Kuwait, Iraq are closer to reconciling

The Associated Press Tucson, Arizona | Published: 02.27.2009 advertisementBAGHDAD — Iraq took another step toward healing its rift with Kuwait on Thursday as government leaders welcomed the highest-ranking Kuwaiti envoy since Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion. The timing of the visit by Kuwait's deputy prime minister, Sheik Mohammed Al Sabah came as Kuwaitis celebrated the 18th anniversary of the U.S.-led military campaign that drove out Saddam's forces. But much of tiny Persian Gulf nation was left looted and devastated by the Iraqi occupation, and Kuwait still claims billions of dollars in war reparations. It has refused appeals by Iraq's government to reduce its demands and forgive $15 billion in Iraqi debt. There was no mention of the payments in public statements during Thursday's talks, but Iraq's prime minister made a point of denouncing Saddam's aggression. "We are working on the concepts of security and stability, not the ideas of weapons and dictatorship of the Saddam era," Nouri al-Maliki said after meeting with Sheik Mohammed, who is also Kuwait's foreign minister. Kuwait and several other mostly Sunni Muslim Arab nations have restored diplomatic ties with Iraq, but they remain wary of the Shiite-led government's relations with the mostly Shiite Persians of Iran. The Kuwait News Agency said Mohammed was expected to make another official visit to Baghdad soon with Kuwait's prime minister, Sheik Nasser Al Mohammed Al Sabah. No date was set for that visit. Ties between Kuwait and Iraq were severed when Saddam invaded. But they resumed relations after Saddam was toppled by the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. In southern Iraq on Thursday, authorities buried the remains of more than 480 Iraqi soldiers killed in two wars during Saddam's rule. The ceremony near Basra included the remains of troops from Iraq's 1980-88 war with Iran and the 1991 U.S.-led offensive that ended Iraq's seven-month occupation of Kuwait. The graves included the remains of nearly 250 soldiers returned by Iran last year and more than 60 sent from Saudi Arabia, where some of the 1991 fighting spilled over.

In southern Iraq, U.S. commanders say it's time to go

Generals in pacified Shiite south say Iraqi forces can maintain stability By Liz Sly Chicago Tribune KUT, Iraq — There's something conspicuously absent from the bustling streets of this small provincial capital in southern Iraq, which on a Saturday afternoon is filled with people out shopping, sipping tea in cafes, herding their sheep along sidewalks or simply strolling along the Tigris River. Missing are the vast concrete barriers that had surrounded the police stations, the army barracks, government buildings and the town's only hotel. The local police chief ordered them torn down after last month's provincial elections, saying the threat from militias and insurgents is now so negligible as to render them unnecessary. It's one of the most visible signs of the strides toward stability in Iraq's overwhelmingly Shiite south, where a crackdown against militias last year has brought the region under government control. Also gone are the ubiquitous pictures of Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr that hung from every lamppost back in the days when his militia ruled supreme. And although for more than a year the mantra from top U.S. generals in Iraq has been that security gains achieved so far are both fragile and reversible, increasingly American commanders in the pacified south are saying that progress here is neither—and that it's time to start pulling U.S. troops out. "We're not going to turn back the direction we're heading in," Maj. Gen. Michael Oates, who commands U.S. forces in southern Iraq, predicted as he toured Kut with the local police chief. "I see us headed for more security." Though President Barack Obama has yet to announce his plans for bringing home most of the 142,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, reports from Washington say he now favors an August 2010 deadline. That is three months later than he promised in his campaign but more than a year earlier than the end-2011 date agreed to by the Bush administration. On Wednesday, the Pentagon also said that some of the troops in the residual force of American soldiers would still have a combat role, The Associated Press reported. Obama may lay out his pullout plan Friday, when he visits Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. It is already clear, however, that many of the 17,500 U.S. troops in southern Iraq aren't needed, even as American forces prepare to take over in Basra from the departing British in March, Oates said. The U.S. force includes 12,500 combat troops who these days see little combat. "I actually think we've turned a corner in southern Iraq, and I don't think we're going to return to violence," Oates said before his recent visit to Kut. "In southern Iraq, it's my considered opinion that it's not reversible." The same cannot be said of the country as a whole. Tensions are on the rise between Arabs and Kurds in northern Iraq. Al Qaeda in Iraq maintains a stubborn presence in the northern city of Mosul and in Diyala province. Even in Baghdad, where life is almost back to normal, there are small-scale attacks every day, and the concrete barriers that surround most neighborhoods and protect government buildings are still in place, sustaining a militarized feel. It is unclear what would happen if U.S. troops were to draw down from those areas, and security assessments are under way to try to determine that, Oates said. But the threats that linger in the nine provinces of the south are nothing that can't be handled by Iraqi security forces without U.S. help, said Maj. Gen. Raad Shaker Jawdat, the police chief in Wasit province, home to Kut. "I don't need them here," he said of U.S. forces. One reason for the sharp reduction in violence appears to be a lessening of Iranian support for the extremist Shiite militias that had been responsible for most of the violence in southern Iraq. U.S. soldiers are uncovering fewer weapons caches that originate in Iran, while most of the senior leadership of Iranian-backed militias has fled to Iran. Dozens of second- and third-tier leaders also have been rounded up. Oates further speculated that war-weary Iraqis are less amenable these days to receiving weaponry from Iran. The results of recent provincial elections demonstrated strong support for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's tough law-and-order campaign, while the most overtly pro-Iranian political movement, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, was dealt a drubbing. But with its close ties to Iraq's Shiite population and its regional ambitions, Iran remains a big question mark over Iraq's future. "One big caveat is that we don't know what Iran's intentions are," Oates said. If Iran were to start significantly supporting Shiite extremist groups again, "that would be a game-changer," he said. Another caveat, he said, rests with the Iraqi government's ability to deliver services to its people. "Both of these factors could turn back the clock, but I don't see it," he said. Some troops still will be needed to train Iraqi security forces, help with logistics and provide air support, but Oates said he has identified units that can safely be withdrawn and is now waiting only on a decision from the president. Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune

Better security lifts housing market in Iraq

By Alan Gomez, USA TODAY BAGHDAD — Mohammed Aziz remembers back when he would come to his office and spend days without a single customer opening the door. The real estate broker would sit in the office with colleagues and relatives, wondering when the raging violence outside would ease up enough so people would get back to buying and selling homes. "In 2005 and 2006, it looked like a ghost city," said Aziz, pointing out toward the street bustling with reopened shops and heavy traffic. "Nobody came. We would come and sit and read newspapers. "Now," he says, smiling, "it's very good." In contrast with the rest of the world, parts of Iraq are experiencing a rare real estate boom thanks to the dramatic improvement in security here during the past 18 months, Aziz and others say. Home sales and prices have shot up in the past two years as wealthy Iraqis who fled the country during the worst years return, and those who stayed behind feel comfortable enough to open their wallets again. For example, Aziz said a 4,300-square-foot home in Baghdad's Mansour neighborhood — an upscale area that is home to Sunni and Shiite Muslims and saw some of the worst violence between the two sects — has doubled in price from about $170,000 in 2005 to $340,000 in 2008. There are no reliable nationwide data in Iraq for housing prices, and officials at Iraq's finance ministry declined requests for comment. Yet many neighborhoods of Baghdad are lined with "For Sale" signs, and real estate broker Saab Abdul Razak says they're finding an audience: "People are buying," he said with a grin. Despite the progress, the threat of violence still affects business. Three months ago, members of the Abdul Khadr family finally felt that the price offered on their home in the upper-class, Baghdad neighborhood of Yarmouk was high enough. After years of depressed prices, they sold the house in the religiously mixed area for $280,000. The three siblings — Hussein, Mohammed and Lamia — said they took their share of the profit to move to Tikrit because it was a predominantly Sunni city and they would feel safer there. Other obstacles are just now being removed. In Iraq, it is customary for people to purchase homes with cash. Buyer and seller usually meet at a real estate broker's office to sign some documents, and money changes hands. Razak, who works with properties in Yarmouk, said people were scared to even enter his office because insurgents would follow people out, knowing a large sum of money was there for the taking. "They were afraid to bring the money here," Razak said. Many Iraqis were forced to sell their homes or risk losing them to squatters or insurgents. During the height of the sectarian violence, Sunnis fled Shiite neighborhoods, Shiites fled Sunni neighborhoods and some left the country altogether. The fleeing homeowners, combined with low home prices due to the raging violence, actually created a unique business opportunity for Iraqis who were out of the country, Razak said. They bought up the homes to either flip when the market improved or to rent out as an investment property. Unis Mohammed Emin, a civil engineer who has worked outside of Iraq for several years, snatched up a 5,800-square-foot house in the western neighborhood of Ghazaliya in 2005 for $220,000. Emin bought the house from a Christian family who fled to Stockholm to avoid being targeted. He rents it out. "It was like gambling," said Razak, the broker. "You were standing on the edge of a mountain." On a recent day, Razak showed off a home he was selling. The refurbished home has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a balcony and garden, sits across the street from a mosque and is in walking distance of a good private school, markets and restaurants. Razak received an offer of $350,000 for the house last month, but the family unflinchingly turned it down, wanting at least $380,000. Razak said he was certain there would be a higher offer. For those with less money, the story is less rosy. Nowzad Mohialdin, a retired Baghdad banker, said most homes for sale are far out of reach for regular workers, whose salaries remain low. Iraq's unemployment rate is at 18% and an additional 10% of the labor force works part-time but is looking for full-time work, according to a United Nations report released last month. "Two or three families will rent one house and share it," Mohialdin said. "The only people who can buy their own homes are army officers or business owners. Not workers." The only long-term answer will come in the form of large-scale housing projects funded by foreign companies, Aziz said. Iraq is struggling just to get its basic infrastructure online after decades of wars and sanctions, he said, so it will be a long time before the housing market is open to all Iraqis. "We need about 3 million homes for the Iraqis right now," he said. "We need big housing projects and big companies. We need foreign companies to invest in this country." http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2009-02-24-iraqhouses_N.htm?csp=34

