Gaza: OK, So What's the Endgame?

As the death toll climbs above 300 and Israel threatens the next step of a ground invasion of Gaza, Juan Cole puts the point concisely:

What I can't understand is the end game here. The Israelis have pledged to continue their siege of the civilians of Gaza, and have threatened to resume assassinating Hamas political leaders, along with the bombardment....Do the Israelis expect the population at some point to turn against Hamas, blaming it for the blockade and the bombardment? But by destroying what was left of the Gaza middle class, surely they a throwing people into the arms of Hamas.

Rhetorically, the Israeli Government is pressing ahead, with Defense Minister Ehud Barak telling the Knesset, Israel's Parliament, "This is an all-out war against Hamas and its branches." This has been backed up by a Cabinet call-up of 7000 reservists, a step which should be approved by the Knesset on Monday.

Airstrikes continue, with the Hamas Interior Ministry amongst the latest targets. But as it becomes clear that, for all the destruction, the political situation in Gaza has not changed --- Hamas is still in control --- Israel faces its next decision. How many of the troops and infantry now massing on the border are sent across?

Ethan Bronner inadvertently captures the difficulty in a rather confused piece in The New York Times. He parrots the official but rather misleading line of "Israeli military commanders" that "they did not intend to reoccupy the coastal strip of 1.5 million Palestinians or to overthrow the Hamas government there". The aim is “to stop the firing against our civilians in the south and shape a different and new security situation there.”

Yet Bronner opens his piece with the assertion that the broader Israel objective is "to expunge the ghost of its flawed 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and re-establish Israeli deterrence".

A moment's reflection would highlight the contradiction, and thus the problem, for Israel. The 2006 war was not one of "deterrence". It was an attempt to shatter Hezbollah as an effective political and military force.

That attempt failed because, after Israel had inflicted all its military might in Lebanon, Hezbollah still remained, killing Israeli forces and avoiding its final destruction. More importantly, the organisation was politically stronger, a boost which means that today it is a key player in the future of the country.

So, to return to Juan Cole, who also notes the 2006 precedent of Israel bolstering, rather than breaking, its enemies:

By refusing to negotiate with Hamas, Israel and the United States leave only a military option on the table. The military option isn't going to resolve the problem by itself.

Meanwhile, the ripples of Gaza spread across the Middle East. The inaction of Arab Governments is prompting large demonstrations by their populations, criticising not only Israel and the United States but their own political leaders.

Stories to Watch After Christmas: Afghanistan and Somalia

AFGHANISTAN SURGE: THE US MAKES IT FIRST MOVE

From McClatchy News Services:

The U.S. Marines are considering requesting two battalions and a combat aviation unit in Taliban-controlled southern Afghanistan, which would be the largest proposed expansion of U.S. troops in the volatile region, two senior Marine commanders.


If approved, the move would involve roughly 3,000 Marines and support staff, and it would mark the Marines' shift from the once-restive Anbar province in Iraq to places such as Helmand and Farah provinces in southern Afghanistan, which U.S. and NATO officials concede that Taliban forces have overrun.

BUT IN EASTERN AFGHANISTAN, IT'S THE TALIBAN IN CONTROL

From The New York Times:

Attacks provide the latest evidence of how extensively militants now rule the critical region east of the Khyber Pass, the narrow cut through the mountains on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border that has been a strategic trade and military gateway since the time of Alexander the Great.

The area encompasses what is officially known as the Khyber Agency, which is adjacent to Peshawar and is one of a handful of lawless tribal districts on the border. But security in Khyber has deteriorated further in recent months with the emergence of a brash young Taliban commander who calls news conferences to thumb his nose at NATO forces, as well as with public fury over deadly missile attacks by American remotely piloted aircraft.

SOMALIA: THE LOST AMERICAN INTERVENTION

Two years after the US-prompted regime change that forced the Islamic Courts out of power in Mogadishu, this from The Washington Post:

Advisers to Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf said Wednesday that he would yield to mounting internal and international pressure and resign over the weekend, but officials close to him insisted the situation remained dynamic.

