With America's Arab friends and allies running for cover from the Bush administration -- just last month, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia called the occupation of Iraq "illegal" -- the State Department's chief Middle East diplomat argues that, sure, we have allies:

"The president of Yemen is coming here the beginning of May; they're friends of the United States,'' David Welch, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, said in an interview. "I know they're not as big as Egypt or Saudi Arabia, but it would be a little unfair to say we have a problem in the region across the board.''

Welch is right: Yemen is not as big as Egypt or Saudi Arabia.

There are lots of interesting nuggets in George Tenet's book, At the Center of the Storm, and it's nice to see that he's turned on the administration--even if it's years too late for it to make much difference. I'm reading the book now, but what amused me most about it is that in the photographs in the middle of the book, Tenet has a photo of Colin Powell during his error-filled address to the UN Security Council in 2003. During that address, Tenet sat directly behind Powell, over his right shoulder, lending the CIA's backing to Powell's half-truths, zero-truths, and exaggerations.

Amazingly, Tenet crops the photo to eliminate himself!

Since that time, CIA officials have told me that their hearts sank when the saw Tenet sitting behind Powell, since they knew Powell's speech was so filled with inaccuracies that could not be supported by intelligence. By taking himself out of the picture, literally, Tenet manages one more half-truth himself.

In their Open Letter to Tenet, several former CIA officers note Tenet's role in endorsing Powell:

You signed off on Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations. And, at his insistence, you sat behind him and visibly squandered CIA's most precious asset: credibility.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani yesterday met with Ali Larijani, the top national security adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. (Yes, all three of them are named Ali.) Not only are they Ali's, but increasingly them seem to be allies as well. Sistani, the brains behind the (now partially crumbling) pan-Shia alliance in Iraq, the United Iraqi Alliance,won't meet U.S. officials, but he's happy to tete-a-tete with Khamenei's minions. Once again, this underscores the vast importance of Iran in Iraqi Shia circles.

After seeing Sistani, Larijani said: "The Americans themselves know Iran has been supporting the political process in Iraq. The Americans also know from which countries those terrorists come to Iraq." True enough, Iran is supporting the so-called political process in Iraq, if by that he means the creation of a Shia-dominated sectarian regime. And though he didn't name the countries supporting terrorism, Larijani clearly meant Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia, Iran's chief rival for dominance in the Persian Gulf.

Sir Ivor Roberts, a former British ambassador, told a British newspaper that U.K. diplomats warned pretty much unanimously that invading Iraq was, well, a bad idea:

Every British ambassador in the Middle East warned the Government that invading Iraq would be a "nightmare" and turn popular opinion against the West, a former envoy has told The Daily Telegraph.

To the best of his memory, the assessments offered by Britain's representatives in the Muslim world were unanimous. "Every ambassador in a Middle East post accurately predicted what a nightmare invading Iraq would be," he said.

"The telegrams I saw were full of doom and gloom about the consequences."

Pretty funny remark from a Democratic congressman on the anniversary of "Mission Accomplished," as reported by the Post:

"Today is the fourth anniversary of the president of the United States announcing 'Mission Accomplished,' " Rep. Stephen Cohen (D-Tenn.) proclaimed on the House floor. These days Bush "has been channeling Warren Zevon, who said, 'I'm caught between a rock and a hard place. Send lawyers, guns and money,' " Cohen said, paraphrasing the rest just a little: " 'The Shiites have hit the fan.' "

In vetoing the out-of-Iraq legislation, Bush harped once again on the threat from Al Qaeda and the so-called "war on terror," as if that has anything to do with the war in Iraq. Some excerpts (you can read the whole thing at the White House's web site):

The goal of this new strategy is to help the Iraqis secure their capital, so they can make progress toward reconciliation, and build a free nation that respects the rights of its people, upholds the rule of law, and fights extremists and radicals and killers alongside the United States in this war on terror. ...

These attacks [in Iraq] are largely the work of al Qaeda -- the enemy that everyone agrees we should be fighting. The objective of these al Qaeda attacks is to subvert our efforts by reigniting the sectarian violence in Baghdad -- and breaking support for the war here at home. In Washington last week, General Petraeus explained it this way: "Iraq is, in fact, the central front of all al Qaeda's global campaign."

