Iraq Update: US Awakening Ally Arrested for “Terrorism”, Siege Continues

On Sunday, we reported on the arrest of Adil al-Mashhadani, an Awakening Council leader in the Fadhil section of Baghdad, and the subsequent gunfight between Council militiamen and US-Iraq forces.

Well, the story is far from over.

Juan Cole passes on the news from the Arabic-language newspaper Al Zaman that Iraqi troops still have the Fadhil district under siege of the Sunni Fadl district. According to the paper, diseases are spreading amongst women and children with the blockade and curfew.

Beyond Fadhil, al-Mashhadani's arrest is threating a breakdown between the Councils and the Iraqi Government. The Awakening Council leader in Baquba in Diyala province has said that he will stop fighting "extremists". US military officers were calling Sunni contacts, promising that they will be defended against both a Government crackdown and will not be abandon to the mercy of Shi'a militias.

The Fadhil episode is graphic testimony to both the difficulties, swept away in the myth of the American "surge", of General David Petraeus' counter-insurgency strategy and the flawed logic of those who insist that US troops have to remain in Iraq to prevent instability.

Thomas Ricks, the Washington Post correspondent who wrote about the fiasco of the US invasion of Iraq but is now a firm proponent of stay-the-military course, wonderfully and ironically demonstrated this in a tangled blog on Tuesday.

Ricks quotes Colonel Pete Mansoor, who was Petraeus's executive officer:

The Status of Forces agreement [of December 2008] would put U.S. forces into a position where they could not intervene to stop the government of Iraq from attacking the SOI [the Awakening Councils or "Sons of Iraq"]. If the Iraqi Security Forces needed help once engaged against the SOI, U.S. forces could be drawn into the fight against the very people who helped us turn the war around.

I certainly hope this doesn't come to pass, but given what we've just seen happen in Baghdad, the possibility is disturbing.

Ricks might draw the obvious conclusion that to bolster its presence in Iraq, the US military struck political deals that are now running aground in the battles between local leaders and the national Government. Instead, he stands logic on its head: the US military needs to stay as more political deals are struck, quoting Joost Hilterman of the International Crisis Group:

Absent the glue that US troops have provided, Iraq's political actors are likely to fight, emboldened by a sense they can prevail, if necessary with outside help. Obama should make sure that the peace he leaves behind is sustainable, lest Bush's war of choice turn into his war of necessity.

And so the Alice-in-Wonderland rationale of occupation continues: if the US stays, it will be entangled in more violence --- but it must stay to prevent more violence.

Playing for Time: Clinton-Obama and the Hague Conference on Afghanistan

Related Post: Text of Clinton Remarks to Hague Conference on Afghanistan

Lots of sound and not much substance (yet). That's the quick summary of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's address to the international conference on Afghanistan at The Hague yesterday.

First and very much foremost, the American priority was tipped off in the final paragraphs of Clinton's statement:

Now the principal focus of our discussions today is on Afghanistan, but we cannot hope to succeed if those who seek to reestablish a haven for violence and extremism operate from sanctuaries just across the border. For this reason, our partnership with Pakistan is critical. Together, we all must give Pakistan the tools it needs to fight extremists within its borders.

As for the continuing vagueness of "What Is to Be Done?" on Afghanistan, CNN's headline grab is a tip-off: "Clinton Backs Talks With Moderate Taliban".

At a superficial glance, that seems dramatic. The US talking to the same people who sheltered Al Qa'eda, who held Afghanistan under a reign of terror until they were toppled at the end of 2001? Here is how Clinton framed the call:

We must...support efforts by the Government of Afghanistan to separate the extremists of al-Qaida and the Taliban from those who joined their ranks not out of conviction, but out of desperation. This is, in fact, the case for a majority of those fighting with the Taliban. They should be offered an honorable form of reconciliation and reintegration into a peaceful society if they are willing to abandon violence, break with al-Qaida, and support the constitution.

All well and good, but who gets approached? Vice President Joe Biden is spreading the good news that 75 percent of Taliban members, with no incentive other than "desperation", can be stripped away from the organisation, but it is unclear how the US or the Afghan Government gets to those members.

