Michael J. Totten

Terrific Lebanon Coverage

2008-05-09T23:20:49Z

by Michael J. Totten Lebanon always seems to explode when I'm somewhere else and can't get there. It is impossible to predict when it will happen, and the airport is always the first casualty. So I can't report first-hand. No one else can get there either. That didn't stop me from filing a medium-length piece just now for Commentary, which I will republish here when it goes up over there. In the meantime, check out Noah Pollak's coverage at the same magazine. "It is excellent":http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/category/contentions?author_name=pollak.

Hezbollah's Endgame? Pt. 2

2008-05-08T21:09:56Z

_by Lee Smith_ David Wurmser, formerly Vice President Cheney's Middle East adviser, writes in to comment on Iran's role in the Beirut crisis. "Iran has suffered some pretty serious defeats in Iraq, foremost is that the Shiites there kind of turned on Iran. May they not need to pull back and focus on their role as the champion of the Shiites right now, even at the cost of compromising their efforts to jump the Sunni-Shiite divide? They may actually be in no better a shape among Lebanon's Shiites as they are among Iraq's. Second, there were these really odd nasty exchanges between Zawahiri and Iran, which may have been born of Iran's desire right now to solidify its own role as Shiite champion. "Ahmadinejad himself has presided over a fairly turbulent few weeks, as the principalist faction, of which he and the speaker of the Majlis are both part. That faction has descended into caustic bickering � probably as a result of the traditional clergy of Qom's resisting his increasing militarization of government � over a number of matters from ministerial resignations to constitutional wrangling to banking and fiscal independence, while his own mentor had one of his papers unusually slam him for meeting with former nationalists associated with Mossadeq. He may even face a no confidence move if the Majlis maneuvers to force another cabinet resignation. And all this while faces a chorus of response from the traditional clergy of Qom, who are horrified about his claims to be informed by the 12th imam. "And there's something else, too: In that press conference Walid Jumblatt held about the airport security, he also "called":http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2008/05/jumblatt_expel.php for the expulsion of Iran's ambassador. That could be a redline for Iran. And if it happened, it would deal a heavy blow to the Iranians." I asked David if Jumblatt's request might signal that Washington is fully aware of, and behind, March 14's actions at this point. "It may be part of our effort to push back on Iran right now. As far afield as Afghanistan you find the Afghani government saying that Iran is sending weapons. So, across the board, we are pushing back against Iran. But the thing with the Iranians is, if you push you had better be ready to take it to the next level with them, because they will push back hard." While countless US, European and Israeli policymakers, analysts and journalists counseled that diplomacy would manage to "wedge" Syria away from Iran, there was really only wedge issue between them: Iran wanted to avoid sectarian warfare while the Syrians were willing, eager, to set fire to Lebanon � again. If this crisis is different, as David Wurmser says, different from the rest of the various crises that have plagued Lebanon the last three years, ever since the April 2005 withdrawal of Syrian troops, it is because there no longer is any difference between Tehran and Damascus' Beirut strategy.

The Military Situation in Beirut

2008-05-08T19:56:43Z

_By Tony Badran (cross-posted at "Across the Bay":http://beirut2bayside.blogspot.com/2008/05/military-situation-in-beirut.html)_ Fighting in Beirut has broken out between Hezbollah/Amal and Future Movement supporters. Here's a brief look at the military situation. For a political reading, see the "post":http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/05/hezbollahs-endg.php by Lee Smith below, and make sure to read the excellent quoted "op-ed":http://michaelyoungscolumns.blogspot.com/2008/05/heading-toward-lebanese-divorce.html by Michael Young. The tactics are reminiscent of the 1970s-80s war, with two essential differences: 1- the trigger is not the Palestinian guerrilla threat to the state, but Hezbollah's threat to Lebanon, and 2- the beginning fault line is to the west of the 1975 flash point. The current "areas":http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/900/910/919/beirut/pictures/html/Beirut.html of clashes are roughly along a crescent from "Hamra":http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/900/910/919/beirut/pictures/html/c-3.html and the vicinity of the Serail in the north down to "Tariq el-Jdideh":http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/900/910/919/beirut/pictures/html/e-5.html in the south, and the "vicinity":http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/900/910/919/beirut/pictures/html/c-2.html of Qoreitem (Hariri's residence) and Ain el-Tineh (Berri's residence) in the west to "Ras el-Nabe'":http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/900/910/919/beirut/pictures/html/d-5.html in the east. The areas therein are mixed Sunni-Shiite areas, especially in the Corniche Mazraa-Barbour area, and the "fighting":http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=41587 has even touched on the Druze neighborhood northward, next to Hamra. The vicinity of the Serail has also seen some fire. The armed clashes have included standards of the civil war: light and medium machine guns, grenades and RPGs (and, apparently, we're now seeing light mortars by Hezbollah in Ras el-Nabe' -- also a staple of the 70s-80s), and sniping, which was/is a highly effective tool to control opposing movements and neighborhoods in built-up areas. The nature of the fighting, again, typical of the 70s-80s, involves control/blocking of access routes (using bulldozers, landfills, etc.), main roads and highways, control of neighborhoods (esp. those that are mixed), and control of strategic tall buildings (for sniping). There's no clear report yet regarding casualties and the situation on the ground in terms of advances, if any, by the combatants and the control of neighborhoods. Interestingly, the blockages of roads has involved both parties. The coastal road leading to the south has been cut, in a message to the ability to cut off the communication between Hezbollah areas, isolating them in certain areas, should the fighting develop. The Army is positioned at certain roads, and is attempting to open certain roads. This is a brief synopsis and I'll hopefully have more as time permits.

