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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! ISRAEL'S IRON HEEL It began when Harry Truman was in the White House. It has continued under every U.S. President since, and in this extended report we lay out the consequences of 60 years of brutal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Feroze Sidhwa details the human price of systematic, intentional destruction of the Palestinian social and economic fabric: physical and mental deterioration, traumatized youth, a savaged environment. Nancy Glass and Reem Salahi describe the Kafka-esque conditions in which Palestinian lawyers try to defend their people in Israel's courts. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great holiday presents. Order CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year and Receive a Free Copy of "Imperial Crusades: a Diary of Three Wars" by Cockburn and St. Clair

Today's Stories December 1, 2007 Jeffrey St. Clair The Bear Minimum: the Grizzly and the Future of the Rocky Mountain West November 30, 2007 Peter Stone Brown The Re-Packaging of Bob Dylan Wajahat Ali The Volatile Mistress: an Interview with Javed Jabbar, Pakistan's Former Minister of Information Allan Nairn Cold-Blooded Celebrity: Thomas L. Friedman and the Bali Bombers Alan Farago The Sorrows of Suburbia: Politics, Sprawl and the Housing Crash John Ross The Death of Latin America's First Revolution Corporate Crime Reporter America's Corporate Crime Capitals Lucia Alvarez Diego Gonzalez Argentina's Political Future James Rothenberg The Iraqi Miracle Website of the Day Bio-Bling?   November 29, 2007 R. F. Blader The Most Dangerous Kind of Bribe Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Distorting Fascism to Demonize Iran Stephen Soldz War on the Couch: Fear, Aggression and Empire Sheldon Richman Iraq 3.0 George Wuerthner Forest Fires, Lies and Chainsaws Felice Pace Did All Things Considered Self-Censor on Annapolis? Col. Dan Smith The Meaning of Annapolis Harvey Wasserman Terror Target Nukes Nikolas Kozloff Primetime Hate Debate: Lou Dobbs, Immigration and Campaign '08 Paul Krassner Huffington Post Bloggers Go On Strike! Dave Lindorff News Not Fit to Print: US Coup Planned for Venezuela? CP News Service The One State Declaration Website of the Day A Native View of Yellowstone Bison Slaughter November 28, 2007 James Petras CIA Destabilization Memo Surfaces on Venezuela Jeff Halper Annapolis: When the Roadmap is a One Way Street Pam Martens Crashing Citigroup Peter Morici Economy in Crisis: Avoiding a Recession Mohammed Khatib Separate and Unequal in Palestine Helen Redmond The Horror and the Hope: Health Care in America William S. Lind In the Fox's Lair: Quiet Before a New Iraq Storm? Ben Tripp We, the People: a Trope for All Seasons Liaquat Ali Khan Pakistan: First, Restore the Constitution and Reinstate the Judges Jeff Berg Holbrooke Says Bush Won't Attack Iran Website of the Day The Lies of Joe Klein   November 27, 2007 Joe DeRaymond On the Road to the Torture School Paul Craig Roberts Meet the Only Two Candidates Worse Than Bush and Cheney: Hillary and Rudy Marjorie Cohn Remembering Victor Rabinowitz Mike Whitney A Dollar the Size of a Postage Stamp Ron Jacobs The Myths of Military Progress Col. Dan Smith The Pentagon's "People System" Still Doesn't Work Ralph Nader Family Learning Karim Makdisi Annapolis and the Unholy Alliance: the View from Beirut Christopher Ketcham Memo to Hollywood Writers: Strike Until You Drop Ronan Bennett Martin Amis Does a Coulter Website of the Day Celebrating the Uncensored Media   November 26, 2007 Kathleen and Bill Christison Heading for Annapolis Paul Craig Roberts The End of All That David Macaray Enter Mediator Sameer Dossani Pakistan's Wounded Dictator Roger Burbach The Final Battle in Bolivia Mark Scaramella Guns and Greed in the Emerald Empire Brian McKinlay Howard's End Rick Kuhn The Fall of a Racist Union Buster Binoy Kampmark Ruddslide and Dull Alec Monica Benderman What Do You Know of War? Brenda Norrell Return to Alcatraz Website of the Day Ghostworld by DJ Spooky   November 24 / 25, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Ordeal of Catherine Wilkerson, MD Robert Fisk Darkness Falls on the Middle East Saul Landau Norman Mailer will Not R.I.P. Jeffrey St. Clair Justice Stephen Breyer, Cancer Bonds and the Origins