As war ebbs, Europe returns to Iraq

France and Germany opposed the US-led invasion but are now eyeing new investments in the war-torn country. By William Boston | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor from the February 24, 2009 edition BERLIN - President Bush was hardly out of the White House before his European opponents to the invasion of Iraq began lining up for what are expected to be lucrative contracts to rebuild the oil-rich country. In recent weeks, France and Germany, which Donald Rumsfeld, former secretary of Defense, once chided as "Old Europe" for their opposition to the war, spearheaded Europe's forceful return to Baghdad. On separate visits with similar goals, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier swung through Baghdad. Their message was clear: As the danger subsides and the US scales back, Europe should move in quickly with money and know-how to rebuild everything from power stations, water systems, schools, and hospitals to roads and bridges. "German companies should study the possibility of increasing their presence in Iraq, given the improvement in the security situation," Mr. Steinmeier said during his Feb. 17-18 visit. "We have seen a noticeable improvement in the area of security over the last couple of months." Steinmeier is the second German government official to visit Iraq in recent months. His visit was preceded by Germany's former economics minister Michael Glos. But Steinmeier's visit, coupled with political meetings, was the first solid evidence of a shift in German foreign policy. And it is an indication that Germany is now intent on reestablishing its once strong political and economic ties with Baghdad. While some commentators have seen the European visits to Iraq as a sign of rivalry and heightened tension in transatlantic relations, others say Germany and France are both keen to play a greater role in Iraq reconstruction in order to show their support for the new US administration of President Obama and support their own agendas within the alliance. "The German government is particularly interested in working closely and positively with the Obama administration," says Guido Steinberg, political analyst with the German Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Obama is urging US partners in NATO to play a greater role in fighting insurgent forces in Afghanistan. The Germans have some 3,650 troops in the country and last week announced they would send another 600 troops. Steinmeier's visit to Baghdad also sends a signal to Washington that Berlin has reached the limit of its military options in Afghanistan but can play a greater role in rebuilding Iraq. "For the Germans, you have to see their engagement in Iraq in connection with Afghanistan," says Mr. Steinberg. Against this political backdrop, Steinmeier set out to lay the groundwork for a long-term German engagement in Iraq. In addition to talks with Iraqi government officials on how Germany might help support the new democratic government in Baghdad by training police and teachers, for example, Steinmeier opened a business office, a clearinghouse for German companies hoping to do business in Iraq. "The office will help revive what used to be intensive economic relations between Germany and Iraq," says Economics Minister Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg in Berlin. Mr. Sarkozy's visit is both an effort to reestablish France's old ties to the Iraqi oil industry as well as a vehicle for longer-term French foreign policy in the region. Since becoming president, Sarkozy has been a driving force for forging deeper European engagement with the Middle East. It is the first visit of a French leader since the US-led invasion of Iraq and is intended to reestablish France's close political and economic ties with Baghdad. Sarkozy said he would return to Baghdad in the summer with a high-level delegation of French business leaders. "My coming here is to tell French companies: The time is at hand – come and invest," Sarkozy said during his visit. The Europeans are clearly getting a warm welcome in Baghdad. "German companies won't have to undertake any special efforts in order to establish themselves here," Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said. "They used to be very active here and enjoy a fine reputation." Europe's involvement in Iraq during the Saddam Hussein-era spanned French investment in Iraq's oil industry and German engineering products as well as huge loans to the Iraqi government. France, Russia, and China were the main foreign investors in Iraq's oil industry under Mr. Hussein. Business and political ties suffered after the United Nations-imposed economic sanctions on Iraq and in the wake of the US-led invasion. Both France and Germany were among the main Paris Club lenders that agreed, after the ousting of Hussein's government, to forgive 80 percent of the $39 billion in Iraq's foreign debt owed to Paris Club members. European businesses have not been waiting for their political leaders to rebuild bridges with Baghdad. In December, Iraq announced that it had awarded German engineering giant Siemens AG a €1.5 billion contract to provide 16 gas- and oil-fired turbines for electric-power stations being built in Rumaila-Basra, Taza-Kirkuk, Dibis-Kirkuk, Baiji, and Sadder-Baghdad. The Iraqi government has also reopened its oil industry to foreign investment and begun talks with the French company Total as well as the Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell to develop five new oil fields in northern and southern Iraq. The Iraqis are also talking to US oil companies Chevron and ExxonMobil about the development. The Iraqi government is also opening the door to Russia and China, whose energy companies had received concessions to produce oil from Hussein. And Iran, a longtime rival of Iraq, is drilling nine oil wells north of Baghdad. With its focus now shifting toward Afghanistan, and the troubled legacy of the Bush administration in Iraq, Washington may not have much choice but to welcome the flood of assistance pouring into Iraq from countries that were opposed to the US-led war. With Mr. Bush's exit, the last of the wartime leaders who locked horns over Iraq has left the political stage. That could open new opportunities for dialogue within NATO about a broader Mideast strategy in which the US and Europe understand that each have genuine interests in resolving problems in the region. "The Europeans have not had a genuine interest in Iraq in the past," says Steinberg. "They have seen Iraq as a function of the transatlantic relationship and that was a mistake."

Iraq museum that was looted reopens, far from whole

By Steven Lee Myers Tuesday, February 24, 2009 BAGHDAD: Well over half the exhibition halls in Iraq's National Museum are closed, darkened and in disrepair. And yet, the museum whose looting in 2003 became a symbol of the chaos that followed the American invasion officially reopened on Monday. Thousands of works from its collection of antiquities and art — some of civilization's earliest objects — remain lost. The smell of fresh paint infuses the Room of Treasures, which even now is deemed safe enough for only photographs of the intricate gold and gem-studded jewelry made in Nimrud nearly 3,000 years ago, not the real thing. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki pushed to reopen the museum, against the advice of his own Culture Ministry, as a sign of Iraqi progress. Symbol it was, and symbol it remains — not only of how much Iraq has improved, but of how far it has to go. "It was a rugged wave and strong black wind that passed over Iraq, and one of the results was the destruction that hit this cultural icon," Maliki declared in a dedication ceremony that was shrouded in dispute and secrecy until the last minute. "We have stopped this black wind, and we have resumed the process of reconstruction." Yet the museum is only one institution in a place where little — not electricity or even sewerage — functions as it should, nearly six years after the beginning of the war that toppled Saddam Hussein. The museum, like life here, may be more secure than at any other time since then, but it is not normal. Heavily armed soldiers patrolled the museum's roof and watched from sandbagged redoubts as Maliki, other senior officials and foreign diplomats arrived. Helicopters thudded in the sky, and the police blocked streets for miles around. Inside, in stark contrast, visitors filled 8 of the museum's 26 galleries, engaged in hushed conversations before glass cases displaying ancient pottery and sculptures, cuneiform tablets from Sumerian and Babylonian times, and the stunning 2,700-year-old stone reliefs from the palace of the Assyrian king Sargon II at Khorsabad. (In size and shape, the reliefs eerily recall the blast walls that protect buildings and divide streets in Baghdad.) Welcoming the diplomats as a bagpipe ensemble played in the garden outside, Iraq's minister of state for tourism and antiquities, Qahtan al-Jibouri, said Iraq wanted visitors "to see that Baghdad is still the same as it was in their eyes and has not turned to ruins, as the enemies of life wanted." On Monday ordinary Iraqis — that is, those not invited — could get only as close as the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the museum's collection of buildings, offices and warehouses at the corner of Qahira and Nasir Streets in central Baghdad. Dozens clutched the fence's bars and shouted out appeals, vainly, to the prime minister or other officials who came and left in armored convoys. Among those at the fence was Zahrah Latif, a 40-year-old woman without a home. "God willing, Iraq will be better," she said, the museum a mere afterthought, "but we're here to see Maliki." When Iraqis may actually see for themselves a collection of relics and art that spans millenniums was a question even the museum's deputy director, Muhsin Hassan Ali, dared not answer, even when pressed. The museum's directors have twice before ostentatiously opened the doors. In July 2003, the American civilian administrator in Iraq at the time, L. Paul Bremer III, toured some displays only weeks after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld dismissed the looting by saying, "Stuff happens." In December 2007, the museum's director allowed a group of journalists and politicians inside for a fewhours. The museum remained shuttered, though, battened down against the violence swirling outside. Not until now has Iraq's government officially declared it a working institution again. Monday's event itself proved controversial, provoking an unusually pointed dispute between ministries of Maliki's fractious government, each with its own agenda. Jibouri's tourism agency announced the reopening ceremony two weeks ago and issued invitations, only to be challenged by the Ministry of Culture, whose officials argued that the museum and its collection were not yet ready for the public. They complained that the holdings were in disarray, many of them waiting to be catalogued, and that the museum's basic security remained in doubt. "It is a risk to open the museum at this time," Jabir al-Jabiri, the ministry's senior deputy, said in a telephone interview. The museum's former director, Donny George Youkhanna, who fled in 2006 after threats against him and his family, said the museum required years' more preparations to reach international standards of curatorship, conservation and security before it could safely accommodate museum-goers. "I believe the museum is being used in this case for political reasons only," he wrote in an e-mail message from Long Island, where he has since worked as a visiting professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Maliki's government, though, overruled such objections, and Monday's ceremony went ahead — without Jabiri and other Culture Ministry officials, who boycotted in protest. Another deputy, Fawzi al-Atroshi, later said that the ministry, which officially overseas Iraq's museums, was considering opening the museum at first only for one day a week and only for foreigners, students and VIP's. For a day at least, once Maliki's entourage departed, people once again walked freely through the museum's galleries, which still showed wear in places, despite the new paint. The museum, also known as the Iraq Museum, has been extensively, if not completely, refurbished with financial assistance from Italy and the United States, including a $14 million grant announced last fall by Laura Bush. It still requires a heating and cooling system, security systems and training for a staff that has remained in professional limbo for years. One hall that opened on Monday was devoted to objects taken during the looting and since returned, having been seized by customs officials at the borders. Other halls displayed works that had been in storage and were only now being seen, including two smaller-than-usual versions of the mythical winged, human-headed bull created during the Assyrian empire, as long as 3,000 years ago. The museum's workers, who witnessed the looting and then endured nearly six years with a closed museum and uncertainty inside and outside the building, sounded elated simply to have company again in what for years were deserted galleries. "You can tell by our faces how we feel," Thamir Rajab, a conservation specialist said, beaming as he pointed out several of his favorite sculptures. The staff learned two months ago that it would reopen in February. As Rajab put it, they then crammed two years' of work into those two months. "We did the best we could," he explained, wistful that the museum remained less than what it once was. "This is what we could do now. God willing, one day we will do more."