In practice, if General Petraeus's model for Iraq is used, the manoeuvres will be with local commanders and leaders who may be persuaded --- by kind words or by lots of money --- to join the right side. In the Petraeus model, however, those former Sunni enemies of the US were already in powers in villages and towns. Is Washington considering a similar offer of political influence to ex-Taliban?

And who is to make the approach? Clinton's statement indicates that this will be "the Government of Afghanistan", and she none-too-subtly opened her remarks with an acknowledgement of "President Karzai, who fills a critical leadership role in his nation, and whose government helped to shape the shared comprehensive and workable strategy that we are discussing today".

Yet only weeks ago, some US officials were putting about the story that Karzai was to be curbed or even removed from power, and Washington was desperate not to let the President call a quick election for April. So is Clinton now signalling --- from reconciliation or from a lack of other options --- that the US will now accept Karzai's lead or equal participation in the political strategy?

Beyond the politics, Clinton offered the reconstruction approach of "the raw material of progress – roads, public institutions, schools, hospitals, irrigation, and agriculture". Again, nothing unexpected in the rhetoric. And again no specifics: earlier this year, the US Government was thinking that European and NATO partners could take the burden of non-military projects but President Obama's declaration last Friday of an expanded US civilian corps indicated that Washington may take the lead.

Clinton's statement tilted towards the former option: "We hope that others gathered here will heed the United Nations’ and Afghan Government’s call for help throughout the country with job creation, technical expertise, vocational training, and investments in roads, electrical transmission lines, education, healthcare, and so much else." At the same time, in another indication that Washington --- for all the charges of corruption leveled at the Karzai Government --- is having to put up with Kabul, Clinton supported "the Government of Afghanistan’s National Development Strategy, the National Solidarity Program, and other initiatives".

There was, however, a possible sting in the tail in Clinton's statement. Having set out a political, security, and economic approach which seemed to be premised on co-operation with the current Afghan Government, she declared:

To earn the trust of the Afghan people, the Afghan Government must be legitimate and respected. This requires a successful election in August – one that is open, free, and fair. That can only happen with strong support from the international community. I am, therefore, pleased to announce today that to advance that goal, the United States is committing $40 million to help fund Afghanistan’s upcoming elections.

Clinton's reference to "open, free, and fair" is jarring, to say the least: were previous Afghan elections --- and thus the rule of Hamid Karzai --- illegitimate? Washington's private assessment has been that the President is likely to win re-election in the summer. So is the US bowing to his continued presence, attempting (rather crudely) to put on a bit of pressure, or still pursuing an alternative leadership?

I don't have an answer. Nor, in my reading, does Washington. The more that one parses the Obama speech of last Friday and the Clinton statement yesterday, the more that it appears that the major objective for the Administration was to have something, anything, before next week's NATO gathering. The US is now clearly on its own militarily, and President Obama, for all that charm, will struggle in getting an expanded non-military commitment from European partners outside Kabul.

This is a "hold the line" approach, trying to ensure that the Taliban does not expand its hold on territory, until the right partnership with the right Government in Kabul can be foreseen. More importantly, the line is to be held until the US can resolve its core problem, which lies not in Afghanistan but across the border in northwest Pakistan.

And those prospects are no closer or clearer from last week's events and announcements.

Israeli Strike on Sudan: Hamas Wins, Darfur Loses

Related Post: ICC Seeks Arrest of Bashir, Sudan Expels Aid Agencies

Sometime in January, several Israeli F-15s and F-16s entered Sudanese airspace and attacked a convoy of 17 trucks, supposedly filled with weapons bound for Hamas in Gaza. The attack killed 39 people, all Eritrean, Sudanese, and Ethiopian nationals, as well as injuring an unknown number of bystanders. The official reasoning was that this was a deterrent to Iran's smuggling of weapons to Hamas, as well as a display of Israel's capability to strike, as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, “everywhere there is terror".

However, this attack may have had catastrophic consequences, not only for Israel's battle against Hamas, but for the US War on Terror, and on a much greater scale, those suffering from the horrible human rights crisis in Darfur. To understand how, we must examine in detail the events leading up to the Israeli attack, the attack itself, and the fallout from the government in Khartoum.

