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Larisa Alexandrovna details the highly questionable circumstances under which the mainstream US media has been lapping up the White House's latest allegations against Iran...

Propaganda Extravaganza

At least Powell's speech and Blair's "dodgy dossier" attempted to source their allegations.

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Saddam's Execution: A U.S. Psyop?

I commented very early on that Saddam Hussein's controversial execution appeared to have all the earmarks of a U.S. psyop operation designed to exacerbate enmities between Sunnis and followers  of Iraqi Shi'ite nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.  At the time I wrote:

So how does a crew of open Sadrists get into Saddam's presumably elite hand-picked execution squad?  And how do they get away with such rude misbehavior?  And how does an unofficial video get made and released?

If I didn't know better, I might suspect that the whole thing was staged to make the Sadrists look bad and to deepen sectarian divisions in Iraq.  Especially since they did it on the first day of Eid al-Adha.

Writer Mahdi Darius  Nazemroaya has written an excellent article making the same point.  Nazemroaya points out:

The execution of the Iraqi leader was carefully timed to occur during a sensitive time for Muslims. The execution fell during Eid ul-Adha, a holy day for Muslims. The date of the execution is perhaps one of the most compromising signals that the execution was indeed a psychological operation (PSYOP) launched by the United States. 

The execution date was deliberately chosen during a sacred period for Muslims to exploit a divide between Shiites and Sunni. This sacred day was marked on Saturday, December 30, 2007 by Sunni Muslims in Iraq and was observed a day later on Sunday, December 31, 2007 by Iraq’s Shiites.

Al-Sadr himself himself denied that he or his followers were involved in the execution.  The following quote is an extract of an interview of al-Sadr that was published in the Italian journal La Repubblica, translated from the Italian by Strategytalk's own parvati_roma:

Caprile: It has been said that amongst the crowd watching Saddam’s execution you too were present.  Is this true?

Al Sadr: “This is absolute rubbish. If I’d been there they’d have killed me too. As for Saddam, I certainly shed no tears for the man who massacred my family and tens of thousands of my people. But if it had been up to me, I’d have had him executed in a public square so all the world could see.”

Caprile: Even if you weren’t there, can you deny that the execution room was full of your men?

Al Sadr: “No, those were not my men. They were people paid to discredit me. To make it seem I was the person really responsible for that hanging. The proof lies in the fact – just listen to the audio – that when they recited my prayer they left out some essential parts. A mistake that not even a single child in Sadr City would ever have made. The aim was to make it seem Moqtada was the real enemy of the Sunnis. And they succeeded.

Al-Sadr is the greatest threat to the U.S. agenda in Iraq at this point not because of the strength of his militia (it is poorly trained and armed, and took a severe beating in its only engagement with U.S. forces in 2004) but because of his political opposition to two of the main U.S. political goals in Iraq and  the fact that his public support and popularity is rapidly increasing.  He is an Iraqi nationalist who opposes foreign influence in the country and supports a strong central government.  This means he wants U.S. troops out as soon as possible, with no military bases left behind.  It means that he is suspicious of Iranian influence in his country and of groups (such as SCIRI and its Badr Brigade militia) that have close ties to Iran.  It also means that he will oppose long term foreign influence over Iraq's oil industry.  Although al-Sadr has not officially announced his opposition to the proposed hydrocarbon law or the U.S. backed proposal to amend the Iraqi Constitution in order to effectively implement the law, it is quite likely that he does oppose it in its present form.  The U.S. is certainly acting as if he opposes it.  It has been  urging Maliki to purge the government of Sadrists in favor of Shi'ites who belong to more compliant factions such as SCIRI.

The U.S. is fearful that the Sadrists will forge a political alliance with Sunni nationalists that share their agenda for a strong, independent united Iraq that is free from foreign influence.  Al-Sadr has had discussion with Sunnis to this effect, and has offered an alliance with Sunnis that are willing to condemn Sunni radical groups  and the oppression of Shi'ites under Saddam:

Caprile: In any case, the war between you and the Sunnis goes on.

Al Sadr: “It is true that we are all Muslims and we are all sons of the same land, but they must first distance themselves from the Saddamists, from the radical groups, from Bin Laden’s men, as well as repeating their “No” to the Americans. All we’re asking is for the ulemas to accept these conditions of ours. They haven’t yet done so.”

