The Road to Tehran Goes Through Damascus

Turkey Warns of 'Steps' If Syria Mayhem Doesn't End

AFP
April 8, 2012

Turkey's prime minister has warned of as yet unspecified "steps" if the government of neighbouring Syria fails to abide by an April 10 deadline to cease violence, local media reported on Sunday.

"We will patiently follow the process until April 10," Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying by daily Hurriyet.

But "we will implement steps" if violence does not stop after that, he added.

The Turkish premier did not specify what measures his government would take, but the mass influx of refugees fleeing the Syrian unrest has raised alarm in Ankara which has voiced support for the Syrian opposition.

Different scenarios are being floated by the press, including the setting up of a buffer zone along the border with Syria to protect refugees.

More than 9,000 people have died in Syria in more than a year of unrest, according to UN figures, as President Bashar al-Assad's regime has cracked down on protesters and armed rebels, drawing international condemnation.

Fighting has raged on despite Damascus accepting an April 10 deadline to withdraw forces from protest hubs as part of a ceasefire plan brokered by the UN and Arab League peace envoy, former UN chief Kofi Annan.

Nearly 130 people were reported killed across Syria on Saturday -- three days ahead of the deadline to cease fire and pull back.

The escalating violence has triggered a sharp surge in the number of Syrian refugees crossing into Turkey.

Last week saw a record number of some 2,800 Syrians enter Turkey in a 36-hour period to escape a helicopter-backed assault by Syrian troops.

The total number of refugees now in Turkish camps near the Syrian border exceeds 24,000, according to official figures provided by the Ankara government.

Turkey, a former ally to Damascus, has cut off contact with Assad.

Iraqi minister holds talks for progress in Turkey ties

AFP
April 7, 2012

A senior Iraqi minister met Turkish officials this week for talks on bilateral ties already strained over a political crisis engulfing neighbouring Iraq, a Turkish diplomat said Saturday.

Iraqi National Security Minister Falih al-Fayyad held closed-door talks in Istanbul and Ankara beginning April 3 with a number of officials including foreign and interior ministers, said the diplomat, who declined to be named.

"That was a planned trip during which bilateral relations, as well as the crisis in neighbouring Syria were discussed," he added.

The talks aimed to achieve progress in the long-standing political strains between Turkey and Iraq's Shiite government, Turkish daily Hurriyet reported.

Fayyad conveyed his prime minister's willingness to repair ties with the Ankara government, according to the report which was neither confirmed nor denied by the Turkish foreign ministry.

Turkish-Iraqi ties have been marred by a political crisis that has stoked sectarian tensions in Iraq.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan angered his Iraqi counterpart, Nuri al-Maliki, by phoning him on January 10 about a standoff with his Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, who is accused of running a death squad.

As Erdogan warned Iraqi leaders against fomenting sectarian tensions, Maliki accused Ankara of intervening in Iraqi affairs and the two countries have called in each others' respective ambassadors to express their anger.

Iraq has been mired in political crisis since US forces withdrew from the country on December 18, pitting the Shiite-led government against the main Sunni-backed political bloc Iraqiya.

Impetus Towards War with Iran can Only be Explained in Terms of a Western Desire for Iraq-style Regime Change

Iran: Drumbeat of War has a Familiar Sound

By Simon Tisdall, guardian.co.uk
February 24, 2012

The drumbeat of war with Iran grows steadily more intense. Each day brings more defiant rhetoric from Tehran, another failed UN nuclear inspection, reports of western military preparations, an assassination, a missile test, or a dire warning that, once again, the world is sliding towards catastrophe. If this all feels familiar, that's because it is. For Iran, read Iraq in the countdown to the 2003 invasion.

A decisive moment may arrive when Barack Obama meets Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, in Washington on 5 March.

"The meeting … will be definitive," said Ari Shavit in Haaretz.

"If the US president wants to prevent a disaster, he must give Netanyahu iron-clad guarantees the US will stop Iran in any way necessary and at any price after the 2012 [US] elections. If Obama doesn't do this, he will obligate Netanyahu to act before the 2012 elections."

If accurate, this is not much of a choice. It suggests military action by the US or Israel or both is unavoidable, the only question being one of timing. Objectively speaking, this is not actually the position. All concerned still have choices. The case against Iran's nuclear programme is far from proven. It is widely agreed that limited military strikes will not work; a more extensive, longer-lasting campaign would be required. And Obama in particular, having striven to end the Iraq and Afghan wars, is loath to start another.

But as with Iraq in 2003, the sense that war is inevitable and unstoppable is being energetically encouraged by political hardliners and their media accomplices on all sides, producing a momentum that even the un-bellicose Obama may find hard to resist.

