Iran tells Talabani that US-led forces must leave Iraq
Nov 28 8:36 AM US/Eastern



Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei told visiting Iraqi President Jalal Talabani that US-led forces had to leave Iraq if security was to be restored in the violence-riven country.
"The first step to solve the security issue in Iraq is the exit of the occupiers from this country and leaving the security issues to the people-based Iraqi government," Khamenei was quoted as saying by state television.

"Americans will absolutely not succeed in Iraq and the continuation of Iraq's occupation is not a mouthful that Americans can swallow," Khamenei said Tuesday during a meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

"The main reason for the current situation in Iraq is the US policies that are being carried out by some intermediaries," the Iranian leader said.

He put the blame for Iraq's insecurity on "some US agents in the region who are mediators of these policies".

"Reinforcing terrorist groups and inflaming the wave of insecurity and killings in Iraq will be very dangerous for the US agents and the region," Khamenei said.

He also pledged that the Islamic republic would come to Iraq's assistance if requested.

"If the Iraqi government asks, Iran will not refrain from any action to establish stability and security in this country."

"Americans will absolutely not succeed in Iraq and the continuation of Iraq's occupation is not a mouthful that Americans can swallow," Khamenei told him.

Talabani, paying a three-day official visit to the Shiite-dominated neighbouring country, has acknowledged he came to seek Tehran's help in curbing bloodshed which is increasingly being perceived as civil war.

During his trip to Tehran, Talabani also received fresh vows of assistance from his counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to stem the violence in war-torn Iraq.

Washington and London, whose forces are battling insurgents in Iraq, accuse Tehran of fomenting the sectarian conflict.

Iran has strongly denied meddling in Iraq, insisting repeatedly that the Iraqi conflict will be resolved if the occupation forces pull out of Iraq.

At a meeting with Talabani on Monday, Ahmadinejad promised to do all his country could. "We will help our Iraqi brothers with all that we can to implement and reinforce security in Iraq," the Iranian president said.

Talabani told reporters as he arrived in Tehran: "We need Iran's comprehensive help to fight terrorism, restore security and stabilize Iraq."

The Iraqi president, whose Patriotic Union of Kurdistan has in the past been backed by Iran, made a landmark visit to Tehran in November 2005. He said at the time he had won Iran's promise of support for his government's battle with insurgents.

His latest plea for help came as a fresh outbreak of violence left dozens dead across Iraq. The bodies of at least 40 people bearing torture marks were recovered after being dumped in various parts of the capital.

The Iran visit coincides with a flurry of diplomatic activity to try to resolve the worsening situation in Iraq, with US President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki set to meet Wednesday in the Jordanian capital Amman.

Washington's staunch ally Britain on Monday condemned what it called Iran's behaviour in inciting violence in Iraq.

British Defence Secretary Des Browne warned the Islamic republic against seeing Iraq as a "tool in a wider confrontation" -- a reference to US-led efforts to force Tehran to curb its nuclear plans which the West suspects hide ambitions for nuclear weapons.

Tehran insists its atomic plans are only for civilian use.

November 28, 2006
Thousands Protest Delays in Kosovo’s Independence

By REUTERS
PRISTINA, Serbia, Nov 28 (Reuters) - U.N. police in Kosovo fired teargas on Tuesday to disperse ethnic Albanians who smashed the windows of parliament and stoned U.N. headquarters, angry at a delay to their demand for independence from Serbia.

Thousands of protesters converged on the main symbols of authority in the capital, Pristina, throwing red paint on the buildings of the U.N. mission and Kosovo's interim government.

They dispersed after U.N. police fired teargas from inside the U.N. compound, a fortified square on the site of a former Serb military headquarters.

It was the first sign of a violent backlash since Western powers and Russia this month decided to delay a U.N. decision on the Albanian majority's demand for independence until next year.

The United Nations, which has run Kosovo since NATO bombs drove out Serb forces in 1999, on Monday reported "credible threats" to its personnel and property. It stepped up security but did not link the warning to Tuesday's demonstration.

Protest leader Albin Kurti, a former political prisoner in Serbia, promised more rallies in the capital.

"Pristina is the centre and source of all the bad things that are happening to Kosovo," he told the crowd.

Albanians greeted NATO and the United Nations as saviours when they wrested control of Kosovo from Serbia in 1999, ending a Serb counter-insurgency campaign that the West said was becoming a bloodbath. But the mood has soured over seven years of political limbo and economic stagnation.

The Kosovo government called for calm, and for people to "distance themselves from such acts". A U.N. spokesman refused to comment on the violence.

The West had promised a decision on Kosovo's final status this year, but opted to delay until after a general election in Serbia on Jan. 21, hoping to spare pro-Western parties the impact of a decision that may go against their country.

Diplomats say Kosovo ultimately is likely to win some form of independence, supervised by the European Union. But the timeframe and path to statehood remain unclear.

Kurti's followers say Kosovo should simply vote for its independence, rather than negotiate with Serbia.

Serb-Albanian talks began in February, but have produced little sign of compromise. U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari is expected to present his proposal on "final status" by February. But a new U.N. resolution could take months longer still.