of Neoliberal Environmentalism Rannie Amiri Beirut's Black Friday Christopher Brauchli Iraq Embassy as Gilded Palace Daniel Gross The Gap and Black Friday Mike Whitney "A Generalized Meltdown of Financial Institutions" Marjorie Cohn Iran and the 2008 Elections David Rosen Senior Sex: the Real Sexual Life of Aging Americans David Michael Green If Conservatism is the Ideology of Freedom .... Kenneth Rexroth When Euripides Played the Hindu Kush: Greeks and Buddhists in Afghanistan Muhammad Iqbal Trans. Shahid Alam Ghazal Website of the Day Aerial Footage of Delta Fish Kill November 23, 2007 Gary Leupp Killing the Buddha in Pakistan's Swat Valley Laura Carlsen Coming to Terms with Diversity in Bolivia: an Interview with Alvaro Garcia, Bolivia's VP David Macaray Keeping Labor Unions Out Andy Worthington Former Guantánamo Detainee Seeks Asylum in Sweden Clifton Ross Trashing Chavez: Keith Olberman's Toxic Rant Seth Sandronsky Battling Sodexho Dan Bacher Death in the Delta: Thousands of Fish Stranded by Bureau of Reclamation William A. Cook The Myth of Middle East Peace Website of the Day Waiting for the Guards: Stress Techniques as Torture, a Short Film   November 22, 2007 Alan Farago Who Lost America's Everglades? Greg Moses A Thanksgiving Basting Dave Lindorff Impeachment is Back on the Table Mike Ely Native Blood: the Myth pf Thanksgiving Omar Azfar Gore for President of Pakistan?   November 21, 2007 Vijay Prashad Our Dictator, Their Democracy Martha Rosenberg Undercover at a Turkey Slaughtering Plant Manuel Garcia, Jr. Epiphany on the Glacier John Ross The Last Days of Mexican Corn Brian McKenna Cancer Terrorists Unmasked Stephen Soldz Isolation Torture Routine at Guatánamo Monica Benderman Needing Peace Ben Terrall Slavery in the Fields: The Real Price of Sugar Website of the Day Mercy for Animals   November 20, 2007 Oren Ben-Dor Why Israel Has No "Right to Exist" as a Jewish State Wajahat Ali An Interview with Norman Finkelstein Alan Farago The Dark Arts and the Bush Dynasty Marjorie Cohn Musharraf Plays Bush for a Fool Ralph Nader Green is Gold? Andy Worthington Guantánamo Whistleblower Launches a New Attack on Rigged Tribunals Sara Olson When Going AWOL is the Only Escape Dave Lindorff Likelihood of Iran Attack Gains Credence Paul Krassner The First Amendment, a Dialogue Website of the Day Joanne Mariner on Torture November 19, 2007 Winslow T. Wheeler Why Congress Won't Reform China Hand The U.S. Game Plan in Pakistan Allan Nairn Sitting Around Talking, in Indonesia Uri Avnery How to Get Out? David Macaray The Chalice that Poisoned the Labor Movements Dave Lindorff Democrats in Future Shock: They Could Lose It All in 2008! Bill Quigley Twenty Thousand Protest at Ft. Benning; Eleven Face Federal Criminal Trials Ron Jacobs Sitting on the Group W Bench: War, Thanksgiving and Arlo Guthrie Sunsara Taylor Legalized Rights for Fertilized Eggs? Binoy Kampmark Why Steve Irwin--You're Dead! Heather Gray Another Look at W.E.B. DuBois Website of the Day The Meat Market     November 17 / 18, 2007 P. Sainath Neoliberalism's Price Tag: 150,000 Farm Suicides in India David Rosen The Scarlet Hypocrites: Republicans, Christians and the Politics of Adultery Mike Whitney Pentagon Cover Up: 15,000 or More US Deaths in Iraq War? George Wuerthner Saving the Big Wild Brenda Norrell The Case of Jim Main, Jr: In Montana, Indians are Guilty Until Proven Innocent George Ciccariello-Maher Of Submarines and Loose Screws Karim Makdisi Lebanon is Hanging by a Thread Marie Trigona Wal-Mart in Argentina Valerio Volpi The Catholic Church, Incorporated Fred Gardner The Straight-Ahead Runner Robert Fantina The White House Press Office Mike Ferner Thank God for the Senate Republicans! Missy Comley Beattie The Radical Majority Kenneth Couesbouc Circles of Power Patrick O'Hayer A Portrait of Mailer and a Young Poet Poets' Basement Davies, Buknatski and Ford   November 16, 2007 Cockburn / St. Clair The Vices of Hillary Clinton: Secrecy, Intransigence and War Dave Zirin The Indictment of Barry Bonds: Busted by a Broken System Gary D. Barnett A Day in the Life of an Unwilling Federal Agent Alan Farago Sprawl, Mortgage Fraud and Political Corruption Dave Lindorff Two Brothers and Two Scandals Russell Mokhiber Pelosi and Me: "What Should be Done with Those Protesters?" Robert Ovetz Cargo Ships in Paradise: Shipping Lanes Threaten the