Over the last weeks Iraq experienced a fresh string of bombings. These may well have been initiated by:
1. zionists, i.e. isrealis who do not want the Occupiers to leave Irak.
2. amerikan provacateurs
3. amerikan military industrial mercenaries

Posted by: DFH | Jun 28 2009 19:02 utc | 4

Yep, and Israel pulled out of Gaza when Sharon was in power.

Worse, he’s not grilled about the widely reported fact that despite this symbolic pullout of U.S forces by June 30, Americans will be stationed instead right outside the borders, and in some cases, like Mosul and Basra, too, troops will continue to operate within city limits. Lots of smoke and mirrors. A few clicks of mouse will tell you that, but the they must think we are all too distracted and fatigued with Iraq to care anymore. When will it register that leaving US 130,000 troops and 36,000 American contractors in-country does not equate to a massive “withdrawal?”

Odierno Spins the Morning Talk Shows

Posted by: Sam | Jun 29 2009 1:59 utc | 6

Who knows what will happen over the next 18 months as the US military steadily lowers its profile to the vanishing point.
There are still many in the military who are intent on extending the occupation in some form or another.
And don’t forget that big-ass embassy and the “military advisors” that are going to stay on —
to say nothing of Blackwater/Xe.
And that John Negroponte ran the black-ops there for about two years.
The US still has some tricks up its sleeves. I doubt it won’t be anything we haven’t seen before, but a well-placed bomb that leads to Maliki’s death, then an outbreak of fierce civil war, could well bring a substantial force back in to that embassy to “protect the Sunni minorities”, or some other such justification.
With civil war, the US would only need to supply weapons and logistics.
At least partial withdrawal is necessary, though, because the US needs to be able to tell its allies it’s done everything it can to pull out.

Posted by: china_hand2 | Jun 29 2009 6:59 utc | 8

It is really astounding to me the difference in Iraq between a year ago ….What a difference today….The atmosphere has completely changed; all the US ambitions have disappeared like a puff of smoke. …
do tell.
lowers its profile to the vanishing point.
sorry, this sounds to me as if the ‘profile’ is what really matters. it isn’t. there are only so many ways you can erase the presence of a 130,000 (private militias not included) man occupying power. feel good news stories about the (puppet) government holding celebrations about the ‘disappearing act’ are one of them. a profile (framing, narrative) is merely the way the light shines on an object ie how it appears. in the light of day (or at night one could just turn on the overhead) if you walk to a different angle, the full face view is still there.
it was in early July when I started commenting here
under what name?

Posted by: annie | Jun 29 2009 15:55 utc | 10

Alex_no # 7:
The atmosphere has completely changed; all the US ambitions have disappeared like a puff of smoke.
What you been smoking Alex? This is hilarious. What about the oil Alex?
It was rather a sustained political offensive by Maliki, to get rid of the United States.
If it wasn’t for the United States Maliki would be hanging from a lampost in Baghdad.

