For those of you keeping score at home (which seems to be a dwindling number of Americans), there are a number of events going on in Iraq that are, shall we say, not good. While an Obama victory may have meant that many Americans checked off "get out of Iraq" on their list of things that will be done, there is a dangerous situation getting worse as Bush prepares to leave office and ram the Status of Forces Agreement down the throats of many unwilling Iraqis.
Now, this isn’t just Bush, as he has the help of Prime Minister al-Maliki and defense minister Abdul Qadir Muhammed Jassim – but when the words "state of emergency", "threat", "thousands of protesters", and "multiple bombings in defiance" start coming out in different reports at the same time, it is a stark reminder of the mess that we are still in overseas (not to mention yet another sign that "the surge worked" is total BS).
Last night, we were reminded that the Kurds were still (not surprisingly) not at all interested in being a part of a "centralized" Iraq. And yet, that is only one of a number of bad signs cropping up for anyone that takes a five minute look through the major headlines.
Or even a look at some headlines which are below the surface, as a potentially budding targeting of Christians in Mosul may be occurring:
The mother of two sisters killed in Mosul last week has died from injuries sustained during the attack on her family home. The funerals were celebrated yesterday.
November 12th last, a band of armed youths stormed the Siro-Catholic family’s home in the Alqahira quarter of the city killing the sisters Lamia and Walàa Sobhy Salloha. They then turned on the mother with a knife. The father and another son who escaped during the moment of the attack are safe. Initially the wounds sustained by the mother, Selma Giargis did not appear to be grave. But in the hospital in Mosul her condition worsened also because of a lack in basic medicine.
The situation of Mosul’s Christians is increasingly tragic. In the month of October 16 faithful were killed and 2 thousand families forced to flee their homes. Over the past few days an estimated 700 families have returned, reassured by government promises of improved security. 52 year old Imad Hanna, told Ankawa, that he had fled to Karakosh, Kurdistan, 50-60 km north of Mosul. "What made me return – he said – wasn’t the security situation, but material need".
The Status of Forces Agreement, which would keep US forces in Iraq for another three years, is the source of the latest "unrest". On one side is al-Malaki and other supporters of the agreement – threatening to declare a state of emergency and quite possibly impose martial law if the SOFA is not overwhelmingly passed.
On the other side, there are thousands of protesters who demonstrated over the weekend and burned Bush in effigy, as well as the potential for al-Sadr to end his militia’s ceasefire. In fact, there were two attacks over the past day - including one in the Green Zone – killing 16 people and injuring a similar number as well. Early indications are that this is related to the potential for the SOFA passing.
And as Siun reported over at FireDogLake, a passage by a small majority may not suffice:
On Saturday we learned that the vote in Iraq will be delayed until Wednesday even as more reports begin to surface that passage is not assured. In fact the Speaker of Parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, said it has only a "50-50" chance of passing. A close vote will not meet Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s warning that the agreement must have a "national consensus" demonstrated through passage by "a big majority."
All in all, just because our economy is crumbling and we have a transition in the Executive Branch and more domestic bad news every day doesn’t mean that there aren’t significant disasters still occurring in Iraq – an "endeavor" that has sucked hundreds of billions from the United States and no doubt contributed more than almost everything else to the current mess we are facing here.