[Peace-discuss] Just Foreign Policy News, November 28, 2006

[Robert Naiman]

Just Foreign Policy News
November 28, 2006

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Summary:
U.S./Top News
Iran's president pledged Monday that Iran would do all it could to
stop the growing violence in Iraq, the New York Times reports.
Analysts say the Iraqi president is urging Iran to hold direct talks
with the US to help stop the bloodshed in Iraq. Iran has close ties
with Shiite leaders in Iraq, and it might be able to call on them to
exert restraint. Iraq's president said Iraq needed Iran's help to
bring peace. An Iranian News Agency account of the Iranian president's
remarks suggests that Iran's help might be contingent on the US
setting a timetable for the withdrawal of its forces from Iraq - a
demand supported by a majority of Americans and Iraqis.

Writing on Common Dreams, Jeff Cohen calls for holding CNN to account
for providing a platform for Iran-bashing warmonger Glenn Beck.

A growing number of Middle East analysts say Iraq's conflict has spun
out of Washington's control, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports,
suggesting it doesn't matter if the Baker commission recommends
talking with Iran and Syria, because it won't do any good. [Those who
oppose talking to Iran and Syria on the grounds that they are
responsible for all the violence in Iraq should get together with
those who oppose talking with Iran and Syria on the grounds that they
don't have any influence in Iraq to try to hammer out a consistent
message.]

The Iraq Study Group met yesterday at an undisclosed location to
discuss its first draft report that calls for increased diplomatic
engagement in the region, the Washington Times reports. Baker is said
to be pushing a recommendation for the Bush administration to engage
in direct talks with Syria and Iran. Defense sources said it will be
difficult for the group to reach a unanimous report if it recommends a
significant shift away from Bush's policy of no specific timetable for
removing U.S. troops.

NBC's "Today Show" host Matt Lauer yesterday told millions of American
television viewers the network would buck the White House and from now
on describe the Iraq war as a "civil war." Some media analysts
compared the shift to Walter Cronkite's declaration in 1968 that the
US was losing the Vietnam War, the Boston Globe reports, noting that
the Los Angeles Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and McClatchy
Newspapers have made the same shift, while CBS and the New York Times
will permit "where appropriate" the use of the term "civil war."

Robert Gates is likely to assume the post of defense secretary before
year's end if he is confirmed by the Senate as expected, AP reports.
The Pentagon press secretary said Gates will have his confirmation
hearing early next week, with a vote expected by the Senate by Dec.
13.

Iran
Iran said Tuesday it would let the IAEA take further environmental
samples of materials related to an academic center, Reuters reports.
Iran is not required to allow the IAEA into sites where there is no
clear sign of nuclear activities. But it says that by permitting such
inspections, it wants to show its nuclear plans are peaceful.

Iraq
A senior American intelligence official says Hezbollah has trained
members of the Mahdi Army, Michael Gordon & Dexter Filkins write in
the New York Times. Iran has facilitated the link between Hezbollah
and the Shiite militias in Iraq, the official said, although no
evidence is presented for this claim. In his piece on Common Dreams,
Jeff Cohen cited Michael Gordon as a reporter who cannot hold
officials to account for their claims about Iran because of his role
in hyping claims about Iraq in the run-up to the US invasion.

The U.S. military cannot defeat the insurgency in western Iraq or
counter al-Qaeda's rising popularity there, according to a classified
Marine Corps intelligence report, writes the Washington Post, which
obtained a copy of the report.

A debate over whether to set a timetable for a phased withdrawal of US
forces from Iraq is being preempted by key US allies who have
announced plans to scale back their own forces over the next year, AFP
reports.

Lebanon
A satricial ad campaign in Lebanon mocks the country's sectarian
social and political structure, the Washington Post reports.

Afghanistan
U.S. and European efforts to end heroin production in Afghanistan have
done little to hamper the drug industry and have hurt the country's
poorest people, according to a new report by the UN and the World
Bank.

NATO's fragile unity over Afghanistan has begun to crack with a public
call to discuss an exit strategy, the Independent reports. André
Flahaut, the Belgian Defense Minister, brought anxieties about the
Afghan mission into the open when he suggested that, at the Riga
summit, "we finally reflect on an exit strategy". In an interview,
Flahaut argued: "The situation is deteriorating and, over time, NATO
forces risk appearing like an army of occupation."

NATO forces should be able to hand over responsibility to
Afghanistan's security forces gradually in 2008, the alliance's
secretary-general said on Tuesday. But Jaap De Hoop Scheffer said that
at present any talk of withdrawals in Afghanistan was premature,
Reuters reports.