Yosemite of the Sea Brenda Norrell "Today We Experienced America:" Arresting Indigenous People on the Border David Swanson Wolf Blitzer Loses Democratic Debate Peter Letheby Outside the Box on the Great Plains Website of the Day Why Activism Fails   November 15, 2007 Cockburn / St. Clair Hillary Clinton in Arkansas Adolfo Gilly The Spirit of Revolt Peter Bohmer 10 Days That Shook Olympia Andy Worthington The Trials of Omar Khadr: Gitmo's Child Soldier Gray / Derks Obama's Pitch to South Carolina's Black Churches Affronts Gay Groups Liaquat Ali Khan Liberating Pakistan Dave Lindorff Where's the Party? Christopher Brauchli Tipping Point: the Politics of Gossip Anthony Papa Racism as Law: Crack Cocaine Sentences Martha Rosenberg Merck's Big Write Off Ben Terrall Thank You, Ehren Watada Website of the Day On the Colorado: Drought, Climate Change and Water Supplies November 14, 2007 Cockburn / St. Clair The Making of Hillary Clinton James Petras Venezuela Between Ballots and Bullets Al Giordano Campaign 08: Don't Trust Anyone Over 50 Paul Craig Roberts The Lobby Andy Worthington Innocents and Foot Soldiers Stephen Lendman Torturing Palestinian Detainees Fatima Bhutto Aunt Benazir's False Promises: the Dismantling of Pakistani Democracy Martin Smith Norman Mailer and the "Good War" Jeff Leys Slip Sliding Away: House Votes on War Funding Website of the Day Why the Writers are Striking November 13, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Hillary's Big Problem and How Bill Can Fix It Jeffrey St. Clair Mailer and Us: the Writer as Fighter Robert Bryce The Pakistan Fuel Connection David Macaray The Teamsters and the Hollywood Strike Mike Whitney Bulletins from the Titanic Ralph Nader Pakistani Lawyers vs. American Lawyers Nikolas Kozloff Chavez Blasts the Spanish King Jordan Flaherty Education Versus Incarceration in Tallulah, Louisiana B. R. Gowani Dear Mrs. Bhutto Website of the Day Monty Python: "Fuck You, Very Much FCC"   November 12, 2007 Vicente Navarro Why Hillary's Health Care Plan Really Failed Ben Brown Letter from Ho Chi Minh City: a Tribute to My Vietnam Vet Father Omar K. A Pakistani Lawyer's Testimony: Life Under the Brutal Emergency Sadia Abbas The Roots of Pakistan's Political Crisis: Corrupt Elites and a Kleptocratic Military Farzana Versey Mailer's Miasma Richard W. Behan The Political Crimes of Complicity Paul Krassner Asshole of the Year: Congratulations Tim Russert! Cindy Sheehan Faith and War Peter Stone Brown The Return of Levon Helm Dave Lindorff Dennis, You are Not Alone Website of the Day Police Attack in Olympia   November 10 / 11, 2007 Alain Gresh Uncle Sam's New Backyard: How to Turn a Region into a Graveyard Mike Whitney For Whom the Closing Bell Tolls: the Last Dead Bull on Wall Street Ron Jacobs A View from the Pakistani Left: an Interview with Farooq Tariq Jeffrey St. Clair The First Dambuster: a Coyote Story Alan Farago Tangled Up in Blue: a Brief History of Florida Environmentalism Binoy Kampmark When Language Drowns: Torture in America Robert Fantina Legitimizing Torture Fred Gardner Psychological Torture in the Name of Family Values Ayesha Ijaz Khan The General in His Labyrinth Nicola Nasser NATO's Southward Drift Philip Rizk The Blame Game in Gaza Michael Dickinson Condom Nation: the Pope vs. Terry Higgins Joel S. Hirschhorn The Grand Delusion: a Conspiracy of Two Parties Paul Krassner Flunking Out of the Electoral College Wadner Pierre / Joe Emersberger The Ongoing War on Journalists in Haiti   November 9, 2007 Patrick Cockburn In the Kandil Mountains with the PKK Mohammed Hanif Musharraf and the Drunk Uncle John Ross Blackwater Goes to Mexico Mike Whitney Ron Paul, Big Media's Invisible Candidate Tom Barry In Latin America, the Hillary Clinton Policy is the Bush Policy Corporate Crime Reporter Is the AFL Trying to Derail Single Payer Health Care? Badruddin Khan Pakistan and the Israel Lobby David Macaray The WGA STrike: the Empire Strikes Back Martha Rosenberg The Blood Sport of Vice Presidents Website of the Day Stryker Blockade!   