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Today's Stories December 26, 2007 Charles Tripp From One Saddam to Fifty December 25, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Conscience and Empire December 24, 2007 Andrea Peacock A Dark Ride on the Border Tariq Ali Thinking of Edward Said Uri Avnery Help! A Ceasefire! Jill Jameson Burma is Not Back to Normal: A Trip from Rangoon to Mae Sot Steve Melendez Russell Means Goes to Washington Mike Whitney The Big Fix Chuck Munson Not Getting It About New Orleans John Walsh Clueless Crusaders Farzana Versey Tony Blair and the Hawking of Religion Richard Neville Dreaming of a White House Christmas Website of the Day Back in the USSR December 22 / 23, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Mike Huckabee's Ascending Chariot Ralph Nader Politics and Profits: How the Oil Cartel Gets Its Way Andy Worthington Intelligence Failures, Battlefield Myths and Unaccountable Prisons in Afghanistan Ahmad Faruqui The Comedian of Pakistan Bill Moyers Society on Steroids Rev. William E. Alberts Blessed are the Peacemakers Timothy J. Freeman From Kant to Lennon: Can War Really be Over? Anthony DiMaggio Democrats Continue to Capitulate on Iraq Fred Gardner Molecule of the Year, Cannabiodiol Paul Krassner Enhanced Hazing Techniques Seth Sandronsky 17 Years of Meanness: Repealing California's Three Strikes Law William Loren Katz Christmas Eve Freedom Fighters: Recalling the Battle of Lake Okeechobee Michael Dickinson In the Dungeon of the Zabita Ron Jacobs Why Leon Russell Still Matters David Vest Doyle Bramhall's "Is It News?" Poets' Basement Orloski, Davies and Ford Website of the Weekend George W. Hates Santa   December 21, 2007 John Ross New Massacres Loom in Mexico Jacob Hornberger Nothing Can Morally Justify the Invasion of Iraq Dick J. Reavis A Way Out of the Newspaper Abyss Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon The 2007 P.U.-litzer Prizes Peter Morici Business as Usual as Recession Looms Jack McCarthy Let Us Now Praise Judith Regan (Even If She Did Sleep with Bernie Kerik) Raúl Zibechi Sex and Revolution Steve Early How the Presidential Candidates Made Me an Atheist David Macaray Union Aftermath Patrick Bond Zuma, the Center-Left and the Left-Left in S. Africa Lakota Freedom Delegation A Declaration of Independence from the USA Website of the Day Solomon v. Beck: Tale of the Tape   December 20, 2007 David Rosen Mitt Romney's Secret Life as a Pornographer Alan Farago The Huckster and the Wreckage: Jeb Bush and the Subprime Mortgage Crisis Laura Carlsen Standing Up to NAFTA Ashley Dawson The Return of the Bread Riot Wayne Smith and Jennifer Schuett Cuba Changes, US Policy Stagnates Website of the Day How to Talk to a FoxNews Reporter   December 19, 2007 Saul Landau Is the NIE Bush's Watergate? Paul W. Lovinger Hillary the Hawk Norman Solomon The Mad Corporate World of Glenn Beck Dave Zirin George Mitchell's Drugs of Choice Marjorie Cohn Bush Still Spinning Iranian Nukes Sen. Russell Feingold The Iraq War is Exhausting Our Nation Sonja Karkar A Christmas Reflection on Palestine Anthony Papa Open the Drug Gulags Christopher Ketcham Pave the Holy Lands with Good Intentions Davey D Britney's Little Sister is Pregnant: Should We Blame Hip Hop? Website of the Day When Republicans Use the F-Word on TV   December 18, 2007 R. F. Blader The Politics of Teen Pregnancy George Wuerthner Gunning for Wolves in Idaho Steven Higgs Can the NAFTA Superhighway be Stopped? Vijay Prashad Encounters with Ghadar David Macaray The Free Rider Problem Ralph Nader Nine Books That Make a Difference: a Reading List for the Holidays Eva Liddell Privatizing War Abroad, Invading Privacy at Home Martha Rosenberg While the Bodies are Still Warm: Drugs, Shrinks and Shooters Dave Lindorff When Impeachment is Out of Print Peter Morici The Consequences the Trade Deficit Website of the Day Ron Paul: How Fascism Will Come to America   December 17, 2007 Mike Whitney Staring Into the Abyss Tom Barry Planning the War on Immigrants Uri Avnery A Gaza Masada? Greg Moses Crossing the Line in Texas Allan Nairn Terrorism; Counter- Terrorism: Excuses for Murder Patrick Bond South Africa's Fight Between Hostile Brothers Stephen Lendman Police State America Charles Jonkel Grizzly Right of Way Laray Polk An Inside-Out Crisis in Gaza Stephen Fleischman Pawns in Their Game December 15 / 16, 2007 Peter Linebaugh A People's Penny for the Magna Carta Howard Zinn Bomb After Bomb Standard Schaefer The Greening of Big Tobacco Raymond J. Lawrence Let's Take Christ Out of Christmas Alan Farago Down on Desolation Row: the Vultures and the Growth Machine Saul Landau Lord Byron and the Bad Tourists Jenna Orkin Lying to "Reassure" the Public: Bush's EPA and the