Al Qaeda -- al Qaeda's role makes the conflict in Iraq far more complex than a simple fight between Iraqis. It's true that not everyone taking innocent life in Iraq wants to attack America here at home. But many do. Many also belong to the same terrorist network that attacked us on September 11th, 2001 -- and wants to attack us here at home again. We saw the death and destruction al Qaeda inflicted on our people when they were permitted a safe haven in Afghanistan. For the security of the American people, we must not allow al Qaeda to establish a new safe haven in Iraq.

Al Qaeda, he says, is "the enemy everyone agrees we should be fighting." Perhaps. But just as invading Iraq in 2003 wasn't a war against Al Qaeda, that crippled organizaion is not the main enemy now, either -- and the Iraqi Sunnis seem to be doing a pretty good job of squashing it. Not to mention that its leader may have killed yesterday.

Tony Cordesman, the conservative Persian Gulf military analyst at CSIS, says in a new report (criticizing both the White House and Congress) that President Bush is exaggerating the likely impact of an American withdrawal from Iraq:

A rushed US withdrawal from Iraq might lead to an all out civil war or bloodbath, but probably would simply leave a shattered nation in lingering pain and division. The resulting power struggles would be violent and unpleasant, and probably lead to massive further displacements along sectarian and ethnic lines, but the cost would be a humanitarian disaster, not genocide, and it is unclear that letting Iraqis fight out their differences would ultimately be worse than having the US interfere in them.

The Administration’s argument that Iraq would become a sanctuary for Al Qa’ida attacks on the US ignores both the strong and growing Sunni resistance to an Al Qa’ida takeover in Sunni areas, and the realities of Shi’ite and Kurdish power. If anything, the real risk is probably some form of continuing Sunni-Shi’ite struggle with outside support from Arab Sunni states and Iran. The result would be to worsen and prolong the struggle in Iraq, with some risk of it’s spreading to neighboring states, but not a major rise in the threat to the US.

Here's the text of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom's comments on Iraq, in which they blast the Iraqi government--that would be the government that the United States created and supported--for massive violations of human rights and religious freedom (my emphasis in italics):

This year the Commission has added Iraq to its Watch List, due to the alarming and deteriorating situation for freedom of religion and belief. Despite ongoing efforts to stabilize the country, successive Iraqi governments have not adequately curbed the growing scope and severity of human rights abuses.

Although non-state actors, particularly the Sunni-dominated insurgency, are responsible for a substantial proportion of the sectarian violence and associated human rights violations, the Iraqi government also bears responsibility. That responsibility takes two forms. First, the Iraqi government has engaged in human rights violations through its state security forces, including arbitrary arrest, prolonged detention without due process, extrajudicial executions, and torture. These violations affect suspected Sunni insurgents, but also ordinary Sunnis who are targeted on the basis of their religious identity. Second, the Iraqi government tolerates religiously based attacks and other religious freedom abuses carried out by armed Shi’a factions including the Jaysh al-Mehdi (Mahdi Army) and the Badr Organization. These abuses include abductions, beatings, extrajudicial executions, torture and rape.

Relationships between these para-state militias and leading Shi’a factions within Iraq’s ministries and governing coalition indicate that these groups operate with impunity and often, governmental complicity. Although many of these militia-related violations reveal the challenges evident in Iraq’s fragmented political system, they nonetheless reflect the Iraqi government’s tolerance—and in some instances commission—of egregious violations of religious freedom. Finally, the Commission also notes the grave conditions for non-Muslims in Iraq, including ChaldoAssyrian Christians, Yazidis, and Sabean Mandaeans, who continue to suffer pervasive and severe violence and discrimination at the hands of both government and non-government actors.

The Commission has added Iraq to its Watch List with the understanding that it may designate Iraq as a CPC next year if improvements are not made by the Iraqi government.

One law enforcement officer quoted anonymously by CNN said that the supposed terrorists (six "suspected Islamic radicals) arrested in the Fort Dix, New Jersey, plot were "hardly hard-core terrorists." Another told CNN that they are "not the type that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up." The bunglers took their video plan for an attack on the base to a local electronics store to burn DVD's and one of them asked a Philadelphia police officer about how to get maps of Fort Dix. They were, said the Washington Post, "bungling."