Ecuador
In a confused New York Times article about Ecuador's new president,
Simon Romero tries to contrast Rafael Correa with other leftist Latin
American presidents, noting Correa's statement that "Foreign
investment that generates wealth and jobs and pays taxes will always
be welcome." Similar statements have been made by the presidents of
Bolivia and Venezuela, where foreign corporations continue to make
handsome profits. Romero says it would be premature to make a judgment
on Correa, but apparently the headline writer didn't get the memo.
Ironically, Romero makes much of Correa's admiration of the late
American economist John Kenneth Galbraith, which he contrasts to
Correa's Bush and IMF-bashing (it's not clear why Romero sees this as
contradictory.) It was President Chavez' statement that he regretted
not having met Galbraith before his death that the New York Times
mistranslated as a statement that he regretted not having met Noam
Chomsky.

Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Iran Promises To Help Iraq In Ending Violence There
Nazila Fathi & Kirk Semple, New York Times, November 28, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html
Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, pledged Monday in a meeting
with the Iraqi president that Iran would do all it could to stop the
growing violence in Iraq. "The Iranian government and people will
stand by their brothers in Iraq and will do anything to help bring
peace into Iraq," Ahmadinejad said in a news conference with the Iraqi
president, Jalal Talabani, state-run television reported. "A safe,
developed and strong Iraq is better for Iran and also for the region,"
he said.

In an effort to increase its role as an influential power in the
region, Iran also invited the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to
join the talks. But Assad did not respond to the invitation, according
to an official at Ahmadinejad's office.

Analysts believe that Talabani is here to urge Iranian officials to
hold direct talks with the US to help stop the bloodshed in Iraq. Iran
has close ties with Shiite leaders in Iraq, and it might be able to
call on them to exert restraint. Many of them lived in Iran in exile
when Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq.

A draft report by an American bipartisan commission studying new
strategies for Iraq urges that the US conduct direct talks with Iran
and Syria, according to American officials who have seen all or part
of the document.

In the press conference, Talabani, a Kurd who had close ties to Iran,
said Iraq needed Iran's help to bring peace. "We seriously need Iran's
help to restore stability and security," he was quoted as saying. Iran
and Iraq fought a bloody war from 1980 to 1988. Talabani was Iraq's
first president to travel to Iran when he came a year ago, and Iraq's
prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, visited Iran in September.

U.S. responds to Ahmadinejad latest remarks-ISNA
http://www.isna.ir/main/NewsView.aspx?ID=News-832834&Lang=E
Ahmadinejad had criticized the U.S. bullying policy a day before while
giving a speech addressing a group of members of the Basij
paramilitary group, associated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps
forces.

"You said you wanted to bring forth freedom but from the moment you
got to Iraq, over 150 thousand people were killed and you are stuck in
a quagmire... Iran is ready to help and save you on the condition that
you resume behaving in a just manner and avoid bullying and invading.
Return to your own country and stop the occupying, because in the
persistence of such methods lies nothing but loss and misery for you,"
declared Ahmadinejad.

2) In Diplomatic Turn, Iraqi Reaches Out To Iran
Britain Planning to Reduce Troop Levels
Nancy Trejos, Washington Post, Tuesday, November 28, 2006; A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/27/AR2006112700181.html
In the latest sign of a budding diplomatic relationship, Iraq's
President Jalal Talabani arrived in Iran on Monday to seek his
neighbor's help in ending his country's sectarian conflict, as Britain
said it expects to withdraw thousands of troops by the end of next
year. "We are in dire need of Iran's help in establishing security and
stability in Iraq," state-run television quoted Talabani as saying
after he met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran.

Ahmadinejad pledged his support in helping Iraq stop the escalating
violence. "Definitely, the Iranian government and nation will stand
next to its brother Iraq," he said on state-run television. "We
believe a stable, developed and powerful Iraq is in the interest of
the Iraqi nation, Iran and the whole region."

The US has been leery of Iran's effort to position itself as a
regional power broker. Relations between Iran and the US deteriorated
this year, as a defiant Ahmadinejad refused demands that he suspend
his country's uranium enrichment program. The Bush administration has
also accused Iran of fomenting the violence in Iraq by assisting
Shiite militias, an allegation that officials in Tehran have denied.

3) TV Blowhard Barks at Iran: Let's Hold CNN Accountable
Jeff Cohen, Common Dreams, Monday, November 27, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1127-22.htm
Turn on CNN Headline News – a supposed "news" channel – on weekday
nights and you'll be subjected to the lectures of a loudmouthed,
factually-challenged, occasionally funny know-it-all whose shtick is
that he's "just a regular American schmoe."

His name is Glenn Beck, a smiley-toothed monologist and proselytizer
who is a recovering alcoholic, talk-radio host, convert to Mormonism
and self-described "rodeo clown." His crude rants would be easy to
ignore except that CNN - part of the Time Warner conglomerate – has
chosen to give Beck a primetime platform which he uses day after day
to cheer on a confrontation with Iran.

Beck's CNN guestlist is replete with often obscure, simplistic hawks.
In his segment asking "How Long Until Iran Gets Nukes?," Beck's expert
was novelist Joel Rosenberg, a Jewish-born born-again-Christian who
describes himself as a "senior advisor" to Rush Limbaugh.