Brief Dispatches from the New Lebanon War

2008-05-08T19:51:04Z

by Michael J. Totten Is there actually a new war in Lebanon? Maybe. That's what it looks like if you "read the brief dispatches on my friend Charles Malik's blog":http://lebop.blogspot.com/. He is in Beirut now and hearing gunfire and rockets in his neighborhood. That used to be my neighborhood. Anyway, more war in Lebanon is inevitable as long as Hezbollah exists. Another friend told me in an email today that Lebanon is actually in worse shape than it appears in the media. This is new. It is usually the other way around.

Hezbollah's Endgame?

2008-05-08T16:47:38Z

_By Lee Smith_ Elie Fawaz, a friend and colleague with the Lebanese Renaissance Foundation in Beirut, provides on-the-ground analysis on the developing situation in Lebanon: "Beirut witnessed another round of sectarian violence yesterday following decisions of the Lebanese government to sanction and remove Hezbollah's illegal private telecommunication lines, and to replace the head of the international airport security for his direct responsibility in allowing Hezbollah to install private spying cams on one of its runaways. "Hezbollah closed down the roads leading to the airport, and a couple of others leading to its headquarters in Dahieh by unloading trucks of dirt and sand and by burning tires. They also clashed with Sunni groups in areas of Beirut. "The Christian suburbs stayed calm, unwilling to participate in the demonstrations despite the calls of Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun to join in. This proves clearly that Aoun's popularity is seriously damaged, as it also shows that the majority of the Christians refuse to grant Hezbollah a cover for its attempted coup. "More remarkably, the Grand Mufti of the Lebanese Republic Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani (the religious head of the Sunni community) accused Hezbollah of staging a coup, and warned that Sunnis of Lebanon are fed up with Hezbollah's ways and Iran's interference. He also called on all Arab and Muslim nations to help put an end for this crisis. These two developments, for the first time since the conflict between the opposition and the majority began, left Hezbollah, alone and uncovered. "For years Hezbollah has tried to jump the sectarian divide by defending the causes of the umma. But when Israel withdrew from South Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah's armada lost its raison d'etre. Yet even after the Syrian occupation ended in 2005 following the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, the party refused to terminate its mission and give up its arms and the many privileges enjoyed under Damascus' tutelage. To survive, Hezbollah needs its perpetual resistance, but the Party of God is today at odds with the rest of the Lebanese, and the survival of Lebanon as a state depends on the government bringing an end to this conflicted situation. There is no way one state can have two centers of decision-making, two policies, two armies, two economies, that are at odds with each others. The road to the airport must be re-opened at any cost, and Hezbollah must cease his state within a state either by negotiations or by force." Tony Badran, also blogging here in Michael Totten's absence, weighs in as well: "What this has done is lay bare all the charades of the last two years that Hezbollah's is a "national" opposition, etc. What we saw yesterday is that Christians didn't budge (Aounists that is), in any region. And so, what you have here is Hezbollah vs. the rest, and Hezbollah vs. the state. Politically this is very bad for them, and obviously for Aoun. In that sense it was a shrewd political move by March 14, because it hit them on a point that they can't get sympathizers for outside their thugs (i.e., they have no allies, and they're fighting the state!). Second, it puts them in a corner: they either force the government to capitulate, or they lose themselves. Nasrallah is against the wall." In his press conference today, Nasrallah demanded that the government must back down from its decision. The government says no, that would mean the end of the state. Washington, along with the other international and regional actors like France, Saudi Arabia and the UN that have stood alongside the Lebanese government these last several years can only be pleased that the government has asserted its sovereignty in key respects; and it should be noted that Hezbollah's redline appears to consist of the government acting like a government. However, as Michael Young "points out":http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=91777 in The Daily Star, Hezbollah's security apparatus had penetrated the Rafiq al-Hariri international airport long before it installed cameras. Indeed, the assassinations of several March 14 figures a day after they had returned from abroad, especially Gebran Tueni and Antoine Ghanem, indicated that the airport was riddled with pro-Syrian assets. The question then is, why did the government act now? In an email, Michael Young suggested it might be because of the debate today at the UN on Security Council 1559 that calls for the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon. "Suddenly the issue of Hizbullah's weapons is back on the table internationally, where the majority wants to put it," writes Michael. There are two other possibilities Tony Badran and I have been entertaining today. The first is that the government may believe that Hezbollah's preparations for another war with Israel have reached a critical point; given that Siniora and his cabinet have long understood that their actions would lead to a confrontation with Hezbollah, another war with Israel is a more daunting threat. Second, as Tony conjectures, the Lebanese are watching closely a the US presidential campaign unfolds and are likely concerned what an Obama presidency represents for March 14, especially if Hezbollah starts a war with Israel: it means the pillar of the international alliance supporting a democratic Lebanon is apt to go hat in hand to Hezbollah's patrons in Tehran and Damascus looking to "engage." If there is another war, the US impulse will likely be to go over March 14's head and sue for peace with Iran and Syria, which is precisely what Bush resisted. Finally, as Tony and Elie Fawaz and Michael Young are always careful to insist to Lebanon watchers, it is important to consider not just the local situation, but also the regional and international dimensions of the Lebanese arena. Assuming that the Syrians have no problem with sectarian strife in Lebanon, or anything to delay or obscure the international tribunal into the Hariri assassination, the foremost questions then concern Iran. A Shia-Sunni conflict in Lebanon might well damage Iran's own efforts to jump the sectarian divide. What level of control does Tehran have over Hezbollah at this stage while the Party may well be in an existential fight over its role not just as an armed militia, but as a Lebanese party? Further, and perhaps most importantly to Washington, what will Hezbollah's actions, and Tehran's decisions, say about Iran's war against the US-backed order throughout the rest of the region � from Gaza (Hamas vs. Israel and Egypt), through the Arab Gulf states, and most especially Iraq? If the Iranians fear they are losing in Iraq, will they agree to heat up Lebanon, or do they understand that Hezbollah is inviting a civil war it cannot win, and thus risking Tehran's near 30-year, multi-billion dollar investment in exporting the Islamic Revolution?