Yet -- of course -- with zero evidence at all, Jody P. Weis of the FBI's local office said that the men arrested "may or may not be affiliated with al-Qaeda." In the coming days, like so many of these alleged terrorist plots, there will be lots of headlines at first, then nothing as it becomes clear that the plotters were just run of the mill criminal wanna-bes.

Questioned about Iraq during an interview on Fox News, Dick Cheney said: "We didn’t get elected to be popular." He added, in regard to growing panic among GOP circles that his obsession with Iraq would destroy the party in next year's elections, "We didn’t get elected to worry just about the fate of the Republican Party."

True, that. They're not popular. And they're driving the GOP over a cliff.

Meanwhile, the Post reports that Karl Rove and the White House crew are livid that moderate Republicans are leaking their discontent over Bush's Iraq policy:

White House political adviser Karl Rove, furious that Republican moderates had divulged a confrontational meeting they had on Tuesday with Bush on the war, started yesterday with an angry conversation with the meeting's organizer, Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.), according to several GOP lawmakers. Dan Meyer, the White House's chief lobbyist, called the other participants to express the administration's unhappiness.

No one would confuse Morton Kondracke of Roll Call and Fox with an expert on Iraq. Nevertheless, his latest comments reveal a double ignorance, If the "surge" fails, he says, Bush needs to consider "winning dirty" in Iraq by unleashing the Shiites and Kurds:

Winning will be dirty because it will allow the Shiite-dominated Iraqi military and some Shiite militias to decimate the Sunni insurgency. There likely will be ethnic cleansing, atrocities against civilians and massive refugee flows.

No one has publicly advocated this Plan B, and I know of only one Member of Congress who backs it — and he wants to stay anonymous. But he argues persuasively that it’s the best alternative available if Bush’s surge fails.

Not only is that a stupid idea, but it also describes almost perfectly what the United States is already doing, by arming and training Shiite-led militias, police and army units, while going after the Sunni resistance.

Raed Jarrar and Joshua Holland, writing for Alternet, reported on May 9 that a majority of the Iraqi parliament had signed legislation calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. In all, they reported, 144 members of the 275-member body signed the bill (which may or may not come to a vote). "It's a hugely significant development. Lawmakers demanding an end to the occupation now have the upper hand in the Iraqi legislature for the first time," they reported.

It wasn't until two days later(on May 11) that the Post picked up the story, in a piece headlined "Iraqi Lawmakers Back Bill on U.S. Withdrawal." (It made page 12.) And the Times didn't report the story until Saturday, May 12.

Last week, Tariq al-Hashemi, the leader of the Sunni Islamists in parliament, threatened to leave the government (where he serves as vice president) and pull his followers out of Maliki's coalition. During Dick Cheney's visit to Iraq, the VP met twice with Hashemi, and now comes word that Maliki has agreed to bring Hashemi's Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) closer into the fold. Reports AP:

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki agreed to give Sunnis a bigger role in security operations in their areas, lawmakers said Sunday, in a deal that staves off a threatened Sunni walkout that could have toppled the Shiite leader's embattled government.

The lawmakers said the deal was reached in talks last week between al-Maliki and Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, who had threatened to withdraw his bloc from the government if Sunni demands were not met. His bloc controls 44 of the 275 parliament seats.

Under the terms, al-Hashemi will have an "executive role" in the fight against insurgents in Sunni areas inside and outside the capital of Baghdad, the lawmakers said. Al-Maliki remains the armed forces' commander in chief, they said.

The thing is, the IIP ha always been the Sunni bloc's chief collaborator with the U.S. occupation and its Shiite-Kurdish majority, going back more than three years. Placating Hashemi by giving him some undefined "executive role" in fighting the (Sunni-led) insurgency isn't going t make things better in Iraq. All it does is set up Hashemi's party for more isolation from the rest of the Sunni bloc -- the National Dialogue Front of Saleh Mutlaq, the Association of Muslim Scholars, and, of course, the insurgents themselves. It shows that Cheney et al. are committed to propping up Maliki at all costs.

Don't buy reports from Iraq that the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) has changed its spots. After a two-day session, SCIRI said that it is dropping the word "revolution" from its name, and reports hint that it is reorienting from loyalty to Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, to Ayatollah Sistani, the Iraqi cleric atop the heap in Najaf. To me, it's all spin: SCIRI, whatever it calls itself, is loyal to and still dependent on Iran.

For a really good analysis, see Reidar Visser.

P.S. The new acronym is SIIC: Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.

