CharlesVermeulen.com - Weblog Charles Vermeulen: The Middle East

The De-Baathification of Iraq: Really a Misstep? · 26 October 2007, 12:43 CET by Charles Vermeulen

After the invasion of Iraq in 2003 the U.S.-led occupation forces banned all members of the Baath party from the new government, as well as from public schools and colleges. By some this was considered a misstep, because it meant that dozens of experienced technocrats and other employees weren’t available anymore for the reconstruction process of Post-Saddam Iraq. Furthermore it spread anger and resentment among Iraq’s Sunni population who lost their traditional position of power. Recommendation 27 of the Iraq Study Group Report (page 45) therefore reads: ‘Political reconciliation requires the reintegration of Baathists and Arab nationalists into national life, with the leading figures of Saddam Hussein’s regime excluded. The United States should encourage the return of qualified Iraqi professionals—Sunni or Shia, nationalist or ex-Baathist, Kurd or Turkmen or Christian or Arab—into the government.’ But was it really such a bad idea to purge rigorously Iraqi society from members of the Baath party? Currently I’m reading the Dutch translation of Anna Politkovskaya’s Putin’s Russia (Pocket edition, Breda 2005) in which she discusses, among other things, the rise to power of current Russian president Vladimir Putin. According to Politkovskaya possibly more than 6,000 KGB / FSB officials followed Putin when he became President and now occupy key positions in Russia’s key institutions. This means that Russia’s new power structures ‘are chockful of citizens’ who grew up in a tradition in which repression is valued as a proper solution for governmental problems. Only a radical purge, Politkovskaya impassionedly argued, would have sufficed to prevent the current outcome, which she deeply deplored. (pages 130-131)

anna politkovskaya, de-baathification, fsb, iraq, kgb, politkovskaya, putin, putin's russia, russia

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Gideon Rachman's Optimism About a Nuclear Iran · 3 August 2007, 20:32 CET by Charles Vermeulen

In his column in the Financial Times – this time entitled ‘Nuclear apocalypse: the good news’ (July 23, 2007) – Gideon Rachman refers to a poll among foreign politics experts published last year in the Atlantic, which showed that only 14 per cent of them thought that Iran might use its nuclear weapons offensively, to prove that also a nuclear Iran will be cautious not to provoke a nuclear retaliation attack. In other words: even in the case of a nuclear Iran the doctrine of mutual assured destruction would remain applicable. Off course, assuming that the experts are right, the world would be better of with an Iran which is not willing to use bomb than an Iran that is willing to use it. Nonetheless, a nuclear Iran is far from desirable. In a previous posting I discussed Scott D. Sagan’s ‘How to Keep the Bomb From Iran’, an article in Foreign Affairs (September / October edition, 2006, page 45-59). In his article Sagan deems optimism about the risks of a nuclear Iran (‘deterence optimism’) as misplaced, among other things because possession of the bomb might embolden Iran to a more aggressive foreign policy, for example by means of Hezbollah. Click here to the read the whole posting.

atom bomb, gideon rachman, hezbollah, iran, nuclear iran, proliferation

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Sean Smith’s 'Inside the Surge' · 21 July 2007, 10:53 CET by Charles Vermeulen

Screenshot of Sean Smith’s video ‘Inside the Surge’

"We are supposed to be on the way home right now. We were to be flying home in six days. Six days! But because we have people up there in Congress with a brain of a two year old who don’t know what they’re doing … they don’t experience it … I challenge the President or whoever has us here for fifteen months to ride along, alongside me. I’ll do another fifteen months if he comes out here and rides alongside me everyday for fifteen months. I’ll do fifteen more months. (...) They don’t even have to pay me extra." (An Apache Company soldier in Iraq in Sean Smith’s ‘Inside the Surge’)

In his ‘Inside the surge’ Guardian’s photographer and filmmaker Sean Smith, who ‘spent two months embedded with US troops in Baghdad and Anbar province’, once more shows the horrors of the war in Iraq for both the Iraqi people as the US soldiers. Click here to watch his report. (Via Bieslog)

baghdad, inside the surge, iraq, sean smith, surge, troop surge strategy

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Layla Anwar on Savior Muqtada al-Sadr's Return · 30 May 2007, 20:50 CET by Charles Vermeulen

"Seems that Muqtada al-Sadr came back from Iran with fresh new directives and is concocting in the most feeble of ways yet another ploy and the ultimate goal is? Pose himself as the patriotic, anti-sectarian (hahahaha) Iraqi for a united anti-occupation front and ultimately take full reign of the government."

