 Kenneth Pollack and Michael E. O’Hanlon have an editorial over at The New York Times discussing how the Iraqi government has banned 500 Sunni politicians from running for office. This is a very disappointing move. Reconciliation was going well, Iraq’s democratic foundations were taking hold, and the future seemed bright despite the frustrating deadlocks that define democracy, especially a new one in a bad neighborhood. They are banned because they had ties to the Baath Party, but they have mostly transformed into Sunni representatives that favor nationalism. To ban them is to ban a lot of the Sunni leadership.
Among those banned are Defense Minister al-Obeidi and Saleh al-Mutlaq. The authors note that al-Obeidi used to be a Baathist but was actually imprisoned and tortured by Saddam’s government. They warn that “It is just this kind of seemingly small problem that could unravel the entire political fabric of Iraq.” The Iraqis need to fix this, and fix it fast. World Threats
 A fine article by Bertram Wyatt-Brown, "Lawrence of Arabia: Image and Reality," in The Journal of the Historical Society, December 2009, pp, 515-48, traces the reputation of T. E. Lawrence (1888-1935) through the near-century since his remarkable exploits during World War I and his famed recounting of those events in Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926). Wyatt-Brown's account of Lawrence's role since 2006, when he had a deep impact on the American expeditionary force in Iraq, came as news to me. He focuses on Lawrence's 2,800-word summary of lessons learned in war, published in The Arab Bulletin, August 20, 1917, and bearing the supremely modest title, "Twenty-Seven Articles."
In it, Lawrence offers his "personal conclusions, arrived at gradually while [he] worked in the Hejaz and now put on paper as stalking horses for beginners in the Arab armies." He adds that the rules "are meant to apply only to Bedu [Bedouin]; townspeople or Syrians require totally different treatment." His advice includes such insights as "Win and keep the confidence of your leader," "Be shy of too close relations with the subordinates," and "Cling tight to your sense of humour." Wyatt-Brown explains the recent role of this slight, archaic document: A renewed attention to Lawrence's military understanding of Middle Eastern insurgency may have been helpful in the reform of U.S. policy in Iraq, once General David Howell Petraeus took charge. According to journalist Linda Robinson, before assuming that command, the general had studied Lawrence's writings at night.
He took special notice of the difficulties Lawrence had faced in organizing the Bedouins. Petraeus had his senior officers read "The Twenty-Seven Articles" and Seven Pillars of Wisdom. … The chief reform under Petraeus's orders was in the conduct of officers and soldiers toward Iraqi leaders and civilians and in making armed alliances with Sunnis willing to break with Al Qaeda. …
Petraeus soon recognized that the Iraqi power structure was rooted in tribal politics. Policies had to accommodate that Middle Eastern arrangement. … He adopted a major cornerstone of Lawrence's understanding of guerilla warfare. In the Army War College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Petraeus, David Kilcullen, and other strategists tirelessly worked out the new strategy, with Lawrence's observations providing a helpful point of departure. Like Lawrence himself, Petraeus used lavish distributions of money as the lubricant of good relations with the Iraqi tribesmen. He also adhered to Lawrence's dictum, "Do not try to do too much with your own hands" even if you can perform the mission better than the native forces. The general recast it as "the host nation doing something tolerably is normally better than us doing it well. "Twenty-Seven Articles," writes Wyatt-Brown, "has become something of a bible for current American military experts dealing with the problems of occupying and controlling" Iraq. Indeed, Lawrence earned the compliment of being almost plagiarized without a line of acknowledgment in the U.S. Army field manual for counterinsurgency. With Petraeus offering the Foreword, the document was compiled at Fort Leavenworth in 2005. Conrad Crane, a War College historian, and Lt. Col. John A. Nagl led a team of experts. When the University of Chicago Press published an edition, it received wide coverage that nearly made it a bestseller. A considerable number of passages, however, were paraphrasings of Lawrence's work, according to anthropologist Roberto Gonzalez. Petraeus himself was willing to credit Lawrence for helping him develop his counterinsurgency ideas. The general pointed out in an article in Military Review that Lawrence had given this advice: "It is their war, and you are to help them, not win it for them," a notion, Petraeus declared, as "relevant in the 21st century as it was in his own time in the Middle East during World War I." Wyatt-Brown sees the Lawrence-inspired shift as hugely consequential, perhaps saving "an enormous number of American and Iraqi lives." Ironically, "Lawrence's insights, though far less prominent, were more significant in [the American] Middle Eastern engagement than they had been in his own day." He credits Lawrence's deep insights into tribal culture to several factors: "years of training in the study of the Near East, its history, and its traditions," learning colloquial Arabic, visiting the region in 1909 and traveling over 1,100 miles mostly by foot. These interests, Wyatt-Brown concludes, "grew out of his unconventional love of the Bedouins and their habitat." Comments: (1) Traveling "over 1,100 miles, mostly by foot" in the Middle East constitutes an enviable education in itself. (2) Great strategists sometimes have unusual, even eccentric backgrounds. (3) The most difficult thing for a Westerner to learn about the Middle East – even more so than the Arabic language – is the abiding role of tribal culture. For a recent study, see Culture and Conflict in the Middle East (Prometheus) by Philip Carl Salzman, a book I have highly recommended. (4) Military technology changed so much over the past century that contemporary warfare appears completely unlike World War I. But the human dimension hardly changed; thus does a Clausewitz or a Lawrence retain his importance. Daniel Pipes (See also this piece previously posted )
 Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali", has been sentenced to death for ordering the gassing of Kurds in the Iraqi village of Halabja, state television has reported. Al-Majid, who was a senior aide to Saddam Hussein, the executed Iraqi leader, was sentenced to be hanged for the 1988 attack, in which 5,000 Kurds are thought to have died. Families of some victims cheered in court when the guilty verdict was handed down on Sunday. "The decision has been issued today, January 17, to sentence Ali Hassan al-Majid, to death by hanging ... for crimes against humanity," Aref Abdul-Razzaq al-Shahin, the head of the court, said. The Iraqi High Tribunal also sentenced three other Saddam aides, including the former defence minister, to 10 to 15 years in prison for the Halabja attack. In March 1988, Iraqi jets swooped over the village and sprayed it with a deadly mix of mustard gas and the nerve agents Tabun, Sarin and VX. Three-quarters of the victims in the five-hour assault were women and children. It is thought to have been the deadliest gas attack ever carried out against civilians. Al-Majid, a cousin of Saddam, was nicknamed "Chemical Ali" for overseeing the gassing of Iraqi Kurds during the so-called Operation Anfal campaign, which culminated in 1988. About 182,000 Kurds were estimated to have been killed in gas and bomb attacks during the Anfal operation, while 4,000 villages were destroyed. The latest sentence comes 10 months after the same court handed down a death sentence to al-Majid for his involvement in the killing and displacement of Shia Muslims in 1999. He had already received death sentences for crushing a Shia revolt soon after the 1991 Gulf War and for his role in the Anfal campaign. His execution has been delayed by legal disputes over his conviction. Al-Majid was captured in August 2003, five months after US-led forces invaded Iraq and ousted Saddam. Al Jazeera
 THE Iraqi army says it's detained a suspected al-Qaeda leader implicated in the 2003 bombing of the UN's Baghdad headquarters which killed 22 people. Ali Hussein Alwan al-Azawi, nicknamed Abu Imad, suspected of being a top commander in al-Qaeda front organisation the Islamic State in Iraq, was captured in an operation in the capital, Baghdad military command spokesman Qassem Atta said. "He is responsible for the explosion at the UN headquarters in Baghdad,'' Mr Atta said. Before the US-led invasion of 2003, the suspect was a pilot for state-owned flagcarrier Iraqi Airways, he added. The August 19, 2003 bombing which killed UN special representative Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 of his colleagues marked the start of an escalating wave of attacks blamed on al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups. The army spokesman said troops have also detained a Saudi national, Mohammed Abdallah Nasser, who's suspected of being an important al-Qaeda commander in Diyala province, north of the capital. They are suspected of being behind a series of four bombings targeting the homes of policemen in the town which killed a total of seven people. The Australian
 by Ryan Mauro We’ve all heard the mantra. The U.S. economic recession is made significantly worse by the extremely high cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom, with a price tag of nearly $700 billion going into 2010. The cost of the war in Iraq has been unnecessarily and tragically high, both in lives and treasure, but if the Iraqi government has its way, the country will massively increase its oil output, bringing down the price of oil and decisively impacting global geopolitics in the West’s favor. The Russian Lukoil company has won a massive contract to develop the West Qurna Phase 2 oil field in southern Iraq, putting to rest allegations that the Bush administration launched the war to seize the fields for its buddies in the oil business, a laughable accusation of Satan-level evil that has had a disappointingly long shelf life. When news of the deal was published, my good friend and fellow Pajamas Media writer Nick Guariglia lamented, saying on his Facebook page, “our blood; Russia’s oil.”
Most readers upon reading this will agree, but there is much reason to be excited about how America and the free world will benefit from this deal. Yes, you read that right. This deal may end up being just what America needs in this time of economic and geopolitical crisis. Iraq wants to increase its oil production, which currently stands at 2.5 million barrels per day, to a whopping 12 million barrels per day in ten years. The minister of oil thinks this can even be accomplished by 2016. That would make Iraq the second largest oil producer in the world, behind only Saudi Arabia. Lukoil is excited about the future of Iraq, saying it will cause a “revolution” in the market by increasing the world’s oil supply by 20 percent. “A top manager at a leading Western firm said the modern history of the oil business will be split into the pre-Iraq and post-Iraq periods. I agree,” said Leonid Fedun, a Lukoil shareholder who was ranked #122 on Forbes’ list of the world’s billionaires this year. Some are saying this goal is too ambitious and is “crazy.” That may or may not be true, but Iraq’s oil output is about to dramatically increase and impact the world’s dynamics.
This will probably result in a decrease in oil prices unless Iraq agrees to OPEC’s demands to keep the price high, something the Iraqis will be reluctant to do if they feel they can get a bigger share of the pie through competitive pricing.
And the Iraqis aren’t so hot on the Saudis and their other neighbors right now anyway. More at Pajamas Media
 By Diana Mukkaled Al Qaeda has grown weak. It is nothing more than a pursued leadership, a disintegrated entity and an ideology struggling to survive on the internet. This has been repeated over the past few years. However, a couple of incidents that took place recently have opened the world’s eyes to an alarming resurrection of Al Qaeda in several places around the world including Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan and the US.