Before the war in 2003, the neocons' fervent hope was that Najaf, the Iraqi holy city, would rise to eclipse Qom, the Iranian clerical center, helping to undermine the rule of the ayatollahs in Tehran. Since then, Iran's influence in Iraq has appeared far greater than vice versa. But a Boston Globe article suggests that the effects are being felt both ways.

Some Iranians are intrigued by the more freewheeling experiment in Shi'ite empowerment taking place across the border in Iraq, where -- Iraq's myriad problems aside -- imams can say whatever they want in political Friday sermons, newspapers and satellite channels regularly slam the government, and religious observance is respected and encouraged but not required.

The article says that many Iranians are paying tithes to Ayatollah Sistani, the Persian cleric in Najaf, Iraq, although that has long been true. Sistani has had support among Iranians for decades, and he is the leading Shiite cleric in the world, not just in Iraq.

In Tehran's storied central bazaar, an increasing number of merchants are sending their religious donations, a 20 percent tithe expected from all who can spare it, to Iraq's most senior Shi'ite cleric -- rather than to clerics closer to Iran's state power structure, said Jawad al-Ghaie, 48, a wholesaler of false eyelashes and nail extensions and a respected lay donor.

Speaking carefully to avoid directly challenging the Iranian government, he and several fellow merchants suggested that Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani holds more spiritual sway because of his lifelong commitment to quietism. That is the school of thought that says Shi'ite leaders should stay out of government, and Sistani has stuck to it despite the great temptation to wade into the chaos of Iraqi politics.

The article quotes Iraq's ambassador in Iran saying something sounding subversive:

"We believe that politics is separate from religion," said Iraq's ambassador to Iran, Mohammed Majid al-Sheikh. "Of course there are debates about this. If Iran wants to take on these debates, it will benefit. And I could say that the experiment of Iraq will ripple throughout the Middle East."

And it quotes the representative of SCIRI in Tehran saying something similar:

The representative of Iraq's most pro-Iran political party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, touted Iraq's freer system.

Majid Ghamas contended in an interview in his Tehran office that Iranians, because of their country's somewhat competitive elections, have more freedom than Saudis, Jordanians, or Egyptians.

"But not as much as in Iraq," he said, "now that we have a government that respects Islam and the rituals of Islam but does not impose Islam by force so that it becomes a rigid Islam."

This is interesting, and deserves further investigation. Certainly, Iraq and Iran influence each other, and in many ways. So far, it seems, Iran's influence in Iraq is greater than the other way around, although the possibility of clerical opposition to Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, is growing. Some of that, at least, could be tied to Iraqi ayatollahs, including Sistani, in concert with dissident Iranian clerics such as Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, who challenged the political theory of the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Khomeini.

Democrats working on a timetable for getting out of Iraq had better realize that the other side's timetable is measured in many years or decades. Yesterday I listened to Barham Salih, Iraq's deputy prime minister, tell an audience at the Woodrow Wilson Center that stabilizing Iraq will take many years. "If you think this will be fixed any time soon, it won't be," he said.

When I asked him about polls showing that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis outside of Kurdistan want U.S. troops out of Iraq, and about the majority of the Iraqi parliament that signed a bill calling for a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal, he said:

"I don't know about these polls. Many Sunni neighborhoods [in] Baghdad are keen on keeping the American troops in Baghdad. Senior Shia leaders ... consider the United States to be the stabilizing factor. ... There is no serious political movement, with the exception of the Sadrists, who want a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq."

Writing in the Wall Street Journal today, Max Boot of CFR says:

If we're going to be successful in Iraq, we're going to have to make a long-term commitment. That doesn't mean 170,000 U.S. combat troops stationed there for 10 years, but it does mean a substantial force -- tens of thousands of soldiers -- will be needed for many years to come.

A certain school of thought in both Israeli and neoconservative circles -- before and after the war in Iraq -- was that if Iraq collapsed into warring principalities, Israel wouldn't mind. Hard-core neocons such as David Wurmser, Dick Cheney's top Middle East adviser, said so explicitly, and it's long been a staple on the Israeli far right that breaking up Arab states and supporting dissident minorities (such as Lebanon's Maronites) was good policy. In that context, Shimon Peres' comments in an interview published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) are interesting:

The war did not start because of Israel, and I am not sure that its aftermath will affect Israel much [says Peres]. It will be more of a problem for the Arab world if Iraq disintegrates and becomes three different entities. That would cause great problems for the Arab world, for Turkey, for Iran, and for Syria. There are many other confrontations in the Middle East that do not have any effect on Israel, such as conflicts in Algeria, Sudan, Somalia, and elsewhere. Not every conflict in the Middle East begins with Israel or relates to Israel. So there is very little that we have to do in the case of Iraq.

