1220 GMT: The excellent analyst Marc Lynch has just made the immediate point, “All the Iraqi lists appear to be claiming victory. I’d wait for official results, which will be a while.” His comment comes a few hours after a CNN correspondent pondered, “Each TV station corresponding to each political bloc saying that they are the winners…hmmm….”
This is the real politics of Iraq, a day after the headlines of bombings and “democracy”. With no party in the position to establish a national majority and indeed, outside Kurdistan, even a regional dominance, the negotiations, coercions, and manipulations take over, even before the preliminary results are announced on Thursday.
In Kurdistan, there is an intriguing contest between the Kurdistan List — made up of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, led by Kurdish Prime Minister Masoud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan led by Iraq President Jalal Talabani — and the Gorran Party, established to break the stranglehold of the KDP and PUK on Kurdish politics. An activist says that Gorran narrowly won in the city of Suleymaniyah and lost in province of the same name; however, Gorran is claiming fraud in the provincial vote. Another activist says that Gorran has also secured seats in Diyala, Mosul, and Salahaddin; however, the Kurdistan List has triumphed by a 2:1 margin in Erbil.
At the main Bazzar inside the city of Kirkuk, three languages are heard simultaneously, Kurdish, Arabic and Turkmani, not in that or any order. Here is the alleged site of the tomb of prophet Daniel, there is a Chaldean Church, here is the Talabani Takiyah and there is the ancient Citadel, here is the Shorjah neighborhood and there is the Rahimawah and Rashidawah neighborhoods and underneath it all 160 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, enough to supply the whole world for 160 years!
While the security situation seems to be slightly better in Kerkuk these days, one still gets the feeling that this city is constantly awaiting its next bombing, everywhere you go, you see heavily armed policemen, wearing bullet-proof vests. On top of each and every police truck, a man in a helmet has his index finger on the trigger of a machine gun, waiting for an order from the officer in the front passenger seat to say “start fire.” Police trucks penetrate through traffic with annoying sirens and occasional multilingual commands over loud speaks, ordering the cars immediately before them to make way or else…
There are no Americans to be seen, per the terms of the Status of Forces Agreement, SoFa, the Americans have retreated back to their bases and are called to duty only at the request and under the command of the Kerkuk police department, officially known as the Directorate of Kerkuk Police. Unlike the other police departments in Iraq, Kerkuk’s is in charge of not only the city center but also the districts (in the rest of Iraq, the Iraqi military handles security in the outer districts). Kerkuk’s outer districts includes the Sunni Arab district of al-Hawijah, which, despite the presence of an awakening council, continues to be, for the most part, a no man’s land. Fighters of al-Hawijah awakening council have had their salaries cut after the security file was transferred to the Iraqis and according to one awakening council leader, the funds have not come in for two months! I could not help but wonder whether the Maliki government is intentionally irritating members of Kerkuk’s awakening councils in order to stir things up ahead of the upcoming elections of which Kerkuk will take part. So I asked whether the al-Anbar awakening council members’ salaries have also been reduced and the negative response confirmed my fears.
I sat there, puzzled: “Is this Kurdistan? Is this the heart of Kurdistan?” The Kurdistan I know and love has no terrorists, nobody wears an armored vest, nobody’s church or mosque is protected by heavily armed policemen. The Kurdistan in which I live has no ethnic tensions, the Kurdistan in which I live, foreigners hail cabs as freely as they would in London or New York, they attend concerts, they even watch baseball and American football on large HDTV sets in Erbil’s newly built T-Bar and Speed Center.
The naive person in me, the idealist person in me started to wonder, why would a Turkman or an Arab NOT want to be part of this prosperous and safe region and instead opt for this oh-so-tense status quo?
With that thought and with the bright flames of the Baba Gurgur oilfield behind me, I sped through the Kerkuk-Erbil highway and came back to Erbil, just in time to catch Dolphins-Patriots game, in which Patriots were, of course victorious!
General Raymond Odierno’s battlefield is Iraq, where he supervises US troops. For months, he has been unhappy over the Obama plan to reduce American forces. So, only weeks after the compromise of a 19-month withdrawal was announced, Odierno has returned to the attack.
C-SPAN has posted the full video of President Obama’s speech today in Ankara: “Turkey and the United States must stand together and work together to overcome the challenges of our time.” Here is an extract from CNN:
OBAMA: Mr. Speaker, Madam Deputy Speaker, distinguished members, I am honored to speak in this chamber, and I am committed to renewing the alliance between our nations and the friendship between our people.
This is my first trip overseas as President of the United States. I have been to the G-20 Summit in London, the NATO Summit in Strasbourg and Kehl, and the European Union Summit in Prague. Some people have asked me if I chose to continue my travels to Ankara and Istanbul to send a message. My answer is simple: Evet. Turkey is a critical ally. Turkey is an important part of Europe. And Turkey and the United States must stand together – and work together – to overcome the challenges of our time. Read the rest of this entry »
Brent Scowcroft, the former National Security adviser under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush and the former Chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under George W. Bush, gave an interview to the Aksam newspaper as the Chairman of the American Turkish Council in Turkey last week. This interview is important because General Scowcroft’s confessions are shocking!
