The surge in Iraq-Nam didn't work.  In fact, it failed pretty spectacularly.  This isn't to deny that the violence is down in Baghdad (at least, violence against US forces).  But if you remember, the purpose of the surge was to create sufficient security for the Iraq-Namese politicians to work out details on power-sharing, disbursement of revenues and a general overall settlement.  Just today, the world has been given more proof that the politicians in the Green Zone regime are unwilling or unable to make use of the breathing space the surge brought them.  Just like before the surge, they remain prepared to fight to the last American.  President Talabani has rejected the legislation needed to hold provincial elections on October 1.  The Speaker held a secret vote to ram through part of the legislation (which has never happened since the parliament was seated) and the Kurds walked out in protest.

The Iraq War has never been about anything but oil.  We know it, but so far the traditional media has all but ignored the lies that the Bush administration used to get us into the war.  Of course the media was Bush's biggest enabler, so they don't want to draw attention to their part in the debacle.

Recently I wrote a diary about the Bush administration's part in negotiating no-bid contracts for big oil.  (People weren't very interested).  A quote from the NY Times sums it up:

A group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the largest fields in Iraq, American officials say.

Last week, Lineatus asked me to write a guest Dawn Chorus diary on location in Iraq. I wrote the following last weekend in Suleymaniya, a city in the Kurdistan region, and am posting it this morning:

I’ll give you an update on what’s flying around in my part of the world, but first permit me to share a couple websites, and allow me a short digression on ravens.

This is getting to be like Lucy Van Pelt pulling away the football when Charlie Brown goes to kick it.  For the second time in a month, the Iraqi presidency council has vetoed a law that was hailed as a great breakthrough by the Bush Administration, John McCain and the slew of neocon handlers.  This familiar pattern plays on the failures of most of the traditional media to follow up on anything.  There's a big news hit when the Iraqis pass a bill, like the de-Baathification law, or this recent one setting up provincial elections.  Then the law is quietly submarined, but that story ends up on A-27, weeks after the initial story on A-1.  The effect is to give people the false sense that there's any political movement whatsoever, pushing the "shut up we're winning" story right along to a public that can't be expected to do the legwork and know the difference.  And here we go again.

The situation in northern Iraq is becoming clearer.  The Turkish paper Today’s Zaman reports in several current articles on the goals and timetables of the Turkish invasion.  The resulting picture is of a long-term presence meant to change strategic alignments in the region as much as to fight the PKK.

From M K Bhadrakumar at Asia Times:

Turkey's offensive comes at a price

However, the timing of the [Turkish] incursion [into Northern Iraq] has a far wider significance. It is obvious that the timing has much to do with political alignments within Iraq. For the first time since 2003, Iraqi Kurds are politically isolated. The Kurdish parties have come under pressure from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government, as it pushes through a US$45 billion budget that substantially reduces the share of income of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) from 17% to 14.5%. Baghdad also refuses to pay the salary of the 80,000-strong Kurdish militia (Peshmerga) or to allow the provincial legislature to remove federally appointed provincial governors. Equally, Baghdad is firm on the federal government's prerogative to be the sole authority to award contracts to foreign oil companies.

Sunni parties, the Shi'ite Sadrist movement, the Turkomen party (supported by Ankara) and possibly the Iraqi List headed by former prime minister Iyad Allawi (who has links with the West) are arrayed as a majority grouping within the Iraqi Parliament, which seeks strengthening of Baghdad's central authority over the Kurdish provinces. The US remains supportive of Maliki.

Iraqi Kurdish ambitions no longer match US interests. A devastating recent essay by Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute titled "Is Iraqi Kurdistan a Good Ally?" analyzed the shifting alignments. Rubin thoroughly questioned the assumptions regarding the Iraqi Kurds' "pro-Americanism". He underscored that Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani would turn out to be like former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as a thorn in Washington's side. Rubin alleged double-dealings by the Iraqi Kurds with Iran. He suggested the rampantly corrupt and decadent leadership in Kurdistan could only lead to a strengthening of the forces of religious conservatism and the growth of Islamist parties.

Days since Mission Accomplished: 1762

Cost per minute of the Iraq war and occupation, according to the Congressional Research Service: $222,222

Here is the Overnight News Digest.

This morning brings ugly news.

Turkish ground troops - I've heard rumors of as much as 10,000 - have crossed into northern Iraq in an operation against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
I'm no expert (for that, watch for this guy's analysis), but I know there's more sympathy among the peshmerga than there should be for the PKK, and the strong nationalism of the Kurds in northern Iraq isn't going to take this well. And at the very least, I'd think this would deeply strain the relationship between Kurdistan and the Iraqi "government" unless the Iraqi Arabs step up.

Though I do have to point out this ironic response posted on FreeRepublic:

Invading another nation is not the stuff of rational states...muslim or not.

I concur.

Update Read on . . .

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


click to enlarge

Baghdad Sunnis celebrated the birth of the New Year much the same as we did here in the states. Fireworks, street celebrations, and tons of young people dancing and snapping pictures of themselves celebrating. Hope for a good year to come, albeit guarded, enveloped the crowds. This could be the year...

Unfortunately, that's where the similarities ended.

At a few ticks past midnight, the anticlimactic end of the night came in the form of a sudden and complete electricity blackout. It immediately left most of Baghdad in darkness, and most of its residents confounded and crestfallen.