Beck is obsessed with Iranian president Ahmadinejad, whom he calls
"President Tom." A recent segment was titled: "Is Iran Pushing for
Armageddon?"

Another segment asked: "Are We Too P.C. Over Islam?" Beck certainly
isn't. Beck hosted Congressman-elect Keith Ellison, a Muslim and
moderate voice on the Middle East. "I have been nervous," said Beck,
"about this interview with you because what I feel like saying is,
'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.'"

Are we mistaken to laugh off TV pundits and "experts" who now blow
smoke at Iran? Three years ago, our country was driven to war in Iraq
by a deceptive White House, abetted by blaring advocates echoing into
every American household and car radio – courtesy of a half-dozen
media conglomerates.

In the middle of that media propaganda onslaught was Glenn Beck. From
his talk show distributed by radio giant Clear Channel, Beck sparked
"pro-America" rallies across the country, some organized by Clear
Channel stations. He wished violent death upon Michael Moore and
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and called Cindy Sheehan a "big
prostitute." All this was known to CNN when it hired Beck.

Today, the war-hawks are back, as Target Iraq has become Target Iran.
And none of them are held to account for having been so deadly wrong
when they urged on the last war.

When Beck interviewed Netanyahu, he politely didn't ask the Israeli
about any of his resoundingly false pre-war claims about Iraq having
weapons of mass destruction and links to Al-Qaeda.

Before the Iraq war, former Reagan Defense official and uberhawk Frank
Gaffney pushed for an invasion on the grounds that Saddam Hussein's
Iraq was not only behind the 9/11 attacks, but was behind Tim McVeigh
and the Oklahoma City bombing. Today, he is on the warpath again in
U.S. media, denouncing those who want America to "appease" Iran.

Before the Iraq invasion, former CIA analyst Ken Pollack repeatedly
pushed for war in appearances on CNN and elsewhere as an expert on
Iraqi WMD. He warned Oprah's audience that Saddam could use WMD
against the U.S. homeland. After no weapons were found, Pollack was
sheepish: "That was not me making that claim; that was me parroting
the claims of so-called experts."

Has Pollack been held accountable for his role in egging on the war?
Quite the contrary, he was just quoted in a blatantly biased frontpage
New York Times article by Michael Gordon, emphasizing how bad it would
be for the US to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq. Gordon was kind
enough not to bring up Pollack's faulty pre-war analysis. (Gordon
himself is in no position to hold others to account; he and Judith
Miller co-wrote the infamous September 2002 Times piece claiming that
Iraq had "stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons" by seeking
aluminum tubes.) [See Gordon's piece on Iran, item 9 in this news
summary.]

4) Many Now Say Iraq Is Beyond U.S. Control
Warren P. Strobel & Jonathan S. Landay, McClatchy Newspapers, Posted
Nov. 28, 2006
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/nation/16111318.htm
This is supposed to be a pivotal week for the U.S. venture in Iraq:
President Bush is to meet Thursday in Jordan with Iraqi Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki, and the blue-ribbon Iraq Study Group has begun
debating its final recommendations to the White House. But does any of
it matter? Not really, according to a growing number of Middle East
analysts, who say that Iraq's cascading conflict has spun out of
Washington's control.

If Iraq is to hold together and avoid an all-out bloodbath, they say,
it will be because the country's warring factions step back from the
brink and forge some sort of political compromise. That seems like a
pipe dream after a weekend of the worst violence for Iraqi civilians
since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

The US has about 140,000 troops in Iraq and is spending roughly $2
billion per week on military operations, "but all of that effort
doesn't really matter," said Andrew Bacevich, a Boston University
professor and a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy "We're not in
control any longer," Bacevich said.

A retired senior military officer said: "There is a growing sense that
both sides are attempting to move toward a civil war - they want to
have a civil war - to bring closure to who will have power in Iraq,"
referring to Iraq's Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

Bush is scheduled to meet Maliki in Amman, Jordan, in an effort to
prod him to take concrete steps, particularly to deal with rampaging
sectarian militias. But Maliki's government is seen as increasingly
ineffectual, particularly by Iraqis, who are turning more and more to
local militias to protect them. What's more, Maliki needs the support
of the anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army is one of
the powerful Shiite militias. Sadr's political party controls four
ministries and the largest bloc of votes in parliament.

"This is an out-and-out fight for power," said Jeffrey White, a former
senior Middle East analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency who is
now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "There is a
smoke screen of this national- unity government, but they have no
general agreement on the future shape of Iraq, no general agreement on
the distribution of power, no general agreement on the distribution of
resources," White said.

The spreading civil strife threatens to overwhelm the long-awaited
recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, cochaired by former Secretary
of State Baker and retired Rep. Lee Hamilton. The group's 10
commissioners began meeting yesterday to try to reach consensus on a
final report, which Baker and Hamilton hope to issue in early
December.

