November 8, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Tolerable or Awful: The Roads Left in Iraq

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
I had to submit this column before knowing the results of yesterday’s election, but here is one thing I know already: this needs to be our last election about Iraq.

The Iraq war has turned into a sucking chest wound for our country — infecting its unity at home and its standing abroad. No one can predict what Iraq will look like 10 years from now. I wish it well. But in the near term, it is clear, nothing that we’ll feel particularly proud of, nothing that we’ll feel justifies the vast expenditure of lives and treasure, is going to come out of Iraq.

Our only two options left today in Iraq are “tolerable” and “awful.” “Good” is no longer on the menu. When you read stories from Iraq saying that all we need to do is get rid of all the police there, get one-third of the soldiers in the Iraqi Army to actually report to duty regularly, and replace all the ministers who are corrupt, you know why “good” is not on the menu anymore.

It’s time to make a final push for the tolerable, and if that fails, quit Iraq and insulate ourselves and our allies from the awful. This can’t go on.

That’s sad. Iraq was always a struggle of hope against history. After 9/11, and the Arab Human Development Report detailing the increasingly dysfunctional Arab-Muslim world — which produces way too many terrorists — we had a real interest in collaborating with Iraqis to try to build one decent, progressive, democratizing society in the heart of the Arab East.

But to succeed we needed to establish a secure order in Iraq and prevent the murderous Sunni/Baathist attacks on Shiites. The Bush team, arriving in Iraq with too few troops and no plans, failed to do either. And therefore the natural tribalism of Iraqis surfaced and the minimal trust between citizens needed to forge a real democracy never emerged. Now we have a tit-for-tat civil war.

The “tolerable” outcome that might be self-sustaining and stable would require reshaping Iraq as a loose federation of predominantly Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni zones. To make even that work, though, would probably require cutting a new deal with Iran and its Iraqi Shiite clients, and Syria and its Sunni Baathist allies, and the Kurds. Iraq would retain a central government in Baghdad, but power and oil income would be more radically decentralized among the different sects. Democracy would be subordinated to stability.

A small U.S. or U.N. force could remain in Iraq to police the boundaries between the three communities and make sure the ongoing violence is contained. To produce even this, though, the U.S. will probably need to set a date and threaten to leave. Otherwise, the parties won’t negotiate seriously.

“Awful” would be carrying out that threat to leave Iraq by a fixed date because Iraqis prove too angry and atomized to reach any deal. The fires of madness now raging in Iraq — people beheading each other, blowing up each other’s mosques — would all intensify.

A U.S. withdrawal under such conditions would be messy and shameful. But when people are that intent on killing each other there’s not much we can do. As bad as we’ve performed in Iraq, what Iraqis have done to each other, and the little that other Muslims have done to stop them, is an even bigger travesty.

Still, we’d need to give visas to Iraqis who wanted to flee the madness; we’d need to give a security umbrella to the Kurds, so that Syria, Turkey or Iran did not invade them if we left; and we’d need to protect Jordan from the spillover.

But there would be some strategic benefits. Syria would have to support the Sunnis in Iraq, and Iran would have to back the Shiites, so these two “allies” would be on opposite sides of the civil war. Iran would also have to manage the chaos in southern Iraq, particularly the Shiite militias, and this would be a permanent migraine for Tehran. U.S. troops would no longer be in range of Iranian retaliation, and therefore would be much freer to confront Iran’s nuclear challenge. The U.S. would also be able to extract itself from the Abu Ghraib/occupation syndrome and could start combating Islamist radicalism by being the best America rather than the worst.

Finally, Iraqi instability would push oil to $80 a barrel. That would mean more people buying hybrid cars and investing in alternative energy, so that we end our dependence on this region sooner.

These are our real choices in Iraq now: tolerable and awful. It’s time we choose. No more expending lives and treasure for nothing good. The only way we can pursue good in the world again is by either shrinking our presence in Iraq, if Iraqis will step up, or leaving entirely, if they won’t.