Well, at least the fireworks display went off without a hitch. The rockets snapped, crackled, popped; lighting up the sky even more spectacularly than it had before the blackout occurred.

Which benchmark you might ask? I think you'll remember the much discussed benchmark, the so-called "Oil Revenue Sharing Law". President Bush has said that passage of the oil law will result in the sharing of oil revenue among all Iraqis and that its passage will help unify the country. The oil law has broad support in Congress among both democrats and republicans. The Iraq Study Group supports its passage as does the IMF.

The legislation of the new Iraqi Oil & Gas Law by the Iraqi parliament has become the most important benchmark of the US Administration, its oil lobbies, the IOCs, the IMF, and the occupying forces. The Bush administration wants this law to be passed as soon as possible, whatever the cost to the Iraqi people.

Source

A year has passed since the landmark deadline of December 2006, for the Iraqi government to deliver the long awaited Iraqi oil law. The Iraqi Parliament has not passed it. Let's take a look at what has happened.

BBC News is reporting that Massoud Barzani, the head of Iraq's Kurdish regional government, has refused to meet the US Secretary of State because of the US position on Turkish cross-border raids.

Speaking to reporters in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, the prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Nechirvan Barzani, said its president had refused to meet Ms Rice because of Washington's tolerance of the recent Turkish raids.

"It is unacceptable that the United States, in charge of monitoring our airspace, authorised Turkey to bomb our villages."
Nechirvan Barzani
PM, Kurdish Regional Government

"It was decided that Massoud Barzani would go to Baghdad to take part in a meeting with Condoleezza Rice and other officials, but he will not go now as a sign of protest against the American position on the bombings by Turkey," he said.

"It is unacceptable that the United States, in charge of monitoring our airspace, authorised Turkey to bomb our villages," he added.

Things are going swimmingly in Iraq.

About 300 Turkish soldiers, carrying only light weapons, entered an area of the mountainous northern Kurdish province of Dahuk, about 200 km (120 miles) from the Iraqi city of Kirkuk, where Rice's plane first touched down.

The soldiers clashed with Kurdish separatist guerrillas, a Turkish military official said. Turkey says it has the right to use military force to combat Kurdish rebels who shelter in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

This latest "strategy" on Iraq being floated by the Emanuel-Hoyer wing of the party is absolutely flabbergasting.  They're trying to take the (correct) argument that the only progress meaningful in Iraq is political progress, and then twist it into an unworkable plan to tie political progress to war funding.

Now, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) is examining a new approach, releasing war funds in small increments, with further installments tied to specific performance measures for Iraq's politicians. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) also is searching for a new approach and has been briefed on the idea of more explicitly tying funds to political progress.

The Iraq Sustainable Democracy Project has been gathering testimonials, interviews, and data from villages all over northern Iraq where there is the most "democracy". Christopher Hitchens has led the growing chorus proclaiming the victory of Western ideals and democracy in the Kurdish-ruled north of Iraq, which is under the control of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

But the ethnic cleansing goes on. Haven't had your heart broken yet today? Read on.

McClatchy: Former air-force general Joseph Ralston, appointed a year ago to help end the activities of Kurd terrorists, blasted George Bush over American promises to Turkey about ending PKK activities in Iraq:

The officer who commands U.S. forces in northern Iraq, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Nixon, last week said he planned to do "absolutely nothing" to curb PKK activities.

Ralston, a vice chairman of the Washington-based Cohen Group, a consulting firm, said the statement was "directly opposite" promises Bush has made to Turkey.

'Directly opposite' promises Bush has made to Turkey...  

We're having a debate about Iran in this country, a debate between reason and utter insanity.  It's clear that the Cheney Administration has found the next Hitler in the guy who controls the traffic signals in Tehran; and they will be relentless in fostering a climate of fear in the American pschye, designed to turn them into a quivering mass who will submit to their father-protectors.  Whether or not this is the work of the mentally ill is besides the point.  The point is this:

Every day we talk about Iran is one less day we're talking about Iraq.

Why have tensions suddenly escalated along the Turkish border with Iraq? Why have Kurdish PKK guerrillas been going out of their way in recent weeks to provoke a conflict with Turkish forces? Why have Kurdish PJAK guerrillas been stepping up their cross-border activities into Iran?

The most important clue may lie in the persona and actions of Ray L. Hunt, CEO of Hunt Consolidated, Inc., member of the Halliburton Board of Directors, Bush "Pioneer," major Republican fund-raiser, contributor of $35 million to Southern Methodist University (SMU) to support a George W. Bush Presidential Library and think tank (oxymoron alert), and, by the way, member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB).

In short, Ray L. Hunt is a poster boy for Republican, Texas Big Oil, crony capitalism.

Below the break let us ponder how Hunt appears to be a primary catalyst for cataclysm in the Middle East.

(Reworked and updated based on readers' comments on an earlier posting at DocuDharma.)

Don Rumsfeld was charged with war-crimes today. Bushco's connection to Mid-East terrorism and pork may be the next story to blow.
Wapo

Retired Air Force Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, a former NATO commander Bush appointed last year as his special envoy to work on the issue, left the job recently because of what several sources described as his frustration at the administration's failure to devote serious attention to the problem. Ralston, vice chairman of an international consulting firm led by former defense secretary William S. Cohen, did not return several calls for comment.

There's far more at stake...