Perhaps the most absurd attack of all was the suicide bombing that targeted a volleyball court in Pakistan. What awakened Al Qaeda in such a vicious manner? Was Al Qaeda dormant in the first place? Specialists, politicians and media figures are now trying to answer these unnerving questions.
What concerns us in this article is the renewed interest in the internet as a means for spreading terrorism, especially after unearthing a link between Omar Farouk Abdulmuttalab, the young Nigerian who almost blew up an American airliner bound for Detroit, and Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al Awlaqi, who is suspected of having links to three of the 9/11 hijackers and to Malik Nadal Hassan, the US army Major who killed 13 of his fellow troops at a US military base a few weeks ago. At one point when Al Qaeda’s activities on the ground dwindled for logistic, financial and operational reasons, the internet remained its only stage for vital interaction.
Furthermore, a lot of material that did not find its way to- or was blocked by-traditional media managed to find plenty of space on the internet and so Al Qaeda’s online collection increased dramatically. Any web user would come across books, journals, poems, detailed events and video clips of terrorist operations all posted on the net. On Jihadist sites, people can read a complete body of works compiled over the years of operations carried out by Al Qaeda in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen and other places. These works have built up a large and extensive archive that is being circulated and downloaded using interactive technology.
The archive is being presented as eye-catching, cross-border material or a collection of heroic deeds spearheaded by faithful believers. Samples of such terrorist operations are being narrated in a beckoning style that appeals to certain segments that are impressed by such stories. It is true that Al Qaeda has become part of the divisions and score-settling bloodbaths in Yemen and Iraq. However, this does not absolve the international community of its responsibility [not to allow] the rampant spread of Al Qaeda's ideology through the internet, all the way from Indonesia to the United States. Some might say that if it weren’t for the internet, Al Qaeda would not exist. This statement, though it requires some scrutiny, is correct in a way. The internet enabled Al Qaeda to survive despite its fall. While Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al Zawaheri were lying low and were completely unable to administer anything, Al Qaeda forums were busy providing those wandering aimlessly with what the leadership of the organization had failed to supply in terms of ideas, plans, methods of operation, and training, particularly where the making of explosives was concerned. Today Al Qaeda is back, thanks to the unlimited time and space the internet has provided.
It is not enough to search through cyber space to try and understand how Al Qaeda operates. It is imperative that we first recognize the enormity of our divisions and internal rifts that continue to aggravate and nourish Al Qaeda. Asharq Alawsat 
 BAGHDAD -- "You have to wear a hijab," my husband told me shortly after we got married. "Don't argue with me over this issue." With those words, he started imposing his will. It was the first tax I had to pay for getting married, the same one many of my female friends have had to pay in a country that sometimes pretends to be secular -- a country called Iraq. Feeling as if I was being chained, I reluctantly put on the black veil over my head before heading to work one morning. When I looked in the mirror, I saw another face, another person and I murmured to myself: "Who is this, and why do I have to accept this?" Having male relatives force women to wear the hijab is not new in Iraq. It began happening routinely during the final years of the regime of Saddam Hussein. He encouraged women to cover their heads and urged men to impose the hijab on mothers, wives and daughters. At the time, Hussein was pushing Iraqis to become more religious. Iraqis of different backgrounds tried to outdo each other to prove their religiosity in an effort to earn the praise of the dictator. Some wore the garment out of duress; others wore it willingly, as a sign of modesty and piety. After 2003, wearing the hijab became a means of protection. Many women opted to wear the veil to protect themselves from dogmatic militiamen who kidnapped and murdered people they deemed secular. Being beautiful or flashy made women particularly vulnerable to kidnappings and other attacks. In Basra province, in southern Iraq, this trend became so pervasive that some groups forced Christian women to cover up. Wearing a hijab during Baghdad's sweltering summers can be maddening. But there have been two silver linings in all of this: It protects my hair from sandstorms and rain, and it has pleased my husband, a reminder that sometimes we do things we don't like out of love. Still, I can't help but sigh each time I think about how I dressed just a year ago when I went to the market. I used to wear short skirts and shirts with short sleeves. It is especially frustrating to see the variety of modern clothes imported from Syria and Turkey on display in Iraqi stores: short skirts, sleeveless blouses. It is contradictory that those items have become fashionable, even as more women are covering up and the men in our society are telling us they are not appropriate. As the old saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. In an effort to bridge societal norms with fashion trends, Iraqi girls are finding ways to discreetly push the envelope. Some wear shirts under bulkier ones. Wearing short skirts over pants has also become popular. "Do you know what I wish right now?" I asked my husband recently. "I wish I could force you to wear this hijab so you could experience my feelings." My husband remained silent, and his eyes reddened with anger. I knew better than to protest. It is useless to swim upstream in this country called Iraq. Washington Post
 The Iraqi government will push to appeal a US court ruling dismissing charges of murder against five security guards of the private Blackwater firm, an official has told Al Jazeera. Saad al-Muttalibi, an adviser to the Iraqi council of ministers, said on Friday that if the guards did not receive a just sentence for the killing of 14 Iraqis in 2007, the issue would complicate relations between Iraq and the United States. "This matter will be appealed in the American court and if not resolved correctly, this will definitely add another strain on the relationship between Iraq and the United States," he said. "The legality or the procedures of the court case should not stop the criminals from facing justice and receiving a just sentence. "This is very bad ... for the overall look of the United States outside its borders. It's very important for the Americans to realise that this will work against their interests in Iraq and other places." Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi government spokesman, said in a statement: "The Iraqi government will follow up on this issue in strength and resolution to bring those murderers of Blackwater to accountability in order to return the rights of iraqi people who are the victims of this crime."
