October 2006

A scramble for friends over Iran
The success of even mild sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program depends largely on the cooperation of Iran's neighbors. The US and its allies have already begun this battle for influence. Iran is making moves, but they need to include Egypt. - Kaveh L Afrasiabi (Oct 31, '06)

US's Afghan policies going up in smoke
In Afghanistan, the US cozies up to people it professes to be against. It attacks people whose hearts and minds it hopes to win and it pays experts to report false conclusions it wants to hear. In such circumstances, the multimillion-dollar drug-eradication program can only be a failure. - Ann Jones (Oct 31, '06)

Iraq's bloody destiny
The overthrow of the monarchy in 1958 and the subsequent bloody rule (and death) of General Abd al-Karim Qasim provide striking pointers to the causes of the violence in Iraq today. If these are ignored, history can only repeat itself. - Sami Moubayed (Oct 31, '06)

SPEAKING FREELY
'Islamo-fascism' is Islamo-bull ...
The term "Islamo-fascism" used by President George W Bush and other Iraq warriors is sheer nonsense and demagoguery. Historical fascism is a merger of state and corporate power in time of crisis that has nothing to do with Muslim life today, although the germs of it can be seen in the US. - Ismael Hossein-zadeh (Oct 31, '06)

Another deadly blow for Pakistan
Helicopter gunships pounded a remote village in Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan on Monday, killing scores of suspected militants. Pakistani officials claim that the helicopters were theirs. Other evidence suggests North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces were involved. Ultimately, it does not matter. Fatefully, the gulf between Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf and militant and Islamic forces is already too wide to bridge. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Oct 30, '06)

Seoul dodges dragon but feels the heat
The prospect of John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, breathing anti-Pyongyang fire in Seoul was more than South Korean officials could bear. His proposed visit was abruptly canceled. Still, President Roh Moo-hyun will have to find ways to mollify allies demanding a more forceful response to North Korea's nuclear test, as well as conservatives at home who have been thrown a bone with the resignation of the unification minister. - Donald Kirk (Oct 27, '06)

THE ROVING EYE
'Stability First': Newspeak for rape of Iraq
It's not the first time Baghdad has been sacked. Genghis Khan's grandson did it, and so did Tamerlan. In the good old days, they built pyramids of skulls. This time around, they coin nice names, like "Stability First" and "Redeploy and Contain". "Staying the Course" is out of favor, but no matter, they all amount to the same thing: rape. - Pepe Escobar (Oct 26, '06)

Iraq's defiant but doomed democracy
While President George W Bush is playing to his audience over Iraq (everything under control), Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has his own Iraqi constituency to appease. Hence his uncharacteristically aggressive tone in rejecting a "timeline" foisted upon him by foreign occupiers. Political posturing won't save the day for Iraq, though, unless startlingly new options are considered. - Ehsan Ahrari (Oct 26, '06)

A peek behind the walls of 'Fortress US'
Work on the most expensive and heavily fortified embassy in the world - the massive new US Embassy in Baghdad - is being carried out in secret. Two men who once worked on the project provide a disconcerting glimpse behind the construction barriers, where deceit and ill-treatment of labor appear unchecked. (Oct 26, '06)

Osama's answer to Iraq's violence
US and Iraqi leaders agree that the militias responsible for the unbroken cycle of sectarian violence in Iraq need to be dealt with, and swiftly. The problem is that many of the groups have lost their ideological and religious bearings and act independently. Osama bin Laden and Pakistan have an answer. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Oct 25, '06)

DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
Playing the numbers game with death
President George W Bush recently agreed that there might indeed by a "Tet" moment in Iraq - he has previously considered any version of the Vietnam analogy anathema. This about-turn throws into focus the imagery Bush administration officials have used during the war, and the manner in which they stick to their version of the death toll in Iraq. - Tom Engelhardt (Oct 25, '06)

Iraqis fight over oil spoils
With billions of dollars at stake, a dispute has erupted between Kurdish leaders in the north of Iraq and the Baghdad administration over access to oil resources and revenue. The Kurds have made it plain that if they don't get satisfaction, there are options other than "co-existence". (Oct 25, '06)

Saudi Shi'ites: New light on an old divide
Thirteen years after the Saudi administration agreed to an accord with Shi'ites in an attempt to address their grievances, not much has improved, Fouad Ali al-Ibrahim, a leading member of the exiled Shi'ite opposition, tells Mahan Abedin. The struggle, therefore, continues. (Oct 25, '06)