Post-9/11 Toxic Air Cover-Up Ahmad Samih Khalidi Why a Palestinian "State" is a Punitive Construct Robert Fantina Politics By Photo-Op Missy Comley Beattie Resistance Amid the Ruins Ramzy Baroud Of Mormons and Muslims James L. Secor A Vision for China's Future Elijah Wald Ike Turner's Music Won't be Forgotten Website of the Weekend The Alliance for the Wild Rockies Needs (and Deserves) Your Support   December 14, 2007 JoAnn Wypijewski The Dirty Cad: What Giuliani's Sex Life Tells Us About Him John Ross Iraqi Refugees Return: One Cruel Hoax Jacob Hornberger Terror Suspects Belong in Federal Court Andy Worthington Guantánamo and the Supreme Court: What Happened? Allan Nairn "Shoot Them on the Spot": Rewarding War Crimes Dave Zirin The Mitchell Report: Absolving the Owners Dave Lindorff The First Cut is the Deepest Misty MacDuffee Toxic Grizzlies Ben Terrall What Happened to Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine? Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi Prerequisites for Peace Website of the Day Sen. Kit Bond: "Waterboarding is Like Swimming"   December 13, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Shrinking the Dollar from the Inside-Out Mike Whitney Dershowitz for the Defense--of Waterboarding Ron Jacobs Blank Check DemocratsL the Great War Funding Conspiracy Norman Solomon The USA's Human Rights Daze Peter Morici The Dragon and the Toothless Dog: China Doesn't Flinch Sandy Mayes Blocking the Strykers: 13 Days of War Resistance at Port Olympia Franklin Lamb The UN in Lebanon: Whose Mission Is It Fulfilling? Jacob Hornberger Don't Reform the CIA, Abolish It Nadim Rouhana An Interloper in My Own Land Dave Zirin On Pigskin and Petrol Website of the Day Rachel's Needs (and Deserves) Your Support! December 12, 2007 Allan Nairn US Intelligence is Tapping Indonesian Phones Alan Farago How Sprawl Eats Its Young Ray McGovern Torture, Lies and Videotape Winslow T. Wheeler The Phony Pentagon Budget Cuts Evan Jones The Raid on Great Western: Why an Australian Bank Might Spell Doom for the US Farm Belt James Petras An Open Letter to Sarkozy on the Exchange of Political Prisonsers Joel Hirschorn The Horserace Fiction: Clinton, Obama and the Democratic Machine Joshua Frank Why Ron Paul Deserves Our Attention Sherry Wolf Why the Left Should Reject Ron Paul Dan Bacher Survey of a Fish Graveyard Website of the Day Men Eating Bugs   December 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn What's Really Happened During the Surge? Diana Johnstone The Next Kosovo War Paul Craig Roberts It's Waco All Over Again: Preventive Detention and the Constitution David Macaray Impasse in Hollywood Ralph Nader Gail Collins Versus the Underdogs Andy Worthington Guantánamo Britons to be Released: a Mixed Result Martha Rosenberg No Holiday for High Risk Sex Workers Steve Champion / Anthony Ross Words for Our Brother, Tookie Williams Kim Nicolini Tangled Up in Dylan Michael Dickinson Say Goodbye to Purgatory: Pope Rat Gets Indulgent Website of the Day A Charming (and Worthy) Pitch December 10, 2007 Uri Avnery How They Stole the Bomb From Us Debbie Nathan The Perils of Journalism and Child Porn JoAnn Wypijewski Is There a Left Here Left? If So, What Can It Do? Steve Kelly Cheap Chips, Counterfeit Wilderness Donna J. Volatile Welcome to the Revolution   December 8 / 9, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Coup Against Bush and Cheney Brenda Norrell Seize the Land, Chain the Peace Activists Saul Landau The Ruins of Empire R. F. Blader A Rape in Every Drink? Ray McGovern Spinning Iran's Centrifuges Allan Nairn Imposed Hunger in Gaza, the Army in Indonesia Linn Washington, Jr Spotlight on Death Row Paul Craig Roberts When Will Bush Come Clean?   December 7, 2007 Sean Penn Piano Wire Puppeteers Arthur Versluis Mining Water in the Desert M. G. Piety Racism and the American Psyche: Some Thoughts on Race and Intelligence Pam Martens Banksters Gone Wild Alan Farago Will the Free Market Kill Suburbia? Sprawl and the Credit Crisis Allan Nairn It Takes (Out) a Village Col. Dan Smith Bush, Iran and the Politics of Doomsday Alice Slater The Iran Opening Robert Weissman The Story of Stuff Website of the Day Something About Mitt   December 5, 2007 Mike Whitney Why the CFR Hates Putin Sharon Smith The Anti-War Enablers: Tom Hayden and the Dead End Democrats James Petras Venezuela in the Aftermath Ron Jacobs The Iran Charade Dave Zirin Kicking a Dead Man: the Sliming of Sean Taylor John V. Whitbeck Two States or One? Time to Choose Peter Zinn Covered in New Orleans Niranjan Ramakrishnan Impeach Pelosi Instead Alan Farago The Credit Bomb Detonates in Florida Heather Gray US Meddling in Australian Politics Website of the Day A Donner Summit Night Before Xmas   December 4, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Jackboot State Stubs Its Toe in Ann Arbor Andy Worthington Guantánamo and the Supreme Court Paul Craig Roberts The Lies at the End of the American Dream Ray McGovern No-Nuke Iran Winslow T. Wheeler Admiral Mullen and the Defense Budget: When White Elephants are Too Small Allan Nairn The Regime Still Stands in Burma, Where "the People Just Want Food" Russell Mokhiber The USA v. Al Arian Nikolas Kozloff As Chávez Falters: Raising the Stakes for the South American Left John V. Walsh Peace Movement Paralyzed Ghada Ageel Will Peace Cost Me My Home? Stephen Soldz The Facts be Damned!: Psychologists' President Defends Psychologist Involvement in Interrogations Website of the Day Hands Off the People of Iran     December 3, 2007 Tariq Ali Venezuela After the Referendum Bill Quigley New Orleans: Bulldozers for the Poor, Tax Credits for Developers Eric Walberg The Bible and Middle East History Uri Avnery After Annapolis Marjorie Cohn Operation Iraqi Freedom Exposed Dave Lindorff Vengeance Isn't Sweet Stephen Fleischman Homeless in Paradise Martha Rosenberg Perp Walks for the Mink Clad on Chicago's Mag Mile Website of the Day So Just Lead!   December 1 / 2, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Emblems of the Bush Age: Adrift in a Sea of Booze Jeffrey St. Clair The Bear Minimum: the Grizzly and the Future of the Rocky Mountain West Mike Whitney "Iraq Doesn't Exist Anymore": an Interview with Nir Rosen Shemon Salam A Visit From the FBI Roger Burbach The Battle in Bolivia Benjamin Dangl New Politics in Old Bolivia Brian M. Downing The Quiet on the Middle Eastern Front: How Much Credit Goes to the Surge? Greg Moses Night of the Living Redneck: a Texas Horror Story Sonja Karkar The "Never-Never" Peace Conference Saul Landau Ethics and Evil in South Boston Margaret Kimberley Black America Left Behind John Ross What are the Prospects for a New Mexican Revolution? Reza Fiyouzat Exit on the Left: When Che's Children Visited Iran Judith Scherr Berkeley Turns Right for the Holidays Lance Olsen Of Forests and Finance: Logging for the Wealthy Christopher Brauchli Mr. Bush and the Despots Robert Fantina Iraq as U.S. Colony Dan Bacher Fish Triage on Prospect Island Michael Donnelly Remembering How to be Human: John Trudell and the Music of Urgency Website of the Weekend Appalachian Voices   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               Subscribe Online

December 26, 2007 Rebuilding Violent Tyranny in Iraq From One Saddam to Fifty By CHARLES TRIPP Now that the first phase of the Iraqi civil war seems to have ended, it is time to consider the political processes it may have left in its bloody wake. It is crucial for Iraqis and others to get a sense of the stability and durability of present arrangements. Are they a mechanism for reconciling the ferocious enmities of the past five years in Iraq, or likely to lead to a more violent second phase of the civil war? There have been two main patterns during these years of violence and massive population displacement. One is the localization of politics, grounded in the insecurities, fears and ambitions of ruthless local leaders across Iraq. This thrives on community feeling, which is sometimes tribal, sometimes ethnic and sectarian; it also springs from rivalry and jostling for power within a provincial arena. The other pattern is the emergence of a politics at national level under US auspices, which has much in common with the politics of a protectorate. Both are dangerous for the future, but both may contribute to the emergence of a distinctive, likely troubled, Iraqi politics. As an Iraqi put it, "the United States got rid of one Saddam only to replace him with 50". For many people, negotiating their way around and through the little Saddams with their militias, detention centres, local courts and taxes has become a fact of life. Some accept this as the price of increased security for their community, neighbourhood or even street. Others who refused to conform, but knew the price in blood for dissent, have fled--abroad if they could or to a part of Iraq where they may be less visible "National institutions" have little or no authority to temper the effects of this on the lives of ordinary Iraqis. Some, such as the police, are often enmeshed in local power and the extortion and repression with which they are associated. Even when officers are not implicated (as with the police chief of Basra, Major-General Khallaf) they can do nothing but lament the fact that in the past three months some 40 women have been killed in Basra for wearing make-up, not veiling or otherwise failing to observe the narrow rulings of the repressive local militias. When national