He said "the investigations carried out by the specialised Iraqi authorities confirmed with no doubt that the guards of Blackwater company have committed a criminal murder act and they have violated the combat environment rule to use force while there was no threat against them". Ricardo Urbina, a district judge, dismissed the charges against the five men on Thursday, saying US justice department prosecutors improperly built their case on sworn statements that had been given under a promise of immunity. Urbina said the government's explanations were "contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility". The September 2007 shooting in Baghdad's busy Nisour Square left at least 14 Iraqis dead and inflamed anti-American sentiment abroad. The Iraqi government wanted the guards to stand trial in Iraq and officials there said they would closely watch how the US judicial system handled the case. Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the US justice department, said the department was "obviously disappointed by the decision".
Prosecutors can appeal the 90-page ruling and Boyd said the department was "still in the process of reviewing the opinion and considering our options". Al Jazeera's Rosiland Jordan explained that the judge did say that the case can be brought back to court without prejudice but it was going to be difficult for the justice department to build the case from scratch without using the defendants' statements. Blackwater Worldwide, which had been hired to guard US diplomats in Iraq at the time, has since changed its management and name to Xe Services. Despite a string of investigations following the deadly shooting and in spite of an Iraqi government ban on the company, the US state department extended a contract with a subsidiary of the firm in September to continue providing security to US diplomats in the country. The five guards, Donald Ball, Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Nick Slatten and Paul Slough, all formerly in the US military, had been charged with manslaughter and weapons charges, which carried mandatory 30-year prison terms. More at Al Jazeera
 CRIMINAL charges against five Blackwater security guards accused of fatally shooting 14 people in Baghdad in September 2007 have been dismissed. Judge Ricardo Urbina said prosecutors violated the defendants' rights by using incriminating statements they had made under immunity during a State Department investigation to build their case. “The government used the defendants' compelled statements to guide its charging decisions, to formulate its theory of the case, to develop investigatory leads, and ultimately to obtain the indictment in the case,” Judge Urbina ruled. “In short, the government had utterly failed to prove that it made no impermissible use of the defendants' statment or that such use was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” The guards had been charged with killing 14 Iraqi civilians and wounding 18 others using gunfire and grenades during an unprovoked attack at a busy Baghdad intersection. Judge Urbina explained in his opinion that federal prosecutors were offered an opportunity during a three-week hearing that began in mid-October 2009 to prove that they had not made use of the defendants' statements. “The explanations offered by the prosecutors and investigators in an attempt to justify their actions... were all too often contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility,” Judge Urbina wrote. He added: “The court must dismiss the indictments against all of the defendants.” The five defendants were security guards employed by Blackwater Worldwide, which since has been renamed a Xe Corporation. Blackwater has insisted its personnel were acting in self-defence, but critics repeatedly have accused the company of a “shoot first, ask questions later” approach when carrying out security duties in Iraq. A State Department review panel in 2007 concluded that there had been insufficient US government oversight of private security firms hired in Iraq to protect diplomats and to guard facilities. The panel found that as a result there was an “undermined confidence” in those contractors, both among Iraqis and US military commanders. The Australian
 By Charles Krauthammer WASHINGTON -- On Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not just reject President Obama's latest feckless floating nuclear deadline. He spat on it, declaring that Iran "will continue resisting" until the U.S. has gotten rid of its 8,000 nuclear warheads.
So ends 2009, the year of "engagement," of the extended hand, of the gratuitous apology -- and of spinning centrifuges, two-stage rockets and a secret enrichment facility that brought Iran materially closer to becoming a nuclear power.
We lost a year. But it was not just any year. It was a year of spectacularly squandered opportunity. In Iran, it was a year of revolution, beginning with a contested election and culminating this week in huge demonstrations mourning the death of the dissident Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri -- and demanding no longer a recount of the stolen election but the overthrow of the clerical dictatorship.
Obama responded by distancing himself from this new birth of freedom. First, scandalous silence. Then, a few grudging words. Then relentless engagement with the murderous regime. With offer after offer, gesture after gesture -- to not Iran, but the "Islamic Republic of Iran," as Obama ever so respectfully called these clerical fascists -- the U.S. conferred legitimacy on a regime desperate to regain it.
Why is this so important? Because revolutions succeed at that singular moment, that imperceptible historical inflection, when the people, and particularly those in power, realize that the regime has lost the mandate of heaven. With this weakening dictatorship desperate for affirmation, why is the U.S. repeatedly offering just such affirmation?
Apart from ostracizing and delegitimizing these gangsters, we should be encouraging and reinforcing the demonstrators. This is no trivial matter. When pursued, beaten, arrested and imprisoned, dissidents can easily succumb to feelings of despair and isolation.
Natan Sharansky testifies to the electric effect Ronald Reagan's Evil Empire speech had on lifting spirits in the Gulag. The news was spread cell to cell in code tapped on the walls. They knew they weren't alone, that America was committed to their cause.
Yet so aloof has Obama been that on Hate America Day (Nov. 4, the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran), pro-American counter-demonstrators chanted "Obama, Obama, you are either with us or with them," i.e., their oppressors. Such cool indifference is more than a betrayal of our values. It's a strategic blunder of the first order. Forget about human rights. Assume you care only about the nuclear issue. How to defuse it? Negotiations are going nowhere, and whatever U.N. sanctions we might get will be weak, partial, grudging and late. The only real hope is regime change. The revered and widely supported Montazeri had actually issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons.