A recent analysis of US public opinion revealed deeply ambivalent attitudes on Iran, with the majority of Americans apparently favouring diplomatic solutions. Yet as Republican presidential candidates exploit the issue, as the Israelis lobby America, and as Iranian factions manoeuvre ahead of parliamentary polls, the likelihood grows that doves and doubters will again be either converted or ignored.

In some key respects, the Iran crisis is distinctly different from that over Iraq in 2002-03. As matters stand, similarly strident warmongering surrounding Iran is thus hard to understand or explain – unless the ultimate, unstated objective is not to curb Iran's nuclear programme but, as in Iraq, to overthrow its rulers.

Bogeymen

George Bush and Tony Blair claimed a moral imperative in toppling the "monstrous" dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. But the much vilified Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, is no Saddam, and neither is the country's bumbling Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Iranian regime is repressive and sporadically brutal, but so too are many developing world governments. Unlike Saddam's Ba'athists, it has significant democratic and ideological underpinning. As a bogeyman whose depredations might justify international intervention, Ahmadinejad is a flop.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Saddam, notoriously, had no deployable or usable WMD, but his overthrow was primarily justified by the mistaken belief that he did. The present western consensus is that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons capability, but does not have an atomic bomb and is not currently trying to build one. Khamenei said this week that nuclear weapons were "useless and harmful" and that possessing them was sinful . Netanyahu's belief that Israel faces an imminent, existential threat is visceral rather than fact-based. Israel's refusal to acknowledge its own nuclear arsenal, let alone contemplate its reduction, further undermines the case for action.

Terrorism

Plenty of evidence exists that Iran supports, or has supported, armed militants, jihadis, and anti-Israeli and anti-western armed groups in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, providing financial and political backing, arms and training. In this respect, its behaviour is more threatening to western interests than was that of Saddam's secular regime, no friend to Islamists. But limited or even protracted attacks on Iran's nuclear and/or military facilities would not end these links, unless there was a shift of political direction in Tehran.

Strategic power-games

Iraq was considered important for its strategic position at the heart of the Arab Middle East and its economic potential, especially its oil reserves. Similarly, there can be no doubt the US and Britain would like to see energy-rich Iran return to the western camp, as in the pre-revolution days of the Shah. Conversely, Iran's military is more powerful and more committed to the defence of the status quo, from which it benefits greatly, than was Iraq's. The potential disruption to oil supplies and western economies, not to mention the impact of asymmetric Iranian counter-attacks, makes a resort to war contingent on producing lasting dividends.

Political imperatives

In contrast to the splits over Iraq, the main western powers are united in their determination to bring Iran to heel. As well as Netanyahu, David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Barack Obama have all declared an Iranian bomb unacceptable. Their inflexibility thus makes war more rather than less likely should Iran refuse to back down. "

Having made the case for urgency and concerted action, it would be difficult for Obama to tell the world 'never mind' and shift to a strategy that accepts Iranian membership in the nuclear club," said Michael Gerson in the Washington Post.

In short, the Iranian crisis differs from that over Iraq in 2003 in key respects. But the current impetus towards war can only be explained in terms of a western desire for Iraq-style regime change – because only regime change may achieve the de-nuclearisation the west insists upon.

Iraq

The Jews are leaderless. And, once again, their ‘leaders’ are leading them to slaughter.
Gaza is now ready for Egypt’s genocidal assault. It remains to prepare the West Bank so that Jordan and Saudi Arabia -- also armed to the teeth by the US -- can attack from there, and Netanyahu is already pushing for this outcome. Once that is achieved, all that will remain is for the US government to pull its troops from Iraq, and everything will be ready. If you want a countdown, that's it: the US withdrawal. Because, you see, the invasion of Iraq has given Iraq to Iran (the US ruling elite really is very consistent). Iran already controls Hezbollah, Lebanon, and Syria, so once the US troops leave, Iran will have a land corridor going all the way to the northern border of Israel. They will hardly need to wait for nuclear capability. Don’t wait for the US to attack Iran. As HIR predicted a long time ago, this is not going to happen. - Francisco Gil-White, Historical and Investigative Research, What If Hamas and Fatah Are Not Really Enemies?, June 30, 2007

Obama Stands By Iraqi Troop Pullout

Associated Press
October 20, 2009

President Barack Obama renewed his vow Tuesday to have all U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by next August, while nudging Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to see that his parliament quickly passes a critical election law essential to a nationwide vote in January.

Without an election law, the vote could be delayed, snarling American plans to begin significantly scaling back U.S. troop presence after the national referendum.

