I just left an on-the-record conference call in which Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, briefed some stateside pundits on how the situation looks at the end of the year. Not surprisingly, he said, that “2007 ends in a considerably better place than it began” and that he is “feeling a lot more encouraged than when I got here last March.” The key challenge now, of course, is to translate security progress into more political progress.
Crocker offered some encouraging signs of a “positive spiral engendered by security improvements,” including the fact that Tariq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Vice President, recently met with Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the senior Shiite cleric, and that there were recently meetings between Sunni sheikhs from Anbar Province and Shiite sheikhs from Karbala Province. Those kinds of cross-sectarian meetings would not have happened a year ago.
He also pointed out that some of the Concerned Local Citizens groups in mixed parts of Baghdad that have taken up arms against extremists are composed of both Shiites and Sunnis. (The majority, however, are still exclusively Sunni, which makes sense, because they are operating in Sunni neighborhoods.)
Another welcome sign is that the central government is spending more of its budget and that the money is going out to Sunni and Shiite provinces alike “in a manner perceived as equitable.” In a related development, the Baghdad government recently agreed to pay pensions to tens of thousands of people who had been denied them because of their association with the Baathist regime. Crocker suggested this means that “they are paying for reconciliation.”
Trying to pass reconciliation legislation has, Crocker admitted, “been a slow, painful process.” Some of the bills, including one reversing previous de-Baathification decrees and another offering limited amnesty to some of those who have fought against coalition and Iraqi forces since 2003, are still winding their way through the legislative process. “They are making some progress,” he said. “They are going to have to make more.” He did add that the problem doesn’t seem to be Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki: “He’s a committed, dedicated person of great personal courage.”
A wild card in all this remains the role of Iraq’s neighbors, particularly Syria and Iran, which have long been stoking the conflict. There have been mixed reports on whether the Iranians and Syrians have tamped down their efforts to destabilize Iraq, with conflicting claims being heard from the Pentagon and State Department.
Crocker was careful to take a middle-of-the-road position, saying, “I’m pretty modest about what I claim to know about Iran.” Crocker continued: “It’s unclear to me how much of what we’ve seen in throttling back of extremist militia activity represents an Iranian effort, how much of it is Sadrist leaders recognizing where good politics lie…. I’m making no assumptions. I’m handing out no certificates of good behavior.” This puts him at odds, seemingly, with some State Department colleagues back in Washington, who have been more effusive in attesting to Iran’s supposed change of behavior.
As for Syria, he said, there are “some indications of lessening numbers of foreign fighters slash suicide bombers coming across the border, but as far as we can tell that still remains the primary conduit for people who do really nasty things out here.”
He pointed out another aspect of Iraq’s foreign relations that hasn’t received the attention it deserves: the unwillingness of Arab countries to send ambassadors back to Baghdad despite the improving security situation. “It is past time,” Crocker said, “for Arab states to step up and be a positive, active influence in Iraq.” At the moment, they prefer to complain from the sidelines about Iranian influence without trying to get into the game themselves.
Crocker ended by saying that Iraqis no longer fear getting abandoned by the United States: “At the most fundamental level, there is a view that things are moving in the right direction, that security is improving, that the surge has worked, that Iraqi forces are more numerous and more capable, and therefore why on earth would we abandon a winning proposition?”
Good question. It’s one that some of the presidential candidates who are advocating a rapid drawdown of American forces should answer.
All jurisdictions with tough gun control laws, no doubt.
“Many of Israel’s most vocal critics are big on pointing out that their criticism is not anti-Semitic, but anti-Israel.”
That distinction is not acceptable at Contentions. I recommend that you shut down Contentions. There is a possibility of unapproved comments.
#2,
Considering there seems to be no moderator or limit on what you can post here, I doubt you need worry.
This is a superb Mark Steyn enumeration, and I am grateful to Daniel Halper for picking it up.
Israel is not defending her “right to exist,” she’s comitting war crimes to terrorize the population of Gaza, taking advantage of the window before the Inauguration, and to increase the electoral chances of Livni and Barak.
again, so what if it’s anti semetism?
yes, the world is anti semetic and it flares up when jews piss them off especialy but it’s always under there.
I thought jews were supposed to KNOW this. why do they act surprised?
wasn’t israel built on the idea that the rest of the world is full of anti semites so they need their own country?
that’s why i don’t understand israels behaviour. it’s like they WANT another holocaust.
guys. all I can say is don’t tease the lion. please re think these aggressive strategies
The left and the main stream media love an underdog, even if they deserve their status. The Palestinians can do nothing but hate and cannot create. Their main desire is to have their children killed so they can get a better place to live and an interview on CNN.
The Lest and the main stream media loved the Jews after World War II because of the Holocaust. They cannot stand us because we became successful in spite of what was done to us.We do not meet their idea of a victim culture.