To many ordinary Iraqis, Muqtada al-Sadr represents a better way forward than what is being offered by more radical elements or by the political parties that have been coopted by the U.S. and Iran.  There has been a groundswell of political support for him, especially among rural Shi'ite tribesman in southern Iraq.  If new elections were held today, the Sadrists would substantially increase their representation in the Iraq parliament, dealing a final death blow to the U.S. agenda.

The U.S. is accordingly left with a stark choice: Accept defeat, or eliminate al-Sadr.  The Saddam execution was part of a strategy to marginalize him, and it had some initial success.  However many Iraqis, both Sunni and Shi'a,  are wising up to the real state of affairs in Iraq.  If the U.S. tries to physically eliminate al-Sadr, it will likely light a brushfire of widespread resistance in southern Iraq and in Baghdad.  If this happens, the stakes in Iraq will have been raised considerably.

Discuss this topic at Strategytalk.org

Sadr Interview

If you are interested in what is really going on in Iraq right now, read this rare interview of Muqtada al-Sadr that was published in La Repubblica, translated from the Italian by Strategytalk's own parvati_roma.  Particularly interesting was this portion:

Caprile: It has been said that amongst the crowd watching Saddam’s execution you too were present.  Is this true?

Al Sadr: “This is absolute rubbish. If I’d been there they’d have killed me too. As for Saddam, I certainly shed no tears for the man who massacred my family and tens of thousands of my people. But if it had been up to me, I’d have had him executed in a public square so all the world could see.”

Caprile: Even if you weren’t there, can you deny that the execution room was full of your men?

Al Sadr: “No, those were not my men. They were people paid to discredit me. To make it seem I was the person really responsible for that hanging. The proof lies in the fact – just listen to the audio – that when they recited my prayer they left out some essential parts. A mistake that not even a single child in Sadr City would ever have made. The aim was to make it seem Moqtada was the real enemy of the Sunnis. And they succeeded.

I have suspected for some time that the Saddam execution video was a clever psy-op designed to splinter the Sadrists from their fellow Iraqi nationalist moderate Sunnis.  There has also been much speculation on whether the worst excesses of the Shi'a militias (and the bombing of the Golden Mosque) could have been the result of covert infiltration by US controlled forces.  Sadr seems to confirm both in this interview.

It seems that the US occupation forces don't want Sadr to be able to get his version of events out, since they arrested his information officer yesterday.

Dahr Jamail has written an interesting article on how some of the Southern Iraqi tribes (made up of both Sunnis and Shi'a) have begun to actively resist the occupation.  These tribal groups are Iraqi nationalists or patriots, being concerned about Iran as much as they are the US.  They also have connected the dot between the US occupation and the death squads:

A political analyst in Baghdad, who asked to be referred to as W. al-Tamimi,   told IPS that he believes occupation forces have been working in tandem with   death squads. "We have been observing American and British occupation forces   supporting those death squads all over Iraq, but we were still hoping for reconciliation."

Al-Tamimi said the sheikh of his tribe, which is both Shi'ite and Sunni, was   "under great pressure by the tribe's young men to let them join the resistance."

The long feared second front in Iraq seems to be underway.

Why is the US Hostile to Al-Sadr?

The immediate cause of the present developments in Iraq seem to stem from the plan that was described in National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley's  November 8, 2006 secret memo (leaked to and reported on by The New York Times) to President Bush.  The memo articulated a strategy to politically and militarily neutralize nationalist Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr by fracturing the ruling Shi'ite coalition sponsored that has long been sponsored by Ayatollah Sistani and replacing it with a new coalition made up of SCIRI and Sunni parties.  A.K. Gupta has written a terrific article that outlines the many possible outcomes (none of them good) to the Hadley strategy. 