The Real Moderates

2008-05-06T21:35:38Z

by Michael J. Totten I'll have a proper-length dispatch published here shortly, and in the meantime here's a short one for you to chew on "over at Commentary":http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/this-is-a-kosovar-muslim-11372. "Lee Smith laments":http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/05/more-from-the-l.php that American Muslims have to read almost exclusively about scary Muslims and slightly less scary Muslims in the mainstream American media. �One can only sympathize with American Muslims,� he writes,

those who may or may not be religious, but surely have no attachment to the obscurantist fanatics that drove them from the region, and must now be wondering what is wrong with the New York Times that the only Muslims that register with the paper of record are very scary ones, and less scary ones.

I have noticed and been annoyed by this tendency myself, and it goes double today: I'm writing this from the capital of Kosovo, the least �scary� Muslim country on Earth. I've grown accustomed to moderate Muslims after living in and traveling to places like Beirut and Istanbul, but Kosovo is surprising even to me. Islam in this country is so thoroughly liberal (�moderate� doesn't quite cover it) that, if it weren't for the mosques, there would be no visible evidence that Kosovo is a Muslim country at all. I've been in Prishtina, the capital, for four days, and I can count the number of women I've seen wearing a hijab on one hand. Aside from the conservative dating culture, women here are as liberated as Christian women in the rest of the Balkan region. A large number of Kosovo's Muslims are Sufis--the most peaceful and the least fundamentalist of all the world's Muslims. Sufis can be found in many parts of the Islamic world, but here in Kosovo they proudly proclaim that they are the most �progressive� of all. Soft-imperial Wahhabis are trying to export their brand of Islam from the deserts of Saudi Arabia to this fertile green land. They have their work cut out for them with this crowd. Bosnia notoriously welcomed thousands of Salafist mujahideen fighters from the Arab world during Yugoslavia's violent demise. But the Kosovo Liberation Army brusquely told them to stay the hell out of their country--even while they faced an ethnic cleansing campaign directed from Belgrade. "Read the rest in Commentary":http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/this-is-a-kosovar-muslim-11372.

More From the Less-Scary Muslims File

2008-05-05T17:39:24Z

_By Lee Smith_ After the Hamas-loving "Bensonhurst imam":http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/nyregion/05imam.html?_r=1&oref=slogin, "Tariq Ramadan":http://docs.google.com/View?docid=ah6sxjndq9qq_315dwk7qn, and "feel-good sharia":http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=120aa5bf-04ef-42ab-9f00-ac08fc828da8, yet more from the New York Times on "Moderate Islam":http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/world/asia/04islam.html?_r=2&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin. A story about Pakistani schools opened by Fetullah Gulen, a controversial Turkish theologian and political activist with close ties to Ankara's ruling AK Party. "He has lived in exile in the United States since 2000," writes the Times, "after getting in trouble with secular Turkish officials." That's certainly a fine way to put it. According to Michael Rubin's recent "article":http://www.meforum.org/article/1882 on Gulen, the Turkish judiciary charged him in 1998 with trying to "undermine the secular system" while "camouflag[ing] his methods with a democratic and moderate image." While it is possible the paper merely failed to report Gulen's conviction, it would be in keeping with the thrust of the Times' campaign on behalf of Moderate Islam to airbrush this rather inconvenient fact. A Turkish Sufi, even if he tried to undermine the secular nature of a US ally, is less scary than the adolescent Pakistani mobs he is trying to educate; Tariq Ramadan, even if he is of two minds about stoning women to death for adultery, is less scary than bin Laden; Brooklyn's Reda Shata may have mourned the death of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, but he is less scary than Omar Abdul Rahman, the Brooklyn sheikh jailed for his role in the 1993 WTC attack. Unfortunately, it seems to be beyond the scope of the Times to recognize that this is how politics is typically waged in the Muslim Middle East, with the "moderates" serving as both arsonists and firemen, using the violence of the "extremists" against the established order and promising to rein them in. Finally, one can only sympathize with American Muslims, those who may or may not be religious, but surely have no attachment to the obscurantist fanatics that drove them from the region, and must now be wondering what is wrong with the New York Times that the only Muslims that register with the paper of record are very scary ones, and less scary ones.

The Syrian Track: Much ado about Nothing

2008-05-02T19:58:38Z

_By Tony Badran (cross-posted at "Across the Bay":http://beirut2bayside.blogspot.com/2008/05/much-ado-about-nothing.html)_ Jonathan Spyer has penned what is by far the most sober analysis of the current soap opera involving Turkey, Syria and Israel. Put briefly, Spyer explains why this is a dead end because the main objective of Syrian track enthusiasts in Israel -- taking Syria out of the Iran-Hezbollah-Hamas nexus -- is a fantasy. But Spyer's insight lies in his explanation as to why this is the case. As some of you might know, this is something I've discussed at length on my "blog":http://beirut2bayside.blogspot.com. The main deficiency in the prevailing ignorant punditry on the subject is that it sets out from two faulty premises: 1- that the motivating force for Syria's behavior, including its alliance with Iran, is grievance -- i.e. it's reactive. And 2- therefore the solution lies in finding the right price to settle that grievance. Spyer's argument is that Syria has its own objectives and its own role conception -- what EU MP Jana Hybaskova correctly dubbed "an over-exaggerated" self-image -- and that is the motivation behind its alliance. Or, as Maher Assad tool Samir Taqi put it, "It is na�ve to think Syria would behave foolishly and abandon its strategic alliances with Iran and Hizbullah, which are not limited solely to the Israeli-Arab conflict but also touch on topical geopolitical issues. These strategic associations are for the long term." (Emphasis mine.) In other words, as many of us have been saying for the longest time, the Middle East (and regime interests and ambitions) doesn't revolve around the "peace process" -- except of course for the Western "peace processors." Spyer explains what those "geopolitical issues" are, and how they are directly related to the regime's nature as well as its limited -- all violent -- assets which "allow it to punch above its weight in the region":