Now, it's true that Israel can't do much. If anything, though, reports of Israeli support for Kurdish separatism aren't exactly helping Iraq hold together. But a clearer example of short-sighted ignorance is hard to find.

Pervez Musharraf and Chuck Hagel are both thinking about the UN for Iraq. Musharraf proposed a UN peacekeeping force: "If all the warring factions... different factions, if they accept, then maybe a Muslim peacekeeping force under the United Nations umbrella could be looked at," he told foreign ministers from the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

Hagel, meanwhile, said on the Senate floor on May 15:

"We must take the American face off of Iraq. ... The time has come to consider an international mediator for Iraq probably under the auspices of the United Nations to begin a new process for achieving some form of political accommodation in Iraq."

Not surprisingly, the Iraq foreign minister at the conference in Pakistan politely declined the idea of UN forces.

From Bolton:

"It's been conclusively proven Iran is not going to be talked out of its nuclear programme. So to stop them from doing it, we have to massively increase the pressure.

"If we can't get enough other countries to come along with us to do that, then we've got to go with regime change by bolstering opposition groups and the like, because that's the circumstance most likely for an Iranian government to decide that it's safer not to pursue nuclear weapons than to continue to do so. And if all else fails, if the choice is between a nuclear-capable Iran and the use of force, then I think we need to look at the use of force.

"If the choice is them continuing [towards a nuclear bomb] or the use of force, I think you're at a Hitler marching into the Rhineland point. If you don't stop it then, the future is in his hands, not in your hands, just as the future decisions on their nuclear programme would be in Iran's hands, not ours."

From Perle:

"We have already seen a change in policy towards Iran. It is now firmly back in the hands of the Department of State, [which is] institutionally disposed to settle problems through compromise, to settle rather than to fight. ... You cannot settle with Al Qaeda. You cannot settle with Islamist extremists. Those who suggest we can do great damage."

Bernard Lewis, the neocons' favorite Orientalist, wrote on op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on May 16 that was more wrongheaded than usual. Its title: "Was Osama Right?" Meaning, of course, that bin Laden believed that the United States was a weak pussycat, and if we leave Iraq now it will prove him right. He concludes:

More recent developments, and notably the public discourse inside the U.S., are persuading increasing numbers of Islamist radicals that their first assessment was correct after all, and that they need only to press a little harder to achieve final victory. It is not yet clear whether they are right or wrong in this view. If they are right, the consequences--both for Islam and for America--will be deep, wide and lasting.

Weirdly, Lewis credits the Taliban and Osama bin Laden for leading the resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and he says point blank that they got U.S. support:

The Afghan people, who had successfully defied the British Empire in its prime, found a way to resist the Soviet invaders. An organization known as the Taliban (literally, "the students") began to organize resistance and even guerilla warfare against the Soviet occupiers and their puppets. For this, they were able to attract some support from the Muslim world--some grants of money, and growing numbers of volunteers to fight in the Holy War against the infidel conqueror. Notable among these was a group led by a Saudi of Yemeni origin called Osama bin Laden.

To accomplish their purpose, they did not disdain to turn to the U.S. for help, which they got.

Weird, because the Taliban that ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s wasn't formed until after the Soviet withdrawal from that country. And although bin Laden was in Afghanistan in the 1980s, CIA sources are unanimous that he didn't get U.S. support, although he appears to have had some support from Saudi Arabia -- and, in any case, he hadn't founded Al Qaeda yet.

Then there is this gem from Lewis:

For a long time, the main enemy [of the Muslims] was seen, with some plausibility, as being the West, and some Muslims were, naturally enough, willing to accept what help they could get against that enemy. This explains the widespread support in the Arab countries and in some other places first for the Third Reich and, after its collapse, for the Soviet Union. These were the main enemies of the West, and therefore natural allies.