PM Maliki's allies triumph in Iraq poll

Thu Feb 19, 12:36 pm ET BAGHDAD (AFP) – Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's allies triumphed in the January 31 provincial polls, final results showed on Thursday, boosting his position in war-battered Iraq after fiercely contested elections. Candidates backed by Maliki dominated in Baghdad and also won a majority in all nine of Iraq's Shiite provinces, in a huge vote of confidence for the premier whose standing has grown steadily at home and abroad in the past year. Just over half of Iraqis voted in the largely trouble-free elections, which were seen as a vital test of the country's progress since the US-led invasion ousted Saddam Hussein from power almost six years ago. Maliki, a Shiite, did not stand in the provincial council polls but threw his backing behind State of Law Coalition candidates. The polls held in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces were seen as a referendum on Maliki's performance. Polling is due to take place later in the three Kurdish provinces of northern Iraq and the disputed oil-rich region of Kirkuk. The councils, which serve for a four-year term, are now tasked with electing provincial governors and their two deputies within 30 days.

Iraq seeks stronger trade relations with France

BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Iraq’s trade ministry seeks to expand direct trade exchange with France by importing cars and foodstuffs, Minister Abdelfalah al-Sudani said on Thursday after a meeting with French Secretary of State for Trade Anne-Marie Idrac in Baghdad. “The two sides discussed means to activate economic relations between the two countries and a bigger role by French companies in the Iraqi economy,” Sudani told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. “Iraq has genuine plans to import cars and foodstuffs from France,” he said. The French official had arrived in Iraq on Thursday (Feb. 19) and met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who called on French companies to work and invest in Iraq after security conditions improved throughout the country.

Iraq hiring U.S. to rebuild port

Ben Lando UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL Iraq's navy is paying the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to revamp part of southern Iraq's Umm Qasr port, which is vital to the security of Iraq's southern oil exports. The project is the first Foreign Military Sales project between Iraq and the corps. "The Iraqi navy has only one pier, and the current one is decades old and in need of extensive repair," said Maj. Gen. Michael Eyre, commanding general of the corps' Gulf Region Division. "This project will provide a state-of-the-art facility that will meet the current needs of the Iraqi navy and can easily be expanded to meet future requirements." Congress has criticized the Iraqi government for not paying more of the country's reconstruction costs, and U.S. officials have also questioned the country's capacity to carry out large-scale reconstruction projects. For the port project, the Iraqi government has essentially contracted the corps for the $53 million rehabilitation of the Umm Qasr pier and seawall near the Kuwait border on the western side of the al-Faw Peninsula, which juts into the Persian Gulf. More than 70 percent of Iraq's oil exports - on which the country is dependent - are sent to market via Gulf tankers. Southern oil infrastructure has been less affected by violence than that in the north since 2003, but the sea route taken by tankers to transport Iraq's oil exports runs between Kuwait and Iran and remains vulnerable to piracy and other threats. When the port project is completed, the Iraqi navy and other ships tasked with protecting the terminals where oil is loaded will have a berthing facility and headquarters. "This project further strengthens the Iraqi navy's ability to protect the nation's sovereign waters, including its oil infrastructure," Gen. Eyre said. "The Iraqi navy is also charged with customs control and anti-piracy. [But] the Iraqi navy's main mission is to protect the oil pipelines and platforms in the Arab Gulf, ensuring that Iraq's primary export and source of funding is secured and protected," he said. "It is crucial that this project be constructed and be done in a timely manner." Officials from Iraq's Ministry of Defense and navy, the corps, and Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq have been coordinating the project since October. Last week, representatives from both countries signed a "certificate of agreement" charting the course through completion in September. Around 45,000 people live in the historic town, said to be the site of Alexander the Great's landing in Mesopotamia in 325 B.C. A naval base was first established after the 1958 Iraqi revolution and the port was completed in 1967. The state port company is seeking bidders for supplying modern scanning and logging systems, part of an overall attempt to reconstruct Iraq's ports network and enhance trade. In August, Iraq ended a plan to fully privatize the ports. Previous attempts led to protests from Iraq's port and other organized workers.

Old Europe reaches out to new Iraq

By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer Robert H. Reid, Associated Press Writer Tue Feb 17, 3:39 pm ET BAGHDAD – Old Europe is reaching out to the new Iraq. Germany's foreign minister met Tuesday with Iraqi leaders in the latest high-level visit by a major Western nation that refused to take part in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion but is now looking for ties and lucrative contracts. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the first German foreign minister to come to Iraq in more than 20 years, arrived one week after Nicolas Sarkozy visited Baghdad, the French president calling on other European countries to follow his lead "to support the peace." Iraqi leaders seem eager to cement their relations with Germany and France partly to avoid the appearance of being puppets of the United States — which at any rate is preparing to withdraw its troops, many of whom worked on infrastructure projects such as rebuilding bridges and roads. Steinmeier, who met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other senior officials, told reporters that Germany wants to "extend a hand to the new Iraq." "We have seen in the last months important successes in stabilizing the country," he said. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the visit showed both countries were eager to resume their "historical relations." "We believe that the situation in Iraq has reached a good phase, and thus there is international confidence in the stability of this country," Zebari told reporters after his talks with Steinmeier. Those upbeat comments were a far cry from the acrimony of six years ago, when France and Germany spearheaded opposition to the U.S.-led invasion, dividing Europe and damaging relations between Washington and some of its closest European allies. At the time, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld scoffed at the European critics, branding them "Old Europe" in contrast to a vigorous "New Europe" — former Soviet bloc nations such as Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic which supported the invasion. Over the years, the heated rhetoric has cooled. New governments have taken power in France and Germany. And Iraq's own leadership has gained new legitimacy with the decline in violence and recent provincial elections that took place without major attacks. Last month, the German foreign minister wrote in an open letter to President Barack Obama, who also opposed the war, that Germany was ready to help "the people of Iraq" create "a stable and democratic state." The United States has encouraged other countries to step up their efforts to help rebuild Iraq, as the U.S. military role in this country winds down. The U.S. must withdraw its troops by the end of 2011 according to a security agreement signed with Baghdad last year. Obama's administration is considering plans to accelerate the withdrawal to shift military resources to Afghanistan, where al-Qaida and a resurgent Taliban are challenging the U.S.-backed Afghan government. For their part, the Germans are eager to cash in on millions of dollars in lucrative contracts in a country which has some of the world's largest petroleum reserves. Steinmeier arrived with representatives of German companies and cultural institutions. The Germans hope to establish an economic office in Baghdad, with a branch in the northern city of Irbil, the capital of Iraq's self-governing Kurdish region. "The office will contribute to reviving the once-intensive economic relations between Germany and Iraq," German Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said in a statement. "The office also will serve to overcome the economic consequences of the war in Iraq and contribute to the country's economic rebuilding." Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the two sides also signed agreements on scientific and cultural cooperation, technical and training assistance for the Iraqi Electricity Ministry and to build a German-Iraqi university in Iraq. "The visit is a turning point in relations with Germany," said al-Dabbagh. International support comes at a critical time for Iraq, which is only now emerging from nearly six years of vicious war. But U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that the improvements in security are fragile because major power-sharing issues between rival religious and ethnic groups remain unresolved. As part of the security agreement between the Americans and the Iraqis, the U.S. military is transferring the thousands of detainees to Iraqi government control. A U.S. spokesman, Maj. Neal Fisher, said Tuesday the number of detainees held by the U.S. in Iraq has dropped from a peak of more than 26,000 in 2007 to 14,560. He said the military has been releasing 1,500 detainees a month — 50 a day. "At this rate we anticipate concluding our efforts by the end of 2009 or early 2010," Fisher said. Of those detainees still in custody, Fisher said 2,453 have either been convicted or are being tried. The U.S. has built a new prison in Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad, that it plans to turn over to the Iraqi government by the end of the year. ___

Putin Warns United States About Socialism

Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise “excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence”. “In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,” Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.” Sounding more like Barry Goldwater than the former head of the KGB, Putin said, “Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors, and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state.” Putin also cautioned the US against using military Keynesianism to lift its economy out of recession, saying, “in the longer run, militarization won’t solve the problem but will rather quell it temporarily. What it will do is squeeze huge financial and other resources from the economy instead of finding better and wiser uses for them.” Putin’s comments come in sharp contrast to Russia’s own military buildup and expansion. Putin also echoed the words of conservative maverick Ron Paul when he said, “we must assess the real situation and write off all hopeless debts and ‘bad’ assets. True, this will be an extremely painful and unpleasant process. Far from everyone can accept such measures, fearing for their capitalization, bonuses, or reputation. However, we would ‘conserve’ and prolong the crisis, unless we clean up our balance sheets.” “The time for enlightenment has come. We must calmly, and without gloating, assess the root causes of this situation and try to peek into the future.”