IRAN'S GOVERNMENT SHAKEUP HITS MANY LEVELS

By Bill Samii

Iran's executive branch is undergoing a major shakeup in what
could be an effort by President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's administration
to realign its economic policy. The president has replaced two
cabinet ministers, others are facing parliamentary scrutiny, and a
score of top officials have quit. But the tremors could also reflect
officials' dissatisfaction with policy or presidential frustration
over unmet goals.
Iranian lawmakers gave a vote of confidence on November 5 to
Ahmadinejad's nominee for new cooperatives minister. Mohammad Abbasi,
a legislator from Gorgan, is a former university chancellor (of a
branch of the Islamic Azad University) and deputy governor-general
for planning affairs in the northern Mazandaran Province. He holds a
doctorate in strategic management, a degree often given to military
personnel.
Abbasi told reporters that strengthening the cooperative-run
business sector is an important step in the realization of the
country's fifth five-year plan, which began in 2005.
Abbasi succeeds Mohammad Nazemi-Ardakani, who, the president
said, will serve in another position. Nazemi-Ardakani was given the
portfolio when the president's initial nominee failed to win
approval. Nepotism may have a part in Nazemi-Ardakani's job security.
He is related by marriage to Masud Zaribafan, secretary of the
presidential cabinet and a Tehran municipal council member.
The same day that Abbasi was introduced to the legislature,
October 29, lawmakers approved Abdul Reza Mesri as the new minister
of welfare and social security. A parliamentary representative from
the western Kermanshah Province, Mesri succeeded Parviz
Kazemi.Ahmadinejad's first nominee for the Welfare Ministry portfolio
failed to win approval when he came to power in 2005, and lawmakers
criticized Kazemi's inexperience during the parliamentary debate
preceeding his appointment. Kazemi had reportedly suggested in his
curriculum vitae that he was "reluctant" to discuss his
accomplishments, "Mardom Salari" reported on November 5, 2005.
An anonymous ministry official reportedly said when Kazemi
resigned on September 25 that he was being replaced because he
allowed subordinates to simultaneously hold leadership positions in
businesses, according to the Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA). The
source claimed Kazemi hired incompetent people and the ministry did
not report on its activities satisfactorily.
There also were reports that Kazemi's resignation was
connected with his failure to exercise sufficient control over the
Social Security Organization. Indeed, that organization's chief,
Davud Madadi, resigned some two weeks after Kazemi did. He blamed
"present circumstances," and said "it is not possible for me to
cooperate with the government," IRNA reported on October 8.
At the top tier of government, the appointments of
Cooperatives Minister Abbasi and Welfare and Social Security Minister
Mesri are only the most conspicuous changes.
Aftab news agency quoted an anonymous source on September 26
as saying the president has reviewed the performance over the past
year of each cabinet member. The source claimed Ahmadinejad has
warned Roads and Transport Minister Mohammad Rahmati and Commerce
Minister Parviz Mir-Kazemi that they are in danger of being replaced.
Aftab reported that the ministers facing dismissal have reformist
tendencies or have failed to fulfill their promises to the president.
Other personnel changes have taken place below the cabinet
level. About 20 mid-level officials, including deputy ministers, have
either been forced to resign or have been dismissed, "Ayandeh-yi No"
reported on October 17. These changes mostly affect the economy.
In the Management and Planning Organization, three deputy
chiefs quit in mid-October -- Deputy Chief of Production Affairs
Farhad Dezhpasand, Deputy Chief of Economic Affairs Ali Tayebnia, and
Deputy Chief for Fundamental Affairs Mehdi Rahmati. Two other
managers -- identified as Yarmand and Daryani -- were dismissed.
There were other personnel changes within the Economy and Finance
Ministry, the Petroleum Ministry, the Commerce Ministry, and at the
central bank.
The president is not the only one who is unhappy with cabinet
members' efforts. Parliamentarians have voiced dissatisfaction about
some ministers, and acted accordingly. Lawmakers will question
Interior Minister Mustafa Pur-Mohammadi, Energy Minister Seyyed
Parviz Fattah, and Transport Minister Mohammad Rahmati in the coming
week, Fars News Agency reported on October 28.
When Iranian media reported in mid-September that assessments
of the ministers' performance had been prepared, legislator Said
Abutaleb argued that those "evaluations must certainly lead to some
changes in the cabinet," "Mardom Salari" reported on September 16.
Abutaleb referred to the Welfare and Commerce ministries
specifically, saying the legislature would like to dissolve the
Commerce Ministry. He warned that if the president did not implement
changes, then the parliament was ready to step in by questioning and
giving no-confidence motions to the ministers.
But another legislator, Hussein Afarideh from Shirvan, called
the prospective replacements worse than the sitting ministers,
"Mardom Salari" reported on September 16.
Meanwhile, in early October, more than 50 legislators signed
a petition for the interpellation of Agriculture Jihad Minister
Mohammad Reza Eskandari.
One legislator, Dariush Qanbari, charged that Iranian
"agriculture is on the verge of collapse," Mehr News Agency reported
on October 9. He said "farmers' crops [were] piling up in
storehouses" while the country imports fruit from Pakistan. Qanbari
also questioned the announcement of self-sufficiency in wheat
production when "at the same time we are importing 2 million tons of
wheat every year." He described the Agriculture Jihad Ministry as the
most inefficient and uncooperative of ministries.
But fundamentalist legislators blocked the interpellation
motion.
In mid-October, signatures were being gathered for the
interpellation of Education Minister Qodratullah. One legislator said
there was "no doubt that the education minister has had a weak
performance," but added that other cabinet members have also
performed poorly and should face questioning, "Aftab-i Yazd" reported
on October 16.
Governmental obscurity and a censored media ensure that it
will be some time before the real reasons for the ministerial
resignations and dismissals emerge. But it appears that the
presidential administration's grappling with difficult economic
issues will continue to cause turmoil in the state apparatus --
particularly if the populist president persists in efforts to fulfill
his campaign promises.
The possible imposition of economic sanctions by the UN
Security Council stemming from the nuclear controversy could only add
to Ahmadinejad's problems.