But where Lewis is wrong, of course, is that the USSR wasn't seen as an ally by religious Muslim organizations, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the Wahhabis, and other fundamentalist and Salafi-oriented groups, all of whom were bitterly anti-communist. As I document in my book, Devil's Game, it was precisely because the Muslim fundamentalists were so anti-Soviet that they often got American support throughout the Cold War. The "Muslims" who joined with the USSR were the (often secular) nationalists, leftists, communists, Baathists, and Nasserists who were "anti-Western" because they saw the British and French as colonial masters. (Later, the United States joined the that list, by virtue of its Cold War opposition to Arab and Iranian nationalism.)

But for Lewis, it's all a big Muslim-Christian free for all.

In the Muslim perception there has been, since the time of the Prophet, an ongoing struggle between the two world religions, Christendom and Islam, for the privilege and opportunity to bring salvation to the rest of humankind, removing whatever obstacles there might be in their path.

Not true, and a silly simplication. Typical of Lewis. I'd ascribe it to his old age, but it fact he's been writing the same thing for more than half a century.

Thanks for the Center for American Progress' Progress Report, here's a little item from NPR about how the Pentagon is planning for a "decades"-long stay in Iraq:

The Pentagon has not published any contingency plans on how to deal with Iraq in the event of a large-scale drawdown, but it is discussing various scenarios.

A series of military installations could be maintained around Iraq, with a total of total of 30,000 to 40,000 U.S. troops, for a long period of time — maybe a few decades. There are currently about 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

The bases would be located in various strategic locations, ones that served by air landing strips, for instance. The bases would be sealed and U.S. forces wouldn't be on patrols as they are now.

Meanwhile, the Washington Times reports that Iraqis are developing contingency plans for a quick pullout:

Iraq's military is drawing up plans on how to cope if U.S.-led forces leave the country quickly, the defense minister said yesterday.

The statement by Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obeidi marked the first time a senior Iraqi official has spoken publicly about the possibility of a quick end to the U.S.-led mission.

It was not clear whether the remarks reflected anything more than routine contingency planning. "The army plans on the basis of a worst-case scenario so as not to allow any security vacuum," Mr. al-Obeidi said. "There are meetings with political leaders on how we can deal with a sudden pullout."

"We've run out of some things. I miss my yogurt in the morning and my fresh-cut melon."

--U.S. Embassy in Baghdad spokesman Dan Sreebny, who clearly has his priorities straight, as quoted in the Washington Post.

Last week, at a lunch sponsored by the Association for Intelligence Officers (AFIO), I listened as Admiral Scott Redd, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, called terrorism an "existential threat" to the United States. In sharp contrast to such bombast from the administration, it is great to hear John Edwards taking on the myth of the "war on terror," in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday:

It is now clear that George Bush's misnamed "war on terror" has backfired—and is now part of the problem.

The war on terror is a slogan designed only for politics, not a strategy to make America safe. It's a bumper sticker, not a plan. It has damaged our alliances and weakened our standing in the world. As a political "frame," it's been used to justify everything from the Iraq War to Guantanamo to illegal spying on the American people. It's even been used by this White House as a partisan weapon to bludgeon their political opponents. Whether by manipulating threat levels leading up to elections, or by deeming opponents "weak on terror," they have shown no hesitation whatsoever about using fear to divide.

But the worst thing about this slogan is that it hasn't worked. The so-called "war" has created even more terrorism—as we have seen so tragically in Iraq. The State Department itself recently released a study showing that worldwide terrorism has increased 25% in 2006, including a 40% surge in civilian fatalities.

By framing this as a "war," we have walked right into the trap that terrorists have set—that we are engaged in some kind of clash of civilizations and a war against Islam.

The "war" metaphor has also failed because it exaggerates the role of only one instrument of American power—the military. This has occurred in part because the military is so effective at what it does. Yet if you think all you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail.

There's an emerging consensus inside the armed forces that we must move beyond the idea of a war on terror. The Commander of the U.S. Military's Central Command recently stated that he would no longer use the "long war" framework. Top military leaders like retired General Anthony Zinni have rejected the term. These leaders know we need substance, not slogans—leadership, not labels.

Iraq's most influential and important politician. Muqtada al-Sadr, is back, according to U.S. intelligence reports widely disseminated in the media. Says the New York Times:

"Not even American officials privy to classified intelligence on Mr. Sadr’s return pretend to be certain what he has in mind. ... 'There is a range of speculation on what it might mean,' one Defense Department official said. ... 'I don’t believe the intelligence community has come to a firm assessment on the meaning of his return to Iraq.'"