In mid January, the US Ambassador to Liberia, Linda Thomas Greenfield traveled to Khartoum for discussions with Sudan's Foreign Minister Deng Alor. Mrs. Greenfield was there to discuss US-Sudan relations, specifically in the wake of the New Year's assassination of John Granville, a US diplomat working with USAID, as well as disagreements with Sudan over the construction of a new US embassy in Khartoum.

But that may not be all she was there to discuss. According to a report in Al-Sharq al-Awsat, “a senior American official transferred a message to a Sudanese government official and asked him to make sure that the message makes its way to Sudan's leaders in Khartoum so that immediate steps can be taken to put a stop to [Hamas weapon smuggling via Sudan]”. Since Mrs. Greenfield is the only “senior American official” that we know of in Sudan at the time, we can be reasonably sure the message was passed through her or through someone in her entourage.

(If you're feeling really cavalier about circumstantial evidence, it should also be mentioned that Mrs. Greenfield has previously worked for the US in Pakistan and was also a major cheerleader for the creation of AFRICOM, the US military command focusing on Africa.)

How did the US know about weapon smuggling through Sudan? According to Time magazine, “In early January, at the height of Israel's assault on Gaza, Israel's foreign intelligence agency Mossad was told by an informant that Iran was planning a major delivery of 120 tons of arms and explosives to Gaza, including anti-tank rockets and Fajir rockets with a 25 mile range and a 45 kg warhead." The New York Times also cited two anonymous American intelligence sources who reported that an operative from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps had also recently traveled to Sudan, possibly in connection to the shipment.

This information likely passed from Mossad to the Americans, and from there to the leadership in Khartoum. However, the warnings apparently stalled when they passed to Sudanese intelligence officials, who decided to “investigate” the matter further. That's when the Israeli air strike occurred. In fact, the air strike happened so quickly after the American warning that the Sudanese originally accused the Americans of carrying out the strike. With Mrs. Greenfield's meeting on January 13, that means the air strikes likely occurred sometime between January 14 and January 20, when the Israeli campaign against Hamas officially ended.

So the US and Israel are sharing intelligence on Iran, which is news to no one, and the US tried to warn Sudan about Hamas weapons smuggling, which is also unremarkable given the long history of US-Sudan intelligence sharing in the Global War on Terror.

The Israeli jets supposedly flew south down the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea. However, to leave Israel's airspace and fly the coast, the Israeli fighters would have to pass through the high-power beams of French-built Saudi radars at the air force base in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. The Saudi radars are capable of spotting US stealth bombers at a range of 10 miles, which says a lot for its capability at seeing non-stealth Israeli F-15s and F-16s a few hundred miles away.

The Israelis would also have to worry about any one of the Saudi fleet of five E-3 Sentry AWACS, two of which are regularly kept in the air to monitor precious oil installations along the Saudi coast. With a war raging in Gaza and Israeli planes swarming the skies, it is highly unlikely the Saudis chose that time to ground their AWACS for maintenance.

We could ignore these radars if the Israelis had flown fast and low to the ground to avoid detection, but they didn't. When the jets reached the Red Sea, they actually stopped for a mid-air refueling. Israeli fuel tankers are customized Boeing 707s, gigantic planes that are not known for flying either fast or low. At some point during the operation, there were three to six Israeli fighter aircraft hovering over the Red Sea at 35,000 feet attached to a massive, slow-flying tetliner for 30 minutes to an hour.

(This is assuming the Israelis used their indigenous refueling capabilities, as opposed to American tankers, which were reportedly used in the August 2007 strike against Syrian rocket production facilities. The US has denied any American aircraft were involved in this current incident.)

At the point of refueling over the Red Sea, the Israeli jets would have been in the air for roughly two to four hours, which is two to four hours longer than it would have taken the Saudis to scramble jets and intercept. But the Saudis aren't the only ones around with radar. Further south, just past the American military bases in Djibouti and Ethiopia, the Red Sea feeds into the Gulf of Aden.