Layla Anwar in ‘The "Savior" has landed’, a posting on her blog ‘An Arab Woman Blues – Reflections in a Sealed Bottle…’.

al-sadr, iraq, layla anwar, muqtada al-sadr

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'The Israel Lobby' on YouTube · 26 May 2007, 10:13 CET by Charles Vermeulen

Almost two months ago I posted an entry on ‘The Israel Lobby. Portrait of a Great Taboo: the Power of the Israel Lobby in the United States’, a documentary by Marije Meerman and researcher William de Bruijn, broadcasted in Tegenlicht (Backlight), a documentary program made by the Dutch public broadcast organization VPRO. On its website Tegenlicht reports (in Dutch) about the reception of the documentary, especially on YouTube.

Because the makers of it thought the documentary deserved more attention than it got so far, they published a promo on YouTube. However, only two days after, William de Bruijn says, they discovered that their documentary was hijacked as a reassembled, disturbing version of it, entitled ‘The Israel lobby (AIPAC): a danger to the world’, was posted on YouTube. This time the documentary started with an outright antisemitic speech by former Malaysian prime-minister Mahathir Mohamad as a result of which a likewise antisemitic undertone was added to the whole of the documentary: ‘The Europeans killed six million Jews out of twelve. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them. They invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy. They have gained control over the most powerful countries. This tiny community has become a world power.’

After Meerman and De Bruijn had discovered the hijacking juridical advisers of the VPRO recommended them to publish a statement on their website and send e-mails to the ‘YouTubes of this world’ by which they, as copyright holders, dissociate themselves from the reassembled version of their documentary. Directly after their response a new version of the reassembled one was published, this time entitled ‘Americans, the stringpullers don’t want you to see this documentary’.

aipac, antisemitism, israel, israel lobby, mahathir mohamad, youtube

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Mark Urban on the Troop Surge Strategy · 19 May 2007, 13:15 CET by Charles Vermeulen

US entering a house in Dura, Bagdad, in search of a 'leading local bomb maker'

American soldiers entering a house in Dura, Baghdad, in search of a ‘leading local bomb maker’ at night

"It’s pretty obvious from what we were doing this afternoon, that if you steam around with tanks in the neighbourhouds and kick in doors – you’re going to upset people and clearly a lot of people are supporting the insurgents. And that’s really the essence of all this. Whether the Americans with all their concerns for their own safety, when they go in such dangerous neighbourhoods, can actually communicate the message that they are here to help and that they can turn the tide in one of these really violent districts of the city." (BBC reporter Mark Urban embedded with American troops in Baghdad, Iraq)

BBC reporter Mark Urban stayed in Dura, Baghdad, embedded with U.S. soldiers to see how they’re coping with the daily violence and how the implementation of the newly adopted troop surge strategy is turning out in practice. Click here to watch his report.

al doura, baghdad, dura, embedded, iraq, mark urban, surge, troop surge strategy

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Rudi Vranckx on the Troop Surge Strategy · 11 May 2007, 12:24 CET by Charles Vermeulen

Young American lieutenant drinking tea at Baghdad University

VRT journalist Rudi Vranckx has recently returned from Baghdad, Iraq, where he had worked as an embedded journalist. Last Wednesday’s telecast of Dutch current affairs program NOVA showed his report and afterwards a short interview with the journalist. Below an interesting quote from Vranckx, a response on the question of interviewer Clairy Polak whether it’s possible for the heavily armed American soldiers, who don’t speek Arabic, to built trust among the Baghdadi as part of their newly adopted troop surge strategy. In it Vranckx refers to a scene from his report, which show a group of young American soldiers visiting the Baghdad University and its chancelor.