November 8, 2007 Kathleen & Bill Christison Meeting the Other in Israel and Palestine William Loren Katz Waterboarding in American History Mike Whitney The Long Fall: a Market Without Parachutes Sheldon Richman Why Woodstock May Have Saved John McCain's Life Liaquat Ali Khan Solidarity with Pakistan's Lawyers Marc Gardner The Victims of "Jessica's Law": Parolees Without Rights (or Homes) Jackie Corr The Big Fish from Whitefish: Montana, the Last Retreat of the Investment Banker? Brenda Norrell Between Bombs and Border Walls Dave Lindorff Ridiculing Impeachment at the New York Times China Hand Rewriting the History of the Sudan Calamity Sen. Russ Feingold FISA and America's Basic Freedoms: Let's Not Repeat the Mistakes of the Patriot Act Website of the Day The Welfare Poets Meet Hugo Chavez   November 7, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Dollar's Fall Collapses the American Empire Russell Mokhiber Pelosi and Me: Can't the Democrats End the War By Not Bringing the Funding Bill to the Floor? Vijay Prashad The Apotheosis of Bobby Jindal Niranjan Ramakrishnan Educating Pakistan: What Mukasey Can Teach Musharraf Alan Farago To Bee or Not to Bee? The Politics of Colony Collapse David Macaray The Writers' Guild Strike: Is There an Ice-Breaker? Nikolas Kozloff The Case of the Slimy Senator: Chuck Schumer Greenlights Mukasey Charlotte Laws What We Learned from Stephen Colbert's Presidential Campaign Daniel White Zahid's Story William Cook The Politics of Servility: Congress and the Israel Lobby Website of the Day Safe Lawns   November 6, 2007 Mike Whitney Welcome to Year 27 of the Reagan Revolution Ralph Nader Who Determines the Price of Oil? Andy Worthington The Torture of Ali al-Marri Pam Martens Wall Street Metes Out Street Justice to Citigroup Liaquat Ali Khan Pakistan's Dark Future William Schroder The Return of Water Torture Stephen Lendman Punishing Gaza William Blum Cuba and Original Sin Former US Intelligence Officers A Memo on Torture, Intelligence and Mukasey   November 5, 2007 Alexander Cockburn How I Spent the Eighth Brumaire Russell Mokhiber Pelosi and Me: The Democrats and Single Payer David Macaray How to Turn Workers Against Each Other (and Make Them All Poorer) Gary Leupp General Musharaff's "State of Emergency" Dave Lindorff Those Minot Nukes Ludwig Watzal Israel's Dilemma in Palestine Patrick Cockburn Tensions Ease in Iraqi Kurdistan Peter Stone Brown John Fogerty Makes Peace with His Past Michael Simmons Yo! What Happened to Peace? Website of the Day Petition: In Defense of the Morton West HS Antiwar Students   November 3 / 4, 2007 Tariq Ali Pakistan Sinks Deeper into Night David Price Army's Price Salesman of Counterinsurgency Manual Seeks to Defend Stolen Scholarship Jeffrey St. Clair Splitsville Alan Farago The Housing Crash, Suburban Sprawl and the Crisis of the American Middle Class Paul Krassner He's Back! Don Imus Meets Michael Richards Rannie Amiri Why the U.S. is Safeguarding Iraq's War Criminals P. Sainath Indexing Humanity, Indian Style Ayesha Ijaza Khan Pakistan in a Daze Robert Fantina Is the Bush Administration Talking Itself Into a War With Iran? Seth Sandronsky The Politics of Health Care in California Ron Jacobs The Bebop of Baraka Ramzy Baroud A Case for Arab Dignity Heather Gray When Capitalists Get a Free Ride   November 2, 2007 Dr. Mary Pipher Acting on Conscience: Psychologists and Abusive Interrogations Saul Landau How Pete Stark Became a Pariah Andy Worthington Guantánamo as House Arrest Sharon Smith A Tale of Two Stadiums Gary Leupp Fascist Beatifications: the History and Politics of Sainthood Gregory Harms The Chorus of Slander on Palestine Christopher Brauchli Racism in High Places Peter Morici The Falling Dollar and the Stubborn Trade Deficit Dave Lindorff The Easy Way to Stop the Looming US Attack on Iran David Penner Zombie Nation Website of the Day Fall in Yosemite   November 1, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts The Wages of Hegemony Patrick Cockburn The Most Dangerous Dam in the World Dave Lindorff The Air Force Report on the Minot-Barksdale Nuclear Missile Flight Jonathan Feldman The Strange Political Economy of Death in the South Mike Ferner They Met the Resistance in Iraq William S. Lind A Question for Would-Be Presidents Diana Johnstone "Fascislamism" Versus "Shoah Business" Jacob Hornberger The War on Telephone Privacy A..K. Gupta The Apocalypse will be Televised Lyuba Zarsky / Kevin Gallagher The Enclave Economy of Mexico's Silicon Valley Felice Pace Does the SPLC Equate Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism? Website of the Day This One's for You, Ed Abbey   October 31, 2007 Bill Quigley New Orleans' Broken Criminal Justice