Mission Accomplished: Terrorism rises 30%

McClatchy Newspapers reveals that an upcoming terrorism report will show 29% rise in attacks and that:

"...almost all of the boost due to growing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan."

The thing is that terrorism needs bombs and thanks to the lack of post-occupational planning the insurgents managed to loot some 250,000 tons of heavy weapons ordinance in the 30 months after the occupation of Iraq in 2003.

As I've said in the past, if the Bush Administration was capable of comprehending that a withdrawal timeline means national reconciliation and an Iraq solution then this problem would be well on its way to be being diffused. Unfortunately when your only message to the people is "Stay the Course" it doesn't leave you any room to be flexible to changing circumstances.

On top of this the recent news that Bush is to receive the Iraq bill on ‘Mission Accomplished’ day and you have a recipe for humiliation of the President in spite of his threat to veto. Make no mistake, this is an act of humiliation meant to punish and embarrass the President in order to save America's and democracy's reputation in front of the world.

There is a Voice in America, it is the voice of democracy and it will not be ignored.

al-Queda: The sweet smell of propaganda

Scott Horton over at Harpers in his article DOD Claim of Capture of “Senior Al-Qaeda Figure” Draws Questions raises some ummm... important questions.

As I read though my list of daily news feeds what I found surprising was the sheer number of stories in the last 24hrs relating to the capture of this al-Qaeda figure or that al-Qaeda group which I thought interesting and no doubt Scott at Harpers thought so too.

As Scott points out, the story regarding the apprehension of Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi,"one of al-Qaeda's highest-ranking and experienced senior operatives" happened five months ago?!

These and other related al-Qaeda stories smacks of the Whitehouse attempting to spin the perception of success in an otherwise sea of failure stories circling around it's beseiged administration.

Withdrawal timeline = national reconciliation = Iraq solution

Both General Pettraus in his closed session address to congress today and former Iraq interim Prime Minister has said in Doha this week that the solution in Iraq is a political solution.

The keys to this political solution according to Iyad Allawi and many who follow the Iraq issue lies in national reconciliation but it is the very lack of a withdrawal time line that has seen every effort to gain real consensus and commitment to National Reconciliation fail. More pointedly the lack of a withdrawal time line was the primary cause for the departure of the Sadrist block from government and a still looming threat of Sunni members to abandon government also.

It's time for George and Cheney to abandon the tired message discipline of "stay the course" and demonstrate they have a genuine interest in the welfare of their own troops and that of Iraqi's in general and announce a withdrawal time line.

Iraq: Deja vu all over again

I think if we want a crystal ball into US/Iraq troubles we should be looking a the Soviet/Afghanistan experience before, during and after the Soviet invasion--the parallels are disturbing.

Svetlana Savranskaya detailed the Soviet experience in Afghanistan over at the National Security Archives in 2001. In the following quotations you can just swap the words 'Afghanistan' for 'Iraq' and 'Soviet' for 'U.S.' and strangely you feel you're reading about the U.S. troubles in Iraq. She noted:

"Afghanistan did not fit into the mental maps and ideological constructs of the Soviet leaders. Their analysis of internal social processes in Afghanistan was done through the conceptual lens of [of their own political doctrine], which blinded the leadership to the realities of traditional tribal society. Believing that there was no single country in the world, which was not ripe for socialism"

In much the same way that Wolfowitz et al believed that the Iraqi's were ripe for democracy and discounting the "realities of traditional tribal society" lying below the surface just waiting to be unleashed under the right conditions.

She goes on to describe how the Afghan communist government was never a unified party and that

"...it was split along ethnic and tribal lines. The infighting between the 'Khalq' and the 'Parcham' factions made the tasks of controlling the situation much more challenging for Moscow... [including] ...underestimation of ethnic tensions within Afghan society was one of the reasons of the unsuccessful policy of national reconciliation."