And even if a successor government were to act otherwise, the nuclear threat would be highly attenuated because it's not the weapon but the regime that creates the danger. (Think India or Britain, for example.) Any proliferation is troubling, but a nonaggressive pro-Western Tehran would completely change the strategic equation and make the threat minimal and manageable. What should we do? Pressure from without -- cutting off gasoline supplies, for example -- to complement and reinforce pressure from within. The pressure should be aimed not at changing the current regime's nuclear policy -- that will never happen -- but at helping change the regime itself.
Give the kind of covert support to assist dissident communication and circumvent censorship that, for example, we gave Solidarity in Poland during the 1980s. (In those days that meant broadcasting equipment and copying machines.) But of equal importance is robust rhetorical and diplomatic support from the very highest level: full-throated denunciation of the regime's savagery and persecution. In detail -- highlighting cases, the way Western leaders adopted the causes of Sharansky and Andrei Sakharov during the rise of the dissident movement that helped bring down the Soviet empire. Will this revolution succeed? The odds are long but the reward immense. Its ripple effects would extend from Afghanistan to Iraq (in both conflicts, Iran actively supports insurgents who have long been killing Americans and their allies) to Lebanon and Gaza where Iran's proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, are arming for war. One way or the other, Iran will dominate 2010. Either there will be an Israeli attack or Iran will arrive at -- or cross -- the nuclear threshold. Unless revolution intervenes. Which is why to fail to do everything in our power to support this popular revolt is unforgivable.
 It is Christmas 2009, and instead of peace on earth and good will towards all, Muslims are busily blowing up churches and Christians all over the Islamic world. This is an awful reality but it is neither recent nor unexpected. Perhaps what is even more awful is the world’s silence and seeming passivity. We in the West who believe in religious tolerance have not stopped the persecution of Christians in Muslim countries.
In the name of political correctness, we have also “tolerated” the often aggressive demands for mosques, public prayer, minarets, and loudspeakers on our own soil even though there is absolutely no reciprocity towards Christianity (or any other non-Muslim religion) in most Arab and Muslim countries. For example, this year, in a church in Bellinzona (Ticino), in Switzerland, a Nativity scene displays Jesus surrounded by minarets! “The unusual scene is supposed to make people reflect about brotherhood and human rights, after 57% of the Swiss (and 68% in Ticino) recently voted against minarets on mosques. On the crib are verses from the Bible and the Koran on the topic of water.” First they came for the Jews … and indeed, most Jews, all 800,000 of us, fled the Arab and Muslim world in the 1940s and 1950s. No one stopped this “silent exodus” or really cared that it had happened. Individual Muslims and the Muslim governments happily, greedily, confiscated Jewish homes, factories, and farms; those Jews who were not slaughtered were allowed to leave with ten dollars in their pocket. Unlike the Palestinian refugees, the Jews and Israel took care of their own. Unfortunately, the Muslim world turned parasitically to the United Nations and to the world to fund the very Palestinians whom they would not allow to remain in their countries as refugees or citizens. As to our Christian brothers and sisters: Two days ago, in Mosul, Iraq, the Syrian Orthodox Church of St. Thomas, founded in 770 AD, was bombed — killing two civilians and wounding five others. This was the “sixth attack on Christians there in less than a month.” Ironically, according to their identity cards, the two murder victims were actually Muslims. However, according to Father Abdul Massih Dalmay of this church, “Christians are being targeted during Christmas time.” Father Dalmay feels that the government has not provided enough security for churches at this time and views this as “negligence on their part.” The Syrian Orthodox Parish of the Immaculate Virgin was attacked a week ago. An infant girl was killed and forty people were wounded. Father Faez Wadiha, of this church, says, with irony: “This is certainly a Christmas present for Mosul, a message of congratulations why we are celebrating a feast of love and peace. But we will pray in the streets, in homes, in shops. God is everywhere, not just in churches.” The Syrian Catholic Church of the Annunciation , the (Chaldean) Church of St Ephrem, and the St. Theresa Church were all bombed in Mosul in the last month. According to another Christian Father: “These attacks are aimed at forcing Christians to leave the country.” Some might say: There is an unwanted (and perceived as) Christian-American military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. These bombings are in retaliation …well, not so fast. There are other Muslim countries where there is no (unwanted) American military presence and where both Jews and Christians have lived long before Islam even came into being — countries in which Christians are now under siege. Let’s look at what’s happening to Christians who live in some Muslim countries today. Egypt For years now, Islamist “gangs” have been forcibly converting Christian children to Islam by drugging, kidnapping, gang-raping, photographing the rapes, blackmailing, and “marrying” the female child, as young as twelve, to Muslim men. The Egyptian police have been unwilling to stop this criminal activity. Recently, a Christian television channel broadcast a program about this in Arabic. Many Egyptians were shocked. Here is one of the kidnappers’ tactics: “The latest fraud mentioned on the TV program is that Muslim gangs who dress as Coptic priests, offer a car lift to Christian girls and then abduct them. ‘The Coptic Church has warned its congregation against letting any unknown person dressed as a priest into their homes or accepting a lift.’” (My thanks to John Peter