Talk of Yusuf's impending resignation came as the prime minister he appointed last week quit, saying he wanted to end the political infighting that has paralyzed Somalia's transitional government as an Islamist militia has advanced across the southern half of the country.

From the Iraq Archives: When is Permanent not Permanent? (21 June 2008)

In a week when Secretary of Defense Robert Gates predicted that "several tens of thousands of American troops" will be staying in Iraq beyond 2011 and when The New York Times finally noticed the "disquieting talk in Washington", here is a Watching America blog from June that was already foreseeing American withdrawal as a necessary but partial fiction:

WHEN IS PERMANENT NOT PERMANENT? THE US BASES IN IRAQ

Last Friday morning the BBC's flagship radio programme, Today, turned its eagle-eyed attention to a proposed agreement between the US and Iraqi Governments. This which would provide a mandate for the continued presence of the American military, replacing the current UN-sanctioned mandate which expires at the end of 2008.


What ensued was a propaganda piece which not verged on falsehood but sprinted over the line. Correspondent Jim Muir, evaluating the situation from deep inside the Green Zone, assured listeners that the "Status of Forces" agreement was essential to prevent Iraq from falling into disorder. A platform was then offered to retired General Jack Keane, the man "behind the surge strategy in Iraq", to lay down the law, so to speak.

Any Iraqi opposition, Keane assured, was due to the "hubris" of the apparent Iraqi success in establishing control of areas such as Basra and Sadr City. Iraqi security forces still were in need of American support. (Thus, as the expertise of Jon Stewart's The Daily Show has long noted, the perfect argument: If there is instability in Iraq, we need to put in more American forces; if there is some sign of stability, we need to keep those forces there.)

Having put America's supposed ally in its place, Keane could then add that there was no provision in the agreement --- none whatsoever --- for the US to carry out aerial operations without the authorisation of the Iraqi Government. No provision, none whatsoever, for the exemption of American military forces from Iraqi law.

The only problem is that Keane was blatantly lying. And the BBC, had it had the integrity that it claimed in its report, could easily have called up the evidence to show he was lying.

They could have done so because, the day before their report, Patrick Cockburn of the Independent had spectacularly exposed the provisions of the agreement. The US Government is seeking an indefinite right to use more than 50 bases throughout Iraq. And (take note, General Keane) "American negotiators are also demanding immunity from Iraqi law for US troops and contractors, and a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting the Baghdad government".

(Cockburn had a bit more the following day. Far from this being a free-and-fair negotiation, the US Government was threatening a "freeze" on $50 billion of Iraqi assets in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The funds are linked to $20 billion in outstanding court judgements in the US against the Iraqi Government. Currently the US Government has kept them "immune" from seizure, but they are threatening to revoke this immunity if there is a hitch in the negotations over the Status of Forces Agreement.)

All credit to Cockburn for pulling this together, but this is far from a new story. The negotiation has been going on for months and, as was discussed during the most recent Petraeus-Crocker show before the US Congress, the Bush Administration is avoiding any reference to the agreement as a "treaty" to avoid putting it up for Congressional approval.

The story has taken on new impetus, however, not just because of the 31 July deadline set for its completion but because of the growing opposition --- private and public --- in Iraq. Unnoticed by most media outlets in the US and Britain, thousands of Iraqis have been taking to the street in demonstrations. Leading clerics in Iraq, including Ayatollah Sistani and Grand Ayatollah Mudaressi, have not only objected but warned of "a popular uprising". The issue may lay behind a serious split in the Iraqi Government, with former Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari being expelled from current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa Party.

And, in the latest development, the Status of Forces Agreement now appears to be playing into the hands of Iran. Only last month, the US Government spin was that Iraqi officials were travelling to Tehran to chastise the Iranians for providing weapons to insurgents. Well, Prime Minister al-Maliki was in Iran last week and --- guess what? --- Iranian duplicity wasn't the Number One item on his agenda.