As we have seen over recent weeks the crumbling of National Reconciliation in Iraq with the departure of the Sadrist's from government and the threat of of the Sunni block to also leave due to their long term concerns about the absence of a withdrawal time line.

Svetlana goes on to say:

"The Soviet Army also quickly realized the inadequacy of its preparation and planning for the mission in Afghanistan. The initial mission—to guard cities and installations—was soon expanded to combat, and kept growing over time. [and] While the formal mission of the troops was to protect the civilians from the anti-government forces, in reality, Soviet soldiers often found themselves fighting against the civilians they intended to protect, which sometimes led to indiscriminate killing of local people. ...while the regular Afghan army was often unreliable because of the desertions and lack of discipline."

Again one of the things noted is the constantly evolving mission creep for troops who I imagine have no clear understanding of what the mission is from one month to the next as well as the same complaints regarding Iraqi army unreliability due to desertions and lack of discipline .

What is more telling is that the Soviets knew there was no military solution six years before they pulled out of Afghanistan. Some thirty years after the Soviet invasion Afghanistan is still racked by symptoms of a civil war and is considered by many to be a failed state. More pointedly the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan is seen as playing a central role in the rapid rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Central Asian republics and the delegitimization of Communist Party rule ultimately leading to its collapse.

What is that saying? Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it :)

Bolton & Bremmer: kings of callous indifference

I don't suppose anyone ever expected the likes of Paul Bremmer or John Bolton to be Iraq Invasion apologists but it is telling to hear their views when questioned on some of the crucial failures surrounding America's involvement in Iraq.

When Paul Bremer, former U.S. Administrator of Iraq was asked at the close of a paid speech at Clark University in 2005 on his opinion of the $9 billion missing from the funds to rebuild Iraq he replied:

"I suggest you not worry, as that $9 billion was Iraqi money, not US money."

Disturbingly, this cavalier indifference reflects the callousness and contempt of one of the principle architects and catalysts or Iraq's ongoing failure.

More recently former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton was interviewed by the BBC's Jeremy Paxman in Iraq 4 years on where John Bolton said:

"I don't think there is an American interest in what kind of Iraq emerges from the present circumstances. I think the American strategic interest is that no part of Iraq be used as a terrorist base against us."

Jeremy Paxman then details the contradiction in this by quoting a statement previously made by former U.N. Ambassador Bolton:

"So when you said the United States remained committed to a democratic, unified and prosperous Iraq you were just spouting the party line were you?"

Incredibly, a red faced Bolton admits to Paxman that he was simply following White House policy when he made that statement. A somewhat exasperated Paxman continued:

"What do you say to people who say Ok, Saddam Hussein was a Dictator but [Iraq] wasn't then a failed state and it wasn't a haven for terrorists and that's precisely what you've created in Iraq"

John Bolton then proceeds to tell Paxman about how he would rather live in a failed state than a dictatorship.

John Bolton should be careful what he wishes for. The problem with human indifference is that it makes everything it touches meaningless.

Middle East has all the ingredients for regional conflict

I have noticed the recent attempts by the UN Refugee Agency (UNCHR) to get camps going again for refugees. This is a very bad sign as it indicates a worsening situation. Additionally, as previous history has shown both in Lebanon, Afghanistan and Pakistan these refugee warehouses act like fast breeder reactors for terrorists.

Saudi Arabia has already committed 7 billion dollars to building a containment fence along its entire border with Iraq to keep refugees out. One member of Saudi government has intimated that they will intervene massively to prevent a Sunni bloodshed.

Kurdistan is already talking about annexing Kirkuk and a refugee crisis for them is likely to spark tensions and more calls for independence. This will upset the Turks and the Iranians both of whom have been running limited military forays into Iraq in recent months with Turkey threatening a hardened military response against the PKK.

Jordan and Syria have seen their populations increase by 10-12% respectively through the influx of refugees. For perspective imagine Australia taking on 2 million refugees in one hit and imagine how we'd cope. It has nearly doubled their inflation. These refugees have been largely middle class and have paid their way but it still has a significant affect on religious and economic demographics which in itself can give birth to domestic militancy.