Taliban demand release of hostage
Italian photojournalist Gabriele Torsello got as close to the story as possible in Afghanistan by mixing with the Taliban. When Torsello was taken hostage the Taliban added their voice to the international chorus calling for his release, claiming that they were being "defamed". (Oct 25, '06)

US sends the wrong messages to Iran
The US clearly draws a parallel between the UN sanctions imposed on North Korea for its nuclear test and those impending against Iran over its nuclear program. Yet there is no evidence to show that Iran deserves the same punishment as Pyongyang, and even the head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency concedes that sanctions are not the answer. US naval maneuvers in the Persian Gulf also give Tehran the wrong idea. - Kaveh L Afrasiabi (Oct 24, '06)

Gross stupidity in Afghanistan
Ever since September 11, 2001, Pakistan has been playing two sides against the middle in the "war on terror", waiting out the storm with its strategic tool, the Taliban, substantially intact in hopes that the West will eventually tire of the quagmire and "franchise" Afghan operations to Islamabad. (Oct 24, '06)

COMMENT
Bending with the wind
"Stay the course" and other such Bush administration catchphrases used to characterize the Iraq war have given way to "flexibility" about how to achieve the goal of setting up that country to govern itself and quell sectarian strife. In other words, nothing has changed. - Ehsan Ahrari (Oct 24, '06)

North Korea is not done yet
Pyongyang's sudden placatory remarks about its nuclear program are a smokescreen. In the face of an immovable US position, its options are dwindling. Failure to achieve its diplomatic objectives will provoke it eventually to engage in more high-risk confrontational behavior, such as another nuclear test. - Bruce Klingner (Oct 23, '06)

Speaking with the enemy  The Bush administration's steadfast avoidance of diplomacy with those it perceives as enemies has set Iraq on fire, sentenced the Arab-Israeli peace process to death, indirectly sparked a nascent civil war in Palestine, and ushered in the widespread destruction of Lebanon. But of all the regional players, ignoring Iran holds the greatest possible peril for the US and the region. - Ashraf Fahim (Oct 23, '06) SPENGLER Frailty, thy name is Tehran It is silly to portray the United States as a declining imperial power, but the word "decline"  hardly begins to describe what is happening to the leftovers of imperial design in the Middle East, including the would-be Persian Empire. The US needs to stop treating the Middle East conflict as an Iraqi matter and extend it to the whole region, beginning with Iran. (Oct 23, '06) A crash course on Iraq While there's plenty of talk about a coup in Baghdad, a consensus is emerging in Washington that it's time to hijack President George W Bush's Iraq policy. Bush's mantra about "staying the course" is now seen as so delusory as to require some form of serious adult intervention. - Jim Lobe (Oct 23, '06)

THE DEATH THROES OF IRAQ

During his 150 days at the helm, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, with President George W Bush's "full support", has overseen a dramatic deterioration in the security situation, writes Sami Moubayed. Death squads and insurgents are running rampant, and so bad is the violence that reports of a coup attempt are gaining credibility. This would install a Saddam-like strongman to rule with a heavy hand, says Robert Dreyfuss. All this adds to the pressure on Bush to set a timetable for withdrawal - even former allies are joining the call, reports Jim Lobe. (Oct 20, '06)

 Heck of a job, Maliki! - Sami Moubayed

 A coup in the air - Robert Dreyfuss

 Endgame coming, ready or not - Jim Lobe

CHAN AKYA
A capital alternative to terror
Washington is wont to think of a "war on terror" as nothing more than weaponry and battle strategy. However, the announcement of a Nobel Peace Prize for Bangladesh's Grameen Bank and its founder, Muhammad Yunus, highlights an alternative: grassroots capitalism could well be the way to short-circuit the vicious cycle of terror that has many Islamic societies in its grip. (Oct 20, '06)

US turns space into its colony
The US already has an overwhelming lead in satellites and other space technology. Determined to maintain this lead, it now has a new policy rejecting any future arms-control agreements that would limit its ability to militarize space, and which allows it to deny access to hostile interests. That doesn't mean the US won't be challenged, and the challenger most likely will be China. - Ehsan Ahrari (Oct 19, '06)

AMERICA'S ACUPUNCTURE POINTS
PART 2: The assassin's mace
The coming together of China, Russia and Iran creates a triumvirate that poses a formidable military challenge to the lone superpower and its allies. Along with the problems the US would face in a conflict with China and its allies - problems posed by geography, the vulnerability of its command and control systems, and its inability to fend off asymmetric attacks - China has developed an "assassin's mace" that renders all the US's mighty aircraft carrier battle groups defunct. - Victor N Corpus (Oct 19, '06)
This concludes a two-part article.

