[Peace-discuss] Just Foreign Policy News, January 15, 2007 (with special attention to Senator Obama)

[Robert Naiman]

I'm thinking some folks on this list will be particularly interested
in how the New York Times characterized Senator Obama today. In the
3rd article below, it referred to him as a "longtime war critic,"
which I guess is arguable, if by "longtime" one means "long ago" and
"recently," without undue concern for what happened in between.

to send a letter to the NYT:
letters at nytimes.com

Just Foreign Policy News
January 15, 2007
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/newsroom/blog/

"… appearing to the world as an arrogant nation… fighting for the
so-called freedom of the Vietnamese people when we have not even put
our own house in order."
- Martin Luther King, "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,"
National Cathedral, March 31, 1968

Ask Pelosi & Reid to block the escalation in Iraq
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/nomoretroops.html

January 27-29: Anti-war March on Washington and Lobby Day
UFPJ, MoveOn, Win Without War, many other groups and coalitions.
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=3468

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Summary:
US/Top News
President Bush's new war plan faces some of its fiercest resistance
from the very people it depends on for success: Iraqi government
officials, the New York Times reports. The signs so far have unnerved
Americans working on the plan, who have described a web of problems
some fear could hobble the effort before it begins. Among American
concerns is a Shiite-led government so dogmatic Americans worry they
will be frustrated in their aim of cracking down equally on Shiite and
Sunni extremists. "We are implementing a strategy to embolden a
government that is actually part of the problem," said an American
military official.

President Bush and his aides, justifying more American troops for
Iraq, are offering an incomplete, oversimplified and possibly untrue
version of events there, writes Mark Seibel for McClatchy News.
Blaming the start of sectarian violence in Iraq on the Golden Dome
bombing risks policy errors because it underestimates the depth of
sectarian hatred in Iraq and overlooks the conflict's root causes, he
writes.

Democrats are unified in opposition to a troop increase, but split
over what to do about it, the New York Times reports. Rep. John Murtha
said he expected Congress to move to restrict financing for new troop
deployments - or at the very least tie approval to stringent
conditions. But Senator Carl Levin said he did not believe Congress
should "use the power of the purse" to halt the president's plan and
that it should go no further than approving nonbinding resolutions
opposing it. Presidential candidate John Edwards said Congress had a
moral duty to cut off financing. Levin said the threat by Senate
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to filibuster his resolution shows
"the administration would be very much worried about a majority vote
if 51 senators included a bunch of Republicans," the Washington Post
reports. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, a longtime[sic] war critic,
has stopped short of calling for a clamp on financing for Bush's plan.

Iran
President Bush has opened a "third front" in the war in Iraq - against
Iran, David Sanger reports in the New York Times. Senior members of
the Bush administration have made it clear that their agenda goes
significantly further than events in Iraq, and that their goal is to
contain Iranian political influence throughout the region.

The Iraqi foreign minister called Sunday for the release of five
Iranians detained by US forces in what he said was a legitimate
mission in northern Iraq, AP reports. "We have to live with Iran, we
have to live with Syria and Turkey and other countries," he said. He
said those detained had been working in a liaison office issuing
travel permits for the local population, and reiterated that the
office was in the process of being turned into a consulate.

Many fear that President Bush is spoiling for a fight with Iran,
writes Juan Cole in Salon. The Iranian mission's application to the
Kurdistan Regional Government to be recognized as a consulate is still
in process, but it would be sophistry to argue, as the US has done,
that its status as a diplomatic mission is questionable. Bush and
Secretary of State Rice have begun speaking, without presenting any
evidence, of Iranian aid to groups killing US troops in Iraq - hence
the reference to "networks" in his Wednesday speech. The difficulties
faced by the US military occupation of Iraq itself may well be made
the pretext for aggressive action against Iran.

Iraq
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan reaffirmed Turkey's right to send
troops into Iraq to crush Kurdish rebels there and chided US officials
for questioning it, Reuters reports. Erdogan said it was wrong for
Washington - "our supposed strategic ally" - to tell Turkey to stay
out of Iraq. "We have a 350 km border with Iraq... the US is 10,000 km
away from Iraq, and yet is it not intervening in Iraq's internal
affairs?" he said.

President Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq has inflamed
passions among the restive Sunni Arab minority, bringing new recruits
to insurgent cells, according to the spokesman for the country's most
hard-line Sunni clerical group, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Israel/Palestine
Arab governments plan to tell Secretary of State Rice they will help
Washington stabilize Iraq if the US takes more active steps to revive
a broad peace initiative between Israel and its neighbors, AP reports.
The deal, dubbed "Iraq for Land," is expected to be proposed during a
meeting between Rice and her counterparts from eight Arab countries on
Tuesday.

Somalia
An African Union delegation has arrived in Somalia's capital to
discuss the deployment of international peacekeepers, AP reports. The
US and EU have pledged financial help for an African peacekeeping
force. But no African government has responded to the push to form an
8,000-member mission, although Uganda has said it is willing to send
as many as 1,500 soldiers as part of a wider mission.

Haiti
The US Congress may be the only chance for a credible investigation of
the US role in Haiti's coup d'état, writes Brian Concannon for the
International Relations Center. Rep. Lee promised to re-introduce the
TRUTH Act in the new Congress. It would appoint a bipartisan,
independent commission charged with investigating the February 2004
Haitian coup d'état, and determining whether the US government
contributed to the overthrow of the constitutional president.

Ecuador
US officials are concerned about the cooperation of Ecuador's new
government in fighting drug trafficking, the Los Angeles Times
reports. During his campaign, Correa promised that he would not renew
the US military's lease on the Manta air base, where eight drug
surveillance planes have been based since 2000. The presence of the US
planes rankles Ecuadoreans who think America's main goal is not to
fight drugs but to keep a close eye on guerrillas in Colombia.

Contents:
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-
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org