Turkey busts Iranian weapons transfer to Syria / Hezbullah

[Ancyrean]

CNN's report on the developments

Particularly:

"There is no such thing, no entry to another country. If such a thing happens, then we would announce it," Gul said. "We are in a war with terror, we will do whatever is necessary to fight terrorism."

Several military officials at the Pentagon said they have seen nothing Wednesday that would confirm the reports of Turkish troops crossing the border into Iraq.

One military official said that small numbers of Turkish forces periodically move in and out of Iraq doing counterinsurgency operations, but not thousands at one time. The officials requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

While the U.S. has about 16,500 troops in northern Iraq, most of them are not right along the border. Many of those are training teams working with the Iraqi border patrols.

The White House said there has been "no new activity" in northern Iraq to justify the press reports. Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the White House's National Security Council, said that U.S. officials in the region have confirmed that the activity is a continuation of Turkey's years-long campaign against the Kurdish PKK guerrillas of Kurdistan Workers' Party.

"The Turkish government reports no new incursions into northern Iraq," Johndroe said. "U.S. officials on the ground confirm no new activity."

Johndroe said Washington remains "concerned about the PKK and the use of Iraq as a safe haven."

...

An official at military headquarters in Ankara declined to confirm or deny the report that Turkish troops had entered Iraq.

[Dinner]

Personally, I welcome greater Turkish involvement though I know it will be extremely difficult for the Iraqi Kurdish government to prevent it's people from joining in and attack the Turks since they see Turks as their hated enemy. It's clear the US is so busy in the rest of Iraq that it isn't controlling the remotest parts of Iraqi Kurdistan.

the short story is the Pentigon was right that we needed way more then 150,000 troops to control all of Iraq yet the Bush administration insisted on going in with less in 2003 so as not to upset citizens prior to the 2004 election. The politicians always screw things up when it comes to proper military planning.

[Ramo]

Interesting Robert Dreyfuss piece on the National Salvation Front:

Is There a Nationalist Solution In Iraq?

The ethnic and sectarian conflict engulfing the country has gotten the most attention. But under the radar, a rough coalition of nationalist political elements in Iraq has been emerging.


Robert Dreyfuss | June 5, 2007 | web only


Over dinner in a quiet corner of a restaurant in Washington, D.C., a few months ago, a leading Iraqi activist and politician laid out a hopeful plan that, in his view, is the only viable political solution to Iraq's civil war: a new coalition to replace the failed, sectarian regime of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki with a nationalist, Sunni-Shia alliance. The Iraqi, on a brief Washington visit, is deeply involved in efforts to create a broad-based alliance within Iraqi politics that could oust Maliki. "We have a detailed plan," he said.

Many Iraqis, representing a wide range of Iraqi parties -- moderate and secular Sunni and Shia, Sunni religious parties, supporters of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the dissident Shia Fadhila party, the Sunni resistance-linked Association of Muslim Scholars, much of Iraq's armed, Sunni-led resistance, and various independents -- are working toward this goal, he said.

In fits and starts, and under the worst possible conditions -- literally under fire -- a wide spectrum of Iraqi political leaders is looking for a way out of the ethnic and sectarian crisis. It is an effort that has been underway for nearly a year. But they are doing so not only without American support, but against the determined opposition of the Bush administration.

In March, at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, I asked David Satterfield, the State Department's top Iraq official, if the administration had given any consideration to the idea of a new political alliance that might replace Maliki. Satterfield shot it down, in the strongest terms. "We strongly, explicitly support the government of Prime Minister Maliki," he said, through a clenched jaw, and looking me in the eye. "It is not helpful to talk about alternatives."

But for most Iraqis, the vast majority of whom oppose the U.S. occupation, an alternative to Maliki is foremost on their minds. Moreover, on May 10 a majority of the Iraqi parliament supported a resolution calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country, reflecting a growing consensus among the Iraqi public and the political class. That resolution reveals the political glue that could hold together a new governing bloc in Baghdad. No one knows, at this stage, whether that glue -- namely, opposition to the U.S. role in Iraq -- is strong enough to overcome the enormous difficulties inherent in uniting, say, Sadr and secular-minded Sunnis. On the other hand, it is safe to say that no Iraqi government that supports an open-ended U.S. occupation will have a prayer of getting Iraqi public support.