A peace sign: Iraq's Sunnis joining Shiite pilgrims

After three years of violence, pilgrims return to Karbala's shrine. By Jane Arraf | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor from the February 17, 2009 edition Baghdad - Sheikh Mohammad al-Ethawi, resplendent in his gold-trimmed robe and white headdress, hands out oranges to Shiite pilgrims walking by a striped tent on the main route to the holy city of Karbala. Sheikh Ethawi is Sunni. The Doura highway, where more than a million pilgrims – largely Shiite – are walking for the first time in three years, passes through what had been one of Baghdad's most violent neighborhoods. Their numbers and Ethawi's presence are a sign of the easing of sectarian tensions that almost ripped this country apart. "A lot of people were afraid last year," says Ethawi, the head of the Hathar tribal council in southern Baghdad. The council, a mix of Sunni and Shiite leaders, is hosting a rest stops that offers food, drinks, and shelter along the roads choked with pilgrims, who walk for days to reach the holy city. The pilgrimage commemorates Arbaeen, the end of 40 days of mourning for the death of the prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein in battle 13 centuries ago. The Iraqi government launched a massive security effort for this year's pilgrimage that culminated Monday with an estimated 6 million people gathering in Karbala. Most seemed undeterred by scattered attacks along the route, including a female suicide bomber who killed at least 40 people when she blew herself up at a rest stop south of Baghdad and another bomb in Karbala that killed eight. "It was a small explosion," says Jamil Dawoud, driving through Radwaniyah, 10 miles south of the capital, on his way back from the holy city. Mr. Dawoud, a stonemason, had stopped at a table where both Shiite and Sunni security volunteers, known as the Sons of Iraq, had lowered their rifles to flag down passing cars, ladling orange drinks out of a big plastic tub and passing around trays of sesame cookies. The rural area where one of Saddam Hussein's larger palaces rises just beyond the hayfields and date palms had been too dangerous to drive through until recently. "Last year, if you stopped here they would have killed you," says Dawoud. Sunnis now help In Baghdad, the improved security has led some Sunnis to once again openly participate in the mostly Shiite commemoration. Hanan Faleh Abdul Qadir, a retired accountant, this year is again openly cooking for her neighbors in Al-Adel. "For the past two years I cooked clandestinely and carried the dishes under my abaya to distribute to neighbors I trusted," says Ms. Abdul Qadir. She says her son was kidnapped and tortured in 2006 after he defended Shiite neighbors who had been ordered to leave their homes. "This year I cooked a lot of food in my garage and distributed it to all the neighbors," she says. Apart from being neighborly, Abdul Qadir notes that her actions also reflect a Sunni reverence for the prophet's grandson. South of Baghdad, at the highway interchange near Mahmudiyah, Army officer Ali Qassim Abbas stands watch as thousands of pilgrims stream past barbed-wire barricades, some being pushed in wheelchairs or carrying babies in their arms. "If we decided to separate the Sunni from Shiite we would have to divide the bedrooms," says Abbas, referring to the countless intermarriages. Although the attacks appeared intended to reignite sectarian violence, the Shiite pilgrims were unwilling to blame their Sunni countrymen for the suicide bombers. "It's people from outside Iraq," says Suad Mohammad Katham, who walked for two days from Baghdad with her 13-year-old niece. "They must have drugged her and then put the vest on her." Security forces guard route On Saturday, after the latest bombing, random body searches by volunteers were stepped up on the roads out of Baghdad. Iraqi security forces stood watch every 200 yards along the 40-mile route from the capital to Karbala, where tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and police were deployed. Near Mahmudiyah, US backup included air support and a quick reaction force. Lt. Col. Jim Bradford, a US Army battalion commander, said an estimated 4 million pilgrims had passed through Muhmudiyah with no major incidents. The wave of pilgrims, many of them poor and jobless, carried a sea of prayers of a people recovering from war and a country struggling to put itself together. Many were making the pilgrimage to ask Imam Hussein to intercede with God to cure loved ones. Each pilgrim's path is unique Suad Mohammad Katham, her plastic sandals digging into her feet, was walking to Karbala to give thanks for her mother's improved health. Ms. Katham had made a previous pilgrimage to pray for her. Nathal Qassim had a flag of Hussein furling around her traditional black cloak. Her husband was shot in an armed robbery six months ago on Baghdad's Palestine Street. "I'm praying to find the murderer and for all of those who have loved ones missing," she says. In Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood, where the hold of religious extremists has loosened, huge flags depicting Hussein flew next to shop windows crammed with fuzzy red hearts and plastic roses for Valentine's Day. With the almost unimaginable violence of the last two years waning, Iraqis seem to be finding a way to live together again – a willingness to forgive is seen as a key test to the country's future. Torture didn't break spirit At one of the hospitality tents in Karrada, Thamer Tariq Barhoum, an unemployed house painter, says he was released from Camp Bucca, a US prison in the south of Iraq, six months ago when he was found innocent after spending 40 months in US and Iraqi detention. Mr. Barhoum, a father of six, says he was tortured by Iraqi security forces after being accused of attacking US soldiers. He bears the scars of being hit with a rifle butt and what he says was burning plastic dripped onto his wrists. Despite all this, Barhoum says he bears no hatred against the Iraqi officer who he says administered the torture. "I don't have anything against him," he says. "After he beat me, he brought me food and apologized – he was ordered by his superiors to do it." He says he was better treated by his American captors after he was handed over. A tribal court – more trusted than Iraq's civil courts – ordered the Iraqi policeman who falsely accused him to pay more than $4,000 in compensation. He is still waiting for compensation from US authorities. "They gave me $20 for taxi fare," he says. • Awadh al-Taee contributed in Baghdad.

Iraqi forces tested

Financial Times, February 17, 2009 By Andrew England in Basra Published: February 16 2009 22:04 | Last updated: February 16 2009 22:04 On the streets that lead into Hayaniah, Basra’s most notorious slum, small groups of Iraqi soldiers man a string of checkpoints, peering into vehicles and sometimes questioning drivers. At some of the posts sit US-donated Humvees or armoured personnel carriers, now with Iraqi flags and surrounded by coils of razor wire. These, combined with the frequency of the checkpoints, add to a sense of militarisation in the area. However, the fact that the soldiers are deployed in Hayaniah – once a no-go area and hotbed of militia activity – is seen as a sign of true progress for the Iraqi army. Building on the security gains highlighted by last month’s peaceful provincial elections and continuing the development of Iraq’s fledgling security forces will be critical to its stability as the US and Britain look to withdraw their troops. It is in areas like this that the Iraqi forces could be severely tested. The slum is notorious as a stronghold of the Mahdi Army, the militia nominally loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shia cleric. It saw some of the heaviest fighting last year as the army sought to wrest control of Basra from the militias. An air of caution still hangs over Hayaniah, but there is little doubt that today Basrawis have a renewed sense of security because of the offensive which has been dubbed Charge of the Knights. Its success was an important factor behind the strong showing of the political bloc backed by Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, at last month’s elections. There are lingering questions about whether the militias were defeated or simply melted away, and the operation did highlight the Iraqi security forces’ weaknesses as well as their gains. Iraqi troops had to depend on help from coalition forces, not least logistics support for food, water and ammunition, experts say. Both the army and police also suffered desertions, estimates of which vary from hundreds to more than 1,000. Western and Iraqi military officials say the army has made progress in the months since, improving its command and control structures and its logistics capacity. However, they acknowledge a lack of strength in depth at both officer and non-commissioned officer levels. An Iraqi army officer says the biggest problem is the army’s lack of heavy equipment and complains of “tank drivers without tanks”. He also expressed concern that any future wrangles between the political parties in government could affect the military’s effectiveness. But it is the police that are the biggest concern in Basra. Before the Charge of the Knights campaign, they were seen as a part of the problem – a force infiltrated by militias and often suspected of involvement in killings and kidnappings. During the operation, many police fought alongside the militias and some 4,000 were dismissed because of ties to the Mahdi Army. A police officer undertaking forensic training in Britain says the force has improved, but that militia members remain in high positions. Significantly, he shares many Basrawis’ fears that the militias could well resurface – given the opportunity. “They [militias] do nothing now . . . but they are only waiting for the lion [American troops] to leave and the rat to come back to their position again,” he says. Asked if the police could control Basra if the army pulled out, both he and a colleague shake their heads. The officer blames the US-led coalition for the problems, arguing that it asked the political parties, many of which have their own ¬militias, to choose who should be in the force. “And suddenly I find myself serving the militia.” Some British officials say there was no proper training plan, and that the coalition was seduced by the number of recruits rather than their talent and ability. US military police are being drafted in to provide additional training. But there are also complaints about the interior ministry’s inability to supply the force with everything from pens to bullets. It will take much work before many Basrawis put their trust in the police. “The police were hiding under their blankets [when the militias roamed Basra] and if the army goes the Iraqi police will return to their blankets,” says one.

Chavez calls Venezuela vote mandate for socialism

CARACAS, Venezuela – President Hugo Chavez says a referendum victory that removed limits on his re-election is a mandate to intensify his socialist agenda for decades to come. Opponents warn of an impending dictatorship. Both sides had called the outcome of Sunday's vote key to the future of this South American country, split down the middle between those who worship the president for redistributing Venezuela's oil riches and those who see him as a power-hungry autocrat. "Those who voted "yes" today voted for socialism, for revolution," Chavez thundered to thousands of ecstatic supporters jamming the streets around the presidential palace. Fireworks lit up the Caracas skyline, and one man walked though the crowd carrying a painting of Chavez that read: "Forever." Josefa Dugarte stared at the crowd from the stoop of her apartment building with look of dismay. "These people don't realize what they have done," she muttered. With 94 percent of the vote counted, official results showed the amendment passing 54 percent to 46 percent, an irreversible trend, and opposition leaders accepted the results. Tibisay Lucena, president of National Electoral Council, said turnout was 67 percent. The constitutional overhaul allows all public officials to run for re-election as many times as they want, removing barriers to a Chavez candidacy in the next presidential elections in 2012 and beyond. "In 2012 there will be presidential elections, and unless God decides otherwise, unless the people decide otherwise, this soldier is already a candidate," Chavez said to applause. First elected in 1998, he has said he might stay in power until 2049, when he'll be 95. But analysts said Chavez shouldn't count on getting re-elected just yet. "Chavez's intention is clear: He aspires to be president for life," said Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. "He is convinced he embodies the popular will and is indispensable to the country's progress. But his capacity to pull this off is far from assured." He said the global financial crisis and the plunging price of oil, which accounts for 94 percent of Venezuela's exports and nearly half its federal budget, will limit Chavez's ability to maintain the level of public spending that has fueled his popularity. "The greatest challenge the government now faces is governing in the face of crisis and not falling into triumphalism," said Miguel Tinker Salas, a professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California. At their campaign headquarters, Chavez opponents hugged one another, and some cried. They said the results were skewed by Chavez's broad use of state resources to get out the vote, through a battery of state-run news media, pressure on 2 million public employees and frequent presidential speeches which all television stations were required to air. With the courts, the legislature and the election council all under his influence, and now with no limits on his re-election, officials say Chavez is virtually unstoppable. "Effectively this will become a dictatorship," opposition leader Omar Barboza told The Associated Press. "It's control of all the powers, lack of separation of powers, unscrupulous use of state resources, persecution of adversaries."

