17 March SWJ Roundup (SWJ Blog)

Preliminary results from Iraq's parliamentary elections show a coalition led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has pulled ahead in the vote count. Iraqi officials said Tuesday the Iraqiya faction of Mr. Allawi, a secular Sh'ite, has about 9,000 more votes than the coalition of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. About 80 percent of the votes have been counted. Early results also show that Mr. Maliki's State of Law coalition still leads in seven of Iraq's 18 provinces, including Baghdad and southern provinces such as Basra, where many parliamentary seats are allocated. Mr. Allawi is ahead in five provinces. The main Kurdish coalition, the Kurdistan Alliance, is ahead in the three provinces in the Kurdistan region. No faction is expected to win an outright majority, which means the leading parties will likely have to build a coalition government.

-- Voice of America

The followers of Moktada al-Sadr, a radical cleric who led the Shiite insurgency against the American occupation, have emerged as Iraq’s equivalent of Lazarus in elections last week, defying ritual predictions of their demise and now threatening to realign the nation’s balance of power. Their apparent success in the March 7 vote for Parliament - perhaps second only to the followers of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki as the largest Shiite bloc - underscores a striking trend in Iraqi politics: a collapse in support for many former exiles who collaborated with the United States after the 2003 invasion. Although rivals disparaged the Sadrists’ election campaign, documents and interviews show an unprecedented discipline that has thrust the group to the brink of perhaps its greatest political influence in Iraq.

-- New York Times

Roughly 2,000 contractors are working to train the Afghan army, about the same as the number of military personnel doing the job, according to a senior U.S. military official, who cited a shortage of available service members. "We don't have all the green-suiters [military personnel] we need," said Army Maj. Gen. David Hogg, deputy commander of the NATO training mission for the Afghan army, during a conference call from Kabul. Hogg said that his group is short more than 1,000 trainers, even counting personnel pledged by NATO countries, and that he is looking to fill the gap with the transfer of an American battalion. Contractors are used at every level of training, from those who teach recruits how to read and write to those teaching advanced English to cadets at the Afghan version of West Point so they can go to the United States for pilot training.

-- Washington Post

In the face of bipartisan concern over U.S. criticism of Israeli policies, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday reiterated the administration's demand for a "full commitment" to peace talks from Israel but also ever so slightly bolstered her rhetorical support for the Jewish state. Clinton told reporters in Washington that the United States has an "absolute commitment to Israel's security" - a shift in nuance compared with her characterization Friday of the United States as a "strong supporter" of Israel's security. She also hailed the "close, unshakable bond" between the two countries, in contrast to her comment Friday that "our relationship is durable and strong."

-- Washington Post

The slayings of three people attached to the U.S. Consulate here underscore the failings of Mexico's military offensive against drug gangs despite a steady flow of troop reinforcements and personal attention from President Felipe Calderon. Calderon came to Ciudad Juarez on Tuesday for the third time in 33 days. The trip had been previously scheduled, but its agenda was overtaken by the consulate slayings - the American couple and Mexican man are just three of the 500 people killed in the city this year alone. The president encountered angry demonstrations, as on his previous visits, and a citizenry that is tense, frustrated and increasingly hopeless. "We Are Fed Up, Mr. President," read the banner headline in Ciudad Juarez's leading newspaper, El Diario.

-- Los Angeles Times

Afghanistan and Pakistan
Petraeus: Success in Afghanistan Achievable - American Forces Press Service
U.S. Fights Trainer Shortage, Illiteracy in Afghanistan - Washington Post
NATO Commander Reins in Special Forces - The Times
Afghanistan Says It Enacted Law to Pardon War Crimes - Reuters