Chalabi's Back

Ahmad Chalabi is back in power in Iraq. I had been wondering what happened to him. The LA Times reports that he is now in charge of restoring the Baghdad infrastructure -- electricity, water, trash collection, etc. No doubt he is using to good personal advantage his ability to give away politically valuable stuff that is paid for by someone else, probably the US. Since he was one of the main people responsible for starting the Iraq war, it is not surprising that he is benefiting from it. His ability to make Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz his puppets who danced to his instructions showed how clever he is. Now, to come back like the phoenix from the ashes of his banishment from Baghdad shows it again. It probably does not bode well for Iraq, since Chalabi is much more interested in helping himself than in helping Iraq. It just shows how American policy in Iraq has failed, failed, failed, while Chalabi has won, won, won at America's expense, figuratively and literally.

How Are Services in Baghdad?

There has been a lot of press about how well the surge is working in Baghdad and how many people are returning from Syria and Jordan. But how well is the reconstruction of the Iraqi infrastructure going? Until now, a major problem has been security. We couldn't build things like sewage plants, electrical generation stations, etc., because people kept getting killed working on them. Now what's it like? How many hours do Baghdad residents have electricity? Do they have water?

The other question is what has happened to the neighborhoods? Has violence dropped because the neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed, because neighborhoods that were once mixed Sunni and Shiite are now only one or the other?

And, has the violence dropped because we defeated al Qaeda and other opponents, or have they just faded into the woodwork until the surge is over? It appears that the surge is about over. Troops are coming home that are not being replaced, because there are no troops to replace them.

It looks like the surge proved that we needed more troops than we had for most of the war. Why did it take us four years to learn that? Just how bad are our military planners and leaders?

Bush Lessens US Standing in the World

The Financial Times had an excellent editorial saying that the US needs to make some more friends in the world to help it achieve its objectives. Bush loves to stick his finger in other countries' eyes and call for regime change, but it doesn't work that well, as Iraq illustrates. This editorial is apparently based on a a report by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. It says, "One of the chief casualties of the Bush administration's foreign and security policies has been US standing in the world. This loss of reputation matters. In testing the limits of its 'hard power', the administration has sacrificed precious 'soft power' resources too. It hurts the country that so many people around the world no longer trust it to act responsibly, and that (according to a recent BBC poll of 26,000 people in 25 countries) one in two says the US is playing a mainly negative role in the world."

It adds, "Dethrone the 'war on terror' as the organising principle of US action - not because containing terrorism is unimportant, but because subordinating everything to that aim makes it harder to achieve."

But in general, even of the this report, the FT says, "there is a whiff of hubris about it."

Send the State Department to Change Regimes

The op-ed in the NYT on "Send the State Department to War"

1. Criticizes the State Department for a reorganization that was mandated by Sen. Jesse Helms, a Republican who hated State, and
2. Implies that the main job of State should be regime change.

On both counts it is misguided. Helms mandated that USIS (the public affairs diplomatic arm) be merged into main State, along with AID and ACDA (which he doesn't mention). No doubt merging them into State has made them somewhat less desirable, but that's what the Republicans wanted because they generally hate State and what to see it stymied in whatever it's doing. But I doubt that separating them out again will make much difference in the short term.

He complains that State has not been involved enough in Iraq and Afghanistan, but part of that is due to Rumsfeld and his colleagues at Defense, who fought hard to keep State out of Iraq and to make Defense responsible for things that would normally be done by State. Only after Defense failed at these tasks did insiders start to call for State to take up the tasks and to criticize State for not having done it earlier.

Without specifically mentioning regime change, Max Boot calls for State to aid moderate Muslims, flex our political and diplomatic muscles to achieve vital objectives peacefully, gather intelligence, and build the rule of law in ungoverned lands.

I am one of those, who as he says will "object that to build up these capacities will encourage reckless 'imperialism' or 'militarism.' But improving our abilities in nation-building, strategic communications, security advising and related disciplines will actually lessen the chances that we will need to mount a major military intervention such as the one in Iraq."