Lights On in Iraq

Lights On A streetlamp, a sheep, and Dr. Phil--a parable of rebuilding Iraq. Anna Badkhen, The New Republic Published: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 Baghdad, Iraq In December 2007, the Alpha Company of the 4-64 Armor Battalion of the Fourth Brigade, Third Infantry Division, arrived in the neighborhood of Saidiyah in southwest Baghdad. More than half of the onceupscale, religiously mixed neighborhood's 60,000 residents had fled to Jordan, Syria, or other parts of Iraq. Those who stayed rarely ventured out of their homes. Up until a few months earlier, human corpses had littered the street, where stray dogs feasted on them. The police were responsible for collecting the bodies and delivering them to the morgue, but they tended to shirk this duty because warring militias often booby-trapped the bodies. To reclaim Saidiyah from sectarian violence, Alpha Company worked on isolating it from the rest of the city. First, it finished a twelve-foot wall around the entire neighborhood. When the last Saidiyah house was cleared of weapons and suspected insurgents to the soldiers' satisfaction, the troops pronounced the area safe and encouraged former residents to return. But the residents didn't come rushing back. Most of their neighborhood had been reduced to rubble: Gutted mansions riddled with bullet holes loomed, abandoned, over sewage pooling in craters from roadside bombs. The stores on Alwa Street, once a bustling commercial center of Saidiyah, were shuttered. And, in addition to the ruins, there was psychological devastation--a feeling that, even though the militias were gone, the neighborhood still wasn't safe. Contributing to this fear was the darkness. Before the war, hookah bars, teashops, clothes stores, and restaurants stayed open late, drawing crowds of shoppers to Alwa Street after dark. Baghdadis like to shop well into the night, to avoid the afternoon heat. But, in the mayhem that followed the U.S. invasion, Saidiyah, like most of the country, lost electricity. On most evenings and nights, everything was completely dark. By the time Alpha Company's new captain, Andrew "Drew" Betson, then a 25-year-old West Point graduate with a degree in military history, arrived in April 2008, it seemed clear to Iraqis and Americans alike that the first step to revitalizing Alwa Street would be lighting it. Simply rehooking its 45 light posts into the electricity network wouldn't solve the problem: Baghdad's dilapidated grid produced enough power for only two to four hours of electricity per day in some neighborhoods--in a city where summer temperatures can easily reach 124 degrees. The common fix is for American troops to quickly install a 500-kilowatt generator, and then hire and oversee Iraqis to maintain it. But Betson, who liked to introduce himself to Iraqis in the street as "the new commander" (perhaps, in part, to compensate for his youthful appearance--without his intimidating body armor and protective eyewear, he looked young enough to command a boy scout troop), had been briefed on the intricacies involved in making reconstruction projects in Iraq successful. Betson and his commanders had a different plan: The Americans would buy the generator, but, after this initial investment, its operation would be entirely self-sufficient. Nearby shops would buy excess power, and the money would pay for generator fuel and maintenance, providing an important example that capitalism can work in Baghdad. Even more important, as the U.S. commitment to Iraq dwindles, the project would help Iraqis to stand on their own. But, in order to make this plan a reality, Betson knew he couldn't just throw up the generator and tell the Iraqis they were in charge. Billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have been wasted on unsuccessful reconstruction projects because Americans have failed to realize that just as important as cash is the Iraqi buy-in--the support and cooperation of the local community. For this more elusive commodity, Betson needed the services of a tall, sinewy Iraqi known as "Dr. Phil." It was Dr. Phil who came up with the sheep. I met Dr. Phil, whose real name is Lutfi Saber Al Abosi, in a smoky office of Saidiyah's neighborhood council. An overhead fan--running off a private generator--ruffled an arrangement of plastic roses and carnations on a giant, polished desk, sending the stifling summer heat around the room in waves. Other Iraqi men in the room wore traditional ankle-length dresses; Dr. Phil, who is 48, donned a pink button-down shirt with pressed khaki slacks. He spoke rapidly, in slightly accented English, peppering the conversation with crude jokes. (Upon learning that I am married and have only two children, he inquired: "The generator is still working?") Dr. Phil's easygoing manner belies a life with its share of tragedy. In his twenties, he had a wife, played drums in a rock band (The Dancing Bees, in honor of the Bee Gees), and owned a store that sold cosmetics and perfume in downtown Baghdad. But, in 1992, he was arrested for supporting Ayad Allawi, the former Baath party leader turned exiled dissident. He spent the next ten years on death row in Saddam Hussein's dungeons. While Dr. Phil was awaiting execution, he lost his shop, and his wife divorced him. "Intelligence officers kept knocking at her door day and night," Dr. Phil explained. In October 2002, after Saddam announced a general amnesty a few months before the U.S. invasion, Dr. Phil was released. After the invasion began, he found a job translating for U.S. forces. He currently divides his time between Amman, Jordan, where his parents live as refugees, and Baghdad, where he is the founding director of the World Brotherhood and Peace Organization. The non-governmental agency has had at least one project financed by grants it received from U.S. forces for serving as a middleman--nominally, between the troops and the Iraqi contractors. In reality, Dr. Phil's artful mediation is between the Western culture of action and instant gratification and Iraq's way of doing business: an intricately choreographed ballet that involves forging tribal alliances, appeasing the egos of elders and government officials, and showing ordinary Iraqis that a project has the blessing of all proper authorities on earth and in heaven. Initially, as the U.S. military adopted a campaign to win over Iraqi hearts and minds, troops were encouraged to step into this role themselves. But, for many, adopting the etiquette and customs of Iraq didn't come easy. Engaging all the Iraqi actors typically adds weeks, or even months, to the completion of any project and involves many seemingly pointless conversations about families or American pop music over tasty but timeconsuming meals at sheiks' houses, thus contradicting everything American officers are trained to be: "aggressive, confident, A-type personalities," as one Army captain described it. As Major Timothy "T.J." Reed, a civil-affairs officer in Baghdad, put it, "I see where I'm at, I see my goal. Do I have to eat?" But storming the hill, Reed and several American military contractors in Iraq told me, is the approach that has cost the United States billions of dollars in projects that simply faded into the country's dust-caked landscape, abandoned because the Iraqis did not feel invested in them. Take, for example, the Americans' failed effort to expand the outdoor Dora Market. Fabled for its fresh fish and cheap vegetables, the downtown Baghdad market is a claustrophobic hodgepodge of stalls laden with produce, carts overflowing with freshwater carp, and shops selling everything from bootleg DVDs to freshly slaughtered lamb, all squeezed between a major city artery and a set of railroad tracks. After getting the sectarian violence that plagued the market under control, American troops decided to improve the conditions of what, to them, still looked like an unsanitary location and a likely spot for a potential terrorist attack. They found a plot of land a few blocks away, built 200 cement stalls in neat rows and pens for animals, threw in a couple of modern bathrooms with flush-down toilets, and surrounded the whole thing with a tall fence to ward off suicide bombers. But Iraqi vendors were wary of the new market. They didn't want to move from their historic spots by the railroad and the bigger shops. Then, Reed explained, it turned out that the plot that the Americans had assumed was no-man's-land in fact belonged to an Iraqi family that now wanted compensation. "You can either rush to fail, or you can slow down for success," said Reed, who worked as a city planner in New Mexico. "I always preach slowing down for success." But, in addition to the cultural challenge of learning to slow down, American troops increasingly don't have the time or manpower to do the legwork required. They are worn out by multiple deployments and stretched thin by their many duties. Plus, now that a swift withdrawal seems inevitable, the troops will have to dedicate more time and effort to training Iraqi forces. This will leave them with even less time to spend on getting sheiks to commit to reconstruction projects. For these reasons, the military has recently learned to lean on the Dr. Phils of Iraq. For months, Dr. Phil shuttled between the fortified former warehouse on Saidiyah's western border where Alpha Company was deployed and the manicured gardens and stuffy parlors of local sheiks, talking shop with the Americans and drinking gallons of hot tea with the Iraqis. He gave the Americans what they wanted to see: a blueprint for the generator project, with estimates, dates, and figures. He also gave the Iraqis what they wanted: the understanding that, when the project was completed, they would get the credit-- and the gratitude of Saidiyah's residents. In addition to cajoling the sheiks, Dr. Phil had another idea for insuring the generator's success. On a scorching May afternoon, he invited Betson and a group of soldiers to a sun-drenched intersection on Alwa Street, where a stocky Iraqi in rolled-up gray sweatpants dragged a filthy sheep along the tiled sidewalk. The Iraqi's name was Bassam the Butcher, and, true to his name, he put his right foot--shod in a rubber, manure-caked flip-flop--just below the animal's neck, pinning it to the ground, and, with one swift movement of a short, thin blade, slashed its neck. Betson and his company lowered their M4 rifles and snapped pictures with their digital cameras. After methodically repeating the procedure on three more sheep, Bassam carried plastic bags sloshing with blood across the street, to the 500-kilowatt generator, fuel tank, and transformer booth that Betson and his company had recently installed. There, the butcher and some neighborhood boys dipped their hands into the sacrificial blood and pressed their palms against the canary yellow walls of the spanking-new equipment. The ancient tradition of public ritual slaughter has made a comeback in Iraq since the war began. Bloody handprints adorn the metal gates of houses of newlyweds and recently freed detainees. Sacrificing the sheep on the sidewalk and then smearing the generator with their blood, Dr. Phil explained, would show Saidiyah's residents that the people behind the project shared their culture, their beliefs, and their superstitions. For this reason, he paid for the sheep and for the butcher's services out of his own pocket--$180, more than half the average monthly income in Iraq, per sheep. "This is something private, " Dr. Phil said, as he watched Bassam the Butcher work. "It's for me, for my family, for Saidiyah." Betson seemed relatively comfortable with the proceedings. (During the slaughter, Betson--whose training as a military engineer who lays, detects, and disarms mines taught him, quite incongruously, how to skin a rabbit--looked more amused than grossed out.) He patiently watched the ceremony and then joined Dr. Phil and a small group of other Iraqis for lunch in the living room of Ali Al Ameri, an important neighborhood leader. But, as Betson and several of his soldiers slumped in upholstered couches and armchairs around low tables laden with rice, fresh vegetables, tabouleh, and roasted chicken, the limits of their cultural outreach became apparent. One soldier was spitting brown saliva mixed with chewing tobacco into a plastic bottle, and Al Ameri was politely trying not to notice. All of a sudden, the front door flew open and in walked Sheik Ali Al Allawi, his colossal frame clothed in an impeccably white flowing robe. He was carrying a giant pewter tray laden with steaming chunks of grilled liver, and Dr. Phil and Al Ameri nodded in approval. The liver, too, was part of the ritual to dedicate the generator. "Fresh," the sheik announced, brimming under his thick black mustache as he lowered the tray onto a table. "Never been frozen!" Betson rolled his eyes, theatrically, mouthing the words "sacrificial liver. " The Americans respectfully observed the ritual but declined to take a bite. On June 10, a few weeks after the sheep sacrifice, hundreds of Saidiyah residents gathered on Alwa Street to watch the 45 light posts, each crowned with four pinkish lights, illuminate the street for the first time in years. Fares Ali Al Qabi, an influential Saidiyah leader who is competing for the sheikdom of his tribe, described the scene. "I saw people's faces, how they lit up, as though something great had happened in their own house," Al Qabi recalled. "There was a crowd outside, but no one worried about terrorists. All the people came--Sunni, Shia, Kurds, Christians. I still remember it: All the people together, happy." It was an August night, and we were standing outside Sun City Foods, a lamb burger joint on Alwa Street. Around us, a transformed Alwa Street bustled with life. Cars honked at pedestrians who absentmindedly strolled off the crowded sidewalks, gawking at colorful windows of stores that now stayed open well after dark. Small groups of willowy young women flocked into Yasini Al Naami's hair salon, which Al Naami--her locks rolled up in tinfoil twists--opened as soon as the street lights went on. The street lights, she said, made her feel safe. "Every store on Alwa Street is open now," said Sheik Al Allawi, who lives with two of his four wives and a dozen of his 24 children in a house less than a block away. "Shops stay open past midnight." Over a sweating 7-Up at Sun City Foods, Al Qabi claimed that the idea of lighting Alwa Street belonged to him and other neighborhood elders--the best indicator of the project's success. But, although Al Qabi took credit for coming up with the idea, he acknowledged that Dr. Phil--whom Saidiyah's sheiks call, respectfully, "Doctor Lutfi," even though he has no doctorate or medical degree--was the one who "made this happen." Betson beamed as he showed off the reincarnated Alwa Street and posed for snapshots under a light. ("This one's for the folks back home," he said, drawing his M4 rifle close to his chest and lifting his chin.) If he felt slighted that Al Qabi named Dr. Phil, and not him, as the man who turned on the lights in Saidiyah, he didn't show it. After all, this was a sure sign of Iraqi buy-in. The successful relighting of Alwa Street seemed to signal that there is no better way to guarantee Iraqis' commitment to reconstruction than for the Americans to step back and put them in charge of it. But, even then, one careless move can plunge a whole street back into darkness. About two weeks before I shared a 7-Up with Al Qabi, something happened that reminded the residents of Alwa Street that their project--like their country--was still not entirely their own. Returning from a routine patrol, one of Alpha Company's 30-ton Bradleys "took a right and took it a little too sharp," Betson said. It hit one of the electric poles on Alwa Street, bending it. The wires ripped. The lights went out. "Even though I knew it was an accident, I was so sad. It was as though something happened to me, or to my child," Al Qabi told me. It took nearly two weeks for the lights to be repaired. The day I arrived to talk to Al Qabi, a group of electricians perched in a white cherry picker were affixing wires to a new pole. The sun had already set, but the air was still well above 110 degrees. Dust from a recent sandstorm still hung above Baghdad, and the street felt a bit like the inside of a vacuum cleaner. Faruk Al Timimi, the owner of Sun City Foods, periodically peeked outside to check on the electricians' progress as he was trying to decide whether to close his restaurant for the night. He was using power from a pricey neighborhood generator that shut down from time to time, submerging the diners inside his joint's mirrored interior into darkness. Finally, the electricians outside came down from their truck. One of the men strolled over to the transformer booth and pulled the switch. Along the length of Alwa Street, for the moment at least, the pinkish lights flickered on.