As Zbigniew Brzezinksi told a private gathering in Washington last week, the Iraqis who want the United States to stay are the ones who will have to leave when the United States goes. "Most of those within the Green Zone will be leaving with us," he said.

And it isn't only the U.S. occupation that unites the opposition to Maliki. In addition, the anti-Maliki forces are fierce nationalists who oppose the separatist, break-up-Iraq views of Maliki's strongest allies. Inside Iraq, the core of Maliki's support is made up of the Kurds, SCIRI, and, of course, his own Dawa party. The Kurds and SCIRI -- which has recently renamed itself SIIC, or Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council -- have made a devil's pact to support each other's separatist efforts: the Kurds, who want an independent Kurdistan, are willing to deal with SCIRI, which supports a semi-independent Shia south, and vice versa. But the anti-Maliki forces vigorously support Iraq's unity. And they, including Sadr, oppose efforts by Iran to win hegemonic influence in post-Saddam Iraq.

Last February, Representative Jim McDermott of Washington organized an extraordinary Capitol Hill event. By teleconference, McDermott brought five Iraqi members of the 275-member parliament together with a dozen or so members of Congress to discuss the future of U.S.-Iraqi relations. All five Iraqi parliamentarians called for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, along with urgent steps to help end the civil war, restore Iraq's old army, accommodate the dissolved Baath party, and rebuild the shattered economy. The most important participant in the event from the Iraqi side was Nadim al-Jaberi, a member of parliament and co-founder of the Fadhila party, potentially a lynchpin of an anti-Maliki alliance.

Earlier this year, Fadhila -- a Sadrist movement strong in Basra and Iraq's south -- pulled out of Maliki's ruling United Iraqi Alliance. Since then, both Fadhila and Sadr's own party have been discussing a new political alignment with the Sunnis called a "National Salvation Front." Many of the potential participants in that front also took part in McDermott's video hookup, including the National Dialogue Front (11 seats), which was represented by Saleh Mutlaq; the Iraqi Accord Front (44 seats), which represents religious Sunnis; and the Iraqi National List, led by Iyad Allawi, the former Iraqi prime minister (25 seats).

Despite McDermott's efforts, the idea is getting no support whatsoever from the Bush administration, and it has been utterly ignored by leading Democrats in Congress, including the party's would-be 2008 standard-bearers. Two weeks ago, I spent several hours with Mohammed al-Daini, a member of the parliament, who was visiting Washington. "The Maliki government is part of the problem, not part of the solution," he said. "The first step is for the United States to stop supporting the Maliki government, which is a government of sectarianism and death squads. The second step is to set a timetable for withdrawal." But Daini, who managed to meet with members of Congress, could get no higher in his talks with the Bush administration than a pro forma meeting with the State Department's Iraq desk officer.

Meanwhile, Sadr, who recently resurfaced in Iraq after months in hiding, is aggressively reaching out to Sunnis. The mercurial cleric, scion of one of Iraq's blue-blood Shia religious clans, is the country's most powerful politician. Since May, Sadr has launched a public initiative to open talks with nearly all of Iraq's Sunni factions, including the armed resistance. He has called for a quick end to the U.S. occupation, positioning himself as a nationalist who can speak for all Iraqis. He's sent emissaries to visit Sunni religious leaders in Egypt, the Gulf, and Saudi Arabia, which has great influence among Iraqi Sunni tribes and clerics. And he has denounced Iran for its refusal, in its May 25 talks with the United States, to demand that the United States leave Iraq. "It is most regrettable that they [the Iranians} are inadvertently or deliberately forgetting, in such negotiations, to demand that the occupier depart," said Sadr.

"When you weaken Iran's influence in Iraq, it will also weaken Maliki's government." Daini told me. "The Maliki government is using Iranian intelligence to get rid of its opponents." Indeed, many Iraqi leaders, especially the Sunni Arabs, were alarmed by the May 25 U.S.-Iran talks, fearing an American deal with Iran to carve up Iraq. Following the U.S.-Iran meeting, the Baath party of Iraq -- which plays a key role in support of the armed resistance -- warned that the United States and Iran are determined to eliminate Iraq's "Arab identity," adding: "The U.S.-Iranian alliance is the number one enemy of Iraq and of the Arab nation."