politicians do try to take on this entrenched and violent local power, the chances are that they will lose. This was shown in a recent account of Abu Abed's "Knights of Ameriya". He felt that the followers of the vice-president, Tariq al-Hashemi, were trying to muscle in on the area of West Baghdad that was his fiefdom. His local militia was able to flex its muscles so effectively because it had been drawn into the US plan for the pacification of Baghdad. His "knights", and other militias, incongruously called "concerned citizens" by the US authorities, had received US money, weapons and protection in the name of the fight against "al-Qaida in Iraq". (See Ghaith Abd al-Ahad, "Meet Abu Abed: the US's new ally against al-Qaida", The Guardian, November 10, 2007.) The politics of the local, however fractious, uncertain and grim for many Iraqis, have been much encouraged by the US authorities. This may be due in part to the example of Kurdistan, where the US has been intimately involved since 1991. It is now held up as the only stable and prosperous region of Iraq, but peace there was preceded by years of violence as the two major parties battled each other for supremacy. Cajoled by the US into settling their differences in 2000, political leaders Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani soon realized there was a greater game and did what they could to speed the downfall of the Baghdad regime in 2003. However, as their subsequent stance has shown, despite Talabani's assumption of the presidency of Iraq, their politics have remained resolutely and defiantly local, symbolized by the refusal even to fly the Iraqi flag over official buildings. This turning to local figures of authority and power is also the outcome of a belief that political order, like the insurgency, must be rooted in local communities if it is to spread. Using the language deployed over a hundred years before by the French colonial general, Joseph Galliéni, in his campaigns in Tonkin and Madagascar, the US high command enthusiastically adopted his strategy of les taches d'huile (oil spots--create many of them and they will seep outwards and eventually join together) as a way to combat both the insurgency and the efforts by "al-Qaida in Iraq" to create no-go areas. But the use of local strongmen, however repellent their methods, is also due to the illiteracy of US and allied forces in "reading" Iraqi society. This left them relying on an assortment of exiles who inserted themselves into new US-sponsored forms of power and who have been consistently unable make a truly national government happen. In its absence, the US and its partners, having dismantled the last public vestiges of the old centralized Iraqi state, had no choice but to work with those who could command force on the ground, provide intelligence in specific localities and willingly accept the sponsorship and patronage of the real power in Baghdad, as they had always accepted it from the predecessors of the US in the republican or royal palace. The politicians of the national government, desperate to replace the US as chief patrons of Iraq's politics, but divided among themselves and uncertain of their power beyond the Green Zone, have embodied sectarian and communal politics. They believe these can be a way of connecting with many Iraqis and can provide an escape from a domineering US presence. To resist US demands in the name of an Iraqi sovereignty to which the US pays only lip service has proved fruitless and humiliating. However, communal politics, with all its complexities, networks and layers, has proved impenetrable to the US and to the secular Iraqis whom the US has favored. Communalism and sectarianism became a bulwark against an overbearing patron, but as the events of 2006-7 showed they can carry terrible risks. They do not lessen the dependency of these recently promoted elites upon the power of the US in Iraq. This applies to the Kurdish leaders, who need it to protect them from Turkish intervention, as well as to the insecure leaders who came to office as a result of the victory of the United Iraqi Alliance in the elections of 2005. These elections produced the formal institutions of representative life--parliament, elected offices of state, constitution--but, as most Iraqis are well aware, real power lies elsewhere. Unresponsive to the concerns of many, used to passing laws that confirm the privileges of those who have succeeded in manipulating the system, the Iraqi parliament is losing whatever authority it had. For many, cynicism has replaced the enthusiasm generated by the elections. In its place is a recognition that it is helping to entrench an order of privilege, a new class-based dispensation which is a driving