Syria lacks the size of Egypt and the resources of Saudi Arabia. But it has been able to project power and influence in the region because of its willingness to support radicalism, act as a disruptive force and thus create a situation in which it cannot be ignored. Thus, Damascus backs a host of Palestinian groups opposed to a peaceful settlement of the conflict with Israel - including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, PFLP-GC and others. Syria offered significant support to the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. And most importantly, Damascus maintains influence in Lebanon - following its ignominious departure in 2005 - via its relationship with the pro-Iranian Shia militia, Hizbullah. The ability to foment chaos and project influence in Lebanon is key for the Assad regime. ... [O]nly by backing the radical power in the region can Syria maintain its powerful role as mischief-maker. No Iran means no more fomenting radicalism, no more reaping the benefits of having to be bought off, no more pro-Iranian militias to help out in Lebanon, no return to Lebanon, and the nightmarish possibility of seeing major regime figures collared for the killing of Hariri. It is a near certainty that the regime will prefer to maintain all of these - with the additional mobilising charge of the "occupied Golan" into the bargain - rather than give it all up and become a minor, status quo power.

This is why, as Spyer goes on to note, the absurd notion of "returning Syria into the Sunni Arab fold" always was an incomprehensible hilarity to me, as I've written several times on this blog. Spyer concludes:

In other words, Syria is too deeply committed, on too many levels, to its alliance with Iran to consider abandoning it for the Golan and the Arab mainstream. Syria's conflict with Israel can't be separated out from Damascus's larger regional concerns. Hence, with all due respect to the Turkish mediators, we are faced here with another manifestation of that well-known Middle Eastern phenomenon: much ado about nothing.

Or, as the regime's Oklahoma-based poodle put it: "inducing Damascus to follow a 'Syria First' policy, much as Jordan follows a 'Jordan First' policy ... is a tall order as it requires Syria making an ideological and strategic about face. It's entire identity would need to be turned inside out." This echoes the assessment made by Hybaskova: "Anything we touched, [the] answer was similar. Syria is different. Syria is unique. As such it quite clearly cannot be a normal, equal member of the international community, of [the] community of states in the Middle East. Syria is so different that it can pursue its relations with its neighborhood differently than normal states. It reserves for itself the right to interfere, to collaborate openly with terrorists." And since this is the case, Spyer rightly concluded that all this riffraff is much ado about nothing. The Assad regime will not "flip," because, as that same regime poodle put it, it views such behavior and identity change as "tantamount to regime change."

Postcards from the Balkans

2008-04-30T21:20:16Z

I'll have some proper material for you shortly, but I'm moving around a lot right now and don't have much time to sit down and write. So here's a photo gallery of the Middle East of Europe on the road to Kosovo: Tower blocks, Belgrade, Serbia Hotel Moskva (Moscow), Belgrade, Serbia Kids playing on tank, Belgrade, Serbia A pleasant street, Belgrade, Serbia An ethnically-cleansed Muslim village near the Serbian Republica Srpska, Bosnia Tuzla, Bosnia, no sniper fire Turkish Quarter, Sarajevo, Bosnia Austro-Hungarian section, Sarajevo, Bosnia Communist crap, Sarajevo, Bosnia The famous Holiday Inn hotel for war correspondents, Sarajevo, Bosnia A lampost across from the burned out National Library, Sarajevo, Bosnia Restaurant nook, Sarajevo Bosnia An old residential district, Sarajevo, Bosnia

Welcome Tony Badran and Lee Smith

2008-04-27T19:21:45Z

While I am traveling (see the post below this one) and have unreliable Internet access, Tony Badran and Lee Smith will be lending a hand here as guest bloggers. You probably know Tony from his indispensible blog Across the Bay, and you most likely know Lee from Slate and the Weekly Standard. Please welcome both, and be nice in the comments as usual. I will write and post photos when I can. It will be easier when I settle into one place in Kosovo. I am posting this from Belgrade, which is a fabulous and somewhat surreal place to be (it is the Middle East of Europe here in more ways than one), and I will be leaving soon for Sarajevo.