As of January 2009, some 15 countries were participating in CTF-151, a multinational effort at combating piracy operations around Somalia, Yemen, and the Gulf of Aden. Almost the entire Horn of Africa was being covered with sophisticated naval radars from countries like South Korea, Japan, China, Russia, Turkey, and Germany. It would not be unimaginable for some of these countries, China or Russia for instance, to wander off course and turn their radars on more valuable American and Israeli equipment operating further north. Multiple unknown aircraft idling over the Red Sea would almost certainly draw attention, even from allies of the US and Israel.

So now we have a rather large group of countries who might have seen the Israeli planes on their way to sneak attack Sudan. Saudi Arabia, certainly Egypt, several layers of American commands in Egypt, Djibouti, and Ethiopia, not to mention any countries from CTF-151 who may have been looking north at the time. All of this occurred before the jets even dropped one bomb.

The incident is extremely humiliating for Sudan. However, being a cooperative player in the Global War on Terror, Sudan chose not to retaliate against Israel or the international community who enabled the attack. That is, they did not retaliate until the international community, seemingly with strong US backing, issued an arrest warrant for the President of Sudan via the International Criminal Court. Sudan responded by expelling 10 NGO aid agencies from the relief effort in Sudan's troubled Darfur region.

Is this a conflation of two completely unrelated issues, the ICC warrant and the Israeli air strike? Not at all. In fact, the ICC warrant was almost a coincidence. To understand the connection, we have to go back to the original US-Israeli warning that Hamas was smuggling weapons.

While Israel may have had an informant with information on Iranian weapons shipments, it is unlikely this person would have any specific information on the shipment, such as when it would arrive in Sudan and what route it would take up the coast. Without this information like this, Israel would be unable to intercept the shipment, at least until it was deep into Egypt, and it would be extremely difficult for the Israelis to justify an attack on Egyptian soil. Therefore, we can be reasonably certain that Israel and the Americans have intelligence assets on the ground inside Sudan.

With assets on the ground, information on the time and placement of the weapons shipments would be much easier to discern, especially since Israel seemed to have specific details on the nature of the Iranian weapons (amount, weight, etc). A quick SMS or e-mail from an agent observer to the local Mossad/CIA station chief would be all the notice needed for Israel to launch its air strike.

So how do you position western intelligence assets in a country split between an Arab and African population? Simple, you hide them in relief agencies. And if you want information on smuggling activities, you hide them in relief agencies near the ports.

When Sudan expelled the 10 NGO's, it did not cite the ICC as its reason but rather that these NGO's were in effect breaking Sudanese law by being infiltrated by “western governments and diplomats.” Furthermore, Sudan specifically selected aid agencies working not inside Darfur, but rather those working with refugees from Darfur displaced along the eastern coast of Sudan, particularly those based around Port Sudan.

And there's the connection: Where was the air strike? Port Sudan. Where were the western intelligence assets? Port Sudan. From where were the NGO's expelled? Port Sudan.

The consequences of this are dire. First of all, the suffering of the Sudanese people displaced from Darfur, some 3 million people along the coast, is needlessly and gruesomely exacerbated by the lack of aid coming from the expelled NGOs. Beyond the 39+ deaths from the air strike, there's no telling how many refugee deaths will be caused by the lack adequate care and relief. Second, the US and Israel have lost the ability to infiltrate eastern Sudan through the camouflage of hundreds of faceless western relief workers. Now what was once a rather clever spy operation monitoring Hamas and Iranian smuggling activities has been completely blacked out.

Remember those Saudi radars and the odd visual of aircraft copulating over the Red Sea? This may help explain why  leaders of the Arab world, not normally in a rush to be pictured with war criminals, greeted Sudan's president as a hero at this week's Arab League Summit. Better to shower Sudan with praise and support than risk spiteful damaging revelations from Sudan of Arab complicity in an Israeli attack against another Arab nation. Injustice breeds injustice, and while the Arab world wasn't especially supportive of the ICC to begin with, there is now zero chance its jurisdiction will ever be honored in Sudan, much less the wider Middle East.

There are very good reasons why clandestine, unilateral military attacks are illegal under international law, and with one single air strike, Israel has illustrated those reasons perfectly. Your enemies gain sympathy, your allies stop helping you, and in the case of Darfur, genocide is enabled.