The panel is expected to recommend U.S. diplomatic engagement with
Iran and Syria to stabilize Iraq, which would be a major policy
reversal on the part of Bush, who has shunned both governments. But
even if Iran and Syria wanted to help, they would be almost certain to
demand U.S. concessions and might have limited ability to assist, the
analysts said. "This thing is going to be decided by Iraqis in Iraq,"
said Wayne White, a longtime Middle East intelligence officer at the
State Department who is now retired. "Surrounding players are going to
play a bit part." [Note that this argument against talking to Iran -
Iran can't do anything to help in Iraq - contradicts the story that
Iran is behind the violence in Iraq. See item 9 in this news summary.]

Not all outside experts argue that the US is virtually powerless in
Iraq. Michael O'Hanlon, of the Washington-based Brookings Institution,
said the US and its partners could could still take steps, including
more intensive regional diplomacy, better training of Iraqi security
forces, and a one-year increase in U.S. troop levels.

5) Iraq Panel Inks Draft Report
Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times, November 28, 2006
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20061127-103715-2322r.htm
The Iraq Study Group met yesterday at an undisclosed location to
discuss its first draft report that calls for increased diplomatic
engagement in the region and new military moves to rescue Iraq from a
descent into civil war. The panel's co-chairs, James Baker, secretary
of state in the first Bush administration, and former Rep. Lee
Hamilton, finished work on the draft during the weekend. It contains
an assessment of where violence-racked Iraq stands more than three
years after the U.S. ousted Saddam Hussein. It also includes a list of
recommendations on diplomatic and military fronts. A final report to
President Bush is expected next month.

Baker is said to be pushing a recommendation for the Bush
administration to engage in direct talks with Syria and Iran, two
U.S.-designated state sponsors of terrorism who are supporting various
insurgencies and terrorist attacks in Iraq. David Satterfield, the
State Department's top adviser on Iraq, told Congress earlier this
month that the administration is willing to talk with Iran but not
Syria. Satterfield listed several of Syria's pro-terrorism policies,
such as backing Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Hamilton told The Washington Times last week that the first draft is a
working document that can be changed by the 10-member panel created by
Congress. Defense sources said it will be difficult for the group of
five Democrats and five Republicans, all former officeholders, to
reach a unanimous report if it recommends a significant shift away
from Bush's policy of no specific timetable for removing U.S. troops,
which now number close to 150,000.

6) Bucking White House, NBC Says Iraq in 'Civil War'
Usage increasing in news media
Bryan Bender, Boston Globe, Tuesday, November 28, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1128-01.htm
NBC's "Today Show" host Matt Lauer yesterday told millions of American
television viewers, many sitting at their breakfast tables, that the
network would buck the White House and from now on describe the Iraq
war as a "civil war." The new policy, which NBC News said would cover
all its news shows, could become a benchmark in public opinion about
the war, according to media specialists.

Some media analysts compared it to CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite's
declaration in 1968 that the US was losing the Vietnam War - a
pronouncement now considered a turning point in public opinion - and
Ted Koppel's ABC updates on the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 and
1980 that infuriated Jimmy Carter's White House.

"How you frame a problem frames what the public thinks is the right
thing to do," said James Steinberg , dean of the LBJ School of Public
Affairs at the University of Texas. "If Iraq is a democracy struggling
against insurgents and you describe it that way, people might still
support you. If it is a civil war, it is indisputably the case that
Americans will say, 'What are we doing in the middle of a civil war?'
" Steinberg, deputy national security adviser under Clinton, added:
"The more they hear 'civil war,' the harder it is going to be to
support a strategy that keeps a lot of American troops there in large
numbers."

A few other media outlets with reporters in Baghdad have slowly begun
to refer to the conflict as a civil war and still more said yesterday
they were debating the issue after the NBC announcement. Lauer, whose
announcement was termed "a bombshell" by the industry magazine Editor
& Publisher, explained that NBC did not come to the decision lightly.

The Los Angeles Times, dropping the usual qualifiers, flatly referred
to the conflict as a civil war yesterday. So, in published stories,
have The Christian Science Monitor and McClatchy newspapers."We began
using it when that was clear that was going on, which was a number of
months ago," said John Walcott, Washington bureau chief for the
McClatchy chain. "When the Shi'a population is at war with the Sunni
population and members of the Interior Ministry kidnap people from the
Education Ministry, that sounds like a civil war."

Some other news organizations said that they, too, will permit the use
of the term "civil war" where appropriate, though they prefer not to
have a blanket policy. "We talk about it every day," said Sandy
Genelius , a CBS News spokeswoman. "But there is no edict here. Each
producer and correspondent tries to put on the air what seems accurate
and appropriate in the context of each story." Bill Keller , executive
editor of The New York Times, said in a statement yesterday that
"after consulting with our reporters in the field and the editors who
directly oversee this coverage," the paper has decided that the term
"civil war" is now appropriate.

