Amatzia Baram is a professor in the Department of the History of the Middle East and director of the Center for Iraq Studies at the University of Haifa, Israel. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, he served as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. In 2003-2005 he was Senior Fellow at the USIP and the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., and in 2006 taught an honors course on Iraq at Melbourne University. He also advised various branches of the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations on Iraq and the Gulf region. Presently he is a Goldman Guest Professor for Middle East at Georgetown University. On October 28, Mr. Baram addressed the Middle East Forum in New York on the current political situation in Iraq. The following is a brief summary, including updates to the end of November 2010.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 8, 2008, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. and coalition forces commander in Iraq, reported a dramatic reduction in violence levels and civilian deaths from fifteen months before when Iraq seemed on the brink of civil war.[1] Petraeus attributed this turning point to the increased numbers of coalition and Iraqi forces, part of the surge declared by President George W. Bush in January 2007, but he gave equal credit to the predominantly Sunni popular movement known as the Sons of Iraq (SOI). “These volunteers have contributed significantly in various areas,” he said. “With their assistance and with relentless pursuit of al-Qaeda-Iraq, the threat posed by AQI, while still lethal and substantial, has been reduced significantly.”[2]
After acceding to U.S. requests for nine months by freezing construction on existing Jewish settlements in the West Bank and also not building over the pre-1967 frontier in Jerusalem, Israel got nothing.
While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed willing to continue it in some form, pressures from within his coalition made that impossible.Therefore, the freeze is coming to an end, though Israel is still ready to discuss limits on new construction. Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas is threatening to walk out of the once-every-two-weeks direct talks.
Screaming, “Allahu Akbar” (”G#d is great!”), while trying to kill people?!?!?! Should we call it “religious murder?” Well these Iraqi terrorists got nailed in the act — instantaneously — and filmed themselves getting sent to “heaven?!?!?.” Watch the video, then read the description of the tactical details provided by Jeremy Buff (below):
The modern State of Israel recently attempted to peacefully dissuade a flotilla of ships from landing “humanitarian” supplies at the blockaded Gaza Strip. The flotilla was invited several times by the Israeli government to offload the supplies in Israel proper where the supplies would be delivered once they had been inspected for contraband. The flotilla was determined to run the blockade and was boarded by elements of the IDF.
There is indisputable video evidence of how murderous the Jihadist occupants of the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara planned to become as they attacked an IDF boarding party. As they were boarding the ship, the leading element of IDF Commandos who were carrying non-lethal paintball guns were immediately and viscously attacked and beaten by men wielding clubs, steel rods, knives, wrist-rocket slingshots and other instruments meant to maim and kill. The IDF soldiers were given permission to use their sidearms only after one of them was thrown 30 feet from the upper to lower deck.
Warning of the existential perils to Israel, the United States and the entire western world that a nuclear empowered Iran represents, the Honorable John Bolton, former US ambassador to the United Nations delivered a powerful address as keynote speaker at the 2010 Jerusalem Reclamation Project/Ateret Cohanim dinner on Thursday evening, May 13th at Terrace on the Park.
Citing the plethora of misinformation and misimpressions that swirl around the status of Israel, Jerusalem and its surrounding settlements, Ambassador Bolton made several oblique references to the current strain in US-Israeli relations and chastised the Obama administration for pressuring Israel to cease construction of new homes for Jewish residents in East Jerusalem. “People should be able to buy and sell property in Jerusalem, as in any other country, and clearly peace in the region is not dependent on Israel making territorial concessions”, he intoned. Referring to the chilly reception and humiliating treatment that was accorded to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his most recent visit to Washington, Ambassador Bolton said, “Today, Afghan president Hamid Kharzi was treated to a gala lunch at the White House and shown the kind of respect that we display to our allies. Lest we forget that Israel is our staunchest ally in the Middle East and as such the prime minister of Israel should receive the same respect.”
“The stupidest program the U.S. government has ever undertaken” — last year that’s what I called American efforts to improve the Palestinian Authority (PA) military force. Slightly hyperbolic, yes, but the description fits because those efforts enhance the fighting power of enemies of the United States and its Israeli ally.
Following a lengthy period during which Hamas bombarded southern Israel unopposed, Israel finally attacked Gaza in an attempt to cripple Hamas’s fighting capabilities. The ensuing conflict in December 2008 and January 2009 led to a high casualty count on the Palestinian side. Even before the war ended, the U.N. Human Rights Council, a body thought biased against Israel, met at the behest of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in a special session to condemn the Israeli assault and to call for a mandate to carry out a fact-finding mission designed to investigate the conflict.
I’m not going to bash or rant about a Newsweek article about Turkey by Owen Matthews–shocking and dangerous as it is–but rather talk about what is wrong and inaccurate about it. That article is part of a new wave of defeatism sweeping the West, though it still remains subordinate to the more ostensibly attractive idea that there is no real conflict or at least one easy to fix by Western concessions.
The arrest and indictment of top military figures in Turkey last week precipitated potentially the most severe crisis since Atatürk founded the republic in 1923. The weeks ahead will probably indicate whether the country continues its slide toward Islamism or reverts to its traditional secularism. The denouement has major implications for Muslims everywhere.
The Department of Defense has just released its new Quadrennial Defense Review Report for 2010. What does it say about the Middle East? Far less than you’d expect in terms of space but still some extremely important points about what might involve the United States in future wars there.
Aside from some scattered references on the need for more civilian nation-building experts, funding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and energy conservation efforts (that’s an area, no doubt, where money could be saved), that region takes up less than two pages, about two percent, of the 97-page report.
“War,” said General William Tecumseh Sherman, “is Hell.” He knew what he was talking about. Sherman’s march through Georgia and into South Carolina at the end of the Civil War helped end the Civil War while destroying a lot of civilian homes, farms, and towns.
His strategy was to inflict such terrible punishment on the South that it would surrender faster, thus saving lives. His men did things shocking to Americans even after such a bloody conflict, burning plantations and destroying everything in their wake. Ironically, though, even Sherman’s deeds have been exaggerated.
In the last week, senior Israeli policymakers made statements of an uncharacteristically bellicose nature regarding Syria.
It is unlikely that these statements were made because of sudden random irritation toward Israel’s hostile northeastern neighbor. Rather, the statements probably constituted part of a message of deterrence to Damascus.
The need to project deterrence itself derives from a series of significant changes currently under way on the ground in Lebanon — reflecting Syria’s ever tighter alignment with Hizbullah and the pro-Iranian regional bloc of which it is a part.
The Obama administration is caught on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, it has welcomed the Gulf Security Dialogue (GSD) as a chance to further “mutual interests” with Persian Gulf states, but, on the other, it has sought pragmatic engagement with the Islamic Republic–the greatest threat to gulf security. Michael Knights, a Persian Gulf expert at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, noted in September that the “rapid advances” of the military forces of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) were the result of the dialogue. He predicts that they “may eclipse Iranian capabilities in the gulf within ten years.”[1] Yet the GSD’s initiatives are inadequate and need a foreign policy that stresses relationships and ideals. If policy within the gulf is to be dominated by short-term pragmatic demands, it may turn out to have unwanted consequences for other alliances in the region. That in turn could well have a negative impact on the United States.
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