U.N. veto holder and sometime Serb ally Russia insists the solution must satisfy Serbia, which says the amputation of Kosovo -- its religious cradle -- would violate international law.

Serbia lost control of Kosovo in 1999, when NATO intervened to halt atrocities by Serb forces in a two-year war with guerrillas. Some 10,000 Albanians died and 800,000 fled.

Around 100,000 Serbs remain, many in isolated enclaves watched over by a 17,000-strong NATO-led force of peacekeepers whose main task is now to prevent violence by Albanian extremists. (Additional reporting by Shaban Buza and Fatos Bytyci)

Hello from Sunlight.

Its been while since I last wrote, and I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving.

The election proved that we are at a critical moment in democratic history, and one where transparency matters more than ever. Having shaken off the old Congress with a powerful electoral shudder, citizens must now demand that both Democrats and Republicans shine a light on the inner recesses of power.

Every day there are new rumors about what Congress will and will not do, but it appears that we have a specific opportunity to open up Congress in the first few months of the next year. The Democratic Leadership has announced that it is going to spend a week of floor time allowing members 15 minutes each to propose parcels of a transparency and reform Agenda.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/20/AR2006112001233_pf.html

?According to the Washington Post, the elements of the Agenda are a "done deal," but we all know that more pressure can push whatever is "done." Lieberman, this week, was talking about how he might push for an Office of Public Integrity even if the House Leadership didn't include in its initial package, and the scuttlebutt is that there is much internal debate about the scope of transparency legislation.

So how can we use this time? How can we take that week and turn it into a platform for citizens' demands?? ?How can we use these critical six weeks to set up a cross-partisan citizen force that will demand more potent change? Please come to this blog post and give us some ideas:

http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/node/1567

The typical process of big pronouncements and small reforms can run its course, or the convergence of technology, outrage, and hope can transform American democracy. If just a small fraction of the 80% of Americans who said corruption was vital to their November vote bonded together to lobby Congress, the old system will crumble.

Thanks for your time, and let us know what you think,

?Zephyr Teachout?
National Director?
Sunlight Foundation?
http://www.sunlightfoundation.com?

What the Realists lost in Iraq, the Realists can fix
SPECIAL REPORT: "Who Lost Iraq? Success Has Many Fathers. The Mess in Baghdad Has a Lot More," by Chitra Ragavan, U.S. News & World Report, 27 November 2006, p. 38.
OP-ED: "Right Vision, Wrong Policy," by Jim Hoagland, The Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 20-26 November 2006, p. 5.

The U.S. News report is a great one, and the star of the piece is who it should be: Condi Rice. She is essentially identified as the weak link in the process, but for the wrong reasons.
Rice is said to be too close to Bush. Granted.

Rice is said to have been too much in favor of the war so as to abdicate her "impartial broker" role. Bullshit.

Again, we see the problem of calling everything "the war."

Rice's support for the war wasn't the problem. It just reflected her general inability to think outside her boss' box.

The real problem with Rice is that she came from the Brent Scowcroft school of realism and national security advising. After Iran-Contra, the Brent Scowcroft school of national security advising came into vogue: the national security adviser and the NSC staff became super-apolitical. Instead of being the government-wide advocator of national security policy and an active player in its own right, the NSC and its boss became foreign policy super-clerk to the president, the main job being protecting POTUS's ass from any blame.

This is essentially the Scowcroft model, and it reflected his realist take on things: no advocacy and no idealism from the NSC. It doesn't lead, it merely coordinates.

That became the preferred mode post-Iran-Contra, and it survived the Bush 41 administration nicely, segueing into the emasculated NSC of the Clinton years, when the NEC (national economic council) was actually more powerful because Rubin at Treasury topped any of the unmemorables at Defense.

When Rice came in with George, the NSC embraced the Scowcroft "we're-just-here-on-background" model. The staff I interacted with were all the same. I called them the "Joe Fridays." They'd come, they'd take notes, and that was it. They had no ideology to speak of. They were responsible for nothing. They just coordinated.

We won in Iraq--the war, that is.

What we continue to lose in Iraq in the peace. That loss occurs primarily because we're under-allied and under-coordinated interagency-wise. You place that blame on State and NSC. Rice ran NSC through the disastrous "lost year" following the invasion's successful conclusion (when Saddam's regime fell). Rice has been in charge of State for the last two years, during which our under-allied approach has proven quite isolating for us and quite invigorating for the insurgency and now sectarian warriors.

How so?

A big allied presence says to all, "This thing is happening. It's inevitable. Get used to it."

A narrow, U.S.-heavy presence says, "Just kill enough people and especially American troops to drive off the weak-willed U.S. Government."

Rice was in charge of the interagency process when it could make or break our effort. And it was broken on her watch.

Rice has been in charge (following perhaps the biggest do-nothing SECSTATE we've ever had in Colin Powell) of State and the alliance process during the past two years and all we've got to show for it is this unimaginative strategy of trying to isolate Iran--that's it. We're losing allies, adding no new ones, and picking new fights and bolstering old enemies in the very region we're now--out of desperation and incompetence in our nation-building effort in Iraq--trying to stabilize.