European countries are having their own problems with Sweden taking some 2000 Iraqis and Germany expelling many political refugees from Saddam's era.

Troop numbers alone to administer the camps are estimated at 70,000. Without appropriate security the spillover affects are almost guaranteed to create further conflict as insurgents use the camps as bases, training areas etc. to run cross border raids which ultimately promotes a state response which can anger another country which gets involved as today's media reports below illustrate.

Turkey Turns up the Heat in Northern Iraq threatening air strikes against PKK terrorist camps located in Iraq which it says the U.S has done nothing to clean out since it's invasion of Iraq 3 years ago.

In response Iraq president Talabani warns Turkey and Iran "expressed his anger over neighbors Iran and Turkey for interfering in Iraq's domestic affairs, warning Baghdad could reciprocate."

All the ingredients for a regional conflict are now on the table.

Iraq: another brick in the wall

Is the quest for hearts and minds over before it even begins? Reports are in from The Independent and news.com.au that General David Petraeus has made the decisions several months previous in consultations with senior U.S. and Israeli military commanders to introduce gated communities.

The prospect of this has been met with equal measures of hope and concern. The problem as outlined by many is that this gated community approach has in the past has had a success rate arguably less than 10%.

Let's hope they don't resort to importing blast walls at a thousand bucks a piece as Bremmer did in 2003-2004 instead of having local concrete plants do it for a tenth of the cost.

Andrew Bolt's Inconvenient Truth

Journalist, blogger and self styled media watch pundit Andrew Bolt in his recent post titled Media conscript thousands to anti-American protest in Iraq over at the Herald Sun accuses both the Associated Press and the New York Times of lying about the number of protesters present at the recent Al Sadr Anti-US-occupation protest in Najaf. He writes:

"Both the Associated Press and New York Times reported that 'tens of thousands' attended the protest. [and that] This picture of the small Najaf protest confirms that once again the bad news from Iraq is never bad enough for the media:"

As I helpfully pointed out to Andrew in a comment he never posted, the cropped photo fails to show the true numbers of protesters as detailed in ThinkProgress' article titled Right Wing Uses Cropped Photo To Downplay Size Of Iraq Protest where they accurately report:

Conservatives are denying reality. Protesters were not restricted to the square seen in the military’s photo; in fact, they choked the 7-kilometer road between Najaf and neighboring Kufa and clogged streets leading to Sadrein Square, the main rallying point.”

Frankly Andrew, as a journalist you're starting to give blogging a bad name.

Bush: Who will help Caesar?

According to ThinkProgress Bush has invited Congress to the White House for non-negotiations and the Washington Post reports that Bush has criticized Democrats for the Delay in Iraq Spending Bill. The POTUS is said to have retorted

"They need to do it quickly and get it to my desk so I can veto it, and then Congress can get down to the business of funding our troops without strings and without further delay."

Frankly I don't see what the rush is as the POTUS waited until June 16 to sign the supplemental last year. In the same article the Washington Post continued reporting President Bush as saying

...that the Pentagon would soon have to transfer $1.6 billion from other military accounts 'to cover the shortfall' caused by the lack of a bill.

Why? Bearing in mind that the Congressional Research Service reported to Congress last year that with funds already appropriated they won't run out of funding until July 2007.

So, what's all the hulla balaoo about? The sticking point as everyone knows by now is the controversy of announcing a withdrawal date. Honestly, setting in place a plan for staging a withdrawal has never had to be set in concrete it just needs to be an aiming point. Additionally, far from being a catalyst for more violence it actually stands to neutralize a primary propaganda weapon of nationalist insurgents which is that the U.S. are in Iraq for good.

I say, announce a date and see what happens. You don't physically have to do anything and you can observe what transpires and if violence increases then the POTUS can take the date away. I think it makes for an excellent stick and carrot approach that will motivate everyone with a genuine interest in seeing a stable Iraq to be pulling in the same direction to achieve it.