Instead, al-Maliki is all but pleading with the Iranians to lift their opposition to the agreement, assuring Tehran that “we will not allow Iraq to become a platform for harming the security of Iran and its neighbors”. Significantly, according to reports of the talks, the Iraqi delegation was discussing with Iranian counterparts increased cooperation on issues such as border control and intelligence.

The SOFA episode is the ultimate demonstration, as the Bush Administration approaches its end, of the "hubris" not of Iraqi but American over-confidence. To the end, the US is trying to play a military hand in the belief that the presence of its equipment and troops assures power (not to the Iraqis, I hasten to add, but to Washington). The game, however, is now more political than military. As Iraqi support --- on the street, amongst the clerics, and within political factions --- erodes for the purported US "cooperation", American force is now a bystander. A far-from-powerless bystander, to be sure, but still a bystander as the "new Iraq" emerges in a complex local and regional environment that can no longer be organised by agreements despatched from Washington.

Update on Muntazar al-Zaidi: "His Was a Democratic Act"

With the trial date set for Muntazar al-Zaidi and with limited visits to the journalist by lawyers and family, the story has gone quiet. There are no updates of significance today.

In this lull, an opinion piece by Roger Cohen in The New York Times is worth reading. It's muddled, at times outrageously simplistic ("Iraq is slowly learning the give-and-take of a system where differences are accommodated rather than quashed"), but at its heart is this essential defence of al-Zaidi's act:

Al-Zaidi’s gesture broke those barriers, penetrated the hermetic sealing, and brought Red-Zone anger to Green-Zone placidity. In this sense, his was a democratic act.

What it said was: “Tear down these walls.” What it summoned was the deaths, exile and arbitrary arrests that U.S. incompetence has inflicted on countless Iraqis — a toll on which al-Zaidi has reported. What it did was thrust Bush, for a moment, out of the comfort zone of his extravagant illusion.



Two Shoes for Democracy

Of all the questions Barack Obama needs to ask right now, the most important should be addressed to the Secret Service: how the heck did Muntader al-Zaidi get his second shoe off?

Al-Zaidi, of course, is the Iraqi television journalist who expressed his rage at the U.S. occupation of his country by hurling first one shoe, then the other, at President George W. Bush in Baghdad. He’s now in detention.

As for his shoes, they’re not going to end up on some gilded stand in a dusty museum somewhere in the Arab world. They’ve apparently been destroyed at a laboratory during a search for explosives.

Yes, you read that right.

The shadow of Richard Reid, the would-be shoe-bomber of 2001 whom most regular air travelers would happily submit to protracted torture, extends even to Iraq. One thing’s for sure: al-Zaidi, now a hero in much of the Arab world, won’t be short of replacement footwear once he emerges from captivity.

When that will be is anyone’s guess. He’s apologized to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. Bush has urged the Iraqis “not to overreact.”

One theory is that time enough is needed for the journalist’s bruises to fade. One certainty is that the pummeling he got was as intense as the reaction to what he did was slow. A second shoe is one too many. Change the last letter in shoe and you have shot.

These, however, were mere shoes. The throwing of them was offensive — and harmless. Journalists should not throw shoes, even at inept American presidents. Still, with apologies to the late E. M. Forster, I’m tempted to call this incident: “Two Shoes for Democracy.”

Bush, when the shoes came his way, was in the Green Zone, the walled four-square-mile home to Western officialdom and the Iraqi government that has about as much in common with the rest of Iraq as Zurich has with Falluja.

For all it reflects of Iraqi life beyond its walls in what is sometimes called the Red Zone, the Green Zone might as well be in Baton Rouge.