To the Middle East of Europe

2008-04-24T09:28:23Z

�Once upon a time, in a faraway part of Europe, behind seven mountains and seven rivers, there was a beautiful country called Yugoslavia.� From They Would Never Hurt a Fly by Slavenka Drakulić. I�m out of Iraq material, and it�s time to travel again. But I�m not going to Iraq this time. I haven�t worked in any other country for over a year, and the story in Iraq is fairly static right now. This trip will be to the part of the world that got me interested in geopolitics and war in the first place � the Balkans. I took a long hard look at the violent destruction of Yugoslavia before I ever took a serious look at the Middle East, and I understood the Middle East instinctively thanks to my grasp of Bosnia, Serbia, and Kosovo. The Turkish (Ottoman) Empire ruled over all these lands for hundreds of years, and the tragic events that unfolded in the wake of its destruction are eerily similar. The Balkan Peninsula is the Middle East of Europe. There�s a reason why the violent fracturing in countries like Lebanon and Iraq is sometimes referred to as Balkanization. It should surprise no one that genocidal race and religious wars were fought there so recently, and that American troops remain on the ground to this day, as they likely will for a long time in Iraq and Afghanistan. The region once known as Yugoslavia is where the West has collided violently with the East for hundreds of years. Millions of South Slavs in Bosnia were converted to Islam at sword point by imperialist Muslims from Turkey. Most Mediterranean Albanians � descendents of the ancient Greeks and Illyrians � likewise converted to Islam. The flag of Albania and Kosovo to this day is a centuries-old symbol of the Albanian Catholic anti-Turkish resistance. Another civilizational fault line rips through the place � the one between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Genocidal wars were waged by the Orthodox Serbs against Catholics in Kosovo and Croatia, as well as against Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo. Croatia looks toward Rome. Belgrade looks to Moscow. Bosniaks, in the middle, look to Arabia and Istanbul. Kosovars look toward Tirana, and to New York and Washington. They could not coexist. Yugoslavia was drawn and quartered. �Only part of us is sane. Only part of us loves pleasure and the longer day of happiness, wants to live to our 90s and die in peace, in a house that we built, that shall shelter those who come after us. The other half of us is nearly mad. It prefers the disagreeable to the agreeable, loves pain and its darker night despair, and wants to die in a catastrophe that will set life back to its beginnings and leave nothing of our house save its blackened foundations.� � from Black Lamb and Gray Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia by Rebecca West. Kosovo is the world�s newest country, and its unilateral declaration of independence is more controversial than the existence of Israel. It should be only slightly surprising, then, that many Kosovars, though most are Muslims, identify to an large extent with the Israelis. �Kosovars used to identify with the Palestinians because we Albanians are Muslims and Christians and we saw Serbia and Israel both as usurpers of land,� a prominent Kosovar recent told journalist Stephen Schwartz. �Then we looked at a map and woke up. Israelis have a population of six million, their backs to the sea, and 300 million Arab enemies. Albanians have a total population of eight million, our backs to the sea, and 200 million Slav enemies. So why should we identify with the Arabs?� Kosovo is perhaps the most pro-American country in all of Europe. It is almost undoubtedly the most pro-American country in the world of Islam. It exists thanks to NATO, but mostly thanks to the United States. And the Kosovars know it. President Bill Clinton is lionized there as a liberator just as President George W. Bush is hailed by the Kurds of Iraq. They are both indigenous people long-oppressed by empires of the East and more recently by ethnic-nationalist states. Both were saved by young American men from places like Indiana, Colorado, and Texas. Kosovars, unlike the more conservative Muslims in Bosnia, support the war in Iraq. �In the hinterland of Dalmatia, especially in the Knin area, one can hear a kind of moaning song, a primitive archaic intonation, consisting of the well-known doleful modulations of the sounds o-oy�A few peasants, usually in a tavern, put their heads together and let their sorrowful modulations sound for hours, which constitutes a very grotesque sight for a European. And if they are asked why they sing like this, they give the answer: the lament for Kosovo!� - Vladimir Dvornikovic The residents of Yugoslavia�s final breakaway state are under the gun from Serbia and its patron state Russia, and also from well-heeled Wahhabis from Saudi Arabia who would love to turn it into a fanatical jihad state in Southeastern Europe. All this goes on under the noses of American soldiers, and utterly beyond the eyes of the incurious media. Bosnia and Kosovo are where the pacifism of my college years died and was buried. I have wanted, no, needed, to visit these places and write about them for more than ten years. I am not doing this on a whim. �The whole world is a vast Kosovo, an abominable blood-logged plain." From Black Lamb and Gray Falcon by Rebecca West. Later this year I plan to visit Afghanistan � a country where the war is going badly from what I hear from "people I trust":http://michaelyon-online.com/. I have seen American troops under the command of General David Petraeus pull off the impossible in Iraq. No one like Petraeus is in charge in Afghanistan. NATO is in charge in Afghanistan, and NATO is a different animal than the United States Army and Marine Corps. NATO is also in charge of Kosovo, and Kosovo isn�t the failure Afghanistan is � at least, I don�t think so. But there are those in Russia and Saudi Arabia who would like to reverse that. These are two of the same countries that played terrible roles in the destruction of Afghanistan. Soviet Russia paid dearly for that, but the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia never have. And they are at it again. The United States isn�t the only country that mucks around in the rest of the world, and it�s no coincidence that American forces have been drawn into both Kosovo and Afghanistan. Preventing the Islamic radicalization of Kosovars isn�t why NATO went in there, but it�s part of NATO�s job now, or at least it should be. Someone needs to take a look at what�s happening in the world�s newest country and figure out where it�s going and what it all means. No one seems to want to go there but me. So I�m going, and I�m going in by ground through Bosnia from Serbia�s capital Belgrade. I leave in two days. Post-script: I don�t get paid for these reports by anyone but readers of this Web site, and I can't afford to do this for free. If my dispatches are worth something to you, please consider a contribution and help make truly independent journalism economically viable. You can make a one-time donation through Pay Pal: Alternately, you can now make recurring monthly payments through Pay Pal. Please consider choosing this option and help me stabilize my expense account. $10 monthly subscription: $25 monthly subscription: $50 monthly subscription: $100 monthly subscription: If you would like to donate for travel and equipment expenses and you don't want to send money over the Internet, please consider sending a check or money order to: Michael Totten P.O. Box 312 Portland, OR 97207-0312 Many thanks in advance.

