|
|||||
|
|||||
Lindsey Graham's Realism – David Broder, Washington Post
Now that the president has endorsed the Petraeus-Crocker plan for Iraq, it is worth noting one exchange from their Senate hearings.
Some senators, such as Barbara Boxer of California, were so self-absorbed they could not manage to ask a single question in their allotted time, even when they had Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker ready to provide answers.
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is not like that. An Air Force Reserve officer, Graham is an incisive questioner whose unexpected and provocative inquiries often produce revealing answers, whether the subject is Iraq, immigration or a Supreme Court nomination.
A Republican with a notable record of independence, Graham has been an outspoken advocate of the surge strategy -- claiming real success on the ground and urging its continuation…
Somebody Else’s Mess – Thomas Friedman, New York Times (subscription required)
George W. Bush delivered his farewell address on Thursday evening — handing the baton, and probably the next election, to the Democrats.
Why do I say that? Because in his speech to the nation the president basically said that on the most important, indeed only, legacy issue left in his presidency, Iraq, there would be no change in policy — that a substantial number of U.S. troops would remain in Iraq “beyond my presidency.” Therefore, it will be up to his successor to end the war he started.
“In one fell swoop George Bush abdicated to Petraeus, Maliki and the Democrats,” said David Rothkopf, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment, referring to Gen. David Petraeus and the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki. “Bush left it to Petraeus to handle the war, Maliki to handle our timetable and therefore our checkbook, and the Democrats to ultimately figure out how to end this.”
The sad thing for the American people is that we have no commander in chief anymore, framing our real situation and options. The president’s description on Thursday of the stakes in Iraq was delusional. An Iraqi ally fighting for “freedom” against “extremists”? There are extremists in the Iraqi government, army and police. There is a civil war on top of tribal, neighborhood and jihadist wars, fueled not by a single Iraqi quest for freedom, but by differing quests for “justice,” revenge and, yes, democracy. The only possible self-sustaining outcome in the near term is some form of radical federalism…
From Hope to Fear in Iraq – Jim Hoagland, Washington Post
Dreams of spreading democracy through the Arab world shaped President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003. But nightmares keep him -- and U.S. troops -- ensnared there.
The transformation from dream to nightmare illuminates Bush's goals and forward strategy in Iraq more clearly than does last week's deluge of reports, testimony to Congress, stump speeches by presidential candidates and Bush's own statements. In fact, the word-storm served to obscure the shift from hope to fear as the driving force in U.S. policy on Iraq.
The thrust and parry of spin and counter-spin resembled the stuff of ephemera rather than the stuff of history. Cool, competent performances by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on Capitol Hill aimed at buying six to nine more months for something to turn up, as the two men honestly if indirectly acknowledged…
What They’re Saying in Anbar Province – Gary Langer, New York Times
In his address to the nation on Thursday, President Bush singled out progress in Anbar Province as the model for United States success in Iraq. The president’s claims echoed those made earlier in the week by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, in his Congressional testimony. And they raised a question worth examining: Do United States military alliances with Sunni tribal leaders truly reflect a turning of hearts and minds away from Anbar’s bitter anti-Americanism?
The data from our latest Iraq poll suggest not.
Al Qaeda, it should be said, is overwhelmingly — almost unanimously — unpopular in Anbar, as it is in the rest of Iraq. But our enemies’ enemies are not necessarily our friends. The United States, it turns out, is equally unpopular there.
In a survey conducted Aug. 17-24 for ABC News, the BBC and NHK, the Japanese broadcaster, among a random national sample of 2,212 Iraqis, 72 percent in Anbar expressed no confidence whatsoever in United States forces. Seventy-six percent said the United States should withdraw now — up from 49 percent when we polled there in March, and far above the national average…
‘You Have Liberated a People’ – Fouad Ajami, Wall Street Journal
"We liberated the Anbar, we defeated al Qaeda by denying it religious cover," Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Reisha said with a touch of pride and impatience. This was the dashing tribal leader who emerged as the face of the new Sunni accommodation with American power, and who was assassinated by al Qaeda last week. I had not been ready for his youth (born in 1971), nor for his flamboyance. Sir David Lean, the legendary director of "Lawrence of Arabia," would have savored encountering this man. There was style, and an awareness of it, in Abu Reisha: his brown abaya bordered with gold thread, a neat white dishdasha, and a matching headdress. "Our American friends had not understood us when they came, they were proud, stubborn people and so were we. They worked with the opportunists, now they have turned to the tribes, and this is as it should be. The tribes hate religious parties and religious fakers."