 PART 1: Striking where it hurts most

Militants, Musharraf circling
Following the unraveling of a coup plot against him, Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf has rounded up more suspects, including even members of opposition political parties. The bigger battle, though, with militant groups looking after the Taliban's interests, looms. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Oct 19, '06)

DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
Still dancing to Ollie's tune
The Republicans, taking a page out of Oliver North's Contra songbook, decided that the best defense was to go on the offensive, to turn the midterm vote into a debate on Iraq and national security. If the Democrats want to halt, or even reverse, their long decline and avoid yet again snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, they must challenge the militarism that justified the invasion in the first place. - Greg Grandin (Oct 19, '06)

Beware empires in decline
Just as an empire on the rise, like the United States on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, is often inclined to take rash and ill-considered actions, so an empire on the decline, like the British and French empires over the Suez crisis, will engage in senseless, self-destructive acts. Watch out, Iran and North Korea. - Michael T Klare (Oct 18, '06)

AMERICA'S ACUPUNCTURE POINTS
PART 1: Striking where it hurts most
If America ever goes to war with China, Chinese military doctrine suggests the US should expect attacks on a number of key points where it is particularly vulnerable - where a single jab would paralyze the entire nation. China, probably assisted by allies like Russia and Iran, would aim at targets such as the US electricity grid, its computer networks, its oil supply routes, and the US dollar. America is entirely unprepared for this kind of warfare. - Victor N Corpus
This is the first part of a two-part report (Oct 18, '06)

Nine paradoxes of a lost war
The US is planning a new counterinsurgency doctrine for Iraq. The plan has one ingenious section, outlining nine paradoxes of the war. Each of them contains an implied criticism of American strategy in Iraq, and they provide an instructive lesson from insiders in why the American presence has been such a disaster and why this (or any other) new counterinsurgency strategy has little chance of ameliorating it. - Michael Schwartz (Oct 17, '06)

SPENGLER
Reason to believe, or not
Pope Benedict XVI's controversial address of September 12, in which he stated that Islam rejects reason, caused an outcry. In response, 38 Islamic leaders have signed an open letter to him, in which they state that there is no dichotomy in Islam between reason and faith. Spengler reasons that the letter shows the pope is right. (Oct 17, '06)

Nine paradoxes of a lost war
The US is planning a new counterinsurgency doctrine for Iraq. The plan has one ingenious section, outlining nine paradoxes of the war. Each of them contains an implied criticism of American strategy in Iraq, and they provide an instructive lesson from insiders in why the American presence has been such a disaster and why this (or any other) new counterinsurgency strategy has little chance of ameliorating it. - Michael Schwartz (Oct 17, '06)

SPENGLER
Reason to believe, or not
Pope Benedict XVI's controversial address of September 12, in which he stated that Islam rejects reason, caused an outcry. In response, 38 Islamic leaders have signed an open letter to him, in which they state that there is no dichotomy in Islam between reason and faith. Spengler reasons that the letter shows the pope is right. (Oct 17, '06)

Al-Qaeda scare jolts Pakistan into action
While the involvement of air force officers in a coup plot against the government of President General Pervez Musharraf was of concern, far more unsettling was the discovery of al-Qaeda penetration deep into highly sensitive security areas. Musharraf is now forced to act, starting with a crackdown on Taliban strongholds in Pakistan. His opponents will be waiting for a decisive showdown. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Oct 16, '06)

Pyongyang and the 'p' word
North Korea has a billion-dollar history of selling arms, including cruise and ballistic missiles, to developing countries. Despite the new UN resolution specifically forbidding such sales, an emboldened Pyongyang could be tempted to step up its activities, and expand into proliferation in the nuclear bazaar as well - Ehsan Ahrari (Oct 16, '06)

UK will exit Iraq 'sometime soon'
There is a growng consensus in Britain that the country's continued military presence in Iraq is exacerbating the insurgency, and even Prime Minister Tony Blair and top army brass have come to agree that troops must be withdrawn within two years. - Sanjay Suri (Oct 16, '06)

Pakistan foils coup plot
More than 40 people, including a number of air force officers, have been arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of planning a coup against President General Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf's pro-US line and apparent resolve to finally crack down on Taliban supporters in the country has broken his uneasy truce with hardline Islamists in uniform. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Oct 13, '06)