Among Sadr's potential allies are Mutlaq's bloc, the larger Iraqi Accord Front (which includes Sunni religious parties, such as the Iraqi Islamic Party), and Allawi's secular Iraqi National List. Allawi, a secular Shia, has been actively seeking a leadership role in a coalition to replace Maliki, too. He has been busily courting Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, and last week, in Amman, Jordan, his party held a national conference that tried, and failed, to win support for a broad national front in Iraq. One of the most intriguing efforts by Allawi has been his dialogue with Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdish region. In March, Barzani -- who is less closely wedded to Iran and to Hakim's SCIRI than his Kurdish confrere, President Jalal Talabani -- visited Saudi Arabia at the same time as Allawi, giving rise to speculation that Allawi and Barzani were discussing a move against Maliki. At the time, Barzani's spokesman said that the two men had met in Kurdistan before traveling to Saudi Arabia to discuss a "national front to take over for the political bloc now supporting al-Maliki."

Efforts are ongoing. On June 3, Salah Mutlaq, the former Baathist and leader of the National Dialogue Front, said that he had renewed talks to form an anti-Maliki front in Baghdad. "We have been engaged in constructive talks to create this powerful bloc to save Iraq," said Mutlaq. "Maliki's government should go because it has brought untold suffering to the Iraqi people."

There is no sign that the Bush administration has any interest in the emerging anti-Maliki alliance in Iraqi politics. Instead, the White House and the Pentagon are concentrating on the so-called "surge," despite accumulating evidence that it is an utter failure. In the end, if and when the United States reconciles itself to a withdrawal from Iraq, the path to stability will be found in a nationalist government constituting most or all of the emerging "national salvation" coalition. It's possible that the team of so-called realists now in control of U.S. foreign policy can come to that understanding on their own. Or perhaps they’ll need to be pushed, and hard, by the Democrats in Congress and on the '08 presidential campaign trail.

But with each passing day, as sectarian violence grows, it will be more and more difficult to make that happen. Americans need to begin understanding that the end of the Maliki government and the start of a U.S. withdrawal are one and the same thing.

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=is_there_a_nationalist_solution_in_iraq

Looks like part of Allawi's plan is tearing the KDP away from the PUK. I guess that makes Talabani Nasser and Barzani Sadat...

On the Turkish front, Sadr rebuked Turkey for violating Iraqi sovereignty (despite his support in the North among Shia Turkmen sympathizing with the raid). It seems like a little diplomacy with the Kurds to take the edge off his strong opposition to an annexation of Kirkuk.

[lord of the mark]

I dont really believe that Sadr is opposed to Iranian influence, or that the Sunnis and Allawi are really interested in working with him. Or that the Saudis are.

I also dont beleive that the Administration, which is now dominated by the kinds of realists who were Allawis biggest fans, is against this, though obviously they cant say so in public.

Id hate to go ad hominem, but I given that the above considerations are unsupported, Id have to mention that the Prospect has an agenda.

But we shall see, it may be that Sadr ends up in such a coalition. He was, afterall, a long time member of the Shia-Kurd coalition, despite having in 2004 reached out to the Sunnis on a firmly anti-US (and by implication anti SCIRI and anti-Kurdish) platform. Hes flexible, when it suits him.

Interesting that my suggestion of Kurdish participation in the Allawi block is confirmed even by this article.

[Ramo]

I dont really believe that Sadr is opposed to Iranian influence

Sure, when it's backing him. Which has been less the case recently. But the article specifically says that he opposes hegemonic influence from Iran, which is a fairly solid claim as far as I can tell.

or that the Sunnis [...] are really interested in working with him. Or that the Saudis are.

I don't entirely disagree, but he pops up in every article anyone prints about Allawi's plan. Again, part of what makes the plan unlikely.

But certainly, there have been talks (as with the Kurds).

I also dont beleive that the Administration, which is now dominated by the kinds of realists who were Allawis biggest fans, is against this, though obviously they cant say so in public.

Since most of this coalition is explicitly opposed to the occupation, Allawi's support two or three years ago from the Admin is a moot point. What do you think the neocons think of Chalabi right now?

I agree that the realists probably still back Allawi (the article says as much), but they also have been supporting things like, say, getting out of Iraq. I also don't think that's a coincidence.