The bigger question, though is: Why does the U.S. wants al-Sadr out of the picture?  His forces for the most part are not part of the active insurgency.  Of the two major Shi'ite militias, his is the least well-armed and has the fewest links to Iran.   While "rogue elements" of his Mehdi Army have been blamed for  some of the sectarian violence, the worst of the Shi'ite death squads has been the special police commandos of the Iraqi Interior Ministry, which since mid-2005 has been staffed with members of the Badr Brigade militia that is part of SCIRI and is heavily supported by Iran.  As Gupta reports:

Badr operates death squads under the banner of the special police commandos. Beginning in 2004, U.S. forces organized, trained and equipped the police commandos, drawing from Hussein-era security forces, to create a neo-Baathist militia and death squad that would hunt Sunni insurgents. Under the Iraq government that took power in April 2005, Bayan Jabr, a former high-ranking commander in the Badr Brigade, took control of the commandos as head of the Interior Ministry. Jabr ousted Sunni personnel in the commandos, putting in place up to 3,000 Badr militiamen, and they quickly began a reign of terror against Sunnis in general.

The worst of the death squad activity also suspiciously coincided with the arrival of former US ambassador John Negroponte (infamous for being behind much of the death squad activity in El Salvador during the Reagan administration).  Asia Times reporter Pepe Escobar has also hinted at this:

The Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group implemented by the Pentagon is regarded by Sunnis and quite a few Shi'ites as being the mastermind of some of the car bombings, assassinations, sabotage, kidnappings and attacks on mosques fueling the civil war. The "Salvador option" has developed into the "Iraqification option". US-trained death squads in Iraq are not much different from the death squads in El Salvador during the 1980s - subordinated to the same "divide and rule" tactics. This is the "civil war" dirty secret: let the Arabs kill one another with the US posing as "victims".

Al-Sadr, while defending his militia's right to defend itself against hardcore Saddamists and Sunni extremists that view Shi'ites as apostates, has made it clear that he deplores the bulk of the death squad activities. 

Why then is al-Sadr viewed as such a threat by the United States?  Could it be the fact that, unlike SCIRI, he opposes the presence of US troops and rejects the division of Iraq into semi-autonomous federal states?  Could it be that he opposes passage of the proposed hydrocarbon law?  Is it because he is amenable to a coalition with moderate Sunnis, which could end the sectarian strife and make the presence of US troops harder to rationalize?

It seems like the Hadley plan is to co-opt SCIRI away from Iranian influence and to ultimately place its leader al-Hakim in power in Baghdad.

Discuss this article at StrategyTalk.org
 

Moderates Must be Heard

Arnaud deBorchgrave wrote this article detailing Israeli concerns about Iran and how Bibi Netanyahu has been using his influence in Washington to press for an attack against Iran's nuclear facilities.

Netanyahu then said Israel "must immediately launch an intense, international, public relations front first and foremost on the U.S. The goal being to encourage President Bush to live up to specific pledges he would not allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons. We must make clear to the government, the Congress and the American public that a nuclear Iran is a threat to the U.S. and the entire world, not only Israel."

The article also quotes Oded Tira, who is the the chairman of Israel's Association of Industrial Manufacturers as saying:

As an American air strike in Iran is essential for our existence, we must help pave the way by lobbying the Democratic Party, which is conducting itself foolishly, and U.S. newspaper editors."

Leaving the propriety of the idea that US newspaper editors and political candidate may be influenced to urge war against Iran for the benefit of Israel entirely aside, who are the elements that are most in support of an attack?  Former General and prospective US presidential candidate Wesley Clark (who is of Jewish ancestry himself) let it slip recently to Arianna Huffington that he has concerns against the push for an attack on Iran. 

"How can you talk about bombing a country when you won't even talk to them?" said Clark. "It's outrageous. We're the United States of America; we don't do that. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the military option is off the table -- but diplomacy is not what Jim Baker says it is. It's not, What will it take for you boys to support us on Iraq? It's sitting down for a couple of days and talking about our families and our hopes, and building relationships."

Clark also let it slip that the pressure against candidates urged by Tira is already in full swing, despite the fact that many Israelis have concern about the wisdom of an attack.

When we asked him what made him so sure the Bush administration was headed in this direction, he replied: "You just have to read what's in the Israeli press. The Jewish community is divided but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers."

