[Peace-discuss] Just Foreign Policy News, January 22, 2007

[Robert Naiman]

Just Foreign Policy News
January 22, 2007
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/newsroom/blog/

Ask your Representative to Co-Sponsor the DeFazio and Jones "Iran War
Powers" Resolutions
Representative DeFazio (D) and Representive Jones (R) have introduced
resolutions re-affirming that President Bush cannot attack Iran
without Congressional authorization.
At this writing 36 Members of Congress are on at least one of these
resolutions. Ask your Representative to support them.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/warpowers.html

January 27-29: 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:
U.S./Top News
1) Senator Kennedy, speaking yesterday on "Meet the Press", suggested
that Congress might have to cut off funding for the Iraq war if the
President continues to defy the will of Congress and the American
people, note Mark Weisbrot and Robert Naiman on Huffington Post. He
also criticized those who claim that cutting off funds for the war
would jeapordize American troops, saying that Congress would ensure an
orderly withdrawal and make sure that withdrawing troops were
adequately supplied.

2) Development and human rights organizations, including Oxfam and
Amnesty International, criticized U.S. and Ethiopian air strikes in
Somalia last week, writes Aaron Glantz. Oxfam says the strikes killed
70 nomadic herdsmen who had no connection to any international
terrorist group.

3) The Bush Administration, after days of unrelenting criticism from
Congress, are warning the Iraqi government that continuing funding for
an American troop increase and other elements of Bush's new Iraq
strategy will be contingent on Prime Minister Maliki's delivery on
promises to quell violence, the New York Times reports. What's
striking about this is that at the same time that supporters of the
Administration argue that it would be unthinkable for Congress to
restrict funding, the Administration is using the same threat on the
Iraqi government.

4) Some historians and Middle East experts say "losing Iraq" might not
be a disaster, reports Ron Hutcheson for McClatchy News. Previous
presidents made similar arguments about Vietnam that Bush and his
aides are making about Iraq. Yet the US lost the battle in Vietnam but
won the war against communism anyway.

5) Stretched thin from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S.
military has sharply reduced its role in the war on drugs, leaving
significant gaps in the nation's narcotics interdiction efforts, the
Los Angeles Times reports.

Iran
6) In an apparent response to increasing Western military pressure,
Iran's Revolutionary Guards will test-fire missiles in a military
exercise expected to begin Monday, Iranian television said.  The
maneuvers followed the recent American decision to deploy a second
aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, effectively doubling the US
presence there, and to extend deployments of Patriot antimissile
defense systems in Kuwait and Qatar. The British Navy is also sending
more ships to the gulf, the New York Times reports.

7) Senator John Rockefeller, the new chair of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, on Friday sharply criticized the Bush administration's
increasingly combative stance toward Iran, saying that White House
efforts to portray it as a growing threat are uncomfortably
reminiscent of rhetoric about Iraq before the American invasion of
2003, the New York Times reports.

8) In 2003, Bush Administration hawks rejected a detailed Iranian
offer to work together to capture terrorists, to stabilize Iraq, to
resolve nuclear disputes, to withdraw military support for Hezbollah
and Hamas, and to moderate Iran's position on Israel, in exchange for
the U.S. lifting sanctions and warming up to Iran, notes Nicholas
Kristof in the New York Times. Kristof notes that while multilateral
sanctions appear to be strengthening the position of the Iranian
government's domestic critics, a military confrontation would likely
stifle these forces.

9) President Bush's presidency is running out of time, but the US is
not, notes Jim Hoagland (no dove!) in the Washington Post. An
all-or-nothing confrontation with Iran that has to be resolved before
Bush leaves office is an artificial concept that will deepen American
problems abroad.

Iraq
10) Kurdish soldiers from northern Iraq are deserting the army to
avoid the civil war in Baghdad, a conflict they consider someone
else's problem, McClatchy News reports.

Syria
11) Iraqi President Talabani said he will push for dialogue between
the US and Syria, which he said was helping Iraq clamp down on
terrorism, Reuters reports.

Pakistan
12) Western diplomats in Pakistan and Afghanistan and Pakistani
opposition figures say that Pakistani intelligence agencies have been
supporting a Taliban restoration, Carlotta Gall reports for the New
York Times. More than two weeks of reporting along the border leaves
little doubt Quetta is an important base for the Taliban, and found
many signs Pakistani authorities are encouraging the insurgents, if
not sponsoring them, she writes.

Colombia
13) The government of President Uribe, a major recipient of U.S. aid,
is ensnared in a widening scandal as revelations surface of a secret
alliance between some of the president's most prominent supporters and
paramilitary death squads, writes Simon Romero for the New York Times.
The scandal could influence discussions in Congress of aid to Colombia
and a trade agreement awaiting Congressional approval. [Kudos to this
article for not referring to it as a "free trade" agreement.]

Bolivia
14) As President Morales celebrates his first year in office, he
remains determined to launch a "democratic revolution," Monte Reel
reports for the Washington Post. But rising public unrest - by
opponents and supporters - has forced the government to come up with
new ways to try to get there. To try to defuse the conflicts between
regional districts and the central government, Vice President García
Linera last week proposed holding referendums that would allow voters
to replace controversial governors elected in December 2005.

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-
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org