Mohammed's piece on today's Wall Street Journal;
The war between Russia and Georgia -- and particularly what Russia aspires to gain from this showdown -- may have future consequences for the situation in the Middle East. It may also have the potential to alter the existing world order and restore a condition somewhat similar to what we had in the Cold War era.
A recent statement by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov caught my attention: "We understand that this current Georgian leadership is a special project of the United States, but one day the United States will have to choose between defending its prestige over a virtual project or real partnership which requires joint action."
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New points of view about the future of Iraq and the Middle East.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Friday, August 08, 2008
British Deal With al-Sadr Betrayed Iraqi People
The news about a secret deal between the British and anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr did not come as a surprise to us. Britain’s war policy has been clear for the past several years: the country demonstrated no readiness to make sustained efforts in a prolonged war, nor did it act as a serious partner determined to win the conflict.
There are three aspects in this British betrayal. First, striking a deal with the enemy; second, selling an Iraqi city to the enemy of their Iraqi hosts and partners; and third, by not informing their American partners of their plans, enabling the U.S. military’s reliance on an untrustworthy partner — something the British military leadership turned out to be.
What’s worse — even assuming the “accommodation” was a thoughtful plan with good intentions — is that Britain upheld the deal even when the militias violated it. The militias did not renounce violence (attacks continued), and they did not switch to civil political activity. Still, the British didn’t take action.
To be fair, Britain deserves credit for being a good team member during the good days in the beginning of the war. They sent in some 40,000 troops and were enthusiastic about contributing to the quick collapse of Saddam’s defenses.
They sent the largest number of troops after the U.S. and celebrated the initial victory, showing themselves as allies of the U.S. But it looks like Britain wanted to share only the good days, nothing more. Things changed fast soon after. In fact, over the last two years, Britain has adopted a policy in Iraq that is opposite in direction to that of the U.S.
On the one hand, the Americans and Iraqis summoned all the power and resources they could get, and deployed them in an effort to enforce the law and combat the bad guys under a fresh strategy and counterinsurgency doctrine that emphasized having troops as close to the community as possible. Meanwhile, the British were doing exactly the opposite by shrinking away from the fight and from the community.
As residents of Basra for a year, we recall how the people perceived British troops. Basically people felt the British were both weak and largely indifferent to the situation. To the militias, that was seen as a golden chance to consolidate their power and take over the city; while among the ordinary people, it dealt a blow to morale and was a reason that people had little — if any — trust in the British.
What’s even more humiliating for Britain is that British leaders couldn’t exploit the advantages they had over their American counterparts in terms of past history of military operations and involvement in Iraq. It’s not an overstatement to say that the British had been fighting on their own turf in Basra. When they returned to that city in 2003, they returned to the very bases they had built only half a century before. Moreover, they had accumulated comprehensive knowledge of the people and tribes of the region that even many Iraqis don’t have.
Yet, their performance has been disappointing. British troops are not to blame for this poor performance; it’s the political leadership in London.
The Americans handled places such as Baghdad and Anbar that used to be the most volatile parts of Iraq in 2004, and now, four years later, they largely succeeded in bring peace and order, making huge progress toward that goal. The British, by contrast, had been assigned what used to be the calmest parts of Iraq in 2004, but by spring 2008, under their watch, Basra became the most lawless city in the country. The British leaders managed to do this either with exceptional stupidity or exceptional and deliberate carelessness.
In our opinion, although the deal was made last year, Britain made the decision to offer basically the same deal unilaterally years before that by watching the monster grow under their noses without doing anything serious to stop it.
If the British truly don’t see themselves as part of the war, it would’ve been better for everyone to have the British admit it and tell the Americans and Iraqis that they wanted out. Then we would’ve thanked them for what they did, gave them a nice send-off, and struck them off the list of reliable allies, just like Spain.
To fight alone, knowing that you’re on your own, is much better than to have an ally on your side that strikes deals behind your back and exposes your flank to the enemy.
There are three aspects in this British betrayal. First, striking a deal with the enemy; second, selling an Iraqi city to the enemy of their Iraqi hosts and partners; and third, by not informing their American partners of their plans, enabling the U.S. military’s reliance on an untrustworthy partner — something the British military leadership turned out to be.