The balance of power in Washington between the right wing hard line neocons and more moderate elements may have changed somewhat, but the Israeli hard liners still seem to have the ear of monied Zionists in New York who seem to have the most influence on US policy.  The more moderate Israelis seem to be frozen out of the process.  The risks of a backlash against Israel in the wake of a failed attack on Iran (and there are so many ways it could backfire miserably) are considerable.

According to the present National Intelligence Estimate, Iran is in fact years away from having the possibility of building a nuclear weapon.  Its economy, although growing, is a tiny fraction of that of the US.  It military budget as a fraction of that of the US is even smaller. All indications are that Iran is being portrayed by the hard liners as a much more clear and present danger than it actually is.

All of Israel and in fact the Jewish community at large has a tremendous stake in the outcome of whatever decision is made.  I would suggest that the community as a whole should make its voice heard to the hard liners and opponents of an attack on Iran should speak out and let their voices be heard as soon as possible.

Discuss this issue at StrategyTalk.org 

Iraq Update

Alternet's Joshua Holland has written a very informative two part article that chronicles the long-planned grab for Iraq's oil resources.  The second part of the article casts some light on what has been happening in the Iraqi parliament over the past few weeks and perhaps why the US media has been ramping up the invective against Shi'ite Iraqi nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr.  Holland cites a BBC article reporting on the passage of a new law that would give greater autonomy to the regions and weaken the central government.  Al-Sadr's group and the two biggest Sunni groups (a nationalist political alliance is the worst nightmare for the US and Big Oil) boycotted the vote, which the US may have felt was necessary to cement support of the SCIRI Shi'a faction and the main Kurdish parties for the soon to be introduced hydrocarbon law.

Holland thinks Big Oil's plans are on the verge of going awry..

It's possible that the administration and its partners badly overplayed their hand. Iraq's new government stands on the verge of a complete meltdown, faced with a crisis of legitimacy based largely on the fact that it is seen as collaborating with American forces. Overwhelming majorities of Iraqis of every sect believe the United States is an occupier, not a liberator, and is convinced that it intends to stay in Iraq permanently.

..and it seems like al-Sadr is the biggest fly in their soup right now.  If you Google "Sadr" and "hydrocarbon law," however, don't expect to find many articles from the US mainstream press reporting on what could be one of the more important developments in US  economic history in the past 50 years. There is no shortage of news articles, though, in which al-Sadr is labeled as an "extremist" and the leader of the "most dangerous" militia, who needs to be "brought under control."  The timing is rather obvious, isn't it?  The US considers Arab nationalists enemies, whether it is Saddam,  Assad or al-Sadr, because one can't be a nationalist and a reliable lapdog at the same time.

The Post Weighs In

The Washington Post has weighed in on the Bush plan to "surge."  Interpreting a US mainstream media source on the Iraq situation is a little bit like reading Pravda back in the 1970s.  You can't take what is written literally, but through careful analysis you may be able to figure out something you didn't previously know.  The article cryptically states:

Responding to skepticism about Maliki within some parts of the administration, the White House may make a deeper involvement in Iraq contingent on Maliki cracking down on militias and death squads while also undertaking bold political initiatives and developing a wider economic plan, U.S. officials say. The addition of new U.S. troops, for example, may be phased over several months and conditioned on Iraq following through on promised political reforms, the officials said.

"Deeper involvement" could mean Maliki survives, or it could mean that the US will send in more troops in an attempt to rout Sunni insurgents that have been encircling Baghdad.  "Cracking down on militias" means using Iraqi government forces to attack Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, but it doesn't necessarily mean a similar crackdown against al-Hakim's Badr Brigade militia.

"Bold Political Initiatives" means dumping al-Sadr, forming a new coalition that will be compliant with US goals, and amending the Constitution to give oil companies more assurance that the contracts they are awarded will hold up under future legal scrutiny.  A "wider economic plan" mainly means passing the hydrocarbon law that will hand control over Iraq's oil resources over to US/UK oil companies.

The centerpiece of the political plan is the creation of a national reconciliation government that would bring together the two main Shiite parties with the two largest Kurdish parties and the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials. The goal is to marginalize Moqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the largest and most powerful Shiite militia and head of a group that has 30 seats in parliament and five cabinet posts.

In reality, al-Sadr is feared by the would-be Western hegemonists not because he is an extremist, but because he is an Iraqi nationalist who desires a unified Iraq that is free from foreign occupation and influence.