And more than anyone else in this administration we've got Rice and her minimalistic take on her jobs to thank for this mess. Just-the-facts-ma'am at NSC followed by talking-points diplomacy and (gasp!) yet another axis of evil member to isolate and contain (Why not take such a realist tack? Look what the original Realist approach on Iraq has gotten us over the years: build him up vis-a-vis Iran, then kick him out of Kuwait but don't finish the job so we can isolate him with no-flies and sanctions, only to finally go in again and get stuck with a mess that--of course--only the Realists can save us from today!).

I am being serious in this charge. Blaming Rummy for being Rummy or Wolfowitz and Feith for being Neocons is basically a cop-out. Yes, Powell was weak at SECSTATE, but the great balancer then was supposed to be Rice and the great balancer today is supposed to be Rice (her minion runs NSC in her wake). Blaming the strong for the performances of the weak is great commentary if you can get it on TV, but it adds nothing to knowledge.

But in the end, Rice was completely inconsequential. She was perfect for the job at NSC because she wouldn't do anything but coordinate, leaving the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis to dominate, and Bush defers to Cheney on foreign policy.

I know, I know. It's easy to pin it all on Cheney, but it's a good place to start. And it's not that I dislike Cheney's thinking much, because his realism is just realism on speed (he sees the inevitable and wants it done today!). He's the realist who's been mugged and decided that if it takes that long, he'll be an idealist in the short run.

I don't mind Cheney so much. I just wish he hadn't been elected POTUS as far as our foreign policy is concerned.

The Realist school of limited regrets is what got us the Middle East we have today, and their solution will be to simply recreate the same dynamics that worked so well in the past: Sunni dictators + isolate Iran + push for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Gosh, that's all worked so well in the past that I'm sure it'll do the trick this time.

I love Hoagland's acerbic take on it all:

History's seemingly unlimited store of irony now makes Bush 43 the evident instrument of the resurgence of the "realist" school of foreign policy so beloved of Bush 41 and so regularly scorned by this president--until he turned to it for salvation in Iraq and elsewhere.
Many will revel in this turn, and there is rough familial justice at work: Only the incompetence and discord of the past three years could cause reasonable people to welcome back with applause policymakers who failed to anticipate and then opposed the breakup of the Soviet Union; who were not realistic enough to see, much less prevent, the Balkans from plunging into flames; and who "coddled dictators from Beijing to Baghdad," as the Democrats once accurately described the handiwork of Brent Scowcroft, Bob Gates and Jim Baker under Bush 41.

So hold the champagne and cheers for the return of "realism," a word that has even less meaning than most of the labels that politicians, journalists and academics attach to schools of foreign policy. It is too often a euphemism for cynicism, for playing for time and for passing up big opportunities that carry high risks and potentially great rewards. Bush 43 took such a risk in Iraq and now pays the price for failing to develop anything resembling a Plan B.

Oh no, we have a Plan B. It's called try-the-same-WMD-track-with-Iran. This is Condi Rice's big accomplishment as SECSTATE and it rivals her incompetence as national security adviser.
Rice is Scowcroft's protegee all right and she's got his lack of strategic imagination down pat.

But the good news is that what Baker and Hamilton will likely offer should fit the bill rather nicely. According to Hoagland:

Baker-Hamilton will certainly recommend that the United States urgently develop the regional and international structures to guide change that Bush has neglected, and the president must act on that advice.
But here's where Hoagland really nails it:
But Bush's going on the defensive does not mean that the radical positive changes he had hoped for cannot come about on their own, even if on a different timetable and with much greater costs than he ever imagined. True realism lies in recognizing that his diagnosis of a crumbling order in the Middle East was sound, even if his prescriptions were not.
I would just amend the last sentence to read, "even if his execution was not."
And again, for that we have the great protege of the uber-realist most to thank.

Realism is just idealism stretched over time. In the end, Bush will be judged as a very realistic president, just one surrounded by weak talent.

Stockholm -- November 23, 2006, was the last day of 52 years old Yeshoh Majid Hedaya's life.

Hedaya was the leader of the Syriac Independent Unified Movement (SIUM). He had dedicated most of his life to fight for and to unify his people. He tried to protect Assyrians from both the assaults by the central government and from the terror and murders by the Kurdish clans.

In accordance with article 121 of the Iraqi constitution, on October 31, 2006 Hedaya presented a demand for autonomy for the Assyrians in four districts of the Nineveh plain. The demand was presented to the central government in Baghdad.

According to several Iraqi sources, who wish to remain anonymous for fear for their lives, such a political murder serves only the interests of the KDP, the party of the Barzani clan. The motivation is that the KDP tries with all means to annex the four Assyrian districts to the Kurdish autonomous region, in order to extend it's geographic boundaries. These four districts are demographically dominated by Assyrians. According to the Iraqi constitution, these four districts are entitled to self-government and shall not be controlled or governed by any other autonomous region within the Iraqi state.

EasternStar News Agency