He stated that the PJAK, the Iranian wing of the PKK operating against Iranian armed forces, was supported and encouraged by the Bush Administration. The 84-year-old former adviser added that the US administration did not want to go after PKK forces during the Iraq War as the Northern part was more quiet than the Southern fronts where they were waging a war; whereas the situation changed with the Obama Administration.
Here is the full transcript of the related part of the interview conducted by the Turkish journalist Nagehan Alci:
The episode shows again that, despite political conflict and individual statements such as Mizrahi’s, Israeli and Turkish armies do not have the luxury of tolerating any interference that can harm the special relationship between their institutions.
I’m not sure Scheffer appreciates that European leaders thinking the military-first initiative in Afghanistan, as a dubious if not losing cause, will drain the alliance rather than bolster it. German Chancellor Angela Merkel paid lip service to the military effort but did not commit to additional deployment, especially in southern and central Afghanistan, while French President Nicolas Sarkozy, for all his warm talk of security “from Vancouver to Vladivostok”, did not mention Afghanistan at all.
3 p.m. Hope in Somalia? The new President, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, has arrived in Mogadishu for the first time since his election. He will be holding talks with politicians, tribal elders, and Islamic resistance groups to try to establishing a functioning government.
1:40 p.m. Reason Number 452 why the Obama Plan for Iraq Withdrawal Should be Set Aside: Collapsing Oil Prices.
The latest effort from the US military to rationalise a long-term stay comes from Lieutenant General Frank Helmick, the commander of the training of Iraqi forces. Because of diminished revenues, Helmick says, “They are not going to be able to grow as fast as they want to grow.”
12:15 p.m. Biden’s speech is over. He finally got to the one to watch in next weeks, calling on NATO to support US efforts in Afghanistan.
12:05 p.m. Biden offers two important confirmations: “American will not torture” and “American will act aggressively against climate change”.
There are also signs of an emerging and important relationship: after Nicolas Sarkozy’s call this morning for a new security arrangement “from Vancouver to Vladivostok”, Biden has pointedly praised France’s new cooperative relationship with NATO.
And there’s a jab at Russia: “”We will not recognize any nation having a sphere of influence”. Specifically, US will not join Moscow in recognising the independence of South Ossetia.
Stuart Levey, U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, stated that PEJAK is a branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is battling Turkey has been struggling. (Ali Yenidunya)
8:20 a.m. And there’s a separate entry on the continuing battle between President Obama and the military over the build-up of US troops in Afghanistan.
8:10 a.m. We’ve just posted a separate entry on a possible State Department initiative, using Twitter, to support engagement with Iran.
Morning Update (7:45 a.m. GMT; 2:45 a.m. Washington): The Kyrgyzstan Government is not backing down on its decision to close the US Manas airbase. President Kurmanbek Bakiyev said that “all due procedures” were being pursued for a speedy conclusion.
The Government is claiming that it receives too little payment for the base. In support of its case, and to ensure public support, it is also citing ecological concerns and highlighting the case of a Kyrgyz citizen killed by a US serviceman.
North Korea, offering a contrast to its hard-line rhetoric in recent days about relations with South Korea and its missile programme, has signalled to a former senior US diplomat that it is willing to discuss nuclear disarmament if its requests for aid are met.
Current Obamameter Reading: Cloudy with Signs of Thunder
7:45 p.m. “The Cable” reports that US intelligence analysts from the office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Intelligence Council will hold a closed/Top Secret/Codeword briefing on Iran for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday afternoon.
5:20 p.m. Complications and possibly worse from Sunday’s provincial elections in Iraq. Tribal leaders in Anbar Province, upset at the apparent dominance of the Sunni religious Iraqi Islamic Party, have claimed widespread fraud and threatened violence if the results are upheld. The head of the Anbar Tribes List warned:
We will set the streets of Ramadi ablaze if the Islamic Party is declared the winners of the election. We will make Anbar a grave for the Islamic Party and its agents. We will start a tribal war against them and those who cooperate with them.
The turnout in parts of Anbar was as low as 25 percent.
5:15 p.m. More trouble in Somalia, only days after the election of a new President. Reports of 16 to 39 dead after a roadside bomb targeting African Union peacekeepers exploded, and the soldiers opened fire in response.
1220 GMT: The excellent analyst Marc Lynch has just made the immediate point, “All the Iraqi lists appear to be claiming victory. I’d wait for official results, which will be a while.” His comment comes a few hours after a CNN correspondent pondered, “Each TV station corresponding to each political bloc saying that they are the winners…hmmm….”
Brent Scowcroft, the former National Security adviser under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush and the former Chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under George W. Bush, gave an interview to the 
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