Observers said the media's willingness to reject the White House's
depiction of events was reminiscent of 1968, when Cronkite filmed a
Vietnam documentary and offered his belief that the US was losing the
war. "To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic,
yet unsatisfactory, conclusion," Cronkite said at the time. "The only
rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an
honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and
did the best they could."

President Johnson, after hearing Cronkite's broadcast, reportedly
remarked, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." "There is
a clear parallel," Edward C. Pease , a journalism professor at the
University of Utah, said of yesterday's NBC broadcast during a morning
time-slot that is now far more popular than the evening news. "The way
the media frames things helps lead the public perception."

7) Gates May Take Pentagon Job In December
Associated Press, November 27, 2006, Filed at 8:26 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Gates-Rumsfeld.html
Robert Gates, the former CIA director who is President Bush's choice
to replace Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary, is likely to assume
the Pentagon post before year's end if he is confirmed by the Senate
as expected, officials said Monday. Eric Ruff, the Pentagon press
secretary, said Gates will have his confirmation hearing before the
Senate Armed Services Committee early next week, with a vote expected
by the full Senate by Dec. 12 or 13. Even if Gates is confirmed as
expected, it is unclear when he would be sworn in to his new duties,
Ruff said. Another administration official said that if confirmation
goes as expected, then Gates would be sworn in well before the end of
the year.

Iran
8) Tehran to let IAEA take more materials samples
Reuters, Tuesday, November 28, 2006; 12:02 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/28/AR2006112800351.html
Iran said on Tuesday it would let the U.N. nuclear watchdog take
further environmental samples of materials related to an academic
center and which Washington fears are part of a covert program to
develop atomic weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency has
said it has questions about Iran's nuclear program and wants answers
before it can declare Iran's aims are peaceful. The West accuses Iran
of wanting to make atomic bombs, a charge Iran denies.

In a report to the U.N. Security Council in April, the IAEA said it
took samples from some equipment acquired by the academic center. The
IAEA believes the equipment was earlier used at the Lavizan-Shian
site, which was razed in 2004 before agency inspectors could examine
it. A former physics center at Lavizan-Shian acquired some dual-use
machinery useable for uranium enrichment, including vacuum pumps,
which had tested positive for traces of highly enriched uranium (HEU)
this year. In larger quantities, HEU can be used in bombs.

Iran has admitted that Lavizan-Shian, northeast of Tehran, was once a
military research and development site but denied conducting any
nuclear weapons research there or anywhere else in the country. Tehran
is not required to allow the IAEA into sites where there is no clear
sign of nuclear activities. But it says that by permitting such
inspections, it wants to show Tehran's nuclear plans are peaceful.

Iraq
9) Hezbollah Said To Help Shiite Army In Iraq
Michael Gordon & Dexter Filkins, New York Times, November 28, 2006
(see Jeff Cohen's piece - item 3 in this summary - on Michael Gordon's
role in press coverage leading up to the US invasion in Iraq.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/world/middleeast/28military.html
A senior American intelligence official said Monday that the
Iranian-backed group Hezbollah had been training members of the Mahdi
Army, the Iraqi Shiite militia led by Moktada al-Sadr. The official
said that 1,000 to 2,000 fighters from the Mahdi Army and other Shiite
militias had been trained by Hezbollah in Lebanon. A small number of
Hezbollah operatives have also visited Iraq to help with training, the
official said. [This kind of unsourced and unsubstantiated "senior
intelligence officials say" report played a key role in preparing
public opinion for the invasion of Iraq. -JFP]

Iran has facilitated the link between Hezbollah and the Shiite
militias in Iraq, the official said. Syrian officials have also
cooperated, though there is debate about whether it has the blessing
of the senior leaders in Syria. The interview occurred at a time of
intense debate over whether the US should enlist Iran's help in
stabilizing Iraq. The Iraq Study Group is expected to call for direct
talks with Tehran. The claim about Hezbollah's role in training Shiite
militias could strengthen the hand of those in the Bush administration
who oppose a major new diplomatic involvement with Iran.
…
Some Middle East experts were skeptical about the assessment of
Hezbollah's training role. "That sound to me a little bit strained,"
said Flynt Leverett, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and
a Middle East expert formerly on the National Security Council staff.
"I have a hard time thinking it is a really significant piece of what
we are seeing play out on the ground with the various Shiite militia
forces."

The officials said that because the Iraqi militia members went through
Syrian territory, at least some Syrian officials were complicit. [Yet
later in the article we learn: "They travel as normal people from Iraq
to Syria," one of the militiamen said. "Once they get to Syria,
fighters in Syria take them in." By this logic, "at least some US
officials" were "complicit" in the 9/11 attacks, since the attackers
"went through US territory." - JFP]

There are also reports of meetings between Imad Mugniyah, a senior
Hezbollah member; Ghassem Soleimani of the Iranian Revolutionary
Guards; and Syrian representatives to discuss ways of stepping up the
pressure on the US in Iraq. [Recalling the "reports" of meetings
between Iraqi officials and Al-Qaeda operatives prior to the Iraq
War.]

