SUNNI BLOCS IN IRAQI PARLIAMENT TO MERGE. The Iraqi Front for National Dialogue headed by Salih al-Mutlaq will merge with the so-called Independent Arab Bloc in parliament under the new name Arab Bloc for National Dialogue, al-Mutlaq announced on February 4, Al-Sharqiyah television reported the same day. Al-Mutlaq said the merger is part of a Sunni plan to eliminate sectarianism. Meanwhile, Abd Mutlaq al-Juburi, a member of the Independent Arab Bloc, reportedly denied he will join the new bloc. Al-Juburi left the Sunni-led Iraqi Accordance Front (Al-Tawafuq) in January 2007 and formed the Independent Arab Bloc with 11 other parliamentarians. At the time, he cited frustration with the leaders of political blocs, saying decisions were being made by the heads of blocs only, while parliamentarians were unable to play a role in the political process. KR

An email to Tom Barnett listed on his post.
Shows some of the great work that is being done in Iraq.

Sir,
Saw on your Blog where you had the chance to visit Ft. Riley. Wish I was home for that but currently deployed out of Riley with 2-16 IN and the 4th BDE as the second "surge" BDE to roll into Iraq. Twelve months down, three to go. If you get the chance to tour Baghdad you are more than welcomed to our little operational environment on the east side of the river in New Baghdad.

We had the pleasure of meeting once before at St. Mary's University in Leavenworth Kansas where you were speaking and you signed the wrong name in my PNM. Must have been the jet lag? Hooah!

I have enjoyed your books and push them on friends, subordinates and superiors alike.

We are our own Dept. of Everything else over here in New Baghdad. COIN is both ever frustrating (fighting a War with admin Cold War rules) and super rewarding (seeing sewage operate for the first time ever in Kamalaya, Iraq and preventing the Militia from having influence over the project with kinetic and non-kinetic means) we have been at it for a year and as much as I personally hate the 15 month gig it is good to know that we have some more time to come true on promises and commitments. Attached picture is of myself and LTC K my Battalion CDR near the sewage treatment plant that US tax payers paid for. The boy brought us Chai (tea) first time this ever happened in Kamaliya. When we came here we where conducting high intensity combat on the same street. Amazing what an Infantry Battalion can do and how screwed up the rest of the US government seems.

I hope you get a chance to return to Riley again in the future. I'll bring my copy of BFA and speak more clearly when asking for a signature. :-)

Vr

B

Bono meets Pentagon chief to discuss poverty
Wed Jan 23, 2008 5:35pm EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U2 lead singer and activist Bono visited the Pentagon to discuss Africa and the fight against global poverty with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, representatives of the two men said on Wednesday.

Among the topics at the 20-minute meeting on Tuesday afternoon were U.S. plans to set up a new U.S. military command for Africa, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said.

"I think this was a chance for two people who care about the problems facing the continent of Africa to talk about their shared interest in solving those problems," Morrell said of the meeting that was not publicized in advance.

A spokeswoman for DATA, the group co-founded by Bono to fight poverty and AIDS in Africa, said the singer had been in Washington to meet members of budget committees in Congress.

"He also met with Secretary Gates to discuss global poverty and the connection between fighting poverty and peace and stability," Kathy McKiernan said.

Bono has met frequently with world leaders to push for spending on foreign aid and debt relief. But this was his first meeting with Gates, a former director of the CIA who replaced Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon in December 2006.

(Reporting by Andrew Gray; editing by David Wiessler)

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.

Reuters journalists are subject to the Reuters Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.

Dissident Watch: Mahmoud Salehi

by Michael Rubin
Middle East Quarterly
Winter 2008
http://www.meforum.org/article/1846

On April 9, 2007, Iranian security forces arrested Mahmoud Salehi, the former president of the Bakery Workers' Association in Saqez, a town in the Kurdistan province of northwestern Iran. They transferred him to prison in Sanandaj, the provincial capital, where he remains.[1]

Salehi's labor activity dates to May 1, 1983, when, as a 21-year-old, he organized a labor protest in Mahabad that resulted in a one-day work stoppage at sixty local bakeries. Forced to leave Mahabad, one of the largest cities in the region, he returned to Saqez where, in 1986, the Intelligence Ministry again arrested him for his attempt to organize workers protesting poor working conditions. Released from prison after three years, he resumed his union activities, founding the Trade Association of Saqez Bakery Workers in 1994. Police harassed him, arresting him during several weeks in 1995 and 1999. In 2000, while European leaders toasted President Muhammad Khatami, whom they considered a reformist, the Iranian judiciary imprisoned Salehi for ten months and forcibly stripped him of his union affiliation. Even though he had received a permit from the governor to participate, state security officers arrested Salehi during his 2001 May Day address. Released three days later, the Intelligence Ministry ordered his dismissal from work.[2]

Beginning on May 1, 2004, after security forces again arrested labor activists at a rally in Saqez, Salehi and six colleagues went on a hunger strike. Although the Iranian government released the activists on bail, they maintained the charges against them for organizing an illegal union. On several subsequent occasions, Iranian security forces briefly detained Salehi and his colleagues for questioning.[3]

On November 11, 2006, the Saqez Revolutionary Court sentenced Salehi to four years imprisonment although the Kurdistan Court of Appeals reduced this sentence to one year. The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) has condemned the subsequent trials, which were held behind closed doors.[4]

On April 9, 2007, and without any notice or court summons, Iranian police took Salehi to prison.[5] The Iranian government has since denied him medical care despite his advanced kidney disease. Salehi's imprisonment marks an acceleration in the Iranian government's fight against independent labor. Three months after Salehi's re-arrest, Iranian police also returned Mansour Osanlou, the head of the Tehran bus drivers' union (profiled in the Winter 2007 Middle East Quarterly),[6] to prison. Police continue to round up union activists from a number of sectors.