The Case of Bilal Hussein

2008-04-22T21:02:37Z

Last week, Associated Press photographer (and alleged insurgent collaborator) Bilal Hussein "was released from custody":http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8VUGK500&show_article=1 after an Iraqi tribunal decided his case fell under an amnesty law passed earlier in 2008. The United States military had accused Hussein of working with insurgent groups in Anbar Province, in part because of "his uncanny ability repeatedly to photograph insurgents in action":http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/04/020258.php. I don�t know if he�s guilty or not, and he deserves the presumption of innocence. Either way, his case brings attention to an issue most consumers of news from Iraq rarely consider: the fact that large media companies--the Associated Press and other news wire agencies and newspapers--work with some sketchy characters in Iraq. Iraq is full of such sketchy characters, as everyone knows, and large media companies require an enormous staff and network of locals to produce daily news coverage. They can�t cover breaking news every day in a low-intensity war zone without them, especially if violent activity--car bombs, fire fights, assassinations, and the like--are the bulk of what makes up the news. Someone is killed almost every day in Iraq, but the chances that an individual writer or photographer will happen to be present as an eyewitness are minuscule. Reporters who cover breaking daily news spend much of their time on the phone with stringers and sources. They don�t personally investigate every incident in the field. It just isn�t physically possible if they're required to write every day about what happens in a country the size of California, especially when it can take literally days to travel from one part of Baghdad to another. I�m sure media companies are careful about who they hire, but it�s hard to make the right call every time in a bewildering and inscrutable place like Iraq. Terrorists and insurgents are and have been supported by a substantial percentage of the local population. It�s nearly impossible to build a firewall thick enough to keep them all out. "Read the rest in COMMENTARY Magazine":http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/The-Case-of-Bilal-Hussein-11353.