Maher for this information). A substantial Christian population has always lived in Egypt. They have increasingly been bombed, tortured and murdered. For example, the Monastery of Abu Fana in Upper Egypt has existed since the 5th century — which clearly predates Islam by two centuries. Last year, Bedouin Muslims attacked the monastery, “destroying a small church and burning the monastery’s farm. Nine monks and monastery employees were wounded and four others were abducted.” Jeff Jacoby writes: “One of the [abducted] monks had his arm and legs broken,” the Egyptian lawyer and human-rights activist Nagib Gabriel later testified. “The other two were tied together with ropes, suspended from a tree, and severely beaten with hoses and sticks. Afterwards, they were placed — upside down and still tied together — on the back of a donkey and shoved off. The monks were further commanded to spit on the cross and proclaim the shahada [the Muslim credo that "there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet"], beaten every time they refused, and even threatened with death.” Pakistan For a long time now, Christians have been persecuted in Pakistan. Their female children have been kidnapped, forced to convert and forcibly married to Muslims; both priests and believers have been attacked, and often murdered. Earlier this month, in Sargodha, Pakistan (in or near the Punjab), a mob of Muslim villagers, armed with clubs, spades, and axes attacked a showing of a film on Jesus, injuring three part-time evangelists very seriously as well as four Christians in attendance. The mob destroyed their appliances and absconded with funds. The mob also turned on Christian villagers who tried to intervene. Apparently, the mob climbed “trees to get a clearer view of the screen. The eyewitnesses said that as soon as the Muslim attackers watched the resurrection and ascension of Christ, they became enraged because their version of Islam forbids portraying an image of a living thing and especially that of a prophet. ” As usual, the police refused to register a complaint.
 Three bomb blasts in Iraq have killed more than 34 people and injured 75 others. Officials said that a double explosion struck near a bus station in Babil province on Thursday, killing 14 policemen and a provincal councillor. The first bomb, in a car, was said to have exploded at about 2pm (1100GMT) in Hilla, the provincial capital about 95km south of the capital Baghdad. Another blast came about 15 minutes later when police arrived. The authorities said that the attacks targeted Shia pilgrims who gathered near the bus station to mark Ashura, a commemoration of the death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Hussein. In northeastern Shia area of Sadr City in Baghdad, a bomb planted near a funeral tent killed eight people and wounded another 33. Ahmed Rushdi, a journalist in Baghdad, told Al Jazeera: "The balsts happened nearly at the same time. "They were not by the hand of al-Qaeda - they were not suicide bombers, but mostly car bombs and bombs beside cars." Also on Thursday, a bomb blast also killed two people and injured four others in the Shia sacred city of Karbala, about 100 kilometres south of Baghdad, police said. On Wednesday, six people were killed and another 43 people were injured in Baghdad in three explosions targeting Shias. Thousands of Shias are expected to converge on the central city of Karbala for the December 27 Ashura holiday to mourn the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Imam Hussein, killed by armies of the caliph Yazid in 680 A.D.. More than 25,000 security personnel have been assigned to protect pilgrims during the celebrations. Al Jazeera
 This may be a response to criticism that the terrorist group hasn’t done enough to fight Israel, but Al-Qaeda has published a report that admitted that the organization has a branch in Damascus and that this branch carried out rocket attacks on Israel from Lebanon on June 17, 2007 and in January 2008. The report also claimed that eight rockets found in Lebanon on December 25, 2008 belonged to Al-Qaeda-Damascus.
This branch is led by “close comrades of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” it says, proving that Syria acted as a safe haven for the Al-Qaeda element of the Iraqi insurgency. World Threats
 Iranian troops have withdrawn partially from a disputed oil well in the border region with Iraq, the Iraqi government has said. Ali al-Dabbagh, a government spokesman, said that a group of Iranian troops who had allegedly seized control of the well last week had pulled back in the early hours of Sunday morning. "The Iranian flag has been lowered," Dabbagh told Al Jazeera. "The Iranian troops have pulled back 50 metres, but they have not gone back to where they were before." Maysam Lafta, the provincial chief of security and defence, said: "The Iranian troops left overnight and the workers of the oil company returned to the well on Sunday." Iraq considers the well to be part of its al-Fauqa oil field. Iran's armed forces, however, issued a statement on Saturday saying that, in Tehran's view, there had been no incursion into Iraq as the oil well was within Iranian borders. "Our forces are on our own soil and, based on the known international borders, this well belongs to Iran," the statement said. Foreign ministers from both countries late on Saturday discussed a "misunderstanding" between the countries' border guards. Iraq's state-owned South Oil Company in the southeastern city of Amara said on Friday that an Iranian unit had taken control of the the well. Baghdad demanded that Tehran pull back the soldiers who they said had "occupied" the disputed well, and condemned the incident as "a violation of Iraqi sovereignty". The al-Fauqa field is one of several oil rich areas that Iraq unsuccessfully put up for auction to oil companies in June. The field has estimated reserves of 1.55 million barrels. Muhammad al-Hajj Hamud, Iraq's deputy foreign minister, said it was the first time the well had been taken over during years of tension. "In the past, the Iranians would try to prevent our technicians from working on the well ... by firing in their direction," he said, adding that Iraq had dug the well in 1974.