We were in Baghdad, and the sheikh gave me his narrative. There was both candor and evasion in the story he told. Al Qaeda and its Arab jihadists had found sanctuary and support in the Anbar; they had recruited the "criminal elements" and the "lowly," they had brought zeal and bigotry unknown to the Iraqis. Initially welcomed, they began to impose their own tyranny. They declared haram (impermissible) the normal range of social life. They banned cigarettes, they married the daughters of decent families without the permission of their elders. They violated the great code of decent society by "shedding the blood of travelers on routine voyages." The prayer leaders of mosques were bullied, then murdered.
Abu Reisha and a small group of like-minded men, he said, came together to challenge al Qaeda. "We fought with our own weapons. I myself fought al Qaeda with my own funds. The Americans were slow to understand our sahwa, our awakening. But they have come around of late. The Americans are innocent; they don't know Iraq. But all this is in the past, and now the Americans have a wise and able military commander on the scene, and the people of the Anbar have found their way. In the Anbar, they now know that the menace comes from Iran, not from the Americans." …
Poppy Paradox in Afghanistan - Paul Fishstein, Boston Globe
Afghanistan’s opium output has risen for another year, and with it the volume of the debate over solutions. On opposite extremes are the US government, which advocates a more aggressive, eradication-led approach, including chemical spraying, and the Senlis Council, which advocates the legalization of opium poppy cultivation to meet a claimed worldwide shortage of painkillers.
While these proposals may satisfy a hunger to hear simple solutions, both would exacerbate the problem.
Those advocating spraying claim that, largely due to corruption among government officials, all else has failed, and that a strong message must be sent to farmers. Yet, in an economy with an estimated 40 percent unemployment, it is not clear what would replace the one-third of Afghanistan's economy which would be destroyed.
Those advocating legalization claim that Afghanistan's problems with opium arise from its illegality and that legalization of production would reduce corruption, crime, and violence. Yet, in attributing much if not all of the unrest in southern Afghanistan to western drug policies, the legalizers ignore the other major causes of unrest, including criminality, corruption (much of it nondrug-related), resistance to foreign forces, and the support of groups across the border in Pakistan…
Cooling the Clash with Iran – David Ignatius, Washington Post
Overarching the Middle East like a dark canopy is the growing confrontation between the United States and Iran. The test of wills is sometimes obscured by the daily war news from Iraq, but it has become the main event in the region -- carrying dangers of wider war and also some new opportunities for creative diplomacy.
The spillover of U.S.-Iranian tension was evident this summer when Israeli intelligence detected signs that Syria was mobilizing its military. The Israelis put their own forces on heightened alert. They also contacted Damascus through intermediaries to warn against miscalculation.
The surprising return message from Damascus was that the Syrians feared a chain of escalation that would begin with a U.S. attack on Iran. Damascus anticipated that Iran would retaliate by ordering its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, to launch rocket attacks on Israel; the Israelis in turn would attack Syria, which provides military and political support for Hezbollah. Israeli officials are said to have concluded that Damascus's war mobilization, while worrisome, was basically defensive…
The Other Mideast Conflict – Boston Globe editorial
Inevitably, debate about an endgame for the Iraq war has been dominating political discourse in the United States. But another fateful matter is looming: the November summit in Washington, at which Israelis, Palestinians, and leaders from Arab states will be encouraged to draw up principles to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This will be a risky, difficult undertaking. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is politically weak, and so is Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. There are determined spoilers waiting to sabotage any meaningful accord or exploit a flagrant failure. Still, the summit is a gamble worth taking.
Israel needs the security and regional acceptance that can only come with a negotiated end to its occupation of the West Bank. The Palestinians, riven by the rivalry between Abbas's Fatah faction and the Islamist movement Hamas, face a future of fragmentation, impoverishment, and manipulation by regional powers if they fail to negotiate a two-state peace agreement soon with Israel…
Defeating Terror the British Way – Nick Clegg, London Times
Protecting long-standing British liberties, while equipping ourselves against Al-Qaeda, is one of the greatest political dilemmas facing us today. How do we remain a liberal society at a time of heightened public fear?
The government’s initial response in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks was to introduce a volley of new anti-terror laws, some of which were good, many of which need revisiting. Tony Blair, and John Reid as his last home secretary, indulged in spine-chilling rhetoric about the terrorist threat, in part to justify their legislative hyperactivity and to crush any concerns about the effect on British civil liberties and due process.
Thankfully, the tone of the political debate is now starting to change. Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith appear to have abandoned much of the breathless Blairite rhetoric. But on substance they appear determined to pursue exactly the same legislative course.
So this autumn will be an important test for all parties, especially the government, to demonstrate their ability to forge a national consensus on terrorism, and to strike the right balance between our liberties and our safety…
-----