Now They Have Turned to the Tribes

2008-04-17T09:34:41Z

Sheikh Sattar Abu Risha, leader of the Iraq�s Anbar Salvation Council before he was murdered by a car bomb in front of his house in late 2007, summed up the Anbar Awakening movement in a few concise sentences to Johns Hopkins University Professor Fouad Ajami. �Our American friends had not understood us when they came,� he said. �They were proud, stubborn people and so were we. They worked with the opportunists, now they have turned to the tribes, and this is as it should be. The tribes hate religious parties and religious fakers.� The tribal system in Anbar Province is ancient. Attempts to overthrow it are not wise. Both Americans and Al Qaeda learned that the hard way. Marine Captain Quintin Jones, commanding officer at Outpost Delta in the city of Karmah, told me he works with tribal authorities as well as the mayor every day and can�t get much done if he doesn�t. Captain Quintin Jones and Mayor Abu Abdullah MJT: So what kinds of things do you do with Sheikh Mishan and the mayor? Captain Jones: I do everything with them. My battlespace is pretty big. We deal with the security issues. We get out to the surrounding areas. Karmah is Jamaeli-centric. The whole Jamaeli tribe covers Karmah, but we've got these others smaller tribes around. So we try to get the mayor out to see these other smaller villages around Karmah. That way people don't think everything in Karmah is all about the Jamaeli tribe. So we go out there. They need contracts in their areas to fix things like schools, businesses, stuff like that. That's generally what we do. We eat dinner together. We eat lunch together. And pretty much the same thing with Sheikh Mishan, but on the tribal level. Everything has to run through the head sheikh, and he's the head sheikh over all this area. MJT: So who has more power? The sheikh or the mayor? Captain Jones: The sheikh. Al Anbar is really tribal in everything that it does. Although they've had a city council in the past, a mayor in the past, a lot of the people in the city want to go to the rule of law through tribal law. Making that transition is really tough. It's a delicate line that we have to walk. MJT: How compatible is tribal law with a democratic system? Are they merging the two systems, or basically still using the old-world authoritarian model? Captain Jones: The way to approach it is, there is still a need for the tribal way of life, but we're trying to make it more democratic at the same time. They're parallel. The true part is run by the democratic process. If you look at countries like Bahrain or Dubai � the UAE � they still have a strong tribal base, but they�re somewhat democratic in their governance and the way they approach things. You can't move forward or progress as a country if you're stuck in the tribal way of life. MJT: Right. But how do they merge them? I mean, nobody elected Sheikh Mishan. Captain Jones: No. It's just passed down through generations. MJT: So are some of the people below him elected democratically? Like the mayor. Was he elected, or was he appointed? Captain Jones: A little bit of both. [Laughs.] They're going to hold elections. Once they hold elections, they will vote in an actual mayor and an actual city council. But because the sheikh is the biggest guy in the area, it defaults back to him if there's a dispute. They'll go to him and he'll try to resolve the issue. MJT: Do you get the sense that this is the way the average person here wants it to be? Or is that just the way it is? Captain Jones: It's just the way it is. They don't know what they don't know. If you've never been introduced to a democratic way of life, then you don't know it exists. You don't know that there is another way. So it's an education process. MJT: Did this tribal system exist when Saddam Hussein was in charge? Captain Jones: Yes. The sheikhs existed. They were just really suppressed by Saddam. They relegated themselves to tribal disputes and marriages. MJT: So they were not a part of the state? Captain Jones: That I can't answer. MJT: How well do you get along with these guys? Captain Jones: Pretty good. At this stage, if you want to succeed, it's all about personality. You have to have the personality to be able to go out and immerse yourself in this culture every day and understand, try to understand, what's going on. You'll never fully understand what's going on. For me it's a little easier. I've traveled a lot in my lifetime. My wife is European. She's from Italy. English is her second language. I helped her learn to speak English. So understanding a culture without a language, I've done it. Last year I was on a military training team where I lived with Iraqis. This is basically my third shot at dealing with different cultures. MJT: This training with Iraqis was in the States? Captain Jones: No, it was here in Iraq. I was in an embedded training team with the Iraqi Army last year. But now I'm dealing more with governance than with tactics. MJT: Have you been anywhere else in Iraq aside from that training? Captain Jones: I was in Baghdad in '03. MJT: How was that? Captain Jones: In '03 it was totally different. I didn't deal with any Iraqis. I did site security assessments. Then I did security at the CPA building for Ambassador Bremer with a team of Marines I had. Last year I was in Haditha. MJT: How is Karmah now compared with Haditha then? Captain Jones: Every day Marines were getting hurt and sometimes killed. MJT: By local insurgents? Captain Jones: Locals insurgents. Al Qaeda in Iraq. Whoever. MJT: The locals here and in Fallujah talk about the insurgents as though the insurgents are...not them. Like they are all from somewhere else. I know some of them are from somewhere else. Some aren't from Iraq at all. But a lot of them had to be local, right? At least they were protected by some of the local people. Captain Jones: You have to understand that everything is tribal. So when the sheikhs came on board with the coalition, whatever the sheikh says to do, that's what they are going to do. The sheikhs said hey, we're not fighting the coalition anymore. They're helping us push out Al Qaeda. Some of these Al Qaeda guys were from here. And they have families that are still here. We work with them. Your brother, for example, might be Al Qaeda but you could be with the coalition. You may not want that way of life. I can't detain just someone because his brother is Al Qaeda. MJT: When you get a situation like this where one brother is with you and the other is against you, will the one who is with you inform on his brother? Captain Jones: It just depends. It is truly a case by case basis. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Sometimes he'll inform on his brother, but when you detain the brother he'll come back and say hey, he's a really good guy. Why did you detain him? That's his way of denying that he had anything to do with it. So you have those cases as well. MJT: Did Sheikh Mishan switch sides? Captain Jones: No. He has been pro-coalition from the beginning. He lost a couple of his sons. He lost one of his daughters back in September. MJT: What happened? Captain Jones: She was killed in a mortar attack. MJT: A mortar attack on his house? Captain Jones: Yeah. When we first came in, in late August, there was an area out to the east that was all bad guy country. We hadn't cleared it out yet. So in this area there were pockets where they would launch mortars. They hit Sheikh Mishan's house because they knew he was pro-coalition. So they shot mortars at his house and killed one of his daughters. Prior to that, a couple of his sons got killed and he fled to Syria. He stayed there until General Allen convinced him to come back and lead his tribe. MJT: And when was this? Captain Jones: I think it was in July of this year. I think it was July 5. MJT: So what happened to his sons, exactly? Captain Jones: Al Qaeda stormed the house. Or in gun battles outside the house. More of the usual. MJT: Have you ever met anyone who you know has switched sides? I'm sure we have both met some of these people, but have you met anyone who has admitted it? Captain Jones: Yep. There are some guys that were bad who we work with now. They say they got tired of that life, that they didn't have the right ideals. They were really all about power and money rather than pushing us out. They want safety and security now. There was also some reconciliation with some of the insurgents who decided to put down their guns. They didn't want to fight the coalition any more. We walked them back to the other side. The sheikhs had to vouch for these guys. They said these are not going to pick up arms against you again. MJT: Do you believe that? Captain Jones: Sometimes yes, sometimes no. [Laughs.] It's a case by case basis again. Some of these guys have done a lot of good things. They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Some of them do revert back to their old ways. I don't mean they've started fighting us again. I mean...if they tortured people before and have switched sides now we have to say Hey, we don't torture people. You detain them and turn them in and let the professionals question them. It has been an ongoing process with some of these guys. We're training them in the laws of war, rules of engagement, and so forth. Sometimes it's a hard concept for them to grasp, and other times they get it, they understand it. MJT: How's the Baath Party doing these days? Captain Jones: That I don't know. That I'm trying to figure out myself. MJT: This is Baath country. Or at least it was. I don't know if it is anymore. Captain Jones: Right. I'm still trying to figure some of this out. A lot of the guys in this area say they are nationalists and want a greater Iraq. They don't necessarily support this ideal or that ideal. They just want the unification of Iraq. That's it. MJT: Do you have any Shias here? Captain Jones: No. They're all Sunnis. MJT: And all Arabs. No Kurds. Captain Jones: No Kurds. Not in my area. MJT: What's the most important thing you still need to do while you're here, before you can leave, if you can only pick one? Captain Jones: [Long pause.] MJT: Or how about the top three things, if coming up with only one is hard. Captain Jones: We'd like to kick start the government and the economy. That has been the big focus for me outside of security, which is obvious. Of course I need to make sure they have security, and that their security isn't porous. We can't have people infiltrating back in. Now, there are always going to be some insurgents around because we don't know who they are. Only the Iraqis know who they are. So we need to keep the security maintained and set up a system where the government and economy are starting to push back in. I only have a few months left. There is no way I can achieve that in the seven month period we're given, let alone a three month period. So we're trying to set the stage where we have a no-kidding city council with a one- or two-year plan of things they need to achieve. We need to make sure it's running properly so it can be sustained after the Marines have left. That's really what I'm trying to work on here. We need to give people hope in Karmah. The re-opening of the town square, that gave people hope. They saw that the very worst part of Karmah, the part that was constantly getting car bombs and IEDs, where the police station was constantly attacked because the insurgents see the government as a threat, was able to have so many people outside in that one area. Six months ago that never would have happened. MJT: The Iraqi Army isn't here, are they? Captain Jones: They're north of us. We do have meetings once a week where we coordinate with the Iraqi Police and the Iraqi Army. They're our neighbors, if you will, and we need to make sure we're all going in the right direction for the greater area. We do, on occasion, do joint operations. We did a clearing operation out to the east, and the Iraqi Army providing some blocking positions for us as the Iraqi Police pushed up and cleared the area. So we do work with them quite a bit. MJT: How is the Iraqi Army in this part of the country? Captain Jones: They're pretty professional. They have a good battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Ali. He's a pretty good guy by Iraqi standards, compared to the Iraqi battalion I was working with last year. He's pretty articulate. He understands and can talk tactics. He has basic common sense. And he looks...he's very professional. MJT: Are they mostly Shias? Captain Jones: No, these guys are Sunnis. MJT: Arabs also? Captain Jones: Yep. And no Kurds, but that will probably change in a couple of years when they start deploying all over Iraq. Last year in Haditha, the Iraqi Army I worked with was Shia. MJT: Did they have problems with the [Sunni] locals? Captain Jones: Sometimes. But down south, in Baghdadi, the Iraqi Army also worked with the Baghdadi Police which is all Sunni. Initially there were some problems because people were saying these guys are thieves, and the others said, no, you're thieves. Blah blah blah blah blah. We had to squelch a lot of that crap. We said, look, we're here to get rid of insurgents, not fight each other. So I had to have them take a step back and look at all the things that the other culture had given to the other guys. The Shia Iraqi Army, when they first went to Baghdadi, they didn't have anything. But the Sunni Iraqi Police went out and bought them flour, vegetables, and fruit, brought it to them, and gave it to them for free. Here. You're here to help us. Here you go. So I had to remind them what these guys were doing for them. And in the end we'd always go out on joint patrols. So we had Sunni and Shia going out on joint patrols. That's a good thing because when you're going into Sunni neighborhoods with Shias, you have some of their own people working with them. That definitely helped out a lot. But we don't have any of that here. MJT: What's the relationship like between the local government in Karmah and Baghdad? Or do they even have one? Captain Jones: Well, they have the government of Al Anbar. They're the guys who are in contact with Baghdad. What that relationship is like, I have no idea. It doesn't affect me on my level. My local government ties into Fallujah, and Fallujah ties them into Ramadi. MJT: Right. Captain Jones: And that's what we're working with. MJT: Do they have a good relationship with Fallujah? Captain Jones: They're starting to have a good relationship with Fallujah. A lot of those lines were severed because of the insurgency, but now they're opening those lines back up. It's starting to work a lot better. MJT: What's the biggest problem here? Captain Jones: Probably the connection to Fallujah and Ramadi so they can get Iraqi dinars, rather than American dollars, into the army. That's their biggest issue. Once they can do that, we can take them off the coalition aid. So our focus is the transition from dollars to dinars. MJT: Anything you'd like to add that I didn't ask you about? Anything you wish Americans knew about this place and don't know? Captain Jones: I wish more Americans knew about the good things Marines are doing at the lower levels. They see a lot of things we're doing at the general level, but they don't see what the privates and lance corporals are doing to further this relationship with the Iraqis and help the Iraqi people. We came here in part to liberate the Iraqi people and help the Iraqi people. And truly we have, at the lowest level. As we move away from kinetic warfare, we have those diplomats if you will, the strategic corporals, who is out there every day, helping Iraqis paint their businesses, helping Iraqis open their businesses, helping disabled people out of their own pockets, starting the Adopt a School programs because they can't get school supplies through the Iraqi chain. Schools back in the States, through family members, adopt some of these schools and they send school supplies out. Those kinds of things I wish the Americans could see. The actual good things. The progress. I wish Americans could see the number of kids who attached to you today. They were happy, they weren't throwing rocks at you. They were happy to see you and talk to you. They probably asked you for chocolate, but you know, still, they talk to you. That's the message. That's what I want them to know about. Not all Iraqi people are bad. There are some really truly good people. The fact that they would not let you leave their house today until you ate their food, until you were full, things like that. A lot of people open up their homes when they see that Americans are actually here to help them. Post-script: I don�t get paid for these reports by anyone but readers of this Web site, and I can't afford to do this for free. If these dispatches are worth something to you, please consider a contribution and help make true independent journalism economically viable. You can make a one-time donation through Pay Pal: Alternately, you can now make recurring monthly payments through Pal Pal. Please consider choosing this option and help me stabilize my expense account. $10 monthly subscription: $25 monthly subscription: $50 monthly subscription: $100 monthly subscription: If you would like to donate for travel and equipment expenses and you don't want to send money over the Internet, please consider sending a check or money order to: Michael Totten P.O. Box 312 Portland, OR 97207-0312 Many thanks in advance.