Unfortunately I'm of the growing opinion that the POTUS has slowly but surely dug himself a hole as "the Decider" that his brains trust have so far not been able to help him out of.

They need to work much harder!

Iraq Withdrawal: A Feith saving exercise?

In today's Whitehouse press briefing Dana Perino tried to justify President Bush’s escalation in Iraq by stating,

“The terrorists that are seeking a safe haven in Iraq, if we were to leave, would find one, just like they had one in Afghanistan.”

Yes Dana, that's the foothold they grabbed whilst he U.S. was too busy establishing a "beachhead" in Iraq to tackle Iran!?

I'm just wondering what part of the recent Senate Intelligence Committee findings regarding Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Dana Perino missed?

Are we being asked to have Feith or save Feith?

Joe Klein drops a clanger at Time

Man! When are journalists going to learn to read! Seriously, I'm sick and tired of every Tom Dick and now Joe writing about the Baker Hamilton report without ever having read the bloody thing.

Joe writes in his article An Administration's Epic Collapse:

"...never was Bush's adolescent petulance more obvious than in his decision to ignore the Baker-Hamilton report and move in the exact opposite direction: adding troops..."

Joe, the Baker-Hamilton report reports states:

"...a short-term ...surge of American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad ...if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective."

Whilst he may not have made a song and dance about it, The POTUS has actually implemented a raft of the BHR recommendations and you can read what I wrote about this months ago in my post Bush may have been listening after-all.

Lying for Queen & Country

The Iranians manufactured a great deal of positive PR out of this exercise. I don't mean for the detention of the British sailors and Marines but for their treatment of them. The whole exercise of photos, video footage etc was all done to capitalize on a captive public convinced from previous U.S. rhetoric that the Iranians would behave like monsters they were portrayed to be. But instead of waterboarding their captives the worst thing they made one member do was wear a scarf. There's nothing quite like the humiliation of being treated well to dispel the myth of Persian evil.

In a sense then, the Iranian treatment of the British Sailors and Marines achieved two primary propaganda objectives. First, it portrayed a marked contrast between their treatment of detainees and the U.S treatment of detainees. This demonstrated that far from being the abject monsters portrayed by the COW centric media the public instead saw British Marines and Sailors talking candidly about the circumstances of their detention--a situation never before seen. One could almost hear the cries of neo-cons in their lounge rooms lamenting "why didn't you fight back!?" which really translates to "why couldn't you have just died in a firefight?" The media reports of U.S. frustration were palpable.

Don't get me wrong, we've seen captured troops before making confessions during the first gulf war but lets make no mistake that those videos were made under duress and obvious to all and sundry--different objectives. Seen in this light, harming the British Sailors and Marines then would have constituted a PR disaster for the Iranians and delivered a PR windfall to the the U.S. only too ready to lob a few cruise missiles into the pot. In other words, any poor treatment of the captives by the Iranians would have catalyzed public opinion firmly against them. It would have been the opportunity the U.S. were waiting for to be able to say "See! We told you they were cruel and inhuman."

The second propaganda objective as I see it was that it let the world know that the Iranians were not going to stand by and let their sovereignty be walked over by arrogant boarding parties from a far flung foreign country. This was Iran's way of saying we're not going to put up with your sh*t right on our doorstep.

Did it work? Well, taking in to account the number of comedian and talk show hosts who made the obligatory scarf and hot dinner jokes, the first objective was met. Also the reports of the British reviewing their boarding operation procedures in the disputed Shatt, the second objective was also met.

Subsequently, the British Government is in damage control attempting to apply counter spin to the Iranian PR coup by attempting to turn the Iranians back into the monsters they told everyone they were by permitting for the first time ever for active duty personnel to sell their stories of "torture" to the highest bidder.