System Rev. William E. Alberts A Trail of American Blood: From the White House to CBS News Ray McGovern Attacking Iran for Israel Eric Walberg Poisonous Espionage: Litvinenko and the New Cold War V. G. Smith The Second Death of Guy Môquet Luis J. Rodriguez "Social Cleansing" from Guatemala to LA Sheldon Richman Bush has Time to Run the World Walter Brasch A Real Halloween Scare Website of the Day Boogie Rocks! October 30, 2007 David Price Pilfered Scholarship Devastates Gen. Petraeus's Counterinsurgency Manual M. Shahid Alam The Pakistan Question Andy Worthington The Epiphany of Matthew Waxman: a Government Insider Turns Against Gitmo Patrick Cockburn The Bicycle Bomber of Baquba Anthony Papa The Twisted Logic of Drug Laws Floyd Rudmin What "All Options are on the Table" Really Means Sherwood Ross Giuliani and Torture Website of the Day The Worst Lobby? You Decide   October 29, 2007 Lisa Hajjar Inside Israel's Military Courts Joe DeRaymond The Politics of Lethal Injections Patrick Cockburn The High Stakes in Iraqi Kurdistan Isabella Kenfield / Roger Burbach Corporate Murder in Brazil Fred Gardner The Frivolous Investigation of Dr. Sterner Farzana Versey Caricaturing Islam Stephen Fleischman The Greening of the Oligarchy Marcelle Cendrars The Congressional Rip Cord Eamonn McCann Dan Keating, the Last of the Republican Irreconcilables Martha Rosenberg For Halloween, Ann Coulter Dresses as .... Ann Coulter! Website of the Day Campaign 2008   October 27 / 28, 2007 Alexander Cockburn So Much for Islamo-Fascism Awareness Jeffrey St. Clair The Dam That Isn't There James Bovard Breaking Down an Innocent Man: The FBI's Right to Threaten Torture Ralph Nader Beyond the Rule of Law M. Reza Pirbhai The Wahhabis are Coming, the Wahhabis are Coming! Robert Sandels Pay the Invaders! Cuba, Claims and Confiscations Jacob G. Hornberger Ruling By Decree Missy Beattie The Arsonists in the West Wing John Ross U.S. Eyes on Oaxaca Robert Fantina Condi Rice, the Imperial Cheerleader Ron Jacobs Labor at the Crossroads Ali Moayedian In Search of Logic About Iran David Michael Green What If We Had a President Who Didn't Give a Damn About Terrorism? Poets Basement Block, Davies and Ford Website of the Day Bring 'Em Home: a Music Video   October 26, 2007 Brian Cloughley Revenging Bloodshed Saul Landau Portrait of Rudy Ahmad Al-Akras Getting Justice in the HLF Case Franklin Lamb Does "Loving" Lebanon Mean Never Having to Say You're Sorry? Mike Whitney Murdoch's Cuckoo's Nest Dave Lindorff Home of the Brave? Reducing US Casualties By Killing More Civilians Alan Farago A Castro Behind Every Bush Yifat Susskind Conscripting Feminism into the War on Terror Website of the Day Dead Life in a Political Prison October 25, 2007 Jeffrey St. Clair / Joshua Frank Iraq's Environmental Crisis Manuel Garcia, Jr. Homes of the Crash Test Dummies Paul Craig Roberts The Fraudulent War on Terror Col. Dan Smith The Politics of Paranoia: Jane Harman's War on the First Amendment Alan Farago The Way to Paradise? Chris Kutalik The Lesson of the Chrysler Rebels Brian McKinlay John Howard and the Curse of Bush Cindy Sheehan Pete, Nancy, George and WW III Website of the Day Support the America's Program!         Subscribe Online

December 1, 2007 How Much Credit Goes to the Surge? The Quiet on the Middle Eastern Front By BRIAN M. DOWNING In recent months, US casualties and Iraqi deaths have dropped markedly. Americans and Iraqis welcome the news but are perplexed by it as well. This is especially so in the US Congress, where confusion and indecision have deepened, and opposition to the war is even more tepid and incoherent than a year ago. The administration and the military have cautiously claimed progress; sympathetic figures in Congress and the media have incautiously trumpeted it. They advance a readily understood explanation with an intuitive plausibility that a war-weary public is willing to accept. But momentous shifts rarely have simple causes. Sunni Arabs The most common explanation is that the Surge, the US counterinsurgency program designed and implemented by Gen. Petraeus, is working very well. Based on counterinsurgency doctrines developed late in the colonial era, the Surge used US troops to drive out insurgents from an area and hold it. Iraqi troops and officials were then to win popular support by providing services and inducements. The