Published in City Journal -- Hope for Iraq's Meanest City

2008-04-13T23:20:43Z

Fallujah is strange, sullen, wild-eyed, badass, and just plain mean,� writes Bing West in his 2005 war chronicle No True Glory. �Fallujans don�t like strangers, which includes anyone not homebred. Wear lipstick or Western-style long hair, sip a beer or listen to an American CD, and you risk the whip or a beating.� Fallujah has been Iraq�s bad-boy city since at least the time of the British in Mesopotamia; even then, travelers were warned to stay out. More recently, Saddam Hussein recruited some of his regime�s most ruthless officers from Fallujah. Even though it was a quieter city than most in Iraq after the American invasion in 2003, with less looting than in Baghdad and a staunchly pro-American mayor, the Americans should have known that Fallujah was trouble. But they didn�t, and so they were unprepared when a rogues� gallery of Islamists, Baathists, and garden-variety malcontents made the city the launching pad for an Iraqi insurgency. The Fallujans who embraced the insurgency were foolhardy, too: had they looked at what similarly-minded Islamist totalitarians had done to Afghanistan, they would have known what hell awaited them at the insurgents� hands. General David Petraeus�s radical transformation of counterinsurgency tactics has come at just the right time: the overwhelming majority of Fallujans, deciding that America is the lesser of evils, have now aligned themselves with the Marines and the American-backed city government. The insurgency arose in Fallujah before spreading to the rest of the country. Perhaps it is fitting, then, that the insurgents�now on the run elsewhere in Iraq�were first beaten here in the City of Mosques. "Read the rest in City Journal":http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_2_fallujah.html

Make Michael Yon a Bestseller

2008-04-13T00:20:39Z

Michael Yon's new book Moment of Truth in Iraq is now shipping from Amazon. My copy arrived a few days ago and it looks excellent. I'll let you know what I think once I dig into it. Michael is the best foreign correspondent working in Iraq. If you haven't been following his work, I need to make his book required reading for you. If you have been reading him all this time, you already know why you need to pick up a copy.