I can't help but wonder, why the sweetener? What happened to lying for Queen and Country?

Scott Ritter, WMD's and selective memory

Caught Scott Ritter telling a porky in Conversation With Robert Scheer over at TruthDig the other day where he said:

"as a weapons inspector we were reporting these facts [that Iraq was disarmed] ...in the fall of 1993"

Actually, a little digging revealed quite the opposite as his interview with Elizabeth Farnsworth at PBS in August 1998 shows. Scott said then:

"Iraq still has prescribed weapons capability. There needs to be a careful distinction here. Iraq today is challenging the special commission to come up with a weapon and say where is the weapon in Iraq, and yet part of their efforts to conceal their capabilities, I believe, have been to disassemble weapons into various components and to hide these components throughout Iraq."

and on the need for a military deterrent against Iraq he continued:

"… without the real and credible threat of military force. ...You can’t expect to enforce the law unless you have the means to carry out the enforcement."

Hmmmmmm....

What's wrong with competitive analysis of intelligence?

Remember Team B? They were the cabal approved under President Reagan to undertake competitive analysis of intelligence on the then Soviet threat. Historically, their results have been variously described as being everything from "completely wrong" to "fantasy". Even CIA Director, George H. W. Bush finally concluded that the Team B approach set "in motion a process that lends itself to manipulation for purposes other than estimative accuracy." Team B was shut-down.

So, fast forward to 2002 and the formation of the Office of Special Plans whose task was ...you guessed it "competitive analysis of intelligence". These are the guys who said Saddam had WMD's, was buying Uranium from Niger and had links with al Qaeda. All of these assertions as with their Team B forebears have been proven through courts and various senate and congressional committees to be anywhere from simply "misleading" to complete fabrications. The OSP was also shut-down amidst the Valerie Plame Affair and with one of its former members, Lawrence Franklin jailed for passing classified intelligence to foreign officials.

So here we are today and Bush Jnr. has assembled much of the same crew yet again for his Iranian Directorate whose role is rumored to be ...yep "competitive analysis of intelligence". Remember the fake Iranian IED photographs from a few months back? No, these guys are not stupid, but they are persistent.

In my mind, the Bush administration, sees intelligence analysis as a drunkard views a lamppost--as a means of support rather than illumination--nothing surprising there. The question then is what is a country to do when its most senior members of democratic government are actively involved in undermining their own country's national security by subverting intelligence to achieve the private objectives of God only knows who?

What are the potential impacts of foreign policy decisions that bear little or no relationship to actual circumstances? In my mind I see this type or partisan manipulation of intelligence as the single largest threat to any and all countries national securities worldwide.

What do you think?

The 'surge' may be working and someone will have to give.

We'll the first "surge" statistics are in and according to ABC News International it's been the first month in the Iraq conflict where US troop casualties have exceeded those of Iraqi troops. The good news is that the civilian death toll is reported to be down significantly on December so perhaps the Petraeus strategy is working but the question remains will it work fast enough.

As I've mentioned in the past, the new model will mean that U.S. troops are far more exposed due to their being embedded with the population and that kind of stress is going to take it's toll PDQ as the troops will have to be switched on 24/7.

I pray that this continues to work--obviously without anymore US casualties.

Politically, this puts Congress between a rock and a hard place because if the plan is actually reducing civilian deaths but increasing troop exposure in the process then Bush is in a position to strengthen his argument that the plan is working and that Congress should just hand over the money-sans strings.

I wish they could find some middle ground but now with these figures coming in it doesn't look like Bush will be backing down in which case Congress is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Someone will have to give.

On the ground reportage: where's the point?

I see Michael Thurston's news story in The Australian from Tehran of Iran holding 15 British sailors. For a Journalist based on the ground in Tehran it's interesting to see that his report at no stage quotes Iranian officials about their side of the story. Makes you wonder what the point is in having him there when getting Iran's perspective was as easy as reading Iran's Press TV coverage on the web?