A deadly kind of fizzle
North Korea's reported underground atomic-bomb test ought to be the subject of late-night television comedians, not international panic. If the "bomb" was so small people still aren't sure it was one, then it was likely an even bigger dud than Pyongyang's missile that crashed into the Sea of Japan in July. Unfortunately, there is another, more ominous, possibility. - Todd Crowell (Oct 13, '06)

HOW HEZBOLLAH DEFEATED ISRAEL
PART 3: The political war
The aftermath of the Israel-Hezbollah war will be felt for years, not months, and has redrawn the political map throughout the Middle East, not just in Israel and Lebanon. And the upshot of it all is that if and when the US attacks Iran, it will lose. - Alastair Crooke and Mark Perry (Oct 13, '06)

PART 1: The intelligence war
PART 2: The ground war

Click here for all ATol coverage of the Israel-Hezbollah war:

A deadly Iraqi numbers game
Both President George W Bush and his senior commander in Iraq have rejected a new report that says as many as 655,000 Iraqis had died as a consequence of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. The voting public might not be as dismissive. (Oct 12, '06)

DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
Bush's war with words
President George W Bush is often presented as an inarticulate speechmaker. Yet he and his administration have introduced many new words and phrases or redefined old ones into popular consciousness: "decapitation", "shock and awe", "extraordinary rendition", "enduring camp", to name a few. This linguistic heritage adds up to a snapshot not just of the Bush administration's surreal world but of a startling grab for extra-constitutional power. - Tom Engelhardt (Oct 12, '06)

Taliban viewed in a new light
The Taliban, once communications shy, are skillfully manipulating the information flow in Afghanistan to win hearts and minds. This, combined with their successful military campaign, has forced the foreign troops fighting them see them in a very different light. - Jason Motlagh (Oct 11, '06)

North Korea eases heat on Iran - for now
In the short term, North Korea's antics take the heat off Tehran, especially as the UN Security Council will be even less prepared to tackle the Iranian nuclear issue. Within Iran, though, rival moderate and hardline factions are already using Pyongyang's case to justify their positions. And as the North Korean saga unfolds, Tehran could come to rue the nuclear arms race it is capable of setting off. - Kaveh L Afrasiabi (Oct 10, '06)

CHAN AKYA
Not a major planet
The weekend tests of an apparent nuclear weapon by North Korea bring the fourth horseman to the apocalyptic party that the world has now become. There is now a kind of "atomic crescent" of states whose motives for possessing - and possibly using - nuclear weapons differ from those of the old order. The good news is that there are plenty of other planets in the universe. (Oct 10, '06)

COMMENT
Talk to Pyongyang, not at it
The United States' unilateralist supporters who traditionally argue that the UN should not put obstacles in the way of US diplomacy are right, at least in the case of North Korea. There is only one way in which the crisis can be tackled, and that is for Washington to engage Pyongyang directly. - Ian Williams (Oct 10, '06)

The poison spreads in Iraq
The food poisoning of hundreds of Iraqi policemen - whether deliberate or not - is just another event in the country's litany of murder and mayhem. All the while, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki appears helpless, or unwilling, to improve the situation. Fifty-eight years ago in Syria, one leader had a very different approach. - Sami Moubayed (Oct 10, '06)

US 'turns blind eye to killings'
Residents of Baquba, an increasingly fierce hotbed of resistance northeast of Baghdad, complain that the US military is deliberately ignoring sectarian killings and detentions being carried out by Iraqi government security forces. - Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail (Oct 10, '06)

How N Korea bungled its nuclear timing If North Korean leader Kim Jong-il deliberately timed his nuclear bomb test to coincide with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's first visit to China and South Korea, he may have miscalculated dreadfully. The leaders of all three countries could hardly agree more - the test is a "provocation" and they have to act together to do something about it. And in South Korea at least, anti-Americanism may now be falling out of fashion. - Donald Kirk (Oct 9, '06) Pyongyang's 60-year obsession The Korean quest for an ultimate "doomsday" weapon began at the end of World War II when many Koreans were repatriated from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. - Bertil Lintner (Oct 9, '06)

The two faces of Iraq
When Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice swapped pleasantries at a briefing in Baghdad, one man was missing from the stage: cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. He's vilified by the US as a rebel and a troublemaker, yet without his support Maliki and Iraq would be in a lot more trouble than they already are. - Sami Moubayed (Oct 9, '06)

Taliban put Pakistan on notice
A missile lands near President General Pervez Musharraf's residence, and others are defused outside Pakistan's parliament. These two incidents, while causing no damage, are a tangible warning to Musharraf - and to the US - that the ultimate fate of the Taliban and Afghanistan, and even the "war on terror", lies with the Taliban themselves. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Oct 9, '06)