Iraqis open arms to romance as violence fades

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Romance is in the air in Baghdad as war-weary Iraqis celebrate Valentine's Day after a sharp drop in violence, allowing lovers to cautiously hold hands in parks and to buy gifts for their sweethearts. Public courtship and more daring clothing for women are increasing after years of growing intolerance, perhaps signaling the Islamic dogma and conservatism that accompanied Iraq's slide into sectarian slaughter may be losing their grip. "You cannot imagine how happy I am today," said Usama Abdul-Wahab Khatab, a recent university graduate nestled beside his girlfriend at a riverside Baghdad park. A year earlier, the park shook to the sounds of artillery fire that rained on the U.S. diplomatic and military Green Zone complex across the river, launched by religious militias whose reign also kept unmarried men and women apart. Although Iraq is predominantly Muslim, celebration of an originally Western day for lovers became popular after the ouster of Saddam Hussein in the U.S.-led invasion of 2003. But many Iraqis also fled the violence unleashed by the U.S.-led invasion. When Khatab went to Syria several years ago, he left behind not just his studies and friends, but Nada Issam, the soft-spoken woman who now sits beside him with manicured nails and a delicate sequined headscarf. Khatab returned a year ago and the couple has been venturing out to places where they can spend time alone -- in green areas by the Tigris or along the shores of a nearby a lake. Even there they must fend off or bribe police who hassle them for being too close or for holding hands. Like other Iraqis, they are caught between a desire for greater freedom and romantic expression, and a conservative Islamic culture brought to the fore in six years of war. When religious militias and insurgents controlled swathes of Baghdad, men found with women before marriage were whipped, and the woman taken to her parents, Abbas Jawad said. "My son is spending Valentine's Day with his girlfriend. He's 16. I would never have allowed that before," he said. Technology out of reach or not yet in existence under Saddam has enabled many Iraqis to discreetly widen their social circles or flirt. Bluetooth radio signals on most modern phones allow people to subtly send messages to strangers sitting nearby. CHANGING STYLES Even secular Iraqis once dressed conservatively to avoid militant ire, but clothes are now tighter and shorter, shrinking in line with militia power following government crackdowns. Global trends are beamed into Iraq by satellite television. Husam al-Din Ali picked a miniskirt -- black satin with bright gold studs and a long metallic chain -- off a rack at one of the women's clothing shops he owns in Baghdad and brandished it as proof Iraqi women can now dress more suggestively. In Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood this Valentine's Day, shop windows were crowded with giant red teddy bears and stuffed hearts reading "Forever in Love." Yet cultural changes occur slowly and unevenly in Iraq, where people fear a resurgence in violence and attitudes toward romance, marriage and sex vary widely. In one perfume store, a middle-aged man watched as the shopkeeper pasted a gold-trimmed bow on a gift he bought for his wife. Things aren't good enough for him to take her out in the evening. "We'll have dinner at home," he sighed. Changes bring their own problems for some Iraqi men, too. "The girls have changed the way they dress so much. It's so good now it hurts," said Mohened Tha'far who, with no date lined up for Valentines Day, sat gazing at girls walking by. Maythem Alaa and Ahmed Salman, dressed in tight jeans and shirts and with perfectly coiffed hair, were also frustrated. "Love is tiring," said Alaa. "We've been walking round and round trying to catch those two's attention for ages now, but no luck," said Salman, pointing to a pair of fashionably dressed girls in the distance.