process was to be repeated in contiguous areas, gradually spreading government control across the country, as an oil spot would spread across water. Whatever success the Surge has thus far enjoyed in Baghdad, it has not spread out from the capital--largely because of the ineptitude or insouciance in the Iraqi military and state, both of which are Shi'a-dominated and hostile to Sunnis. Services and inducements are more often provided by the Americans than by the national government--hardly in keeping with counterinsurgency doctrine. Violence has declined for several other reasons, many of which might be reckoned more important than the Surge. Sunni-Shi'a violence, which spiraled out of control following the Samarra mosque bombing in early 2006, has eased. This has not been due to any reconciliation between the sects, but rather because sectarian violence over the last two and a half years has turned most of Baghdad and a few other major cities into homogeneous semi-fortified enclaves. Mixed neighborhoods have all but disappeared. Furthermore, 2 million or so Sunnis have fled to foreign countries. With so much forced dislocation, the opportunity for sectarian violence is down. Bruited along with the good news of the Surge--and mistakenly or disingenuously lumped together with it--have been the changes in Anbar and Diyali provinces around Baghdad--once insurgent and al Qaeda havens. Over the last year or so, tribes there have solicited and received US assistance to fight al Qaeda, which had incurred the wrath of the tribes because of its disrespect for local authorities, customs, and women. Tribal forces and GIs now work together to finish off al Qaeda. Former insurgents even draw pay from American coffers. And Anbar and Diyali have seen remarkable declines in US casualties. Proximity to Baghdad invites inference that this resulted from the spreading oil spot of the Surge--an inference that US officials are unlikely to discourage. However, the tribal volte-face preceded the Surge's operationalization; the potential for turning the Sunnis was recognized and exploited by local field commanders (and foreign powers), not by the Surge's directors in the Green Zone; and there has been little if any follow-up into the areas by the Iraqi state. Changes in Sunni Arab provinces might be best considered in two contexts. First, since the country's inception following the First World War, the Sunni Arabs were a minority of the population, yet they controlled the state, army, and oil revenue. This suddenly and irreversibly ended when the US-led coalition ousted Saddam and regarded the Shi'as as natural allies, the Sunnis as defeated enemies harboring varying degrees of hostility. During years of insurgency and sectarian fighting, Americans troops and Shi'a militias, separately and without coordination, inflicted hundreds of thousand casualties on the Sunni Arabs and helped drive many into nearby Sunni countries, reducing their population from 18% to about 13%. Without some sort of political change, the Sunni Arabs faced marginalization, if not extermination. The Shi'a-dominated state was hardly amenable to a deal with their former oppressors, but by late 2006 the Americans, mired in a vicious and domestically unsustainable insurgency, were amenable to a deal. And so US commanders and tribal councils forged working arrangements. The Americans got reduced casualties, the Sunni Arabs a protector. Historians might well ask someday, who turned whom? International dynamics constitute a second context. Sunni states around Iraq were wary of ousting Saddam. He had been a useful counter to the Shi'a revival begun by revolutionary Iran in 1979, and so they financed his long war with Iran in the eighties. Since then, Sunni states have continued to beware Iran and have looked upon domestic Shi'as as potential fifth columns. Following Saddam's ouster, the region braced as the Shi'a of Iraq and Iran filled the vacuum. Sunni states, especially Saudi Arabia, established or strengthened ties with tribal leaders in the Sunni regions of Iraq. Their diplomatic and intelligence services, whose practical knowledge of tribal politics in and out of their lands greatly exceeds the ken of American counterparts, were almost certainly critical in effecting the volte-face in Anbar, Diyali, and elsewhere in Iraq. Again, who turned whom?   