[It's not obvious why reports indicating that Iran has some influence
on events in Iraq should scuttle the idea of talks with Iran about
Iraq. On the contrary, it suggests that talks with Iran could have a
positive result. In the Philadelphia Inquirer piece - item 4 in this
summary - we are informed that analysts say Iran and Syria "might have
limited ability to assist." It seems that we are being told that we
shouldn't talk to Iran and Syria 1) because they are causing trouble
in Iraq 2) because they can't influence events in Iraq. Both of these
arguments cannot be true. -JFP.]

10) Anbar Picture Grows Clearer, And Bleaker
Dafna Linzer & Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, Tuesday, November 28, 2006; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/27/AR2006112701287.html
The U.S. military is no longer able to defeat a bloody insurgency in
western Iraq or counter al-Qaeda's rising popularity there, according
to newly disclosed details from a classified Marine Corps intelligence
report that set off debate in recent months about the military's
mission in Anbar province.

The Marines recently filed an updated version of that assessment that
stood by its conclusions and stated that, as of mid-November, the
problems in troubled Anbar province have not improved, a senior U.S.
intelligence official said yesterday. "The fundamental questions of
lack of control, growth of the insurgency and criminality" remain the
same, the official said.

The Marines' August memo is far bleaker than some officials suggested
when they described it in late summer. The report describes Iraq's
Sunni minority as "embroiled in a daily fight for survival," fearful
of "pogroms" by the Shiite majority and increasingly dependent on
al-Qaeda in Iraq as its only hope against growing Iranian dominance
across the capital.

True or not, the memo says, "from the Sunni perspective, their
greatest fears have been realized: Iran controls Baghdad and Anbaris
have been marginalized." Moreover, most Sunnis now believe it would be
unwise to count on or help U.S. forces because they are seen as likely
to leave the country before imposing stability.

Between al-Qaeda's violence, Iran's influence and an expected U.S.
drawdown, "the social and political situation has deteriorated to a
point" that U.S. and Iraqi troops "are no longer capable of militarily
defeating the insurgency in al-Anbar," the assessment found. In Anbar
province alone, at least 90 U.S. troops have died since Sept. 1.

The Post first reported on the memo's existence in September. But the
contents have not previously been made public. Read as a complete
assessment, it paints a stark portrait of a failed province and of the
country's Sunnis now desperate, fearful and impoverished. They have
been increasingly abandoned by religious and political leaders who
have fled to neighboring countries, and other leaders have been
assassinated. And unlike Iraq's Shiite majority, or Kurdish groups in
the north, the Sunnis are without oil and other natural resources. The
report notes that illicit oil trading is providing millions of dollars
to al-Qaeda while "official profits appear to feed Shiite cronyism in
Baghdad."

As a result, "the potential for economic revival appears to be
nonexistent" in Anbar, the report says. The Iraqi government,
dominated by Iranian-backed Shiites, has not paid salaries for Anbar
officials and Iraqi forces stationed there. Anbar's resources and its
ability to impose order are depicted as limited at best. "nearly all
government institutions from the village to provincial levels have
disintegrated or have been thoroughly corrupted and infiltrated by Al
Qaeda in Iraq," or a smattering of other insurgent groups, the report
says.
…
The senior intelligence official said yesterday that he largely agrees
with Devlin's assessment, except that he thinks it overstates the role
of al-Qaeda in the province. "We argue that it is a major element in
Anbar, but it is not the largest or most dominant group," he said.

11) Allies Not Waiting for New Strategy to Announce Iraq Withdrawals
Jim Mannion, Agence France Presse,  Tuesday, November 28, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1128-04.htm
A debate over whether to set a timetable for a phased withdrawal of US
forces from Iraq is being preempted by key US allies who have
announced plans to scale back their own forces over the next year,
analysts say. The latest and most important to announce was Britain,
whose defense minister said Monday the 7,100-member British contingent
will be scaled back "by a matter of thousands" by the end of next
year.

Poland, which commands a 2,000-strong multi-national division in
southern Iraq, said Monday that its 880-man contingent will be out of
Iraq by late 2007. Italy, once a mainstay of the coalition force with
3,000 troops in Iraq, has withdrawn all but 60 to 70 troops from the
country and those will be gone by early December, said Italian Prime
Minister Romano Prodi. Even as Washington debates what to do next,
intensifying political pressure in coalition countries and a steadily
worsening situation in Iraq are combining to narrow options and force
decisions at an ever quickening pace.

Lebanon
12) Ad Blitz Satirizes Lebanon's Divides
Provocative Signs Target Pervasive Sectarianism
Anthony Shadid, Washington Post, Tuesday, November 28, 2006; A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/27/AR2006112701456.html
The evening was tense, as most are these days in Beirut, its Maronite
Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Sunni and Shiite Muslims and Druze perched
between war and peace. Malak Beydoun pulled her car into a parking lot
in the Christian neighborhood of Ashrafiyeh. She peered at a billboard
overhead, alarmed and then indignant. "Parking for Maronites only," it
read. Beydoun recoiled. "How did they know that I was a Shiite?" she
remembered asking herself.