Tony Cordesman, the conservative CSIS scholar, speculates intelligently:

Sadr can also publicly play the “nationalist,” and seek Sunni support as well as broader Shi'ite support. In doing so, he can ride a wave of public opinion that sees the US as having failed, Coalition forces as a “threat,” and is deeply frustrated with a weak Maliki government. ... It is less clear that Sadr is “winning” relative to SCIRI, but if reports that Hakim is truly ill with lung cancer are true, this could seriously shift the balance of power. SCIRI does seem to be losing political influence and strength in the oil-rich southeast, while Sadr's Mahdi Army remains a major force.

Sadr can also benefit from the inchoate nature of Sunni politics. There still is no meaningful national or broad Sunni political party that has strong popular Sunni Arab support. The elected Sunni politicians are weak and have small bases of support. They also have shown little bargaining skill and power in the conciliation debates, often delaying without winning. As a result, Sadr can play the Shi'ite card with Shi'ites, and to some extend play the nationalist card with fragmented Sunni elements like those in Anbar.

Young and inexperienced, Sadr has learned a lot during four years of war and four years, before that, leading an underground movement in Saddam's Iraq. He's talking to Sunni tribal leaders, insurgents, and political Sunnis in parliament. Writes the Post, which has been covering Sadr's movement well lately: "Sadr's movement is wooing Sunni leaders and purging extremist elements in his Mahdi Army militia." An d the Post quotes General Odierno speculating hopefully that Sadr might be "ready to negotiate behind the scenes."

Behind the scenes, maybe. But Sadr isn't going to give up his trump card: militant opposition to the occupation of Iraq. Every day that Prime Minister Maliki continues to support the occupation, Sadr grows stronger.

Iraq is pumping only 180,000 barrels a day from its northern oil fields, the ones coveted by the Kurds, around Kirkuk -- compared to the 600,000 that could be produced. Says the Wall Street Journal:

In the second half of last year, one stretch of pipelines connecting Kirkuk with the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan -- the main outlet for Iraq's northern oil exports -- pumped oil for only 43 days. The rest of the time the pipes sat idle, leaking crude through dozens of holes.

Why? Smugglers, insurgents, disgrunted tribal leaders. In any case, before the U.S. invasion Iraq produced 2.5 million barrels a day. In 2007, it's 1.9 mbd, says the Journal, down from 2006.

"It could be a bloody -- it could be a very difficult August."

-- George Bush, during yesterday's press conference, referring to violence in Iraq. The president didn't comment on what he expected for June and July. PS: May isn't so good either, so far.

"In 2003, 2004, 100 percent of the soldiers wanted to be here, to fight this war. Now, 95 percent of my platoon agrees with me."
--Sergeant First Class David Moore, a self-described "conservative Texas Republican" and platoon sergeant, who strongly advocates an American withdrawal, quoted in the New York Times.

The U.S. and Iran are not quite on the same page yet when it comes to Iraq, even though Ambassador Crocker diplomatically declared that the two countries are in "pretty good congruence right down the line." For me, the best part of the U.S.-Iran dialogue was Iran's sly offer to rebuild the Iraqi armed forces.

Crocker noted (without comment) that Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi ("The Man from Qom") criticized the U.S. for not doing enough to bolster Iraq's army and police, telling Crocker that "the effort to train and equip the Iraqi security forces had been inadequate to the challenges faced."

Making the point more explicitly, Qomi said later: "The Islamic Republic of Iran offered to provide all kinds of support, such as consultations, rehabilitation training, and provision of weapons to the Iraqi forces." Right. I guess Iran is tired of providing those weapons to Shia militia, who then infiltrate the security forces, and so they'd prefer just to do it directly. I don't guess Crocker is going to take Qomi up on that one--just a hunch.

The United States and Iran are a long way from a deal over Iraq, but there are alarm bells going off all over the Arab world, and inside Iraq among Sunnis and nationalists, that Washington and Tehran might settle their differences by carving up Iraq. The idea isn't so far-fetched. The United States could settle on some version of the tripartite partiion for Iraq, creating a Kurdish north, a Sunni rump state, and a Shia-dominated south (including most of Baghdad), the scheme proposed in various forms by Sen. Biden, Peter Galbraith, Leslie Gelb, and others. Iran might be happy with that result, since it would dominate the southern bloc and have enormous influence with the Kurds. Alternately, the United States and Iran might agree on joint support for a centralized Iraqi state, under the control of the Shia, which isn't too different from the current arrangement.