Posted by: sAM | Jun 29 2009 19:19 utc | 12

do tell.
Ok, I’ve been tempted from my grading. 72 papers saying the same about the origins of the mosque are too much. There are things about Iraq I want to get off my chest, even if no-one wants to read them.
all the US ambitions have disappeared like a puff of smoke
My basic position has not changed since last July-August, though it underwent a certain development at that time, chez Badger, chez JWN and here. Maliki has essentially put an ultimatum to the US: either get out, or maintain a full military occupation of an unwilling people for ever. This point of view was of course rubbished by people like Don Bacon, who said there are other options (I still don’t know what). At first, US officials and military just laughed: how can Iraq dictate to us? But towards November, Ryan Crocker, a rare ambassador experienced in the Middle East, must have succeeded in convincing Bush that it is a serious question. And so they signed essentially the Iraqi conditions. Still all the Americans laughed: no way we’re going to conform to what these numbskulls are demanding. Comes Obama; he wants to fight his war in Afghanistan, finds nothing much to be achieved in Iraq, and has financial problems: so he confirms the agreement. This time it’s a military revolt – Odierno makes remarks about continuing the occupation. Old soldiers support him. Obama slaps him down. So we are where we are now: the US forces are withdrawing from the cities, as according to the agreement. The US military are still laughing, as are commenters on this blog. The military are leaving their checkpoints saying ‘we’ll be back in a couple of weeks, you can’t cope’.
I wouldn’t bet on it. The basic spectre of the ultimatum is still there, and it’s credible. Maliki wasn’t playing a game. What he has demanded is almost universally supported in Iraq (except in Kurdistan). The unusual aspect of Maliki’s policy is that he presented the choice in such black and white terms: agree or get out.
Of course, at the end of the year, elections are coming up, and Maliki might lose and be replaced by another possibly more susceptible to US persuasion (though he himself was thought to be a lapdog), or be assassinated in the meantime. Evidently we don’t know now what the consequences of such events might be (nor do I know who might be a replacement). However I do believe Maliki has succeeded in setting the agenda. For a successor to say ‘no, no, no, we want the US to stay’, and to draw back, is unlikely to play well in Iraq. In a couple of months the successor would be turning round and continuing Maliki’s policies. Perhaps the survival of a vestigial US force, I’ve always admitted that possibility.
As for ‘US ambitions disappearing like a puff of smoke‘, what has been achieved by the expense of nearly a trillion dollars, if that is the correct figure? Nothing. What will be achieved in the future? Nothing. The US is in a logical clinch which it can’t get out of, thanks to Maliki’s policy.

Posted by: Alex_no | Jun 29 2009 20:55 utc | 14

well, thanks for your response (and an answer to the name switch). i am still extremely sceptical but open to persuasion.
while the ‘atmosphere’ on the street in iraq might feel changed (there are still lots of bombings tho) and the site of patrolling US troops thruout the country might not be there, the troops still are. the country is still occupied. without the /US presence i don’t know if maliki would even be in power (although getting rid of the trops would certainly boost his prospects i would imagine).
i agree the future will probably be bloody wrt ‘inner conflicts’ but w/a 130,000 plus force ready for the government on call i have doubts about how much control maliki has it is was my recollection it was the parliament that forced maliki/US hand to not accept the MOU/sofa in all its previous glory.
regarding all the US ambitions having disappeared like a puff of smoke i have little doubt many people still hold those same ambitions.

Strategic Framework Agreement
In addition to the SOFA, the Bush administration negotiated a so-called strategic framework agreement with Baghdad, defining relations on economy, culture, science, technology, health and trade. Experts questioned the secretive way this agreement was hashed out by Iraqi and U.S. officials, and disagreed on what the final accord would contain. But administration officials maintained the framework would broadly address issues outlined in the November 2007 agreement between Bush and Maliki. Political and economic items make up the bulk of the strategic framework, including vows to promote regional peace; encourage cultural, education, and scientific exchanges; and promote greater direct foreign investment. Wedgwood, of Johns Hopkins University, says the Iraq framework appears to be a reiteration of the framework the United States signed with Afghanistan in 2005. Among the most contentious issues on the Iraq strategic framework was whether its principles would be binding, or if it would indefinitely commit Washington to defending Iraqi sovereignty. But on that front Wedgwood sees a clear line. “I do not believe that in the strategic framework there will be a legally binding promise to come to the aid of Iraq,” she said in an interview with CFR.org.

it is the promote greater direct foreign investment part..iffy if that’s off the table if you ask me.
one thing i really notice it how there are fewer reports from iraq. 1 bombing here, a bombing there, but i get the feeling we are not supposed to be thinking about it by the way it has dropped of the news cycle. last month 25 american military deaths and basically the same casualty count as last year at this time (may, june figures aren’t out yet). i have no idea how many iraqi deaths. i am hopeful we will really leave at the end of 2011.