Shi'a Arabs and Iran Violence in Shi'a areas has been based on militias fighting US and British forces and on the militias fighting each other, most notably Sadr's Mahdi Army and Hakim's Badr Brigades. Both forms of violence are down sharply. Shi'a efforts to marginalize or drive out the Sunni Arabs have dwindled as the latter sidled up to the US. Skirmishes between Shi'a militias and US and British troops have also dwindled. Until recently, US forces had been hammering Shi'a militias in Baghdad, wreaking havoc on their neighborhoods, suggesting to many Shi'as that the US now saw the Sunnis as natural allies. Shi'as saw the fearsome specter of renewed Sunni power in a truncated but nonetheless dangerous state, backed by the US and Saudi Arabia, and one day enriched by recent oil finds in Anbar. Sobered by this, Sadr and Hakim recently inked an agreement to end fighting between their forces, fighting that a few months ago seemed about to engulf the south as the British withdrew. Iranian pressure might have brought about the agreement. Many of the key Shi'a parties and militias were formed under Iranian tutelage and continue to receive money and advice from their co-religionists, so Iranian influence has naturally if covertly shaped recent events. Iran has been seeking a golden mean in Iraq: to inflict enough casualties on the US to bring about an eventual pullout, leaving a coherent Shi'a majority there; but to avoid inflicting so many casualties as to bring on harsh economic sanctions or devastating air strikes. Supplies to Shi'a militias over the years have never been very high--Iran wishes to demonstrate that it has supply lines into Iraq, and it can expand them, raising US casualties to domestically intolerable levels. In other words, Iran has considerable control over American casualties. But Iran's policy is in disarray. Israel's air strike in September 2007 on a possible nuclear facility in Syria weighs heavily on Iran. It implied Israeli and American willingness to attack Iran, but more importantly it demonstrated their ability to defeat the best Russian-made air defense systems, upon which Iran has based much of its national security. In other words, Iran is virtually defenseless. Heretofore, the US feared the loss of too many aircraft and planned to strike with only cruise missiles. But its aircraft can almost certainly penetrate Iranian air defenses, devastate nuclear facilities and military bases and economic infrastructure, and return to their carriers and bases with relatively few casualties. Iran could retaliate in several ways: send its special forces into Iraq to attack American troops and supply lines from Kuwait; encourage Hizbullah to launch strikes across the Middle East; and press the Shi'a factions in Iraq to order the US out or at least squeeze supplies. Some analysts suspect that Iran has Russian-made missiles capable of inflicting grave damage on American aircraft carriers, two of which patrol just outside Iranian waters. Iran has no desire to suffer the devastation the Israeli air force visited upon Lebanon in 2006, which American airpower can now easily repeat. It would rally the nation, but the economic damage would be frightful. And so Iran might have blinked recently. US generals have reported a decline in Iranian arms entering Iraq. Iran realizes that these supplies, limited though they are, constitute a rationale for the US to launch protracted air strikes across it--several thousand targets according to some sources. And although US policy toward Iran is probably independent of Iran's actions in Iraq, it sees no point in helping the US contrive a casus belli.   Stability and Instability The absence of political compromise between the sects is oft-noted, leading some to conclude that stability in the region is not in the offing and that recent developments have no lasting meaning. However, another form of stability is possible, one based on the US abandoning mediation between Sunni and Shi'a in Iraq and aligning with the Sunnis in and out of Iraq. The region might be headed for a standoff between the US, Saudi Arabia, and the Sunni Arabs of Iraq opposed to Iran and the Shi'a Arabs of Iraq and elsewhere. A new cold war, with uneasy frontiers stretching from Mosul in the north to Basra in the south, might be falling into place. This standoff would necessitate stationing a