To ensure participation of Sunni moderates, the Bush administration is pressing the Maliki government to take three other major steps: Amend the constitution to address Sunni concerns, pass a law on the distribution of Iraq's oil revenue and change the ruling that forbids the participation of former Baath Party officials.

"Amending the Constitution" in fact has as much to do with the concerns of Big Oil as it does with the Sunnis.  It seems that the existing Constitution never clarified whether it is the central government or the  regional ones that have the power to award oil development contracts. 

It remains to be seen how the Constitution could be amended to simultaneously satisfy SCIRI, the Kurds and the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party.  The Kurds have already awarded some oil development contracts on the own, and the Kurdish regional government is working on its own energy law that is in conflict with the proposed national hydrocarbon law.  They want autonomy.  SCIRI has previously expressed a preference that the regional Shi'ite government in the south control the oil resources of Southern Iraq.  These positions are antithetical to what the oil-poor Sunnis want, which is central government control of the oil industry and an even distribution of the revenue throughout Iraq.  Their position is far more consistent with that of al-Sadr, who supports national control of the oil resources and revenue.

More on al-Sadr and the Proposed Iraqi Hydrocarbon Law

The heat against Muqtada al-Sadr has obviously been turned up in the US media within the past few weeks.  Al  Sadr's militia is unfailingly labeled as "extremist," as opposed to the presumably more "centrist" Badr Brigades, even though the latter has reportedly been more heavily involved in the sectarian violence against Sunnis than the Sadrists have.  The more cynical among us may take this as a sign that the US has reason to believe that al-Sadr is going to stand in the way of the proposed new Iraqi hydrocarbons law.  Al  Sadr recently met with Ayatollah Sistani and it is a safe bet that the proposed law figured prominently in the discussion.

Several weeks ago, the United States reportedly tried to arrange to have SCIRI and other compliant political parties leave the United Iraqi Shi'ite list in order to form a new coalition with Sunni elements in the Iraqi parliament.  Sistani reportedly used his influence to prevent this from happening.  At the same time, however, the Sadrists were exploring a coalition of their own with Sunni parties that share the Sadrist’s nationalist goals of having foreign military forces leave Iraq and for a strong central Iraqi government that has complete control over future oil revenues.  Reporter Pepe Escobar, writing in Asia Times, explains the significance of this:

The crucial development in the next few weeks is Muqtada's fine-tuning of a stunning Shi'ite counterpunch to demolish once and for all the US-created pro-sectarian strategy: a nationalist, pan-Islamist, anti-occupation coalition of the Sadrists and the neo-Ba'athists,plus any other religious or secular anti-occupation group. Transcending the Sunni/Shi'ite divide, this would preempt any threat of all-out civil war - not to mention decide the fierce Shi'ite family feud between Hakim and Muqtada in the Sadrists' favor. No wonder US Senator John McCain wants to "take out" Muqtada as much as the Pentagon does.                        

A recent interview with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on PBS NewsHour seemed to confirm that the United States is preparing to escalate hostilities against the Mehdi Army if the Sadrists stand in the way of the passage of the proposed hydrocarbon law:

MARGARET WARNER: Now, you've been speaking with some of those leaders. They've come to Washington in the last couple of weeks. After those discussions, how feasible does this idea of a new moderate coalition within the Iraqi government sound to you, that is one that splits off the more radical Shiites, the ones allied with Sadr, and the more moderate Shiites go in with the Sunnis, some Sunnis and Kurds? Is that feasible?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, the definition is: Are these people who are now willing to have a plan for national reconciliation -- which means hydrocarbons law, for instance, the sharing of resources -- and are they willing to stand by the Iraqi armed forces, the Iraqi prime minister when he goes after the people who are...

There has been a virtual media blackout in the American press when it comes to the proposed hydrocarbon law and the significance of its introduction within the Iraqi parliament, which is reportedly scheduled within the next few days. 

"Victory in Iraq" is a phrase that is being used constantly with little attempt to explain what form such a victory may take.  However, passage of the hydrocarbons law, which would essentially obligate Iraq to hand over control of its oil resources to Big Oil for the next 30 years would likely constitute such a victory in the eyes of the US political and industry leaders who pushed for the Iraq invasion in the first place.

