

The goal of what he called a responsible drawdown was "a return to normalcy."

"It's not normal for a coalition presence to be injected into the Iraqi cultural system and the sheiks' system," Lopez said, sitting in his office at Camp Ramadi. "Without extricating ourselves from the equation," he added, "it can't return to normal."

A Sheik Speaks His Mind

Postwar Anbar is anything but normal, whatever normal might mean here. By virtue of its money, arms and prestige, the U.S. military -- like its British predecessors -- has indelibly remade the province's landscape. One ally, Ahmed Abu Risha, whose clan was little known before the occupation, is on a trajectory to become Anbar's most powerful man. Other allies have gathered fabulous wealth. Yet others deem themselves dead men walking, having courted too few friends while they occupied the U.S. limelight.

The one constant is the degree to which the sheiks dislike one another. Any pledge not to speak ill about one's peers is almost always a preamble to a string of expletives. In one rant that ended only when the sheik ran out of breath, a rival was called a pimp, a prostitute, the son of a dog and, finally, "a circumciser."

Perhaps another constant is the suspicion that many of America's allies direct at their patron.

"They did the same thing in Vietnam," said the pragmatic Affan al-Issawi, a U.S.-allied militia leader near Fallujah whom Lopez called "a very dear friend of mine."

"I know their history. Just in one night, they left. They left all their agents and friends behind. I knew they would leave one day," Issawi said.

Issawi has decorated his villa with portraits of himself with then-President George W. Bush, former American military commanders and President Obama. He acknowledges the help the U.S. military gave him in the counterinsurgency, including rifles, heavy machine guns and ammunition it seized from "bad people," as well as $1.5 million in contracts to build schools and a water station. On one $450,000 school contract, he boasted, flashing a $25,000, diamond-encrusted Rolex watch, he managed to clear $300,000.

Indeed, Issawi may come out on top. He is an ally of Abu Risha, who some speculate might become the president of Iraq after next year's elections. Issawi has a seat on the provincial council, guaranteeing police protection. He carries his wealth naturally, like a rich Persian Gulf Arab, at ease with privilege to which he has grown accustomed.

"I didn't build my life with American bricks," said Issawi, who will turn 35 in November. "I knew one day they would leave, and that they would leave quickly."

A Bitter Aftertaste

In 1922, Ali Sulaiman, the sheik praised by Gertrude Bell in her letter, worried what would happen to his reputation if it looked like the British had abandoned him.

Nearly a century later, Raed Sabah and a coterie of other sheiks are the modern equivalent. At the peak of the fight against the insurgency, the United States supplied Sabah with 50 AK-47 rifles. Jassem Swaidawi, another ally, ran up a $30,000 bill one month on a U.S.-supplied phone he used to contact the military; he was reimbursed. Hamid al-Hais shows off a partial right finger and two wounds in his right leg, suffered in a fight with insurgents in 2007. They all met Obama when he was still a presidential candidate.

Some of them said they expected American citizenship. Fearful for their lives amid charges of treason, others hoped for help finding residency in neighboring Jordan or Syria. Some are clearly motivated by money, which was once abundant: They want funds to keep flowing in a region that, more than any other part of Iraq, appears wedded to kleptocracy. "The simplest thing they could have done was to keep in touch," said Sabah, who last saw representatives of the U.S. military before the provincial elections in January.

"The Americans never understood Iraqi society," added Hais, sitting in his diwan with a plaque from the U.S. military that reads, "Allies in battle, friends in peace."

"All they did was write down in their notebooks what they were supposed to have learned," he said.

The American project here was always infused with contradictions. Iraq was never as sovereign as U.S. officials insisted, never as secure as the military proclaimed. The United States called itself a partner, even as it presided over the destruction of the country's fabric. In Anbar, it proclaims a return to normalcy, amid a withdrawal it deems responsible, in a land that will long bear its mark.

Sabah and other U.S.-allied sheiks joke darkly about the accusations leveled against them: that they have served as spies and stooges for the Americans. Some call them "the sheiks of dolma," a reference to the stuffed grape leaves the allies would serve U.S. military officers for lunch. You served the Americans, some tell the sheiks, and they never served you.

"The Americans took what they wanted from them and left them behind. You can't do that in Iraq," said Col. Mahmoud al-Issawi, Fallujah's police chief. "It's shameful to the worst degree. It's not just shameful, it's actually a huge scandal."

"An easy target to be killed," he termed the sheiks.

In the interview, Lopez, the Marine commander, said he was sure that the United States would still boast of friends in Anbar in five years. Sabah, not called a sheik as often these days, was doubtful.

"They may have to come back one day, and their friends won't be here anymore," he said. "Who would stand with them again? After this? No one would accept it."

[xerxes]

get a life Samuel

[Samuel]

xerxes,

Thank you for your concern.

[Frank Glodek]

Samuel:

I doubt the majority of protestors would have a problem with the Islamic Republic if all the rights guaranteed in the constitution hadn't been eliminated to the point of becoming meaningless, if even elections had come to mean nothing because they are rigged. if the state and the economy hadn't become a TOTAL monopoly of ultraconservative clerics (a la Mezba Yadzi and Ahmed Khatami) and if the regime and the Supreme Leader hadn't become totally immoral in the sort of crimes against the people they approve, including mass beatings, rape and murder.

That you approve such tactics is apparent by your reference to 1988. That you function as a agent for coup leaders is apparent by your fake name.

That all these charges are true is apparent by the fact that the regime finds it necessary to close up all opposition newspapers and arrest journalists back home and drive out all foreign journalists. Other governments don't NEED to do that. Nevertheless it hasn't work.

As for 1988, that stuff won't work now because:

1. in 1988 you were dealing with a tiny group not a much wider public opposition and disillusionment. The kind of people you have targeted are much more sympathetic and the trials have backfired by actually shaming and convicting the regime. Are you claiming those confessions were "real" and not derived by horrible tortures and threats against family members?

2. In 1988 the regime had more credibility and its lies were believed, so that many of the crimes could be hidden. None of this is true now while people have even begun to look into those past crimes.

3. Iran's economy is much worse.

4. Iran is far more isolated when it most needs more contact with the world.