Middle East

One of the things that struck me about Friday night’s debate on the time line for troop withdrawal was that McCain appeared to believe that how long US troops remain in Iraq and at what strength is a unilateral matter dictated by Washington. The government of prime minister Nuri al-Maliki is already trying to negotiate […]

Aljazeera English on the Shell deal with Iraq to develop natural gas. Critics of the deal say there was no competitive bidding. Supporters say it will help the British, Dutch and Iraqi economies.

Reuters reports that “A U.S. soldier died after a small-arms fire attack on his patrol in Baghdad.” Near Baquba, Reuters says, “Police found three mass graves containing tens of bodies in two areas south of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, the government said in a statement. . . “ Iraqi auditor Salam […]

Suicidal Ambitions: Human Bombs and the War in Iraq By Matan Chorev Review of Mohammed M. Hafez Suicide Bombers in Iraq: The Strategy and Ideology of Martyrdom (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2007) 285 pages, $17.50 hardcover. Since 2003, according to the United States Library of Congress, over 800 books on the Iraq […]

The guerrilla war continues in Iraq. On Sunday, guerrillas blew up the general manager of the Ministry of Finance, Ihsan Ridha, and a Brigadier General, Adel Abbas, who was a manager of the ministry of the interior (which has FBI-like functions in Iraq). Ridha was injured; Abbas was killed. Police and army patrols were bombed […]

The USG Open Source Center translates a recent interview with Baghdad mayor Sabir al-Isawi in a Czech newspaper. The mayor 1) denies that the US troop ‘surge’ is the major reason for the reduced violence in Iraq; 2) complains bitterly that US armored corps drivers continually run their tanks over lampposts, gardens and other things […]

Fred Kagan has once more been proved wrong. He called the ethnic cleansing of Sunni Arabs in Baghdad a ‘myth.’ For all their arrogance and academic credentials, the Neoconservatives keep having trouble with that reality-based thing. Satellite imaging that shows Sunni Arab neighborhoods in Baghdad dark gives evidence that the ethnic cleansing of the Sunnis […]

The Iraqi parliament failed for a fifth time to pass a law on provincial elections. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that after months of wrangling in parliament over the enabling legislation for provincial elections, parliament has failed to find a mutually agreed-upon formula. Worse, the parliamentary debates on this issue have deepened the dispute between the […]

A helicopter crash in southern Iraq killed 7 US troops on Wednesday. The crash may or may not be the result of hostile action by elements of the Mahdi Army. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki signaled on Wednesday that the security agreement being negotiated by Iraq with the Bush administration is in trouble. Apparently the big […]