This sprawling urban garrison, where U.S. forces moved into Saddam Hussein’s Mesopotamian Fascist Republican Palace right after the 2003 invasion, is a monument to failure. As long it exists in the center of Baghdad, Iraqi democracy will be hollow.

It is openness, accessibility and accountability that distinguish democracies from dictatorships. Or it should be. A country governed from a fortress inaccessible to 99 percent of its citizens may be many things, but is not yet a democracy.

Al-Zaidi’s gesture broke those barriers, penetrated the hermetic sealing, and brought Red-Zone anger to Green-Zone placidity. In this sense, his was a democratic act.

What it said was: “Tear down these walls.” What it summoned was the deaths, exile and arbitrary arrests that U.S. incompetence has inflicted on countless Iraqis — a toll on which al-Zaidi has reported. What it did was thrust Bush, for a moment, out of the comfort zone of his extravagant illusion. Perhaps, for a second, the other shoe dropped.

After the incident, I heard from a U.S. friend now serving in the joint security station in Sadr City, the teeming Shiite district of Baghdad from which al-Zaidi hailed. He wrote: “We did not get a fusillade of shoes thrown over the concrete barriers and razor wire. One college engineering student in Sadr basically said re the press conference incident: ‘Well that’s the democracy you brought us, right?’”

Or rather, it was a glimmering of such a democracy. Anyone throwing a shoe at Saddam Hussein would have been executed, along with numerous other members of his family, plus assorted friends, within hours of such an incident. Iraq is slowly learning the give-and-take of a system where differences are accommodated rather than quashed.

But the process is slow. Recovering from murderous despotism takes a minimum of a generation.

Al-Zaidi’s anger was that of a Shia — at the U.S. occupation and at all the loss. There is fury and fear, too, among Sunnis, whose “awakening” dealt a devastating blow to Al Qaeda in Iraq but whose mistrust of the now-dominant Shia is visceral. Another of Obama’s pressing questions should be: does my 16-month withdrawal timetable risk re-igniting sectarian war?

One thing is certain: before the United States pulls out its combat troops, the Green Zone must cease to exist. While it’s there, it’s a sign that Iraqis — all Iraqis — have not yet learned to live together. The district chairman in Sadr City said this to my U.S. friend last week: “The Green Zone needs to be deleted.”

That was the message in al-Zaidi’s gesture. He’s being held for insulting a foreign leader and could face long imprisonment. But the Green Zone is an insult to all Iraqis. Al-Zaidi should be released and an Iraqi-American commission on terminating the Green Zone established at once.

Bush dodged a shoe; he cannot dodge shame.

Update on Muntazar al-Zaidi: Brother Confirms "Torture"

The Iraqi Government's blocking of any news of Muntazar al-Zaidi's status, as politics turns to other issues such as the showdown over the status of the troops from Britain and five other countries, is almost complete today --- at least in the "Western" media.

The only story of significance is in The New York Times, reporting on the first visit to al-Zaidi by a family member. Speaking on al-Baghdadia television after the visit, al-Zaidi's brother Uday claimed that his brother had been "tortured". Muntazar al-Zaidi was stripped to his underwear, had cold water dumped on him, and was hit with a thick cable. Earlier beatings and burnings by cigarettes had left him with "bruises on his face, stitches on the bridge of his nose and swelling in his legs, arms and hands".

After the treatment, Muntazar al-Zaidi "told [his captors] to bring me a blank sheet of paper and I would sign it, and they could write whatever they wanted. I am ready to say I am a terrorist or whatever you want.” He added, however, that he did not write or sign anything as a result of the beatings and that his letter to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had not been coerced.

Significantly, the Times did not bother to follow up on the Al Baghdadia interview, for example, by noting the reports in Sunday's The Observer of Muntazar al-Zaidi's beating on his way to the police station. The reporter did call al-Maliki's office who --- unsurprisingly --- declined to make any comment.

Disturbingly, al-Zaidi has not been allowed to see lawyers. There is no information on when he might come to trial.