Discuss this Topic at StrategyTalk.org

Petrodollars, al-Sadr and the Proposed Iraqi Hydrocarbon Law

It has been obvious from the outset that the invasion of Iraq had a lot more to do with the geopolitics of oil than it did with any humanitarian concerns about Saddam Hussein's regime.

In the early 1970s oil production in the United States peaked, and a whole host of related economic problems began to surface.  President Nixon had to take the United States off the gold standard, inflation started to rise and the long-term economic future of the United States appeared in doubt.  The United States rescued itself from this situation by striking a deal with Saudi Arabia in which Saudi Arabia was guaranteed protection by the United States, but in return most of the petrodollars that were created by Saudi oil sales would be recycled back into United States economy.  In the following 20 years, hundreds of billions of petrodollars made their way back into the United States as a result of long-term service contracts, construction contracts, arms sales and other transactions.

In addition, the discovery and exploitation of the North Sea and Prudhoe Bay oilfields had much to do with the economic growth that the United States and United Kingdom have enjoyed over the past 20 years.  By the beginning of the second Bush administration, however, it was clear that both of these oil-producing regions were in an advanced state of depletion and that their production would soon began to quickly decline.  In fact, their production has declined markedly within the past few years.  This represented a significant threat to the economy of the United Kingdom in particular.

The single most important goal of the Iraq invasion was to ensure that Iraq ended up on a petrodollar recycling arrangement like the United States has had with Saudi Arabia, where much of the money is sent back to the US through service contracts, and the much of the rest is invested on Wall Street. In fact, President Bush's advisers may have been telling him that literally the economic future of the United States hinges on long term success (and by success I mean the recycling of petrodollars back into the US economy) in Iraq. The US is already on a precarious economic footing with its budget deficit and current account deficit both spiraling out of control.  This would explain the uncharacteristic behavior of officials such as Vice President Dick Cheney over the past five years.

Making the economic situation even more critical is the fact that that the major Western oil companies are already having a big problem with reserve replacement that is going to get a lot worse in the years to come. Many have likely been fudging their books for years as Royal Dutch Shell was caught doing a few years ago. The market capitalization of the oil companies, which is critical to Wall Street, ultimately hinges on their ability to replace the oil that is being produced and sold to consumers with new reserves. They have been frustrated in being able to do this by the fact that they are for the most part frozen out of the best areas of the world by national oil companies, which dominate OPEC.

Iraq has the second largest conventional oil reserves in the world (five times more oil than in the United States), and they are largely undeveloped. This is shown in the scatter chart that is depicted below. It would have been clear to any sophisticated observer of the oil industry back in 2001 that Iraqi oil production was destined to increase significantly within the next few decades, simply because that is where the oil is.  As Saudi production declines (it may be beginning to decline right now), within a decade or so Iraq will almost certainly become the world's leading oil exporter.  It is clear that the US/UK saw Iraq as a ripe plum for the picking back in 2003. What we don't know is whether they thought control of Iraqi oil was a dire necessity to US interests or that it would just be nice to have. We are going to find out in the next year, I think.

The US occupation of Iraq has failed to quell the insurgency, and continued occupation has become politically unacceptable in the absence of another event that galvanizes public opinion such as the attacks of September 11, 2001. Given the stakes involved, though, it is unlikely that the United States is prepared to give up its ambitions for control of Iraq's oil resources. Recent events suggest that the end game for the control of Iraqi oil has begun. The opening gambit on the part of the United States is the introduction of the proposed new hydrocarbon law to the Iraqi parliament that is planned within the next few days.  This new law would give Western oil companies a very lucrative long-term deal at over twice the standard industry profit level through profit-sharing agreements (PSAs) and would preclude the Iraqi government from nationalizing its oil industry in the future as most of the other OPEC nations have. The Independent has been doing some excellent reporting on this in the past few days.  From that article:

"Three outside groups have had far more opportunity to scrutinise this legislation than most Iraqis," said Mr Muttitt. "The draft went to the US government and major oil companies in July, and to the International Monetary Fund in September. Last month I met a group of 20 Iraqi MPs in Jordan, and I asked them how many had seen the legislation. Only one had."
 

