AL-SADR'S MOVEMENT FORMS ALLIANCE WITH IRAQI SUNNI GROUP. Baha
al-A'raji, a high-ranking member of radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada
al-Sadr's political bloc, announced on January 29 that the bloc and
the Sunni-led Iraqi Islamic Party have agreed to form a working
committee to maintain security in Baghdad's mixed neighborhoods,
state-run Al-Iraqiyah television reported the same day. Al-A'raji
said that he met with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Vice
President and head of the Iraqi Islamic Party Tariq al-Hashimi on
January 27 to discuss security issues, as well as to work for the
return of displaced people from both sects. In a statement released
on January 29, al-A'raji described the formation of the committee as
"a welcome step," "Al-Zaman" reported the same day. "If all goes well
and our proposals are taken into account, the campaign to secure
Baghdad will constitute a historic move that will undoubtedly lead to
an improvement in security conditions," al-A'raji's statement said.
"Al-Zaman" also reported on January 29 that al-Sadr has ordered his
followers to open a dialogue with the Muslim Scholars Association. SS

KEY IRANIAN CLERIC URGES INCLUSIVENESS IN POLITICS... Hojjatoleslam
Hasan Rohani, the former Supreme National Security Council secretary
and now Supreme Leader Khamenei's representative in that body, told a
congregation in Tehran on January 30 that the government must include
"all those" devoted to Ayatollah Khamenei and the late leader
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini "under the same tent" and not create
"another front" of opponents beside "the strong enemy front" that
Iran faces, ISNA reported. The "enemies" he referred to are Western
powers and Israel, which he said "want to block the spread of Iran's
Islamic values in the region." He said the West has seen that
wherever it has sought to turn states into democracies, "everywhere
becomes Iran." Inside Iran, he added, "groups should not have their
mouths shut. Let [them] speak, and answer them rationally. Unity and
solidarity will only come about when people are convinced. If you
seek unity...let everyone" play a part in the decisions, ISNA
reported. Legitimacy, he said, is "the most important pillar and
foundation" of any system. VS

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-boot31jan31,0,4288547.column?coll=la-opinion-rightrail
MAX BOOT

How Bush can ensure no more Iraqs
The U.S. is only a few bright ideas away from being the nation builder it needs to be.
Max Boot

January 31, 2007

ONE OF THE least noticed but most intriguing elements of the State of the Union speech occurred near the end, when President Bush called for the recruitment of 92,000 more soldiers and Marines and for the creation of a Civilian Reserve Corps that "would ease the burden on the armed forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them."

Never mind that there is much less here than meets the eye. Included in Bush's recruitment math are 30,000 Army troops already in the pipeline, so the increase is really only 62,000, not 92,000 — and that number won't be available for five years. A larger, faster increase is needed to relieve the strain on our overstretched armed forces.

As for the Civilian Reserve Corps, the administration has no detailed plans to recruit, train or deploy abroad the kind of experts we need in such fields as law, finance, sanitation and balloting. Nor does it have the money. Odds are that this bright idea will suffer the same fate as another plan devised by the State Department's Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, which asked for $100 million from Congress for contingency planning last year and got zip.

Grossly inadequate as they are, these proposals are nevertheless welcome because they represent a long-overdue attempt by the Bush administration to correct some of the institutional limitations that have severely hampered American nation-building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To further address our shortcomings, Bush should take a number of other steps.

For a start, he should open the ranks of the armed forces to recruits who are not citizens or green card holders. This would be the fastest way to increase force size (as well as knowledge of other languages and cultures), and it could be accomplished with the stroke of a pen. Under a law passed last year, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates can waive the citizenship requirement if he "determines that such enlistment is vital to the national interest." To assuage concerns about turning over the defense of our nation to foreigners, Gates could direct that they make up no more than, say, 20% of the total.

Paying for the extra soldiers we need won't be cheap. Even though the defense budget has grown from $302 billion in 2001 to $432 billion this year, the armed forces are facing major equipment shortfalls that need to be addressed. Supplemental appropriations bills have been covering these costs so far, but to avoid having to pare major procurement programs, Bush will need to increase the defense budget some more.

Congress may balk, but such increases are feasible because, even though we're at war, we're still spending only 3.3% of GDP on defense — a very low figure by historical standards.

IT WILL TAKE more than money to overcome the challenges we face. It also will require substantial reorganization. The president needs to create a Department of Peace, perhaps built out of a revamped Agency for International Development, so that we can be better prepared for the aftermath of future military operations than we were in Iraq. He needs to re-create the defunct U.S. Information Agency, which was folded into the State Department in 1999, to wage the battle of ideas against Islamist extremists. He needs to create a federal police force, possibly within the U.S. Marshals Service, that can be dispatched to enforce the law in lawless lands. He needs to beef up the "expeditionary" capacity in other civilian branches of government, ranging from the Treasury to the Agriculture Department, so that they can augment the efforts of our soldiers.

And he needs to better integrate the civilian and military branches of government so that they can function more smoothly together than they have in Afghanistan or Iraq. (The Center for Strategic and International Studies has come up with some useful proposals for aligning interagency operations, plans and budgets under a strengthened National Security Council.)