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How to Judge the Trial of Saddam
By Anne Applebaum
Posted: Tuesday, November 7, 2006

ARTICLES
Washington Post
Publication Date: November 7, 2006

Over the coming days and weeks--throughout the appeals process, up to and including the day of the execution itself--you are going to hear a lot about what went wrong with the trial of Saddam Hussein. You will be told, as an Amnesty International director put it , that the trial "has been a shabby affair, marred by serious flaws….Every accused has a right to a fair trial, whatever the magnitude of the charge against him."

You will hear many denunciations of the verdict itself: The British Guardian newspaper called on Iraq to maintain a "principled opposition to the death penalty, to which there can be no exceptions. No European country now executes its criminals." You will also be told that the judges were incompetent, that the Iraqi government interfered constantly and that the international legal community loathed the trial from the start. All of this is true--and all mostly irrelevant.

In fact, all post hoc political trials are in some sense "victor's justice." That's just the nature of putting on trial people who were not doing anything "illegal," according to the laws of their totalitarian society, at the time they committed their crimes. The International Military Tribunal that sentenced the Nazi leadership at Nuremberg not only wrote special rules to duck the question of its own dubious legality but even accused the Nazis, at one point, of murdering some 20,000 Polish officers at Katyn and elsewhere, a crime that the Soviet judges--among them an infamous participant in show trials--knew for a fact that the Soviet Union itself had committed. The much-vaunted, approved-by-international-community trial of Slobodan Milosevic evolved into an occasion for the Serbian ex-dictator to carry on an extended rant. In part, the decision to hold Hussein's trial in Iraq was made in order to avoid that kind of U.N.-sanctioned failure. In part it was made because back in 2003 the U.N. Security Council--led by France, Russia and China--told the Iraqis organizing the trial that it wanted nothing to do with the trial anyway.

In truth, though, the shambolic and incoherent nature of this trial was not so much evidence of too few foreign human rights lawyers as it was yet another byproduct of the shambolic and incoherent nature of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Clearly the violence outside the courtroom affected what happened inside: Defense lawyers were murdered, judges traveled under armed guard and members of the prosecution said privately that they still felt afraid when Hussein came in the room. At times, their fear showed, adding to the appearance of incompetence. Even now, the chief investigative judge visits mass-grave sites in strict secrecy; his family is in hiding, as are the families of other judges.

The violence outside the courtroom also affected how the trial was perceived outside its walls. Televised testimony, which Iraqis initially found riveting, grew less relevant as the violence increased. The trial became nothing more than the background noise of the sectarian struggle: On Sunday, Shiites cheered the verdict while Sunnis denounced it. Imagine how different Hussein's death sentence would sound today if a stable, peaceful Iraq with a reformed judicial system were uniting to declare it, unanimously. Even the British media might then accept that, in such extraordinary cases, the Iraqis are allowed to choose penalties of which Europeans disapprove.

And yet, in the end there is only one standard by which the trial of Hussein and other Baathist leaders should be judged: Did it or did it not compile a true record of Hussein's crimes--a record that in some distant, future, peaceful Iraq, will be available to help Iraqis understand what took place during Saddam Hussein's reign? Though it is unfashionable to write anything positive about Iraq right now, the answer is that it did. The crime for which Hussein was condemned--the torture and execution of 148 people in the small town of Dujail more than two decades ago--was well documented . Witnesses and archives were produced. Cross-examinations were held.