Should be “left and main stream media”
Daniel Halpern:
HOORAH FOR ISRAEL! HOORAH FOR ISRAEL! HOORAH FOR ISRAEL!
Is it really Canada, France or Italy or Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. I would guess that a majority of those protesting against Israel are reflexive-Jew-Hating-Muslims, who are invading countries everywhere and want to force their sick way of life on the world.
There ought to be a moratorium on emigration of Moslems from Arab countries and Pakistan to the United States. Those people seem to carry with them some bloodthirsty, medieval prejudices. I would entirely support, however, a robust policy of repatriating those that are already here with their brethren.
Grumpy: Your analysis is about as impressive as George Bisharat’s in the WSJ today.
For those who want to hate, any Jewish activity, including living at all, is provocation. The excuses for hate are numerous and often contradictory, but these are just attempts to put a good face on hate, not to really explain it.
#1: “again, so what if it’s anti semetism?”
#1, meet #2 !
There exists an anti-Semitism that dare not speak its name.
That is the point.
“all I can say is don’t tease the lion”
Furtive anti-Semitism that dare not even speak its name
hardly deserves to be called a “lion”. Israel is now dealing with some
bolder anti-Semitic types in Gaza in a manner that fits their case…
Jewish community ought to ask their governments one question: Do you want to lose your Jewish population? Because, eventually, over the next couple of decades, some of these countries will find they’ve traded their Jewish populations, industrious,talented, and patriotic communities, for large minorities of angry, disloyal Muslims.
Stuart Rose,
Quite so. Where the Jews go, there follows fortune. It has been that way since forever, when medieval princes would invite Jews to settle to develop their economies. When they got greedy, confiscated the Jew’s property and/or persecuted them, their fortunes dissipated. Where are they now?
Germany would likely have won WW2 had Hitler not come up with his final solution business. His attempts to expunge not only Jews, but Jewish ideas, cost him the atom bomb, as his effort to create an ‘Aryan Physics’ left him with Heisenberg’s misguided effort.
Germany’s loss, America’s gain.
Stuart Rose and Maine’s Michael:
While it would certainly satisfy my sense of Schadenfreude were history were to tell the story of how the European continent replaced (by extermination) an assimilated, highly educated and productive minority (the Jews) with one that seethes with anger and is rejectionist at its core, I fear such a story would result in a world much more dangerous for our country.
Membership is growing in “Jews with Guns”, a pro-Second Amendment group who own weapons and know how to use them. At my local firing range recently, a Rabbi was teaching a group of young men how to safely use firearms. Google the site.
Being unarmed and weak is provocative. Some of us refuse to become victims. Anyone coming at me is in for a surprise.
Non-Jews who criticize Israeli are antisemites. Jews who criticize Israel are self-haters. Facts are antisemitic, and the media that report facts are antisemitic. Such a neat and simple view of the world. Why it reminds me of …
Jonny Boy: if the shoe fits…..
Gord, we agree on that. Israel is acting like a gang of genocidal maniacs, so …
“[G]enocidal maniacs…………”
Take a look at the demographics of the Palestinian community over the last two decades.
A most cursory glance will reveal that the population of those, those you suggested were being subjected to “genocidal” policies, was NOT declining, {as we should expect were a group subjected to genuine “genocidal” policies} but was rather INCREASING.
Wild rhetoric doesn’t advance your point, only rather demonstrates its absurdity.
Besides, if JH deems Israeli policy today those of “genocidal maniacs,” ———————— then what’s his view of the policies of Lincoln, Grant and Sherman, —————- what’s his view of a policy of blockade against the Central Powers in the Great War, ————————————– what’s his view of the strategic air campaign the USAAC and the RAF’s Bomber Command executed against the Third Reich.
The very policies that secured the civilized world victory against the plantation South, which was determined to preserve and expand their “peculiar institution,” the very policies that brought Teutonic militarism to its knees in the Great War, and of course the very policy that brought the war home to the German masses in the Second, must, under JH’s weird views, must be damned and blasted.
This is nothing but fatuous nonsense launched from the cheap seats, the kind of idiocy one is apt to come across strolling through any faculty lounge.
But it’s all glib, all the nonsense one utters as he enjoys the fruits of the victories procured by measures he now, in some affectation of sophistication, turns his nose up at.
Cut us a break.
Cut the moral grand-standing.
Cut the barely veiled animus running as a consistent undercurrent throughout all of your commentaries.
Acknowledge the fear rampant and triumphant within you, for you’re fearful of taking on mohammadenism, and so to dodge that rendezvous with destiny, you’re ready, willing and eager to throw Jews and anybody else necessary under the bus.
Whatever.
Pusillanimousness is always unbecoming.
Please feel free to ignore John Hartland. He is a typical “We Wuz Robbed” 2000 election Truther and should therefore not be taken seriously.
12- the smart jews left germany before the holocaust.