considerable portion of the US's available combat divisions in the region for an unfathomable amount of time, possibly making the duration of its antecedent in Central Europe seem ephemeral. For better or worse, there might be too many instabilities for this standoff to come about. One source of instability lies in the make-up of Iraqi tribes. The tribes of Anbar and Diyali are confederations comprising numerous tribes, hence they are subject to fissures along tribal, clan, and personal lines. Tribal leaders cooperating, or to some collaborating, with Americans and receiving emoluments from them can worsen these fissures. Related to this, al Qaeda, though ostensibly on the run in Iraq, has enjoyed considerable success in recent weeks in assassinating tribal leaders working with the US. Chastened by its blunders, it might learn to exacerbate fissures and find allies. And increased use of air strikes to keep American casualties down has predictably led to many inadvertent deaths of civilians and friendly forces that could worsen uneasiness regarding cooperation with the US. The Shi'a tribes also have serious fissures. Saddam played one off against the other and prevented the Shi'a majority from coalescing into a threat to his regime. Presently, Shi'a leaders nominally command militias and even some regular army formations, but they rely on traditional and charismatic appeals, making mutiny and infighting by lieutenants disaffected by recent events far more likely than in militaries based on rational-legal authority. A further source of instability lies in the recent return of many Sunni Arabs. As middle-class Sunnis who fled to Syria and Jordan return, they will politically and financially strengthen the old oppressors of the Shi'as. Many Shi'as will find this ominous and demand preemptive action. Most Shi'a have never heard of Santayana, but they know his famous message from long experience. The showdown over Iran's nuclear program is perhaps the most critical source of instability. A formidable group within the US government, centered on the vice president, is pressing for air strikes on Iran, regardless of its actions in Iraq. There is of course an opposing group, centered on the secretary of state, stressing negotiations and international pressures, which has the upper hand for now. But the correlation of forces within the administration remains opaque to most observers. Iran's president or the supreme leader, neither of whom seems well acquainted with the norms of world politics, could take action that would alter politics in Washington. However, against expectation, the supreme leader has recently rebuked the president for his sharp denunciation of domestic figures who oppose the nation's nuclear program--perhaps another blink. The decline in violence in Iraq rests uneasily on several unrelated and loosely related processes. The Surge is certainly one of them, but it is not foremost --maybe not even in Baghdad where it began. The number of these processes and their fragility do not inspire confidence that the decline in violence can continue, let alone help to promote desirable political development. Nor are they likely to allow the US to leave Iraq gracefully in the foreseeable future. Brian M. Downing is a veteran of the Vietnam War and author of several works of political and military history, including The Military Revolution and Political Change and The Paths of Glory: War and Social Change in America from the Great War to Vietnam. He can be reached at: brianmdowning@gmail.com © Brian M. Downing Your Ad Here

Now Available! How the Press Led the US into War Buy End Times Now! New From CounterPunch Books The Secret Language of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy WINNER OF THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARD! Click Here to Buy! Cassidy on Tour Click Here for Dates & Venues "The Case Against Israel" Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Click Here to Buy! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal Click Here to Order!   Grand Theft Pentagon How They Made a Killing on the War on Terrorism         The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont   CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed     Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh   The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"