In August the Iraqi court started hearings in a second trial , this one designed to examine the Anfal campaign of 1987-89, during which Hussein murdered up to 180,000 Kurds. Already, some dozen witnesses have testified about what they saw when Hussein, at the height of the campaign, unleashed chemical weapons on whole Kurdish villages. Large parts of Shiite and Sunni Iraq are hearing these stories for the first time. Listening to them may someday, in that distant, future, peaceful Iraq, help them to understand what Kurds experienced under Saddam Hussein's reign and help them to achieve some kind of reconciliation.

It is true that the execution of Hussein, if and when it occurs, could well have a positive effect on Iraqi politics. If nothing else, it will eliminate once and for all the Baathist dream of a Hussein-led revanche--a dream that even Hussein himself appears to have cherished; witnesses say he was genuinely surprised by the verdict and was shaking afterward. But his death will also probably put an end to this truth-telling project, one that has been unique and unprecedented in the Arab world. For the first time, an Arab dictator was held accountable for crimes against his people. Thanks to American incompetence in Iraq, it may be the last time for a long time, too.

AEI adjunct fellow Anne Applebaum is a Washington Post columnist currently at work on a book about postwar Central Europe.

IRAQI DRAFT LAW WOULD REINSTATE FORMER BA'ATHISTS. Ali Faysal
al-Lami, the director-general of the Iraqi De-Ba'athification
Commission, on November 7 said plans have been drawn up to allow many
ex-Ba'athists to return to their jobs, international media reported
the same day. Al-Lami said the draft law will be presented to the
Iraqi parliament and will allow for all but the top 1,500 former
Ba'ath Party officials to return to work and obtain their pensions.
"The law will allow Ba'athists to return to their offices, but not
allow them the ideology of the banned Ba'ath Party. We consider those
who insist on remaining in the Ba'ath Party to be terrorist
elements," al-Lami was quoted by AFP as saying. Nusir al-Ani, a
spokesman for Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, said anyone without
blood on their hands will be considered, the BBC reported. The
announcement meets a long-standing demand by Sunni Arab leaders and
comes days after the Iraqi Special Tribunal sentenced former
President Saddam Hussein to death for crimes against humanity (see
"RFE/RL Newsline," November 6, 2006). SS

November 2, 2006
Iran Is Offering Bounty to Agents Who Can Entice Western Tourists

By NAZILA FATHI
TEHRAN, Nov. 1 — Iran is offering money to travel agents who can lure certain types of tourists to Iran, and the rate is double for bringing European and American travelers.

“Iran’s Tourism Department will pay $20 for every American or European tourist that travel agents can bring,” Mohammad Sharif Malekzadeh, deputy director of the Tourism and Cultural Heritage Organization, said Tuesday in a statement reported by the news agency IRNA. The statement also specified a $10 payment for luring Asian tourists.

Iran has been trying to expand its tourism industry, in particular to attract more Westerners. Officials have repeatedly said that despite hostile relations with the United States government, Americans visiting the country should be treated with respect.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last week that he was against proposed legislation to require American travelers to be fingerprinted at the airport. Lawmakers said they were responding to similar requirements imposed by the United States on some Iranian travelers.

“We do not have a problem with American people,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said. “We oppose only the U.S. government’s bullying and arrogance.”

Relations between the countries have not thawed since they severed diplomatic ties in 1979 after revolutionaries seized the American Embassy in Tehran.

But now the United States is pressing the Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran for its refusal to halt its nuclear program, which the United States contends is intended to develop nuclear arms.

Last month Iran offered to open its nuclear sites to foreign visitors as another incentive for visitors. Esfandiar Rahim-Masahai, head of the Tourism and Cultural Heritage Organization, said that Mr. Ahmadinejad had ordered the move and that, in part, it was aimed at convincing the world the program was peaceful.

The effort to attract more foreign tourists has failed so far.

An alcohol ban and a law requiring women to cover their hair have been powerful hindrances. Iran also is lacking in hotels and tourist facilities because of its isolation since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Most tourists are Shiite Muslim pilgrims from the region who travel to religious sites.

Mr. Malekzadeh said Monday that tourists could also apply for visas on the Internet to ease the process.