The Shatt al_Arab has been a disputed waterway between Iran and Iraq since before Saddam was a small boy. For the most part, since the 1975 Algiers Agreement and excluding the Iran/Iraq war, it has been a shared waterway and for good reason--it's very shallow and very narrow.

Michael's article disingenuously ignores that the inspection was of an Iranian flagged vessel most likely on the Iranian side of the Shatt (assuming of course that one can ever truly be on one side over the course of traversing the Shatt).

UN Security Council resolution 1723, which is what the British are operating under, gives them the right as afforded by the Iraqi government to inspect any and all vessels in Iraq's waterways but NOT in Iran's.

The Shatt then provides ideal opportunity for confusion about territoriality which I imagine is the reason why the Brits think they can get away with the odd--"my mistake" infraction of Iran's sovereignty in their quest to uncover a nuclear smoking gun.

Interesting also that this happens just in the lead-up to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's impending visit to New York to address the UN Security Council. One cannot help but think that the COW is looking to avoid another Chavez style outburst at the U.N. probably the reason why they delayed in getting the Iranian visas processed in time as well as I read now that Ahmadinejad has canceled his visit.

Iraq Oil: Storm in a teacup?

Based on all the scaremongering reports I've seen written about this upcoming final draft it appears it has all been a storm in a tea cup.

Far from being restricted to existing fields INOC is permitted to create subsidiary companies, take shares in foreign companies and participate in exploration and production of future resources in accordance with article 6 and appendix 2--which is missing. Exxon Mobil is said to have more seismic data on Iraq than on Houston real estate and my guess is that appendix 2 contains only a sub-set of identified oil reserves if you get my drift :)

Additionally, contrary to Raed's claim, this draft specifically states that all oil revenues are to be deposited with the Iraq Central Bank whose board is made up of national and regional ministers with distribution of these monies to be in accordance with the constitution. In other words, I can find nothing in here that speaks to dividing-up Iraq.

The Royalty fee of 12.5% appears to be within industry standards and if INOC is able to negotiate partnerships with oil companies than it should profit accordingly. I use the term "should" advisedly as I don't know if it's clear what their capacity is to buy in to these joint partnerships and under what terms.

This is the rub, in that pre and post production profit margins etc are all negotiated in individual production contracts. These are subject to public bidding but I imagine the details will remain confidential to all except the parties involved and government.

The maximum period of production agreements is 20 years with renegotiation to 25. If INOC is unable to buy-in to foreign partnerships on favorable terms then these periods could become a pita for Iraq down the track.

As background, one of the main points of concern I read previously concerned an alleged 20% post production cost profit margin for foreign oil companies. The concern was that normally these would be negotiated at around 10-12% post production margin. Oil industry pundits suggested that this was due to the risk involved in conducting oil operations in Iraq. However, with the ability to sign PSA's for periods of up to 20 years this stands as a massive profit margin equivalent to the signing of most standard agreements with a forty year term. One can only hope that the National Oil Council of Iraq will bear this in mind when negotiating the contract periods.

Bush may have been listening afterall

Contrary to the politics of the media and the hysterics of Hagel the Baker Hamilton Report (BHR) actually recommended "...a short-term ...surge of American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad ...if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective."

Additionally, it appears that Condoleezza Rice's recent visit to the Middle East whilst not establishing an 'Iraq International Support Group' as recommended by the BHR canvassed widely amongst various Arab countries and groups on what I imagine were issues recommended by the BHR.

George's recent State of the Union address also contains additional recommendations from the BHR which include the establishment of a Civilian Corps and additions to the ranks of depleted Marine and Army ranks.