Taliban lay plans for Islamic intifada
With the snows approaching in Afghanistan, the Taliban are already looking toward next spring's offensive and the launch of an Islamic intifada that aims to expand, and internationalize, their resistance movement. The man hand-picked by al-Qaeda ideologue Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri to oversee this task is Mullah Mehmood Allah Haq Yar. He explains to Syed Saleem Shahzad just how he will go about "resisting the forces of evil". (Oct 5, '06)

Kabul wakes up to suicide attacks
The residents of Kabul have seen plenty of fighting in the capital city over the years, but suicide attacks are a very different problem. And with suicide bombers being recruited, trained and armed in Pakistan, there is not going to be any respite soon. (Oct 5, '06)

SPEAKING FREELY
Kim's message: War is coming to US soil
The message being sent by "iron-willed, brilliant commander" Kim Jong-il, the greatest of Korea's peerless national heroes, is that war is coming to continental United States and that Pyongyang now has the nuclear weapons to turn America's cities into towering infernos, writes Kim's "unofficial spokesman", Kim Myong Chol. (Oct 5, '06)

Washington's Sunni outlook
The Bush administration's optimistic efforts to forge a de facto strategic alliance between Israel and moderate Sunni states against the perceived nuclear threat of Iran is unlikely to bear fruit until Washington takes lessons from history and wakes up to the fact that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict must first be resolved. - Jim Lobe (Oct 5, '06)

Rice off to exploit the Arab-Iran divide
In a high-profile visit to the Middle East, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is trying to shore up a Sunni Arab front against Iran. Desperate for some kind of achievement in the region, and with precious little to offer in return, Rice will be exploiting the Arabs' traditional Iran-phobia for all it is worth. - Ehsan Ahrari (Oct 4, '06)

Militia 'madness' stirs Iraq
Abandoning an earlier policy of disarming all Iraqi groups for the sake of peace and reconciliation, the US is backing new Sunni militias, sparking widespread fears that the move will put more weapons into the hands of insurgents and fragment the population even further by fueling internecine tribal conflicts. - Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail (Oct 4, '06)

DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
Twenty-one reasons why Iraq is not working
What exactly does "victory" in US President George W Bush's Iraq look like 1,288 days after the invasion of the country? Twenty-one questions (and answers) add up to a grim but realistic snapshot of the "gates of hell". - Tom Engelhardt (Oct 4, '06)

Pakistan reaches into Afghanistan
The fierce resistance in Afghanistan goes from strength to strength, with the Taliban claiming most of the credit. But in parallel a new force is emerging, with ostensibly independent mujahideen groups throwing their weight against foreign troops. Pakistan, in an effort to craft an insurgency that best suits its national interests, is fostering this force. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Oct 2, '06)

SPENGLER
Not what it was, but what it does
Western policy toward the Muslim world appears stupid and clumsy because its theological foundations are flawed. It is not what it is, nor what it was, but rather what it does that defines a religion: How does a faith address the paramount concern of human mortality, and what action does it require of its adherents? No one gets this right, not the neo-cons, not the left, not even the pope. (Oct 2, '06)

COMMENT
Bush and Barney's path to Waterloo
So entrenched is George W Bush's "state of denial" over Iraq that he is dragging the US toward the humiliation of forced withdrawal, or the pain of internal division, or both. Bush, with the faithful Barney at his heel, is leading America down the garden path. - Ehsan Ahrari (Oct 2, '06)

Sifting the intelligence from the politics There is no escaping the political hedging of the current US National Intelligence Estimate. Its failure is that it avoids many hard truths, from the United States' need for Middle Eastern oil to an emerging three tiers of threat from terrorism, says Michael Scheuer, former head of the Osama bin Laden desk at the Central Intelligence Agency, in an interview. (Oct 2, '06) The big secret of that leaked NIE Partisan bickering over the leaked Intelligence Estimate has obscured the disturbing fact that the country's intelligence service is a busted radar - and Washington's enemies know it. - Herbert E Meyer (Oct 2, '06)

Trouble season for Indonesia's Bali
October is the cruelest month for Bali. Two terror bombings took place in that month. Authorities hope this month on the Indonesian tourist island will be bomb-free. The problem is that Australia looks on Bali as its "ground zero" and wants to remind everyone what happened. Balinese wish they would quit remembering so much. - Gary LaMoshi (Oct 2, '06)