"We have seen in the last several months a consolidation of a commitment to democratic politics inside of Iraq," Obama said. "We are very interested, both of us, in making sure that Iraq has an election law that is completed on time so that elections can take place on time in January."

Vice President Joe Biden also pressed al-Maliki on the election legislation when they met a day earlier.

As Obama promised to hold to U.S. withdrawal plans, which would see all troops leave Iraq by the end of 2011, Obama also told al-Maliki that he was glad the two leaders were now able to expand their talks beyond warfare to the "enormous opportunities for our countries to do business together."

The Iraqi leader was in the United States in conjunction with a conference designed to boost international business and investment in Iraq, where six years of war have devastated the national infrastructure, factories and all-important oil sector.

"We didn't just talk about military and security issues," the president said. "What is wonderful about this trip is that it represents a transition in our bilateral relationship so that we are moving now to issues beyond security and we are beginning to talk about economy, trade, commerce."

The U.S. negotiated a status of forces agreement in the latter months of the Bush administration which commits the United States to having all combat troops out of the country by the end of August and all other forces - counterinsurgency and support troops - gone by the end of 2011.

Beyond its significance for the U.S. pullout, the January election will be critical for the Iraqis with the potential for important political and power realignments. It could threaten al-Maliki's hold on power after the powerful political bloc of his Shiite Islam co-religionists excluded him from its coalition going into the vote.

It that estrangement holds, it would require that al-Maliki turn for political allies among Sunni Muslims, whose insurgency took the country to the brink of civil war in 2006 and 2007, and secular parties.

Al-Maliki also repeated his call for help from the Obama administration in the cancellation of all U.N. sanctions and resolutions adopted after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, saying Iraq is a democracy and has no weapons of mass destruction.

"This is important to move Iraq forward and to promote investment," the Iraqi leader said.

Obama nodded as he listened to a translation of al-Maliki's remarks, but neither leader took questions after their brief statements in the White House Oval Office.

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Iraq

McClatchy's 'Inside Iraq' Blog

"Inside Iraq" is a blog updated by Iraqi journalists working for McClatchy Newspapers. They are based in Baghdad and outlying provinces. These are firsthand accounts of their experiences. Their complete names are withheld for security purposes.

Gone With the Wind

Posted by Laith, March 22, 2009

Dreams are one way for man to improve his or her life. The biggest achievements started with dreams. The happiest moment for us is when our dreams come true. One of my dreams was to see more than one party in Iraq, and not to hear about people killed for political reasons as Baath Party used to do for about 35 years.

Before 1979, Iraq was one of the best Arabic countries: people used to live a very good life. We used to have the best goods, the best factories and the best services.

But with the coming of Saddam to the presidency chair in 1979, everything changed. The man started his political life with an aimless war with Iran that brought nothing to Iraq but death and destruction. The war lasted eight years and Iraq lost about a million men. We also missed the technological progress.

After the eight years war, Saddam invaded Kuwait and the result was more death for men and children, and a very hard long embargo that lasted until the US invaded Iraq in 2003. During the years of embargo, my dream was like the dream of the majority of my people: to get rid of Saddam, who was the main problem of Iraq.

With the need to work even when I was a student, I couldn't have any dreams but to live in a country without Saddam or Baath Party. When I left Iraq in 1996 to study my master degree in England, I was rejected by the British embassy in Jordan because I'm Iraqi. Once again, Saddam and his policy prevented me from making one more dream true. I didn't want to come back to Iraq and live again under Saddam's crazy laws. I decided to live abroad. I lived for more than seven years without visiting my family even for one time.

When the US military started what they called Operation Iraq Freedom, I really felt so happy for one thing. I thought Iraq would be free again and we would have real government with politicians who really care about Iraq's future and its people. I had a real big hope that services will be the best again and we would live happily again.

I never thought that we would start killing each other for the sake of some strangers or to kidnap each other for money, but I was completely wrong. I was sure that the American administration had planned very well for the stage after the war, but I was wrong again.

Nothing really changed in Iraq after six years. To be honest, we have one big change. Now we have hundreds of political parties that do nothing to Iraq, and all they care about is their interests.

After six years, the Americans approved that they came without any plan, because most Iraqis are still poor and deprived from the simplest human rights. Iraqi governments and the American administration failed completely in putting Iraq once again on the right path.

I have to admit that after six years of the invasion, all my dreams have gone with the wind.

Thousands of Iraqis Rally Against U.S.
Government Tally: 87,215 Iraqis Have Been Killed Since 2005
Iraqi prisoners protest torture, rape
Confidential memo reveals U.S. plan to provoke an invasion of Iraq

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