I didn't agree with the Baker Report recommendation that "The President should restate that the United States does not seek to control Iraq’s oil." I think the less he has to say publicly the less likely it is to come back and bite the Administration on the ass. Bearing in mind that the Iraqi's have been under enormous pressure to sign the Petroleum Legislation framed around a PSA as opposed to royalties and with terms that make the Sakhalin II PSA look like a lotto win for the Russian's and we all know what happened there :))

If he follows the recommendations of the BHR and various milestones relating to that are achieved the BHR indicates that a withdrawal could commence in time before the next elections ....sorry I mean first quarter 2008 :)

There's only one major sticking point and that is that (at least publicly ) the Bush Administration has not modified it's regime change tune on Iran but blind Freddy can see that any plan is dead in the water without doing this. We can only hope that efforts are being made behind the scenes.

Perhaps this also explains why there has been little public admission by the Whitehouse of the Baker Hamilton Report letting the President save face with his original course of action. It may also explain why Congress elected to levy a non-sanctioned resolution at the President whilst still publicly appearing tell him off--avoiding any constituent backlash.

Iraq Surge: What if Congress says "No"

Well there appears to be a couple of resolutions doing the rounds at the moment and none of them look promising for the Bush Administration so where is this going to leave Bush, the United States and more importantly the Iraqis?

I wonder if there is any benefit in sounding out the U.N. for involvement as peace keepers deployed in the less conflicted areas of Iraq. If the U.N appeared agreeable in principle then Bush could re-lobby congress for an advance of 20,000 troops as a sign of good faith until the Blue Helmets can get on the ground. For Congress this would be their light at the end of the tunnel.

Feeding Blue Helmets into the low or non-conflict areas of Iraq would allow the relieved U.S. troops to be withdrawn and re-deployed for the calming of Baghdad as well as the start of overall withdrawal of some of these troops if U.N. replacement numbers permitted. Again a light at the end of the tunnel for both American's and the people of Iraq and the peninsula in general as well as an opportunity for Petraeus to work his magic.

Troops withdrawals don't have to be huge it just has to be a start-- a PR goodwill gesture to let everyone concerned know that the end of the tunnel is in sight. Headlines read: "Our troops coming home" --ticker tape parade stuff. Everyone heaves a sigh of relief.

The deployment of the U.N. peace keepers combined with the start of U.S. withdrawal may be the type of conciliatory gesture needed to coax Iran back to the table for talks on stemming the Iraqi insurgency. I think they'd want to keep these talks under the counter and simple by leaving the whole nuclear thing off the table until the changing of the guard in Washington and a new centrist govt. Democrat or Republican can openly negotiate a new way forward with Iran.

The problems with the U.N. solution is largely how does this get spun in such a way that the President doesn't look like he's having to eat crow. This is no small matter and is of prime concern to many on the Hill as they try and decide the best course of action on Bush's latest plan. Unfortunately, there is no way to embarrass the President without embarrassing the presidency and the U.S as a whole so any solution has to take this into account.

Another problem is that Iran would be unhappy about having to sit with U.N. sanctions for the next 18 months waiting for guard change in Washington and the start of meaningful talks so perhaps Washington, Iran and the U.N could agree to having the Russians run a "hear no evil see no evil" monitoring team on the ground in Iran permitting a slackening of the sanction's noose.

The other problem of course is making sure that Israel doesn't run any interference on the process by doing something rash or preemptive against Iran.

Of course the hardest part would be convincing everyone that this was the President's plan all along.

Hillary Clinton and Integrity

In October 2002, if I was looking for a stand-up Democrat with b*lls of steel it would have been Russ Feingold who addressed the lion's den in the Senate and laid out the stark truth about why going into Iraq was wrong. His argument was salient, truthful and his "No" vote matched his words and his convictions. We call this integrity.

The Weasel Word Queen on the other hand voted "Yes" while lacing her floor speech with internal contradiction saying "If we were to attack Iraq now, alone or with few allies, it would set a precedent that could come back to haunt us." and went on to say "So Mr. President, for all its appeal, a unilateral attack, while it cannot be ruled out, on the present facts is not a good option."

Hillary Clinton then quietly voted "Yes" on the resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.

Once you lose your integrity, it's all down hill from there.