A joint commission is set to start work on demarcating the two countries' land and sea border along the Shatt al-Arab waterway in the south next month. The well lies about 500 metres from an Iranian border fort and about one kilometre from an Iraqi border fort, US Colonel Peter Newell said. Al Jazeera
 BAGHDAD — A mass grave discovered in northeast Iraq contains dozens of bodies, mostly of women and children believed killed during a crackdown against Kurds by former dictator Saddam Hussein, an Iraqi official said Saturday. The grave was originally found nearly two years ago west of Kirkuk, though its discovery was only made public this week after forensic pathologists began examining it, said Majid Abdullah Karim, an official with the Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights. Investigators initially put the number of bodies found at 185, though Karim said the number could be "significantly less" based on the number of bones and skulls recovered Friday by pathologists. Karim did not give an exact number, estimating only "dozens." Mass graves across Iraq have been turning up with some frequency since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam's regime. The latest discovery was made at a former military detention camp used by Saddam's forces in Tubzama, just west of Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, said Karim. The grave was discovered after people reported seeing bones and bits of clothing at the camp, he added. The remains were believed to be those of Kurds killed between 1988 and 1991, Karim said. Many Kurds were taken to the detention camp by Saddam's forces, he added. The bodies were determined to be mostly women and children, based on the clothing and personal items excavated at the site, Karim said. The remains will be tested for DNA, and then likely will be returned to the semiautonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq for full identification. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds were killed or expelled from Iraq in the late 1980s and then again during the Kurdish uprising following the first Gulf War in 1991. Baghdad's attacks — including the use of poison gas in the Kurdish town of Halabja — came to symbolize the cruelty of Saddam's grip on power and brought the nickname "Chemical Ali" to one of the masterminds, Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid. A number of regime officials, including al-Majid, have been sentenced to death. The sentence to date has not been carried out. FoxNews
 Does anybody besides me remember the remilitarization of the Rhineland?
Or that that unopposed action was followed by the Austrian Anschluss? Or the Obersalzberg conference that brought forth “Peace in Our Time” for Sir Neville Chamberlain?
Or the occupation of the Sudetenland followed closely by the conquest of all Czechoslovakia? And that fateful day, September 1, 1939, when World War Two started in Europe with the invasion of Poland? Obviously not. Perhaps it is fitting that the radio station I am listening to is broadcasting Brahms German Requiem.
If you go back and read the accounts of the times on the German side you find out that Hitler would have retreated at the first sign of opposition. He know that his Wehrmacht was still hollow. Had the French mobilized we might have postponed if not ended World War Two before it started. Has Iran “remilitarized the Rhineland”?
Only time will tell. But you can be sure that if Iraq does not take strong action Iran will seize another oil well. Eventually they will seize the entire field if they do it one well at a time or all at once.
Will the Iraqis mobilize and take the well back?
There are rumors that Iraq has ordered home the families of its security personnel in Damascus.
Debka is reporting that the Obama Administration has gotten Israel to postpone by another six months any military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Can you say “Peace in Our Time”? Except we haven’t even gone to Obertehran and had a conference with the Hitler of our time or his puppet master. Sir Winston Churchill chronicled the rise of Nazi Germany in his The Gathering Storm.
The British were slow to believe what Sir Winston was saying during the rise of Hitler. Are we being slow to believe what Iran’s neighbors are saying about Iran’s rise under the Ayatollahs?I pray we are not chronicling the events prior to the next World War. World Threats
 I’ve always argued that oil was as a factor in the U.S. decision to invade Iraq–not THE only factor, but a factor. U.N. sanctions and then general instability prevented Iraq from reaching its full potential as an oil exporter. If Iraq became a democracy and increased oil output, it would strategically benefit the free world in great ways. Now, don’t misunderstand me. I don’t believe that the U.S. wanted oil companies to pillage Iraq.
At any rate, that didn’t happen. A Russian company, LukOil, won the rights to major oil fields–not exactly the result of an evil American campaign to steal Middle Eastern oil. That doesn’t change the strategic and economic benefits for the U.S., though: LUKoil, which won big at Iraq’s weekend oil auctions, expects a “revolution” in world oil markets when enough crude to add 20 percent to global supply starts to flow from the country’s supergiant fields. LUKoil shareholder Leonid Fedun said Monday that he expected a fivefold rise in Iraqi production to cap oil price growth, while also deterring investors from pursuing more difficult and costly projects. “A top manager at a leading Western firm said the modern history of the oil business will be split into the pre-Iraq and post-Iraq periods. I agree,” Fedun said in an interview. Iraq has deals on the table to raise oil capacity to 12 million barrels per day from its current 2.5 million bpd, a level that would eclipse Russia and leave the country behind only Saudi Arabia. This isn’t just hubris from an excited company wanting investors.
The Iraqis are open about their desire to produce 12 million bpd in ten years. You can’t have too many pro-American sources of oil, and this reduces our reliance upon Saudi oil.
That means Saudi Arabia can be pressured and gives us some more room to breath over instability in the Kingdom and the possibility of attacks on their oil infrastructure.