Clearly, this legislation was written by and for the major Western oil companies. The proposed legislation also provides insurance against possible future policy changes by Iraqi governments that may not be as compliant as this one is to foreign interests:

Iraq's sovereign right to manage its own natural resources could also be threatened by the provision in the draft that any disputes with a foreign company must ultimately be settled by international, rather than Iraqi, arbitration.

In other words, if Iraq tries to nationalize its oil industry and kick the oil companies out within the next 30 years an arbitrator will rule against it and the United States will have a pretext to invade again.

The hydrocarbon legislation is just the first step in implementing the US plan. The oil fields and pipelines will of course need "protection" from insurgents that is paid for out of Iraqi government funds to US/UK mercenary/security companies such as Blackwater. The Iraqi government will need "guidance" investing its oil revenues. Bechtel and Halliburton will be given billions of dollars of contracts to provide reconstruction from all of the damage caused by US bombing and years of sanctions in the 1990s. When all is said and done, billions of new Iraqi petrodollars be recycled back into the US and British economies in order to offset the loss of revenue from domestic oil production.

Of course, questions remain as to whether the Iraqi parliament is actually going to pass the proposed legislation. Beyond that, there are also questions as to whether the Iraqi people are going to stand for the law even after it passes the parliament (the overwhelming majority of Iraqis are in opposition to long term US involvement in Iraq). The key group of lawmakers within the Iraqi parliament would appear to be the supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr.  Originally part of the pan-Shi'ite United Iraqi List supported by Ayatollah Sistani, the Sadrists have been boycotting parliamentary sessions and there have been rumors that they have been contemplating leaving the Shi'ite bloc in favor of a coalition with Sunni legislators.  This has caused a great deal of concern, both in Washington and Iran.  Despite a low level of armed conflict between al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and certain Sunni factions (possibly exaggerated by elements that would like to drive them apart), the Sadrists and the Sunnis have certain positions in common, such as favoring a strong central government and opposition to the continued presence of foreign troops within Iraq.   A successful Sadr-Sunni alliance would  be a disaster for US neocon policy makers.

The principal rival to the Sadrists within the Shi'ite bloc is the Supreme Council of The Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which like the Sadrists possesses an armed militia, the Badr Brigades.  SCIRI appears to be more compliant with the Western agenda at this point than the Sadrists are.  SCIRI has not publicly taken a position on the proposed hydrocarbon law, but it is extremely unlikely that the United States would be pushing the bill's introduction at this point without its strong support.  In the past, SCIRI has taken positions that would seem to indicate that it would be supportive of regional rather than central control of the oil industry, meaning that the Shi'ites of southern Iraq would end up controlling the lion's share of the Iraqi oil revenues.  It is unclear at this point whether the proposed hydrocarbon law has been drafted with SCIRI's preferences in mind, but it is probably a good assumption.

Does the United States have enough votes within the Iraqi parliament to ensure passage of this law?  It is realistic to expect that widespread bribery and extortion is going on to turn as many votes as possible in favor of the legislation.  Would the United States ease pressure on Iran in exchange for Iran using its influence to support the passage of this law in the Iraqi Legislature?

The hasty recent execution of Saddam Hussein may have been arranged in order to placate the Sadrists and have them return to the parliament, not because they would be likely to support the law, but in order to give it greater legitimacy should it pass.  Al-Sadr has not made any public statements on the proposed legislation, but his history as a strong Iraqi nationalist makes it likely that he will strongly oppose it.  Will the Sadrists be upset enough over the proposed legislation to leave the pan-Shi'ite list and join forces with the Sunnis and other minor parties such as those representing the Turkish minority?  If they do so, will they have enough votes to thwart the plan?  If the legislation passes, will the Sadrists actively join the insurgency?  Is the threat of this the reason that the Bush administration is proposing a troop surge within the next few months?  If the South of Iraq erupts in insurrection, will the United States be able to adequately supply its troops using ground convoys when the sandstorms of spring arrive?

The next few months will be very interesting.