Dunno what your beef is with that statement since there is no evidence we're putting any effort into dropping Maliki. I'm not sure how he's supposed to back up an absence of evidence...

Interesting that my suggestion of Kurdish participation in the Allawi block is confirmed even by this article.

I never said that the Kurds aren't part of Allawi's plan. Just that his plan is unrealistic. Incidentally, we're basically talking about the same incidents going on mentioned in the article you posted, i.e. three months old.

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Ramo

Since most of this coalition is explicitly opposed to the occupation,

Except Allawis own block isnt. The Kurds who are mentioned as possible participants arent. the Shia independents for the most part arent. And theres talk that the even many of the Sunnis are reluctant to see the Americans go anytime soon. So despite the Fadhalla participation , and the Sadr participation ive seen mentioned nowhere else, I dont see this as an Anti-occupation block.

Allawi's support two or three years ago from the Admin is a moot point. What do you think the neocons think of Chalabi right now?

Im not going to open up a pointless debate about Chalabi. Suffice it to say I dont see evidence of Allawi having changed that much.

I agree that the realists probably still back Allawi (the article says as much), but they also have been supporting things like, say, getting out of Iraq. I also don't think that's a coincidence.

Everyone wants to get out of Iraq eventually. its a question of how. I was thinking more of Gates type realists, not necessarily Jim Baker, though theres a continuum there.

Dunno what your beef is with that statement since there is no evidence we're putting any effort into dropping Maliki. I'm not sure how he's supposed to back up an absence of evidence...

Ive seen several mentions that Khalizad was pushing it. None handy now, sorry. But while im not expecting him to say that the admin is pushing it, I wouldnt assume they arent either.

[Ramo]

Except Allawis own block isnt. The Kurds who are mentioned as possible participants arent. the Shia independents for the most part arent. And theres talk that the even many of the Sunnis are reluctant to see the Americans go anytime soon. So despite the Fadhalla participation , and the Sadr participation ive seen mentioned nowhere else, I dont see this as an Anti-occupation block.

As I've been saying, I'm not convinced about where Allawi stands. I have no idea where the Shia indies would stand (news articles rarely mention them), but the Sunnis certainly supported the anti-occupation resolution Parliament passed (incidentally, I'd love to see a roll call on that vote...). The KDP's an exception, and that's why I wrote "most." In any case, Sunnis+Sadrists probably constitute a majority within the largest possible NSF.

Everyone wants to get out of Iraq eventually. its a question of how. I was thinking more of Gates type realists, not necessarily Jim Baker, though theres a continuum there.

Gates was reportedly instrumental in drafting the ISG Report. He subjugated his own preferences (at least pre-"Surge") to that of his boss.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ramo


I have no idea where the Shia indies would stand (news articles rarely mention them), but the Sunnis certainly supported the anti-occupation resolution Parliament passed (incidentally, I'd love to see a roll call on that vote...).

As long as the "occupation" is perceived in the Sunni community as mainly supporting a Maliki govt that has failed to reign in the death squads to the Sunnis satisfaction, and doing to little to restrain the death squads itself, its going to be impossible for Sunni parties to publicly support the American presence. I think the Sunni leadership is quite aware however that a US withdrawl would be dangerous for them, and their real goal is to change the govt in Baghdad, at which point theyd likely accept American support.

[Ramo]

I don't remember them as being particularly pro-occupation last time Allawi was in power...

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ramo
I don't remember them as being particularly pro-occupation last time Allawi was in power...

I dont recall Shiite death squads running around then, either. Nor did they face the actual prospect of the Americans leaving soon back than, which they certainly do now.

Look, they were in the other camp from Allawi then, and theyre linking up with him now. someone must have changed. The question is was is it Allawi, or was it the Sunnis. I guess we're gotten different impressions on that.

[lord of the mark]

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/2007/05/coup-panic.html

quite complex, at least to me.

I agree with you there are problems pursuing any block against SCIRI and Dawa, they have a lot of seats,and all the other parties have huge differences among themselves. I still think that an Allawi-Kurdish-Sunni alliance can overcome the differences over Kirkuk (perhaps years of contemplating Jerusalem have convinced me that cities by their nature are subject to splitting and compromises) more easily than can the Allawi list and Sunnis overcome their differences with the Sadrists. But perhaps neither is really possible.