These ideas may sound overly ambitious for the final two years of an administration mired in major difficulties. But remember that in his second term, despite the Iran-Contra scandal, Ronald Reagan was able to simplify the tax code and streamline the military chain of command — major reforms — by working with a Democratic Congress. There could be similar bipartisan cooperation today, under a compelling slogan: No More Iraqs. If we're going to do nation building in the future (and we are — witness calls for intervention in Somalia and Sudan), we have to get it right.

IRANIAN JOURNALIST CHARGED WITH ESPIONAGE. Ali Farahbakhsh, a
journalist arrested several weeks ago when returning from a foreign
conference (see "RFE/RL Newsline," January 8, 2007), has been charged
with spying, Radio Farda reported on January 30, citing Farahbakhsh's
lawyer, Morteza Alizadeh-Tabatabai, and Iranian agencies. The
broadcaster stated that Farahbakhsh was arrested "about 50 days ago"
upon returning from an economics conference in Thailand, though it is
not clear for which state he had allegedly spied. His parents
recently wrote to Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi-Shahrudi
to inform him of his poor health, saying that he has been in solitary
confinement and unable to sleep in prison, and has not been granted
access to his lawyer, Radio Farda reported. Separately, Ahmad Batebi,
a former student detained since 1999 for his part in Tehran student
demonstrations, has been charged with evading prison while on leave
(see "RFE/RL Newsline," August 30 and October 19, 2006),
advarnews.com reported on January 28. He is accused of evading jail
for 16 months, though he has maintained he was on leave and had not
been told to return, advarnews.com reported. The website added that
he and Mehrdad Lehrasbi are the only activists still in connection
with the 1999 demonstrations. VS

January 31, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Not-So-Strange Bedfellow

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Here’s a little foreign policy test. I am going to describe two countries — “Country A” and “Country B” — and you tell me which one is America’s ally and which one is not.

Let’s start: Country A actively helped the U.S. defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan and replace it with a pro-U.S. elected alliance of moderate Muslims. Country A regularly holds sort-of-free elections. Country A’s women vote, hold office, are the majority of its university students and are fully integrated into the work force.

On 9/11, residents of Country A were among the very few in the Muslim world to hold spontaneous pro-U.S. demonstrations. Country A’s radical president recently held a conference about why the Holocaust never happened — to try to gain popularity. A month later, Country A held nationwide elections for local councils, and that same president saw his candidates get wiped out by voters who preferred more moderate conservatives. Country A has a strategic interest in the success of the pro-U.S., Shiite-led, elected Iraqi government. Although it’s a Muslim country right next to Iraq, Country A has never sent any suicide bombers to Iraq, and has long protected its Christians and Jews. Country A has more bloggers per capita than any country in the Muslim Middle East.

The brand of Islam practiced by Country A respects women, is open to reinterpretation in light of modernity and rejects Al Qaeda’s nihilism.

Now Country B: Country B gave us 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11. Country B does not allow its women to drive, vote or run for office. It is illegal in Country B to build a church, synagogue or Hindu temple. Country B helped finance the Taliban.

Country B’s private charities help sustain Al Qaeda. Young men from Country B’s mosques have been regularly recruited to carry out suicide bombings in Iraq. Mosques and charities in Country B raise funds to support the insurgency in Iraq. Country B does not want the elected, Shiite-led government in Iraq to succeed. While Country B’s leaders are pro-U.S., polls show many of its people are hostile to America — some of them celebrated on 9/11. The brand of Islam supported by Country B and exported by it to mosques around the world is the most hostile to modernity and other faiths.

Question: Which country is America’s natural ally: A or B?

Country A is, of course. Country A is Iran. Country B is Saudi Arabia.

Don’t worry. I know that Iran has also engaged in terrorism against the U.S. and that the Saudis have supported America at key times in some areas. The point I’m trying to make, though, is that the hostility between Iran and the U.S. since the overthrow of the shah in 1979 is not organic. By dint of culture, history and geography, we actually have a lot of interests in common with Iran’s people. And I am not the only one to notice that.

Because the U.S. has destroyed Iran’s two biggest enemies — the Taliban and Saddam — “there is now a debate in Iran as to whether we should continue to act so harshly against the Americans,” Mohammad Hossein Adeli, Iran’s former ambassador to London, told me at Davos. “There is now more readiness for dialogue with the United States.”

More important, when people say, “The most important thing America could do today to stabilize the Middle East is solve the Israel-Palestine conflict,” they are wrong. It’s second. The most important thing would be to resolve the Iran-U.S. conflict.

That would change the whole Middle East and open up the way to solving the Israel-Palestine conflict, because Iran is the key backer of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Syria. Iran’s active help could also be critical for stabilizing Iraq.

This is why I oppose war with Iran. I favor negotiations. Isolating Iran like Castro’s Cuba has produced only the same result as in Cuba: strengthening Iran’s Castros. But for talks with Iran to bear fruit, we have to negotiate with Iran with leverage.

How do we get leverage? Make it clear that Iran can’t push us out of the gulf militarily; bring down the price of oil, which is key to the cockiness of Iran’s hard-line leadership; squeeze the hard-liners financially. But all this has to be accompanied with a clear declaration that the U.S. is not seeking regime change in Iran, but a change of behavior, that the U.S. wants to immediately restore its embassy in Tehran and that the first thing it will do is grant 50,000 student visas for young Iranians to study at U.S. universities.

Just do that — and then sit back and watch the most amazing debate explode inside Iran. You can bet the farm on it