Discuss this topic at Strategytalk.org

RPG-29: The Great Equalizer

At the beginning of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, the main Israeli concern was a report that Hezbollah possessed Russian Kornet antitank missiles.  However, it has been the RPG-29 that is stolen the show.  These man-portable lightweight weapons are powerful enough to destroy the Merkava tank, which is reputed to be the most thoroughly armored tank in the world.  According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Hezbollah acquired significant numbers of the RPG-29 from Syria, and the weapon has been a major source of Israeli casualties in the conflict.

The RPG-29 Vampir with the tandem HEAT (high explosive anti-tank) PG-29V tandem charge warhead was developed by Russia in the late 1980s in response to the development of tanks having explosive  reactive armor.  The weapon is designed to actuate explosive armor with a first shaped charge, while a second charge is reserved to penetrate the tank's hull.  The Soviet army received the RPG-29 in 1989.  After the collapse of the Soviet Union, these weapons could be found in almost all of the former Warsaw Pact nations.

The strategic importance of the dramatic battlefield effectiveness of the RPG-29 cannot be underestimated.  The Iraqi resistance has not had access to significant quantities of RPG-29s because they were not readily available in the international weapons market until after post-Gulf War sanctions were applied to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. However, Syria and Iran  possess large inventories of these weapons.  Certainly, the Pentagon must be taking note of the effectiveness of these weapons against the Israeli forces in south Lebanon when considering the possibility of a military confrontation with Iran or Syria.  In fact, the calculus of occupying any potentially hostile country has been significantly shifted.  If the occupying forces can no longer rely on armored vehicles to engage militants or to travel, the price of occupation in terms of casualties will be much greater.  This necessarily impacts countries like the United States and Israel more than it would countries that place a lesser value on the lives of their soldiers.  In other words, the unexpected effectiveness of the RPG-29 is a severe blow to the West.  It is the great equalizer.  For $500 per launcher and $250 per missile round, a militant group can purchase a light, mobile weapon that is easy to conceal and that can reliably destroy a main battle tank that costs millions of dollars.

The long-term implications for Israel are even more significant.  If Palestinian militants are ever able to acquire significant quantities of RPG-29s they could for the first time ever present a significant challenge to the Israeli army.  This is particularly true because the Israelis have demonstrated an aversion to ground fighting and taking casualties in the campaign against Hezbollah.  There is no doubt that groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of which have close ties to Hezbollah, have been observing the conflict in South Lebanon with strong interest and have noted Israel's reluctance to send more ground troops in against Hezbollah fighters who are armed primarily with RPG-29s. 

In fact, given the proximity of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to major Israeli population centers (the distances could easily be traveled on foot by armed militants, who would have to keep themselves dispersed enough to avoid being destroyed by aircraft or armored vehicles) it is possible to imagine that sometime in the future that a Palestinian militia armed with such man-portable weapons could possibly successfully invade and conquer Israel without the use of expensive military equipment such as aircraft and tanks.  If militants could penetrate Israeli territory enough to turn the battle into hand-to-hand fighting within major population centers, F-16s and nuclear weapons would be of no use to Israel.  The previously unthinkable defeat of Israel could become a possibility.

For this reason, it could be theorized that recent developments on the ground in South Lebanon have made the "two state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict effectively unworkable from a pragmatic standpoint.  Once a Palestinian state is established it would be practically impossible to prevent militants from acquiring large quantities of RPG-29s and other military equipment that could be used to equip infantry ground fighters.  Once this happened, Israel would be in deep trouble.

On the other hand, judging from how Israel's Arab citizens have been integrated into the country, the establishment of a single secular state incorporating both present-day Israel and the present Palestinian territories might have a chance for success.  Demographically, Arabs would have a small voting advantage in such a state, however economic power would remain largely in the power of the Jewish citizens.  The rights of Jews and Arabs alike would be preserved in such a state, and a secular Israel/Palestine could become a genuine beacon of democracy and liberalism to the region.   This could be the catalyst to the "New Middle East" that Washington has been seeking.

Of course, a certain amount of goodwill would need to be established before a one state solution could ever be made feasible.  If Israel continues to inflict needless civilian casualties on Arab populations that end up on the front pages of the Arab press, the well will be further poisoned and its most viable path out of this seemingly endless conflict will be closed.