Posted by: annie | Jun 29 2009 21:24 utc | 16

Lastly, the present bombing campaign, and the possibility of continued instability in Iraq.
Last November, just before the signature of the SOFA, there was a big bombing campaign in Baghdad. Some of us, including me, thought it might be the US attempting to derail the signature of the SOFA, the conditions of which were certainly unsatisfactory to the US. The least that one could say was that it was an attempt to derail the SOFA, by persons unknown.
Now again, before the withdrawal of US troops from the cities, we have another bombing campaign, quite probably also intended to derail the event. Very similar. It is difficult to attribute this one to the US, as there is little interest. This time, we would have to imagine a splinter faction of the military, who are working against Obama, not impossible, but not likely either.
So who else has interests to derail the SOFA? Cole says al-Qa’ida/Ba’thists, without evidence. Cole is a Shi’a specialist and prejudiced anti-Sunni. The argument added elsewhere is that it is the Sahwa (Awakening) kids, no longer being paid by the US, who are getting their revenge on the Shi’a, though Sadr City is hardly Maliki-centre. Much as I regret to say it, as I have been in the past the sole Western defender of the Iraqi Sunnis, the Sunni revolt was flattened by the US campaigns in Falluja and Haditha. There was very little back country, nowhere to retreat, as there would have been in Vietnam. The kids had nothing left but to join the Sahwa, and there they were photographed and biometric details taken. Not much chance to take part in new events.
So who else might lose? Well, surprise, surprise, the Kurds. What is their reaction going to be to the withdrawal of the US from Iraq? I wouldn’t like to be in their position if the US withdraws. The Kurds have made a big play these last years to make a land grab in northern Iraq. Everything down to a circle round Mosul was to be included in Kurdistan, never mind who lived there. But things haven’t quite worked out. Even Kirkuk and the oil-fields haven’t been secured, in spite of the import of large numbers of Kurds to shift the population balance. If I were a Kurd today, I’d be feeling nervous. Maliki is not about to give way on Kirkuk. Better to destabilise Iraq, which the Kurds don’t believe is a real country anyway.
You won’t be surprised to discover that it’s my view that it’s the Kurds who are bombing to discourage the US from withdrawing. Although I did think it was the US in November, I now think the similarity of the two campaigns suggests that the two campaigns have the same origin.

Posted by: Alex_no | Jun 30 2009 0:06 utc | 18

b @ 13:
@annie – Sam – I agree with Alex, “-no” or not, that the political atmosphere in Iraq seems to have changed a lot.
I never said the political atmosphere in Iraq hasn’t changed hell they pumped so mush propaganda into that country they even got the Sunni Insurgency turned against itself. I ribbed Alex on his assertion that US policy has changed. It’s just another tactic. Until Iraq signs on the oiled line nothing really changes. I’ve heard all these platitudes before for over half a century in Palestine and nothing really changed there either except the atmoshhere in Palestine.
Nothing personifies Iraq more than that reporter that threw his shoe at Bush and was subsuquently beaten arrestted and jailed by Iraqi collaboraters. Nothing irritates me more than Alex praising the likes of Maliki who presides over the genocide of his own people via a foreign occupation. I don’t look at it from an Iraqi perspective for how can I when I’ve never even been there. But I will tell you that if it was the other way around and Arabs were over here and occupying my country I would be a terrorist and I would want to kill every last one of them. Judging by the death toll for US forces this feeling still pervades Iraq. Changing it to okay Ahmed you go out their and suppress the rebellion and we’ll back you isn’t really change in my books.

Posted by: Sam | Jun 30 2009 1:21 utc | 20

What I want to know is if the surge was so successful why is there still the same number of troops in Iraq as before the surge. Meanwhile:

Despite Tuesday’s formal pullback, some U.S. troops will remain in the cities to train and advise Iraqi forces. U.S. troops will return to the cities only if asked. The U.S. military will continue combat operations in rural areas and near the border, but only with the Iraqi government’s permission.
The U.S. has not said how many troops will be in the cities in advisory roles, but the vast majority of the more than 130,000 U.S. forces remaining in the country will be in large bases scattered outside cities.

They will still be in the cities and still performing combat operations

Providing security in the wake of the U.S. departure and continuing to rebuild the nation’s shattered infrastructure will be two of the most immediate challenges that the young Iraqi democracy will face. In central Baghdad, meanwhile, withdrawing U.S. forces are dismantling iconic concrete blast walls that once separated warring neighborhoods. Removal of the barriers, which were intended as a temporary security measure, is a hopeful sign. But should violence flare up, they can be put back as quickly as they were taken down.