force behind the politics of communities across the country . (See "Shi'ite Politics in Iraq--the role of the Supreme Council", Middle East Report n° 70, International Crisis Group, 15 November 2007.) This too is part of a strategy designed to reinforce the hold of favored leaders over the economy, providing them with the means to service their client followings, and to encourage the spots to join up, driven by the common economic interests of the powerful. Competition for these resources is more troublesome than this picture of progressive pacification might suggest. But it could be argued that the oil law currently before the parliament is, at least in its distributive clauses, an attempt to address this, since it seeks a formula for the distribution of Iraq's oil revenues to make it acceptable to all those in a position to profit, whatever their regional or communal base. The intention in the long run is not to let "a thousand flowers bloom" but to bring the many forms of local power into the orbit of those with major resources at the centre. This could recreate a national politics in Iraq. It might not reproduce the old centralized state, but it would establish a clear hierarchy, from the provinces to the "club of patrons" who will determine the future from Baghdad. Much about this model resembles the imperial protectorates that shaped the politics of the Middle East for much of the first half of the 20th century. Al-Maliki heads an insecure, dependent government, resentful of foreign protection but unable to survive without it; this government protests feebly at repeated infringements of Iraqi sovereignty and is subjected to the patronizing imposition of benchmarks by the US Congress as part of a domestic political game within the US. Meanwhile the protecting power, as well as sponsoring local militias and asking few questions if they seem to be keeping the supposed threat from al-Qaida in Iraq at bay, is also forging a close relationship with the Iraqi armed forces. This is reminiscent of the close and often sinister relationship between Latin American military institutions and the US military, and is set against a backdrop of insecure and corrupt political elites, sham representative institutions, restive provinces and the potentially violent politics of a class-divided society. Some may use anti-Americanism to overcome these differences, particularly if this can be focused on the continued presence of US military bases. This has the potential to set up a dangerous schizophrenia within the Iraqi armed forces. In a recent report on the rebuilding of the ministry of the interior Andrew Rathmell of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, described it as "a heavily-muscled and well-armed individual with extremely poor physical coordination who suffers from multiple personality disorder" . Any officer wanting to get ahead must play by US rules, at the same time negotiating with local political elites eager to exploit the force which the army will represent in domestic politics. Yet he is almost certain to come to resent all of these external demands, laying the groundwork for a politics of the military and of military assertion which may be nationalist, contemptuous of civilian politics and ruthless in its methods. Iraq, like many other states, has been here before. These potentially troubling trends may be a basis for the emergence of Iraqi politics, rather than the collapse and disintegration of the state. However, given the passions, the interests at stake and the vulnerability of Iraqi politics to regional influence and intervention, there is fragility. It comes from the realization that all parties have no intention of renouncing violence as a means of realizing their aims. And the local leaderships may not have as strong a hold over their constituencies as they would want others to believe. A second phase of the civil war is easily imaginable therefore, especially if critical regional events, such as a US-Iran confrontation, are replicated through clients and protégés in Iraq. Charles Tripp is professor of Middle East politics, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and author, among other works, of A History of Iraq, Cambridge, new edition 2007, and Islam and the Moral Economy: the challenge of capitalism, Cambridge, 2006. This article first appeared in the new January edition of excellent monthly Le Monde Diplomatique, whose English language edition can be found at mondediplo.com The full text appears by agreement with Le Monde Diplomatique and CounterPunch will feature one or two articles from LMD every month. All rights reserved © 1997-2007 Le Monde diplomatique.   Your Ad Here

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