The increased supply also means oil prices can come down unless Iraq works with other OPEC countries to fix prices. World Threats
 A senior Iraqi official said Iranian soldiers crossed into Iraqi territory on Friday and took up position at a southern oilfield whose ownership is disputed by Iran, but Tehran denied the report. Iraqi Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Ali al-Khafaji said the incursion was the latest in a series this week at the Fakka oilfield, around 300 kilometers (185 miles) southeast of Baghdad, in Maysan province. "At 3:30 this afternoon, 11 Iranian (soldiers) infiltrated the Iran-Iraq border and took control of the oil well. They raised the Iranian flag, and they are still there until this moment," he told Reuters. Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency later quoted the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) as rejecting the report. "The company denies Iranian soldiers taking control of any oil well inside Iraqi territory," Mehr quoted the NIOC as saying. Oil prices rose after the first reports of an incursion. Khafaji said Baghdad had taken no military action and stressed it would seek a measured, diplomatic response to the situation. "We are awaiting orders from our leader." "This well is located on Iraqi land, 300 meters (yards) inside Iraq. It is disputed between Iran and Iraq. There was an agreement between the two countries' oil ministers to fix this problem diplomatically," he said. An Iraqi security source in Maysan province, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iranian troops had made their way on Thursday into the Fakka oilfield area, located just on the Iraqi side of the two countries' long desert border, then withdrawn after several hours. The benchmark US light crude oil future moved to a high of $74.69 per barrel at 1414 GMT, up from $73.31 at 1108 GMT before the first reports, and was $73.45 at 1700 GMT. The incident came a few days after the Iraqi Oil Ministry awarded leading global energy firms contracts to operate seven oil fields, in the second tender since the 2003 US invasion. Iraq, whose underperforming oil sector is scarred by years of sanctions and war, predicts a host of development deals in the works will eventually lift output to 12 million barrels per day, putting it nearly on par with global leader Saudi Arabia. It would be a wave of long-awaited investment in Iraq. But as US troops prepare to withdraw by 2012, firms must grapple with violence, political feuds and legal wrangles dogging large-scale investment deals. The government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has been struggling to respond to a spate of attacks, the last of which killed up to 112 last week in Baghdad, aimed at destabilizing the country ahead of March 7 national elections. Ties between Iraq and neighboring Iran, which fought an eight-year war in the 1980s, have improved since a Shiite-led government took over in Baghdad following the ousting of Sunni Arab leader Saddam Hussein in 2003. Yet tensions have flared in inhospitable desert regions like eastern Maysan, just one of many flashpoints of continuing disagreement over shared borders between the majority Shiite Muslim neighbors. The bilateral relationship is all the more delicate given Washington and Tehran's standoff over Iran's nuclear program and the presence of 115,000 US soldiers on Iraqi soil. A source in the Iranian embassy in Baghdad said he had no information about any incursion. "If such a thing had happened, they would have told us," he said, referring to the Iranian government in Tehran. Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani told al-Arabiya, "Iraq will not give up its oil wealth, no matter the reason." Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said ministers would meet this evening and make a statement after discussing the issue. Together with Bazargan and Abu Gharab, Fakka is part of the so-called Maysan Fields, which have an estimated 2.463 billion barrels of reserves. According Iraq's Oil Ministry, oil output in the Fakka area began in the 1970s but was suspended during the Iran-Iraq war. Iraq offered the Maysan oilfield complex to global energy firms in its first postwar development contract auction in June. But a Chinese consortium, the sole group to bid on the fields, declined the Oil Ministry's proposal for fees. YNet
 As many as 56,000 private contractors could accompany the 30,000 additional U.S. troops being sent to Afghanistan, according to a congressional study. The Congressional Research Service report says that would bring the number of contractors in the country to about 160,000. Last December, contractors made up 69 percent of the Pentagon's personnel in Afghanistan, "the highest recorded percentage of contractors used by the Defense Department in any conflict in the history of the United States," according to the study, which was first reported by Talking Points Memo. The dramatic increase in contract work is changing the way military leaders wage war. "Prior to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, contracting was done on an ad-hoc basis and was not adequately incorporated into the doctrine -- or culture -- of the military," the CRS report said. Now "doctrine and strategy are being updated to incorporate the role of contractors in contingency operations."
 WASHINGTON: Iraqi militants have regularly used cheap and widely-available software to intercept the feeds of US-operated drones, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Citing senior defence and intelligence officials, the Journal said Iranian-backed Shi'ite insurgents used software programs such as SkyGrabber - available online for $US25.95 ($A28.81) - to capture drone feeds. The practice was uncovered in July 2009, when the US military found files of intercepted drone video feeds on the laptop of a captured militant. They discovered "days and days and hours and hours of proof", a person described as familiar with the situation told the Journal. "It is part of their kits now." Some of the most detailed examples of drone intercepts have been uncovered in Iraq, but the same technique is known to have been employed in Afghanistan and could easily be used in other areas where US drones operate. The US government has known about the flaw since the 1990s but assumed its adversaries would not be able to take advantage of it, the Journal said. US officials said there was no evidence that militants could control the drones or otherwise interfere with their flights, but the vulnerability would allow the unmanned craft to be monitored and tracked. Defence officials told the Journal efforts were being made to fix the flaw, but noted that adding encryption to a decade-old system is tricky and requires upgrading several components of the system linking drones to ground control. One of the developers of SkyGrabber, which is made by Russian company SkySoftware, told the Journal he had no idea the program could be used to intercept drone feeds. "It was developed to intercept music, photos, video, programs and other content that other users download from the Internet - no military data or other commercial data, only free legal content," Andrew Solonikov told the Journal. The Australian
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Kenneth Pollack and Michael E. O’Hanlon have an editorial over at The New York Times discussing how the Iraqi government has banned 500 Sunni politicians from running for office. 
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