A Drama-Free Election

The Iraqi vote was a victory for Prime Minister Maliki. Now he'll need to do something for the Shiite masses. by Reuel Marc Gerecht 02/16/2009, Volume 014, Issue 21 Baghdad Sitting in front of the golden, double-domed Kazimiyya shrine, one of Iraq's Shiite pilgrimage sites, I asked a young man who was politely scrutinizing me what he thought about the provincial elections going on around us. "It's good for people to vote," he said, intently staring at my green socks on a dark carpet. Since he didn't have any purple ink on a finger, I asked why he hadn't voted. Around 8 percent of the Baghdad electorate is still displaced. Earlier that day I'd seen angry men at a voting station complaining about a registration process that disenfranchised many of those who'd been uprooted by the country's internecine strife. Poor young men were probably those least likely to vote. "I'm not sure whom I want," he answered, raising his eyes to mine. "Do you like the prime minister?" I continued. He and the other young men around him indicated brusquely that Nuri al-Maliki was not high on their list. "Why not?" I asked, hoping to crack the reticence that a foreigner often still encounters talking with Iraqis. "Hasn't he helped to bring some peace?" The young man, who had a little button on his jacket, perhaps indicating an official status within the shrine, answered flatly, "He has not helped us." Although the voting returns for Kazimiyya, a district on the northeastern edge of the capital and once the home of Baghdad's Shiite elite, are still not confirmed, the official word is that Maliki captured around 38 percent of the vote in Baghdad. Many of the faithful at the shrine--lying on the prayer rugs that covered the white marble terrace outside, or among the small legion of the one-legged, wheelchair-bound, and physically deformed who'd come to beg God for mercy, or among the slow-moving stream of men and women worshippers who kissed and touched with purple fingers the sacred wooden doors--had no doubt voted for Maliki. A new strongman, not known for his piety, had finally arisen along the Tigris, and Kazimiyya, an extremely pious district, gave him its qualified democratic blessing. Young Shiite men, the natural constituency of Moktada al-Sadr, the scion of Iraq's most beloved clerical family and the Iraqi whom Americans and Iraq's Sunni Arabs hate most, had given Maliki his first political break. Without Sadr and his supporters, Maliki would never have risen in parliament. Without Sadr, the Americans would never have discovered and crowned Maliki, after a very fitful beginning, as the indispensable leader who could show as much zeal fighting refractory Shiites as he could battling Sunni insurgents and holy warriors. Sadr's allies, whom I strongly suspected were standing before me at the shrine, were, at least for now, lost in the ironies of post-Saddam Iraq. Making sense of Iraq's January 31 provincial elections isn't easy. That they were an enormous success for Iraq, and for the United States, is certainly true. When remembering 2006, when Iraqis were dying like flies in what the New York Times's Dexter Filkins described as a "symphony of suicide bombers," and when even staunch pro-war American liberals and conservatives saw the invasion as misbegotten, I grow more respectful of my old history teacher Martin Dickson, who counseled to measure time, especially in the Middle East, in centuries, not years. In the streets of Baghdad, especially those deeply scarred by violence, where women and children now bustle about well-stocked stores and an almost incomprehensible array of political posters has been plastered, it's difficult to comprehend how a former pro-war liberal like Peter Beinart could opine, only two weeks before the provincial elections, that the Iraq invasion remained "one of the great blunders in American foreign policy history." It's not a view, even with all of the horrific suffering that has occurred in the last six years, that has much traction in Iraq. At least not with the Shiites, who represent around 60 percent of the country's population, or the Kurds, who account for another 20 percent of Iraq's 28 million souls. Antiwar Shiites and Kurds are certainly out there--if a parent loses a child to war or sees a child disfigured by a suicide bomber, then nothing in this world could seem of higher value. And many Shiite Arabs and Kurds were Baathists, who understandably pine for yester-year. But what is striking in Iraq--at least among the Shiites with whom I've spent my time on this trip--is the seemingly unalterable conviction that the fall of Saddam, no matter what happened afterward, was a wondrous event. From the Shiite rich to the Shiite poor, from the most secular to the most religious, from those who have sought a terrible revenge against the Sunnis to those who have mourned their dead peacefully, I have heard the same word to describe their world since March 2003: mu'jiza ("a miracle"). Some Americans find that word hard to utter. Yet it is not too soon to suggest that Iraqis--perhaps because they have gone through hell--understand better each year that voting does matter, even if not nearly as much as they once thought. Iraqis just may have reached a point of no return on representative government. True, democracy could still fail here. Little would-be Saddams are everywhere. Inside government offices, they thrive. The complexity and corruption of doing business here boggles the mind: Listening to Iraqi businessmen complain about the predatory habits of officials becomes boring because the Iraqi practice is so crude, direct, omnipresent, and merciless. At least two generations of Iraqis were raised to brutally lord it over their fellow man if given the chance. Millions of men were thrown into the Iraqi Army in the last 50 years, when the military learned, with ever greater severity, to oppress and feed on civilians. (This is the same Sunni officer corps that official Washington and the press are now certain should have been maintained after the invasion.) Yet, despite all this, even the would-be Saddams really want to vote. They want their votes counted, even if they are less concerned about the ballots of others. I listened to a conversation of low- and middle-ranking Shiite army officers on Election Day. These men, who'd voted a few days earlier, were proud and excited to be a small part of an election. My attempts to get them to tell me whom they'd voted for went nowhere. They clearly saw themselves--and this is a first in Iraqi history--as the people's guardians. For Iraq, for anywhere in the Muslim Middle East, this dynamic--this struggle between the authoritarian and democratic traditions--is something to watch. Only the deaf, dumb, blind, or politically perverse can't see that Iraqis have caught the democratic bug. A military strongman might still arise in Mesopotamia, but his climb to the top would surely produce a nonsectarian civil war. Too many Iraqis--too many with guns--now want a say in how they are governed. "I want the Americans to stay for a long time," Thamir al-Tamimi said, as he slowly rubbed his small, soft hands. Dressed casually in a sweater, slacks, and loafers, dark-haired and slightly cherub-faced, he would have fit comfortably into any well-heeled Western hotel lobby. He'd summoned a Lebanese journalist friend and me to the Rashid Hotel, the Green Zone's primary watering hole for Iraqi VIPs. A courteous staff of young Iraqis run the establishment, which appears clean, proper, and deadly dull, while Iraqi soldiers and Peruvian mercenaries hired by Triple Canopy, the international security firm that the U.S. embassy and the Iraqi government use to patrol the zone, guard all of the hotel's entrances. Some Turkish VIP was visiting, which put even more security into the lobby and the lifeless garden at the back of the hotel. "The withdrawal of American troops is not in the interest of Iraq. If America leaves Iraq, it will only benefit Iran," Tamimi continued. A Sunni, a former insurgent, a one-time supporter of al Qaeda who is sometimes described as an "adviser" to the anti-al Qaeda Sunni "Awakening" councils, Tamimi was fairly excited about the provincial elections. A resident of the Abu Ghraib area of Baghdad, he was not running for office himself, though he intended to place himself on the ballot for parliament in the next national election, expected late this year. For him the provincial elections were a dry run, an experiment to see whether the Shiites, specifically the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council of Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, would lose seats and Tamimi's Sunni allies would gain them on Baghdad's provincial council. (As it turned out, SIIC got only 5.4 percent of the Baghdad vote.) Tamimi understandably liked the idea of Sunni sovereignty over Abu Ghraib, which may be, after the internecine strife, completely Sunni. Saddam Hussein had fortified Abu Ghraib and other Sunni Arab townships surrounding Baghdad with Sunni immigrants after the 1991 Shiite uprising to ensure that he had more manpower to draw on in an emergency. This Sunni suburban ring became the launching pad for the suicide bombers who nearly destroyed Baghdad in 2006. After the defeat of the Sunnis in the 2006-07 Battle of Baghdad, Iraq's capital--viewed by the Sunni Arabs as theirs, the lodestar that had always given them dominance over all of Iraq--became at least 70 percent Shiite. For Tamimi, the provincial elections would at least guarantee that the police who patrolled Abu Ghraib were not "90 percent Shiite under the control of the Supreme Council." Provincial councils have considerable control over the finances and personnel of the local constabularies, which according to Tamimi was the issue for his kith and kin. But Tamimi's concern for local sovereignty didn't extend to the country. "We want Iraq's sovereignty checked," he calmly stated. "We want the Americans to interfere in the political process," he continued, almost provoking a giggle from me and my Lebanese friend, who has made a specialty of the muqawama, the Sunni resistance between 2004 and 2007. Tamimi denied the rumor that he was a former member of the Islamic Army, a particularly nasty melding of former Baathists with radical Islamists. Like al Qaeda, which the Islamic Army once openly supported, this group killed Shiites and Sunnis with almost equal zeal. Killing Americans was always, however, the organization's raison d'être. Tamimi, who was born in 1966, stubbornly resisted providing any information about who his political godfather was within the Sunni community. A member of the large and influential Tamimi tribe, which has both prominent Sunnis and Shiites within it, he certainly has a god-father aiding his political aspirations. He proudly described himself as a former member of the "legitimate resistance," which for him were Sunni groups such as the 20th Revolutionary Brigade, the Jaish al-Mujahedeen ("Army of Holy Warriors") and the Ansar al-Islam ("Guardians of Islam"). Only a theologian of the muqawama could dissect the lethal ideological differences--especially the virulence of their anti-Americanism--among these groups. But according to Tamimi, the Sunnis saw the light when the Iraqi Shia, with the Iranians behind them, destroyed Sunni military power in Baghdad. "The biggest strategic danger in Iraq, in the Middle East, is Iran. No other country poses a similar danger to the region," Tamimi added, revealing a disposition that remains common among Sunni Arabs: Iraq's Shia are the stalking horses of Iran's mullahs. Tamimi allowed that if Iran's influence were not so pervasive and dangerous, "then America could go." But until the Shia could prove their "Iraqiness"--Tamimi didn't say how--the Americans should stop the Shia from fully exercising their democratic muscle. I had the impression that Tamimi thought better of Prime Minister Maliki because Maliki had spilled Shiite blood in Basra in the spring of 2008, when he personally led an assault against Shiite militias in the southern city, and because Maliki hadn't objected too loudly when the American surge extended into Sadr City, the stronghold of Moktada al-Sadr. Tamimi, furthermore, regularly enjoys the hospitality of the Rashid Hotel, using it as his preferred meeting point with all the Green Zone Iraqi power brokers. This probably wouldn't happen if Tamimi had a loathing for Maliki. He certainly seemed to dislike the prime minister less than he dislikes Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, the Shiite whom Arab Sunnis see as just a (fearsome) creature of Tehran. The Sunnis of Baghdad didn't do brilliantly in the provincial elections. All told, they got just under 11 percent of the vote. Add to this the ballots of the secular Shiite Ayad Allawi, who always attracts some Sunnis, and the count goes up another 8.6 percent. This election certainly did not dethrone the Baghdad power of the Iraqi Islamic party of Tariq al-Hashemi, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the majority partner on the Tawafiq ("Accordance") list. Men like Tamimi, who were once part of the Sunni resistance but then embraced the Americans and the Awakening, generally aren't fond of Tawafiq Islamists. Virtually alone among Sunni groups, the Islamic party participated in the elections in 2005 and gained local and national power that certainly was not reflective then of the group's real support on the ground. But it is blessedly clear that Iraq's Sunnis are now wheeling and dealing, trying to ensure, at the polls and behind the scenes with influential and powerful Shiite Arabs, that they can be players--minority stakeholders--in a democratic process. The Sunni dream of domination has in any meaningful sense disappeared. There is, of course, no love lost between the Sunni and Shiite Arabs. It is delusional to hope that these two groups will kiss and make up and pretend, as so many of them once did, that they don't really know or care who is Sunni and Shiite among them; that they're just all Iraqis. That was never true (although it was astonishing to meet American officials back in 2003 and 2004, especially American military advisers, who really did believe the pan-Arab myths that came out of the mouths of many Iraqis). A danger does exist in Iraq that the Americans could encourage a false hope among the Sunnis that Washington will continue to interfere in the political process and in the domestic security apparatus--the CIA-supported, and heavily Sunni, Iraqi National Intelligence Service comes to mind--and that Sunni Arabs can thereby avoid coming to terms with the fact that they lost the Battle of Baghdad. This is a manageable danger for Washington so long as its concerns about nefarious Iranian influence in Iraq do not induce it to take an increasingly pro-Sunni position, especially when it comes to maintaining Sunni Iraqi security and intelligence forces that are essentially outside the control of the central government. Washington absolutely doesn't want to make Iraq an anti-Iranian battle zone, where we choose our friends primarily by the degree of their hostility towards Tehran's mullahs. The light approach here is certainly the better one. The Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council did not do well in the provincial elections. Neither did the political lists associated with the militant Sadrists. But one should not conclude that these results reflect a growing anti-Iranian or antireligious sentiment among Shiite voters. The Supreme Council could have lost a lot of votes simply because it has done such a poor job in power, in parliament and in many locales. The Dawa, Maliki's party, on a street level is as religious as the SIIC, and probably would have done poorly at the polls for the same reason but for Maliki, whose Basra success last year transformed his and his party's political chances. Fadhila, an Islamist party with its power center in Basra, got creamed in its home town, winning less than 