The most strident statement of opposition to a U.S.-Iran accord comes, not surprisingly, from the Baath Party. In a declaration released on May 28, the party (which claims to lead the Iraqi resistance), warned that the United States and Iran are determined to eliminate Iraq's "Arab identity," adding:

The US-Iranian alliance is the number one enemy of Iraq and of the Arab nation, for it is an official alliance and is de facto based on wiping out Iraq's Arab identity, dismembering and sharing Iraq's loot and turning Iraq's Arabs into a meaningless neglected minority.

The Baath Party goes on to urge Arab countries to support the Iraqi resistance movement, rejecting negotiations with the United States unless Washington meets the resistance's conditions, centered around a ceasefire and withdrawal plan.

The historical and the decisive riposte against the latest US-Iranian move should be the intensification of the resistance's armed operations based on its combat unity, to reject joining the so called political process, and to stand firm against every divider who wants to create problems in amongst the resistance ranks under whatever pretexts or reasons. The resistance's unity is the only secret password to defeat the US-Iranian invasion and there is no other.

Bombast aside, the central fact of the past four years in Iraq is that if there were no armed Sunni-led reistance to the U.S. invasion and occupation, the American effort would have succeeded in installing a mostly pro-American, Iranian-supported Shia-Kurdish regime in Baghdad, and President Bush's war would have been successful. That doesn't mean that the Baath Party is the dominant force in the resistance. While talking to Iran about exiting Iraq, which is Part I of the new strategy taking shape inside the administration, Washington is also clearly working with Saudi Arabia to corral Sunni resistance leaders and tribes into an anti-Al Qaeda alliance. A good question is: What is the United States telling the Saudis about the prospects of a deal with Iran? How far is Saudi Arabia willing to go to accommodate a deal with Iran? No doubt, at the very least, Washington will give Riyadh iron-clad guarantees that an Iranian-Shia dominated Iraq will not be allowed the threaten the Arab Gulf.

The Baathists know this. From their statement, with its emphasis on unity in the resistance, it seems clear that the party is worried that the resistance will fragment, into pro-Baath and pro-Saudi factions (both opposed to Al Qaeda). And they're warning the Arab Gulf states not to trust the United States:

All the Arab regimes should draw the right hard lesson given by Baghdad meeting in between US and Iranian ambassadors, i.e. all the Arab regimes with no exception are on the list of the US-Iranian deals and compromises regardless of how much these regimes give up and service the US in Iraq and elsewhere.

So it seems some Marines think that some good can come out of massacring civilians. Testifying about the 2005 slaughter in Haditha, when U.S. troops killed dozens of unarmed people, including children, a Marine officer said yesterday in the trial of those accused that Haditha residents behaved better afterwards. Reports the NY Times:

One of the officers, First Lt. Alexander Martin, suggested that one of the consequences of the Marine unit’s killing of civilians — which followed a roadside bomb blast that killed one marine and wounded two others — was that Haditha residents became noticeably more helpful, if not quite friendly, to the Americans.

“After 19 November,” Lieutenant Martin said in videotaped testimony, referring to the day the civilians were killed in 2005, “I had people coming up to me to tell me where the I.E.D.’s were.”

Other Marines suggested that it was a helpful warning to the people of Haditha:

Lieutenant Frank said Lieutenant Mathes, the company’s executive officer, advised a Marine major assigned to a civil affairs unit that “the best way to explain this to the Iraqi people” would be to tell them, “It’s an unfortunate thing that happens when you let terrorists use your house to attack our troops.”

"It has been known fact for some time that the Interior Ministry police, security units, and forces are corrupt, are penetrated."
--Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, implying that the Mahdi Army is responsible for the kidnapping of the British contractors. (Yes, the foreign minister said that about his own government.) Zebari didn't mention that the main party long alleged to have "penetrated" the ministry is the Badr Brigade of SCIRI (now SICI), whose member Bayan Jabr used to run it when the death squads emerged. The Kurds are allied with SCIRI.