They will still call the shots

In any case, the U.S. base in Kirkuk isn’t moving — the Iraqi government has agreed that it is officially outside of Kirkuk, though it borders the town.

And they will still have the cooperation of the government
Change you can believe in?

Posted by: Sam | Jun 30 2009 4:30 utc | 22

oh now, not the sole one. they ethnically cleansed iraq, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that. lots of us were rooting for the resistance.
You didn’t read what I wrote, annie, I said “Iraqi Sunnis”, not the resistance in general. I was talking about what happened to the Sunni community, the supposed criminals who gave birth to Saddam, and thus merited no attention. They haven’t had many defenders as such. Cole batted for the Shi’a, Visser too.

Posted by: Alex_no | Jun 30 2009 7:00 utc | 24

Interesting discussion, and Alex’s assessments (on the SOFA) from last year have so far held tight. And would acknowledge (credit due) that Alex was, last year, a somewhat lonely voice in the wilderness in defense of what Maliki was up to. My own take was in agreement but with Maliki threading a needle co-opting the Sadr movement (I still think they have a secret alliance) and dissing the SIIC to conflate a general Shia Populist/nationalist dependent on himself as mediator and possible strongman de jour.
I actually think the conformation of troops out of the cities could very well spell the end of the U.S. occupation, because once they stop actively patrolling they will progressively be cut out of the experiential tactical/intelligence loop. They will tire quickly of being called out to do the ISF’s dirty sectarian work without any tangible (self serving) benefit. And it just so happens that Obama can then lay claim on ending the Iraq war as promised and blame the entire endgame on the bush administrations capitulation on the SOFA agreement signed before he took office. I think this one ends with a whimper, the U.S. being progressively checkmated into irrelevancy via the disconnect between the publicly asserted liberal objectives and the geo-strategic undergame. To which the Iraqi’s have played a brilliant hand.
Not that there was ever a chance in hell that this thing could have ever worked out as planned.

Posted by: anna missed | Jun 30 2009 8:48 utc | 26

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUSLU15193020090630“>kirkuk:Bomb kills 25 in Iraq as U.S. troops leave
sam, interesting the reference to the US not leaving kirkuk and their base being right outside the town. US general in Iraq will not say how many troops remain

The Status of Forces Agreement, which set the pullback deadline, says US commanders must seek permission from Iraqi authorities to conduct operations, but American troops retain a unilateral right to “legitimate self-defense.”,/b>

IOW, they can ‘defend themselves’ w/o permission no doubt. just like you now who is always in the defensive mode against those evil terrorists of gaza.
alex, i knew who you were talking about. i am well aware when we heard about sunnis in the first few years the term ‘insurgents’ usually prefaced their names. i know about the propaganda that tried to morph them into AQ. i know about the truck loads rounded up , jailed whole neighborhoods of them after the initial invasion. i know about the house to house round ups and death squads and the salvadoran option rummy says sunnis weren’t ‘paying a price’. i know about blaming them on the samara mosque blow up and i also know my sympathies have never wavered. had you been around moon since the beginning you would have known you weren’t alone as a sole western supporter and i am not speaking of just myself in this community.
be well.

Posted by: annie | Jun 30 2009 17:52 utc | 28

annie @ 28:
IOW, they can ‘defend themselves’ w/o permission no doubt. just like you now who is always in the defensive mode against those evil terrorists of gaza.
Not sure how to read this sentance annie. Should the “now” be Know? Could you clear up my confusion please? and thank you.

Posted by: Sam | Jun 30 2009 19:56 utc | 30

sam, yes i meant ‘you know who’. the way they are always having the excuse of ‘reacting’ to violence.
my point wasn’t to say you were wrong alex. let’s not end on a bad note. i’m a big fan of layla anwar, ladybird and truthaboutiraqis (bloggers). i also hang out on some iraqi blogs and i know where my sentiment has always been, for the most part nationalist which includes lots of baathist. i think you would be hard pressed to find any posts from me criticizing them and there’s lots of archives here. maybe i just never said it outright. i don’t think they were perfect by any means but a vast improvement over anyone else running the country imho.

Posted by: annie | Jun 30 2009 22:12 utc | 32