4 percent of the vote. Islamists appear to be gaining a reputation for being unable to manage themselves, let alone the supply of water and power. This may prove lethal. Move away from security issues--as the vast majority of Iraqis are, talking with increasing loudness about bread-and-butter issues--and the performance of Maliki and the Dawa, let alone other more energetically Islamist parties, has hardly been inspiring. Yet a note of caution: The Sadrists had many obstacles thrown in their way. The electoral law barring any militia from putting forth a candidate list hung over the Sadrists, who feared that their doing so would incline the Dawa and the SIIC, with America's blessing, to disqualify the list. The Dawa, the SIIC, and the Sadrists are all playing for the Shiite poor, who are the overwhelming majority of the Shiite community. The apparently weak showing of the Sadrists may indicate less than the U.S. embassy would like to believe. Only late in the campaign, under the radar of the Western and the Iraqi press, did the Sadrists begin to push their own candidates on the Ahrar ("The Freemen") list, which captured about 9 percent of Baghdad's votes. Increasingly, it's difficult to say what the Sadrists stand for--beyond their claim to be the most authentic voice of the faithful Shiite poor. The early millenarian zeal that made them seem an Iraqi version of the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah appears to have dulled considerably, and their base may be up for grabs. Overall, it's probably fair to say that the Iraqi Shia community has taken several steps back from religion-in-politics and from the Iranians in this election. There is palpable anger among the Shia about the abysmal living conditions of much of the community. No jobs, no affordable housing, no health care, paltry pensions, massive corruption, and petty Shiite Saddamism among elected and appointed officials on the Baghdad gravy train have all combined to foul the moods of many. Senior Shiite clerics, especially in the circles around Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, are disgusted that the 2005 elections produced so much for so few and so little for everyone else. Sistani, despite the very active--some would say too active--political involvement of his son, Muhammad Rida, backed off endorsing anyone in the provincial elections. There are rumors of dissident clerical circles forming in Najaf, religious scholars who are angry that the Howza, the consensus of senior clerics in the holy city, gave its blessing to the Supreme Council in the last election. For these religious scholars, the Supreme Council and perhaps many of Najaf's more senior clerics have shown themselves to be unworthy of the faithful's trust. The terminal illness of Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of SIIC, may make the discussion moot since it is by no means clear that the organization can survive him. Iranian largesse is reportedly not what it once was, and the Supreme Council has failed to develop a grassroots political operation that can nurture talent and loyalty among the Shiite poor. Religion in politics may have gone too far for many Shiites since 2005, and the provincial elections appear to show blowback. Although it's not hard to find Shiite Iraqis who are thankful for Iranian military aid during the Battle of Baghdad and for softer forms of largesse (Tehran is paying for the refurbishment of the domes of Kazimiyya's shrine, including 800 ounces of new gold leaf), few Shiite Iraqis like the idea of Iranian meddling in their politics. In cosmopolitan Najaf, which contains the shrine to the Caliph Ali, the nephew and son-in-law of the prophet, Iranian pilgrims are everywhere, and both Iraqi and Iranian clerics feel free to speak Persian to each other in the street. There is no sense of linguistic patriotism or priority within the holy city, although everyone realizes that Arabic is the language of God. In Baghdad, there is no such equanimity. Away from the Kazimiyya shrine, Iranians are few and far between, and Persian is no language with which to make friends. It is a language of foreigners, who may be admired, respected, praised, and feared, but are always alien to what makes Iraqis comfortable with themselves. All Iraqis know Iranians live in a more refined, richer, more powerful civilization. Persian hubris, which Nuri al-Maliki undoubtedly encountered during his exile in Iran, isn't a pretty thing to an Iraqi. If the Americans are wise, they will continue to let culture and language take their course. Counter militarily the Iranian-backed and highly lethal paramilitary "Special Groups," but don't get too paranoid about Iranian agents running amok, buying ministers, generals, and politicians. Patience is the key here. Washington should primarily use soft power and let 1,400 years of history and modern Iraqi nationalism--which, after all, is a Shiite invention--play to its advantage. Washington now has a breathing spell in Iraq. The national elections in 2005 were all about religious identity. The Shia were under siege. The Sunnis were on the attack. Iraqi society was at war with itself, and we got a wartime result--the Shiite religious parties did well; the secular parties did not. The provincial elections in 2009 were overwhelmingly about post-conflict security--the aftershock of the surge, the Sunni Awakening, and Maliki's armored charge into Basra. The elections empowered, at least on the Shiite side, the status quo. The district of Kazimiyya is again helpful in showing where the Shia are now. Although covered with garbage, Kazimiyya isn't poor. The pilgrimage trade keeps it well fed. Most of the buildings may be crumbling, but new hotels are opening, a gold-jewelry bazaar is more bustling now than when I first visited it in the spring of 2003, and all the little stores that line the main avenues and the fetid winding alleys show a merchant class in control. Kazimiyya is a tried-and-true historical model in the Islamic world: bazaaris and clerics intermingling to produce a conservative, establishment-loving order. When I visited Moktada al-Sadr's Kazimiyya office, middle-aged and old men, not young firebrands, were everywhere. Once the violence of 2004-07 subsided, Kazimiyya's "middle class" temperament--the yearning for order amid the trash--spread, penetrating into poorer areas, like Sadr City, where the establishment has rarely done much for anyone. For now, older men are in; younger men are out. And Maliki, at least for now, is the establishment. It is an odd fate for the man who certainly is, as one Iraqi friend put it, "the luckiest bastard in Iraq." Not that long ago, before the fall of Saddam, when Maliki's Dawa party had some intellectual coherence as a die-hard, virulently anti-American, Islamist movement, no one knew Nuri al-Maliki. Even after the fall of Saddam, few well-educated, politically savvy Iraqis, let alone the Americans isolated inside the Green Zone, had any idea who Maliki was. I know a gentleman who once worked with Maliki in exile in Iran and Syria. He was quite explicit: "He's not a nice man." Iraqi exiles in Syria and Iran--unlike those who went to the West--were always under siege. The Syrian and Iranian intelligence services are unpleasant organizations. Even with foreign friends, they can't resist painfully leveraging their home-turf advantage. One has to admire, and pity, Maliki for surviving so long in such company. It no doubt honed skills that now serve him well. Among them seems to be an earthy, suspicious pragmatism that has helped to make the Dawa party today an incomprehensible intellectual mess. A man of fortitude and irascibility, Maliki displayed boldness in the difficult Basra campaign against the Shiite militias who'd turned the ugliest and dirtiest city in Iraq into a murderous hellhole. Maliki almost got himself killed, scaring the Americans and, it appears, even the Iranians, whose military and financial aid had been instrumental to the growth of the most powerful militias. The mullahs began to recalculate whether they wanted to be responsible for the death of an Iraqi Shiite prime minister. The militias pulled back. The victory in Basra, combined with the Iraqi Army's improved performance in central Iraq, where the American surge and the Arab Sunni Awakening combined to deliver a death blow to the die-hard jihadists, guaranteed that Maliki would do well in the provincial elections. Since Basra, he has dominated Iraqi TV. And Maliki's relations with Najaf have been fair. His Dawa party, a militant mix of Islamic and Western ideas, has never been beloved among Najaf's mainstream divines, yet it always has earned a grudging respect owing to the intellectual prominence and bravery of its members (many of whom Saddam Hussein hunted and butchered). And Grand Ayatollah Sistani has always had a certain respect for secular Iraqi politicians, especially if they come from well-respected Shiite families--Ahmad Chalabi, for example, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress, has had continuing access to the ayatollah, often to the distress of American officials. The leader of Iraq's oldest Islamist party, Maliki is now seen, more or less, as a man driving secular, not religious, politics. Post-Saddam Iraq is now post-party. The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, which Chalabi engineered with Sistani's blessing to counter the Americans and Sunni Arab revanchism after the fall of Saddam, never had an ideological purpose other than to keep the Shia sufficiently united until they could organize themselves politically and militarily. With the Shiite victory in the Battle of Baghdad, the alliance became superfluous. Similarly, the SIIC now stands for little beyond some vague references to Islamic values. As Islamist political parties go, the SIIC is pathetic, and so is the Dawa. And the Arab Sunnis are the same: None of their parties means much beyond the personalities of its leaders. The Sunni Islamic party, which has its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, might develop a political platform. But beyond its hostility to alcohol, which isn't a winning position in much of Sunni Iraq, it's essentially a vehicle for Tariq al-Hashemi, the dynamic Iraqi vice president. This has always been a weakness of Arab politics. The inherent weakness of Iraq's Islamist parties and of so many prominent Islamist personalities has now played into the hands of the country's more secular politicians and those like Maliki who may (or may not) straddle the religious and secular realms. But embracing a more secular establishment has its limits, especially in a country that is about to go bankrupt. Established political parties cannot deliver government jobs and desperately need reconstruction projects because the collapse in the price of oil has robbed the central government, and the soon to be empowered provincial councils, of the means to improve the lives of average Iraqis, who in the south live no better than Afghans. Without government ration cards, Iraqis would starve. It is by no means clear that the Iraqi government can even maintain the official and unofficial (that is, corrupt) patronage systems currently in place, which, along with ever-increasing expenditures for the armed forces and police and the state-funded pension system, currently chew up over two-thirds of the country's annual budget. Iraq needs to sell more than 2 million barrels of oil a day at $50 a barrel to stay afloat. In the next 12 months--the prologue to the national elections--Iraq has near zero chance of either significantly increasing production or seeing the necessary price. And it's a good guess that the Obama administration isn't going to come to the rescue with more money. The United States has given over $100 billion in aid to Iraq since 2003. And in Baghdad, where much of that money went, it's hard to see what good it did. Iraq's debilitating corruption will skyrocket, as officials desperately seek to carve up an ever-shrinking pie. Politicians have been, to some extent, insulated from voter anger over corruption. But we could well see a breaking point. Maliki, who has done nothing to curb such theft even though he personally has avoided the taint of malversation, could well be shaken by the rapidly deteriorating economic situation. Any establishment party--that is anyone who gets too close to Maliki--could get battered. The opposition parties are already abuzz with the possibilities of hurting, maybe even dethroning, Maliki in parliament. Maliki's authoritarian sentiments and his impulsive behavior don't help his case, though his enemies' plotting is undoubtedly tempered by the knowledge that no one really has any idea what to do about the economic freight train coming at them. As one thoughtful Iraqi politician put it to me, "We're all just screwed." Yet proximity to power means cash--the possibility that you, not your opponent, can milk the system. This is not a good basis for parliamentary government, but it may well be the one with the most resilience in Iraq. And although no one need worry about a military coup so long as the United States is in the country in force, corrupt civilian politicians and bureaucrats presiding over an uncorrupted army (and the new Iraqi officer corps so far seems above it all) is a tried-and-true recipe for military rule. The United States could get blindsided by a rush of events. Diplomats and CIA officers serve only 12-month tours in Iraq, which means, after you subtract R&Rs, 10 months in country. Even the best officers in the world can't hope to get a grip on a normal country in 10 months' time, let alone a multiethnic, linguistically difficult, religiously complicated land recovering from totalitarianism and four years of bloodletting. Further encumbered by the labyrinthine security procedures of Green Zone life, American officials face a nearly impossible task to collect accurate, penetrating intelligence on what is really happening in the country. What's worse, the Green Zone mentality has infected the Iraqi political elite. Most of them now live behind the Green Zone's walls. Many of them have their families with them. The Iraqi political elite has developed an unhealthy dependence upon their stronger American neighbors. It insulates politicians from the anger of the street--the heat and pressure that they need to feel to connect with those who are less fortunate. Iraqi politicians ought to live with the same dilapidated public services that most Baghdadis endure. Solving this Green Zone problem even in the mid-term seems unlikely. Baghdad probably won't be truly safe, especially for prominent politicians, for at least a few more years. By then, the Baghdad political elite may have become too accustomed to living with guards and enjoying the delightful position of damning the Americans while using proximity to American power and wealth to insulate themselves and their families from a disgruntled citizenry. Elections may not be enough to push either incumbents or the newly elected political elite out of the hypocritical comforts of this life. It's a reasonable guess that if the economic situation deteriorates rapidly before the next national elections, which must be held before January 2010, the Shiites who carry the banner of the poor will rise. That could well mean that the Sadrists will be back, and in much greater force than their current 9 percent of the vote. The older men will have failed, and younger, rasher men will again have their chance. The Sadrists are the most volatile element in Iraqi political life--the possible gateway for truly nefarious Iranian influence. We can only hope that American and Iraqi officials figure out some way of bringing them into the political system. Keeping them outside, amidst the garbage heaps, is not a recipe for a peaceful, prosperous, democratic Iraq. Reuel Marc Gerecht is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD. http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/133strkj.asp