On August 8, 2007, Salehi smuggled a letter from prison that stated, "Workers in Iran are in a delicate situation in which they are moving beyond lack of organizations to a new stage in which mass organizations are being formed. We have to be out during this stage."[7]

What a contrast there is between the silence greeting Salehi's pleas and those of Polish trade unionist Lech Walesa, who in August 1980 led a strike that the autocratic government in Warsaw deemed illegal. Rather than ignore the striking workers, U.S. president Ronald Reagan and various European leaders spoke out on Walesa's behalf. In 1983, Walesa won the Nobel Peace Prize and, upon communism's crumble, assumed Poland's presidency. Rather than enable history to repeat in Iran, though, U.S. and European silence condemns a new generation of Iranian Walesa's to rot in prison.

Michael Rubin is editor of the Middle East Quarterly and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

[1] "Iran: Free Mahmoud Salehi Now," LabourStart.org, Apr. 18, 2007, accessed Oct. 3, 2007.
[2] "Mahmoud Salehi's Brief Biography," International Alliance in Support of Workers in Iran, accessed Oct. 3, 2007.
[3] Ibid.
[4] "ICFTU takes complaints of crumbling respect for workers' rights to the highest level," news release, International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, Feb. 14, 2005.
[5] "Earlier today the security forces in Saghez rearrested Mahmoud Salehi," news release, Iranian Workers' Solidarity Network, Apr. 9, 2007.
[6] Michael Rubin, "Dissident Watch: Mansour Osanlou," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2007, p. 96.
[7] "Message of Mahmoud Salehi from Sanandaj Prison," International Alliance in Support of Workers in Iran, Aug. 8, 2007.

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Barnett: Better days, just not right now

By Thomas P.M. Barnett
Sunday, February 3, 2008

Americans feel down right now. Unhappy with our current leaders, we've not yet fallen in love with any prospective presidential candidates. The world seems more challenging than ever, with plenty of scary news out of the Islamic world hitting us amidst record oil prices. Most humbling, as our economy teeters on the edge of its first serious recession in decades, our rescuing cavalry turns out to be foreign wealth funds!

As historical ages go, we've downshifted from the "gilded" to the "gelded" in the blink of an exhausting occupation. Feeling broke and lonely, we no longer seem masters of any universe. Instead, we distrust globalization, our historical gift to the world, more than ever. In our popular imagination, we spot looming catastrophes around every corner, with each new sci-fi movie seemingly resulting in New York City's destruction.

Wish we could get back to where we once belonged?

Let me remind you of the following:

We enjoy a wonderfully resilient global economy that's processed numerous financial panics (e.g., Asian flu, Internet bubble) and significant slowdowns by major players (Japan, Europe) over the past two decades while consistently growing.

As a result, poverty has been dramatically reduced around the planet and, as the Economist points out, we've got twice as many fast-growing economies right now as we did during the go-go '80s and '90s.

Yes, it stings having Arab sovereign wealth funds bail out Wall Street firms in the sub-prime crisis, but I dare you to think of a more painless way of re-injecting liquidity back into our markets.

Anyway, by entering at bargain prices, these oil-rich regimes are simply doing what we've long advised: diversifying holdings and connecting their economies more broadly to globalization. It sure beats the alternative of white-elephant projects or military build-ups.

Speaking of guns, let me also remind you that our planet has never been more peaceful: fewer wars, less civil strife and the smallest-ever percentage of humanity engaged in or preparing for mass violence. Washington may wage global war, but nobody else is.

Not surprisingly, while we're polling glum, the rest of the world isn't. Global opinion trends over the past half-decade portray a rising tide of human happiness among nations that have opened up to globalization and thus enjoyed increasing per-capita income.

Across the Islamic world, we also see a broad decline in popular support for terrorism and, in particular, al-Qaida's brutality. We're losing old allies over Iraq, but Osama bin Laden is losing the future.

As for recent fears that China will soon rule the world, go slow on that one. The World Bank just recalculated the purchasing power of China's economy and found it to be about 40 percent smaller than we imagined. China won't be overtaking the U.S. economy anytime soon - if ever.

Moreover, while we may fret over Beijing's dollar reserves ($1.4 trillion), you have to remember that China's rapid industrialization has been built on a very shaky environmental and demographic foundation, meaning most of the economy's vast liabilities have been pushed into the future on a scale that makes our Social Security overhang look minuscule in comparison.

China will grow old before it gets rich, and it'll become increasingly unhealthy until it super-funds its environmental clean-up. Hard to replicate, this development model poses no global threat.

But rather than complain about rising multi-polarity in our global financial order, why not be grateful that the enterprise no longer depends solely on the spendthrift American consumer?

Frankly, we all knew we were living beyond our collective means these past few years, and deep down, we were hoping somebody would apply some discipline to this unsustainable dynamic.

Given that our political system didn't seem up to the task, I say thank God for those whiz kids on Wall Street - you know, the ones who seem to come up with some new, dazzlingly complex risk management scheme every 10 years or so.

I'm not being facetious. It's that type of edgy innovation that keeps the United States the most competitive economy in the world, triggering not just our booms but also the necessary corrections.

So for all of you who've long dreamed of the day when America wouldn't have to run the world by itself, the good news is, that day has come.

Tougher times ahead?

Only if we get vindictive.

Thomas P.M. Barnett is a visiting scholar at the University of Tennessee's Howard Baker Center and the senior managing director of Enterra Solutions LLC. Contact him at tom@thomaspmbarnett.com.