What’s worse — even assuming the “accommodation” was a thoughtful plan with good intentions — is that Britain upheld the deal even when the militias violated it. The militias did not renounce violence (attacks continued), and they did not switch to civil political activity. Still, the British didn’t take action.
To be fair, Britain deserves credit for being a good team member during the good days in the beginning of the war. They sent in some 40,000 troops and were enthusiastic about contributing to the quick collapse of Saddam’s defenses.
They sent the largest number of troops after the U.S. and celebrated the initial victory, showing themselves as allies of the U.S. But it looks like Britain wanted to share only the good days, nothing more. Things changed fast soon after. In fact, over the last two years, Britain has adopted a policy in Iraq that is opposite in direction to that of the U.S.
On the one hand, the Americans and Iraqis summoned all the power and resources they could get, and deployed them in an effort to enforce the law and combat the bad guys under a fresh strategy and counterinsurgency doctrine that emphasized having troops as close to the community as possible. Meanwhile, the British were doing exactly the opposite by shrinking away from the fight and from the community.
As residents of Basra for a year, we recall how the people perceived British troops. Basically people felt the British were both weak and largely indifferent to the situation. To the militias, that was seen as a golden chance to consolidate their power and take over the city; while among the ordinary people, it dealt a blow to morale and was a reason that people had little — if any — trust in the British.
What’s even more humiliating for Britain is that British leaders couldn’t exploit the advantages they had over their American counterparts in terms of past history of military operations and involvement in Iraq. It’s not an overstatement to say that the British had been fighting on their own turf in Basra. When they returned to that city in 2003, they returned to the very bases they had built only half a century before. Moreover, they had accumulated comprehensive knowledge of the people and tribes of the region that even many Iraqis don’t have.
Yet, their performance has been disappointing. British troops are not to blame for this poor performance; it’s the political leadership in London.
The Americans handled places such as Baghdad and Anbar that used to be the most volatile parts of Iraq in 2004, and now, four years later, they largely succeeded in bring peace and order, making huge progress toward that goal. The British, by contrast, had been assigned what used to be the calmest parts of Iraq in 2004, but by spring 2008, under their watch, Basra became the most lawless city in the country. The British leaders managed to do this either with exceptional stupidity or exceptional and deliberate carelessness.
In our opinion, although the deal was made last year, Britain made the decision to offer basically the same deal unilaterally years before that by watching the monster grow under their noses without doing anything serious to stop it.
If the British truly don’t see themselves as part of the war, it would’ve been better for everyone to have the British admit it and tell the Americans and Iraqis that they wanted out. Then we would’ve thanked them for what they did, gave them a nice send-off, and struck them off the list of reliable allies, just like Spain.
To fight alone, knowing that you’re on your own, is much better than to have an ally on your side that strikes deals behind your back and exposes your flank to the enemy.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Iraq Requests to Buy $11 Billion Worth of American Arms
For the last few years, Iraq has been working to build its new armed forces with invaluable American support. In the course of the process Iraq purchased large amounts of arms and equipment from the US. But a tendency towards getting eastern bloc arms was evident, largely due to decades of dependence and familiarity with such arms.
This trend seems to be changing fast recently.
From time to time we hear about Iraq trying to strike some small/medium size deals to buy arms. The past seven days saw a spike in requests to buy arms; this time, all are American-made.
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of six major requests by Iraq to purchase arms, equipment and services with a total value of about $11 billion.
The list of items requested by Iraq is long but to name a few, it includes 24 armed helicopters, hellfire missiles, hundreds of various vehicles (engineering, transportation, light armored vehicles and evacuation) 1,200 mortar systems, machineguns of various calibers, radio systems, anti-tank systems, 6 C-130J aircraft and above all, 140 M1A1 Abrams tanks.
The memos state that these proposed deals will “not alter the basic military balance in the region”. But clearly the deals-when executed-will definitely change the military balance between the state of Iraq and its allies on the one hand and the terrorists and outlaws on the other…It will be another milestone on the road to build a true strategic partnership between Iraq and the United States as two nations fighting terrorism and building democracy in the middle east.
UPDATE:
The deals have in fact been approved by the Pentagon.
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