Part provocation, part appeal - with a dose of farce that doesn't feel
all that farcical - advertisements went up this month on 300
billboards across the Lebanese capital and appeared in virtually every
newspaper in the country. Thousands of e-mails carried the ads across
the Internet to expatriates. Each offered its take on what one of the
campaign's creative directors called a country on the verge of
"absurdistan" - cooking lessons by Greek Orthodox, building for sale
to Druze, hairstyling by an Armenian Catholic, a fashion agency
looking for "a beautiful Shiite face." At the bottom, the ads read in
English, "Stop sectarianism before it stops us," or, more bluntly in
Arabic, "Citizenship is not sectarianism."

Afghanistan
13) Afghan Opium Fight Hurts Poorest
Donna Leinwand, USA Today, Updated 11/28/2006 10:02 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-11-28-afghan-opium_x.htm
U.S. and European efforts to end heroin production in Afghanistan have
done little to hamper the drug industry and have hurt the country's
poorest people, according to a new report by the UN and the World
Bank. The report, released today, is the latest indication of the
difficulties faced by the British-led effort to eradicate
Afghanistan's opium crop, which drives the economy in parts of the
embattled nation and has helped to fund a resurgence of the Taliban.
The report says the production of opium, whose poppies are used to
make heroin, permeates daily life in Afghanistan and eliminating the
illegal drug trade there could take decades.

The opium trade accounts for about $2.7 billion in Afghanistan's
economy - equal to more than one-third of the nation's gross domestic
product - and is responsible for thousands of jobs, the report says.
The Taliban government, which had harbored al-Qaeda, virtually
eliminated opium production in 2001, before U.S.-led forces toppled
it. Production has soared since, even as the US and its allies have
stepped up efforts to kill fields of opium and persuade farmers to
grow other crops.

Opium has remained the nation's most lucrative crop by far, and drug
traffickers - through incentives and intimidation - have kept farmers
in the opium business across Afghanistan, which the UN says produces
about 87% of the world's opium. Last year, according to the U.N.
Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan produced 4,100 metric tons of
opium, nearly as much as the biggest harvest in 1999. The UN predicts
a record harvest in 2007.

Today's report describes how opium farmers' flexibility has helped
harvests increase. When government officials end the opium trade in
one province, opium brokers typically move cultivation and trade
elsewhere, the report says.

Counter-narcotics efforts also have fueled corruption, the report
says. Farmers who can afford it have bribed local officials to
preserve opium crops, while the poorest farmers have been driven
deeper into debt when their crops are destroyed, the report says.
Investigators found several instances in which farmers planned to
replant opium to pay their debts. The report also says local
government officials sometimes help drug lords drive competitors out
of the market in exchange for a cut of the profits or protection
payments.

14)  Nato Urged to Plan Afghanistan Exit Strategy as Violence Soars
Stephen Castle & Kim Sengupta, Independent, Monday, November 27, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1127-03.htm
Nato's fragile unity over Afghanistan has begun to crack ahead of an
important summit - with one public call to discuss an exit strategy
from the Allied forces' bloody confrontation with the Taliban. While
heads of government are to make a show of unity over Afghanistan at
tomorrow's alliance summit in Riga, Belgium's Defence Minister has
questioned the future of Nato's most important mission. And heads of
the alliance's 26 nations are unlikely to agree to send reinforcements
to Afghanistan - dealing a blow to Tony Blair's hopes that others will
take up more of the increasingly heavy burden.

In the bloodiest day of violence to grip the country in many weeks, a
series of fierce clashes between Nato forces and Taliban fighters and
a suicide bombing left 76 people dead and more than 45 injured
yesterday, many of them children.

Though Belgium only makes a small military contribution to the Nato
mission, the Minister's comments will alarm senior figures at the
alliance's headquarters where there is already concern that France is
getting cold feet about its role in Afghanistan. Paris has remained
publicly committed to the mission but Nato sources are concerned about
the possibility of an eventual French withdrawal. They are pressing
for an enhanced UN profile in Afghanistan to reassure the French who
are suspicious about an expanded role for Nato because of Washington's
hold over the alliance.

André Flahaut, the Belgian Defence Minister, brought anxieties about
the Afghan mission into the open when he suggested that, at the Riga
summit, "we finally reflect on an exit strategy". Five years after the
start of Western involvement in Afghanistan, Flahaut calls into
question its prospects of success.

In an interview with Le Vif-L'Express magazine, Flahaut argued: "The
situation is deteriorating and, over time, Nato forces risk appearing
like an army of occupation." Discussions of an exit strategy are the
last thing the Nato top brass wants to hear because it is hoping to
use this week to reinforce a message of unity on Afghanistan.