"Yes, that’s naive, off course. (...) That was the thing that struck me the most, that those soldiers, who really mean well, those non-commissioned officers who go out there, they really believe that they’re doing a good cause. But so naive. They come from another planet. They cannot stop with their vehicles for even five minutes. They have to keep on driving, otherwise they will be shot at. And they visit that campus. And then you see a very young lieutenant, a greenhorn, in fact, with the chancellor of a such venerable university, comes there and he starts to talk in American, to address him: ‘He, you guys, do you need us for this and for that?’ And then you see those people stiffen. Like: ‘What is this?’ But they’re friendly, they offer tea, the hospitality… And afterwards this lieutenant thinks that everthing went well. Then you hear the briefing and then he says: ’(...) it was amazing and we’re going to cooperate well’. I say: was this the meeting I saw?"

baghdad, baghdad university, iraq, iraq strategy, surge, troop surge, troop surge strategy

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Zakaria on the Release of the British Hostages · 5 April 2007, 07:38 CET by Charles Vermeulen

"Iran is not some brilliant and all-powerful behemoth, destined to dominate the Middle East. It is a significant regional power, rich with oil resources but burdened by a failing economy and an unpopular and divided leadership. As long as the United States can work with other countries to contain Iran’s worst ambitions but yet accede to its legitimate ones, the situation is manageable through diplomacy and not force."

According to Fareed Zakaria the announcement of the release of the British hostages by the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shows that a war to thwart Iran’s atomic ambitions might be avoidable. Click here to read his Newsweek column, this week entitled ‘Why Sanctions Are Working’.

ahmadinejad, british hostages, fareed zakaria, iran, mahmoud ahmadinejad

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Maliki Curbing Shia Militia's? · 28 January 2007, 18:36 CET by Charles Vermeulen

This week’s The Economist (page 35-36) sees a "glimmer of hope" in Iraq as, according to the magazine, some American officials and some of the aides of Nuri al-Maliki "have been telling journalists" that the Iraqi prime minister "has had a change of heart" and "has authorised a full-fledged crackdown on the militia’s". As a result the U.S. army was able to arrest several members of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and the number of operations by Iraqi and American troops against "Mahdi Army targets" could be sped up. Furthermore, the Sadrist commanders are said to be on the run and their fighters are forced to lay down, even in Sadr City itself.

The Economist adduces several causes for this apparent major change. First of all, Maliki allegedly "has lost his patience" and no longer wants to "to engange the Sadrists through dialogue". Secondly, the video of the hanging of Saddam Hussein, which showed Sadrists mocking at the former dictator, is perceived by Iraqi Shia’s as a sign that their current power in Iraq might be lasting. According to the magazine this boosted Maliki’s popularity among the Iraqi Shia. On the other hand, to continue, outside Iraq Maliki’s reputation has suffered severely by his failure to rein the Shia militia’s. As a result of this failure the U.S. has threatened to end its support for the Iraqi governement. Likewise, it may become very hard for Maliki to persuade several Sunni Gulf states to cancel billions of dollars of debt as the slaughter of Iraqi Sunni’s continues. What’s worse, they might start to actively support Sunni militia’s.

But also the Sadrists themselves seem to support the curbing of the militia’s. Although Al-Sadr "never seemed happy with sectarian cleansing carried out in his name" and although the Sadrists have struggled to bring under control their commanders and fighters, it’s remarkable, nonetheless, that al-Sadre has failed to respond to the latest arrests of his commanders, which might be a sign that he has "acquiesced" in the U.S. efforts to purge his army of its "rogue commanders". Likewise al-Sadr has responded "quite mildly" this week on the increasing number of arrests, while several Sadrist members of parliament even proclaimed the end of their boycot of parliament. The Economist states that this might be the result of the fear of the Sadrists that, if Iraq becomes a pariah state in the Arab world, they might be perceived as the prime cause for this which in turn would turn them into a pariah among the Shia Islamists.

The current developments, however, constitute only "glimmer of hope", the magazine warns, for the Mahdi Army "may be quieting down, the Sunni insurgents are not". So any new Sunni attack might be the end of Maliki’s new policy towards the Shia militia’s or even spark of a new wave of Shia retaliation.

al-sadr, iraq, mahdi army, maliki, militia's, muqtada al-sadr, saddam, saddam hussein, sadr city, shia, sunni

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Execution Chamber Infiltrated to Stir Violence · 4 January 2007, 06:57 CET by Charles Vermeulen

‘The execution (of Saddam Hussein) was carried out by militias and outsiders. They put aside the team from the interior ministry that was supposed to carry it out’, an Iraqi official claimed yesterday. According to Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, Iraq’s national security adviser, the infiltration even had a marked purpose: ‘Whoever leaked this video meant to harm national reconciliation and drive a wedge between Shiites and Sunnis’. Click here to read an article on the matter in The Scottsman.

iraq, mowaffaq al-rubaie, saddam, saddam execution, saddam hussein

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