15) NATO Chief Sees Handover to Afghan Troops in 2008
Reuters, November 28, 2006, Filed at 5:02 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-afghan-nato.html
NATO forces should be able to hand over responsibility to
Afghanistan's security forces gradually in 2008, the alliance's
secretary-general said on Tuesday. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer gave a
glimpse of NATO's exit strategy from its most dangerous combat mission
in a speech to a security conference hours before the start of a
summit of alliance leaders in Latvia. "I would hope that by 2008, we
will have made considerable progress ... and effective and trusted
Afghan security forces gradually taking control," he told the Riga
Conference, appealing to allies to provide more troops with fewer
national restrictions on their use in the meantime.

But De Hoop Scheffer said that at present any talk of withdrawals in
Afghanistan was premature. He noted the 32,000-strong NATO-led
International Security Assistance Force could only consider pulling
out troops when Afghan security forces were able to take over. De Hoop
Scheffer said it was unacceptable that the ISAF force remained 20
percent under full strength because of a failure by allies to
contribute troops and equipment requested by commanders.

Ecuador
16) Ecuador Vote: Leader Forges Middle Road Among Leftists
Simon Romero, New York Times, November 28, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/world/americas/28ecuador.html
The walls in the office of Rafael Correa are decorated with photos of
leftist leaders in Latin America whom he admires, including Hugo
Chávez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia. But when Correa starts
talking about his ideas, in rapid-fire Spanish interspersed with
tangents in English, French and even the occasional phrase in Quechua,
he conveys a more sophisticated image than the nationalists who have
risen to power elsewhere in the region out of the armed forces or
trade unions.

"Foreign investment that generates wealth and jobs and pays taxes will
always be welcome," Correa, 43, said in an interview here, sounding
precisely like someone with postgraduate degrees from universities in
the US and Belgium. (His are from the University of Illinois and
Catholic University of Leuven.) Correa, between declarations of
admiration for the American political system and the Democratic Party
in the US, added that investors could look forward to his government,
which would "strictly follow the rule of law."

Yet the markets wasted little time trying to decipher who the real
Correa may be. Skeptical speculators in New York and London engaged in
a sell-off of Ecuadorean bonds on Monday as concern grew that Correa
would carry out promises to renegotiate Ecuador's $10.4 billion of
foreign debt. And Correa still seems intent on pressing forward with
popular proposals, like limiting American influence by not renewing an
agreement, which expires in 2009, that allows the US military to
operate from a Pacific coast base.

In some ways, Correa's rise points to how varied, and persistent, the
leftist groundswell has become in Latin America. He had 68 percent of
the votes cast Sunday, compared with 32 percent for his opponent,
Álvaro Noboa, with about half of ballot boxes counted by Monday; final
results were expected Tuesday. A former finance minister, Correa wears
tailored suits and chats about how North American economists like John
Kenneth Galbraith have influenced him. Yet before crowds, he rails
against the Bush administration and the International Monetary Fund.
[It's not obvious why admiring John Kenneth Galbraith, who believed
that governments have a responsibility for the economic welfare of the
population, should be regarded as contradictory to railing against
Bush and the IMF. Venezuela's president Chavez - no slouch in any Bush
or IMF-bashing competition - has also praised Galbraith. -JFP.]

The competing strands make any hasty judgment on Correa premature,
particularly as he finds his way in the unstable world of Ecuadorean
politics, where Congress can oust unpopular presidents with ease. [If
any hasty judgment would be premature, then the headline "Leader
Forges Middle Road Among Leftists" is premature. -JFP]
…
Correa has the luxury of inheriting an economy that is benefiting from
a combination of high oil prices, a tax increase on oil companies and
the seizure this year of a crucial oil concession held by Occidental
Petroleum of Los Angeles, which had been Ecuador's largest foreign
investor. Together, those factors have given oil revenues a boost of
$1 billion this year, according to the credit ratings company Fitch
Ratings. Of course, this reliance on oil exposes Ecuador to a crash if
oil prices sharply decline; they are already down nearly 20 percent
from midyear highs.

That is what makes some of Correa's ideas, like rejoining OPEC,
strengthening the national oil company Petroecuador, or renegotiating
the foreign debt, troubling to some analysts here. Ecuador is supposed
to remember the pain, they say, of past oil busts. [It''s not clear
why a fall in the price of oil should undermine these proposals. See
also CEPR's analysis of why predictions of a bust are overblown:
http://www.cepr.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=567&Itemid=8]

The country left OPEC in the early 1990s when it had trouble paying
its dues. Since then, Ecuador has had a debilitating dependence on
imported gasoline because of inadequate refining operations. Correa
will come to the presidency with virtually no support from a
recalcitrant Congress that reflects, however imperfectly, a country
whose instability has resulted in two million Ecuadoreans emigrating
to the US and Europe.
-
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org

Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming
U.S. foreign policy so it reflects the values and interests of the
majority of Americans.