2009 Predictions

Egypt: Is this the year Mubarak steps off the scene? It doesn't matter much. Egypt will not end up with leadership that is unacceptable to either the United States or Israel. One of these years will be the year. It could be this year, but it could be four years from now. Egypt will continue its hostility towards Hamas/Gaza - not because of Egyptian considerations but because Mubarak's family pockets part of the US Camp David payments. It's that simple and that disgusting but it is an arrangement that will be stable for the next year.

Gaza: Right now a lot of things are in flux in Gaza. My best prediction is that next year Hamas will still run Gaza. We'll see about the crossings but if there is a blockade there will be some form of resistance. I can't predict at this point what form it will take, but rockets like now are a good bet along with increased hostility against Fatah in the West Bank.

Israel: Netanyahu is ahead in the polls right now. Hillary was ahead in the polls last year at this time. Olmert/Kadima may just hang on. I'll predict a right coalition though. The stooges - Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia - will complain about Israel's rightward swing, but I'm no longer able to say their policies will reflect their complaints in any tangible way.

West Bank: The US is feverishly working to keep Abbas in power and protected from Palestine's voters. The US opposition to democracy in the Middle East - which follows necessarily from its support for Israel - is the US' most egregious departure from its founding ideals. Unfortunately, I predict that Abbas will still be in power, propped by US resources, this time next year.

Lebanon: I'm going to predict a slow year. Hezbollah will do well in the elections. Bush would react with a Gaza-type collective punishment on the Lebanese for voting wrong. I don't see Obama doing that, but Obama really is a wild card right now.

Syria, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia: Slow year

Iraq: The US has no intention of fully withdrawing, but can't stay without Iraqi and Iranian cooperation. This will not be easy to solve but I expect that by this time next year there will be open discussions about a long-term US presence in Iraq - which means that Iran will have to have been bought off. It is clearer than ever that the Kurds can expect no further US help in their hopes for independence.

Iran: Iran will certainly be enriching uranium this time next year. Possibly, if there is a deal, it will be enriching at a slower pace than now, along with a relaxation of some sanctions and a torrent of complaints from Israel and Israel's supporters in the US.

Pakistan: Impossible to guess where things will be there. Hopefully there will not be much life-costing chaos in that country.

Afghanistan: Obama is planning on bringing more troops to Afghanistan, as if he thinks he can defeat the Taliban, which he clearly cannot. Like the surge of troops into Iraq, this looks like an honorable way for the US to pay the Taliban to join the government - which can work. As with Iraq, it also would work without the extra troops, but the US likes to pretend it is defeating people for some reason. Fine, it's the US' money at stake here.

Lots of 2008 Predictions

This prediction thing is not that easy. But there is a lot to learn by giving it a try. I made a decent amount of predictions about now last year around this time, so I guess I now have to pay the piper. Let's see how these went:

The United States is going to expend a lot of resources this year keeping both Olmert and Abbas in power. Once one is gone though, it can let go of the other. I'm confident that in two years, both Israel and Palestine will be represented by more radical leaderships. One year is harder to predict. I'm leaning towards either more radical elements of Fatah or Hamas being in power in the West Bank and Israel's right wing replacing Olmert by this time next year.

The resources thing was more an observation than a prediction. Olmert and Abbas both lasted the year though. I leaned against that because it seemed a year was plenty of time for Israel's right wing to organize itself for a challenge that it would win. It seemed like a close call at the time, but I fell on the wrong side. I said at the time that I was confident both would be gone by this time in 2010. I'll look back at that in my post for 2009 predictions. I'm less confident of that prediction now though.

It is easy to predict that the United States will continue its policy of refusing to engage Hamas until Hamas renounces the right to return. And Hamas will not renounce the right of return. Forgetting morality, this is the most impractical possible policy for the US to take and it will take a toll on US relationships with other powers in the region while pointlessly leading to Palestinian and Israeli deaths that otherwise would not have occurred. US Gaza policy bears the mark of an exceptionally untalented administration in the US executive branch.

Next year at this time, Hamas will be in power at least in Gaza. One way or another goods will easily reach Gaza through Egypt. The weaponry and skill of anti-Israel forces in Gaza will increase substantially. It is possible but not quite probable that over this year rockets from Gaza actually are going to become routinely fatal to Israelis. I hope though that in two years, after a year without Bush and Rice, a long term cease-fire is reached that stops the rockets and ends the siege. This siege is comically stupid. It accomplishes nothing. It has to be the stupidest siege in history.

Hamas is still in power. Goods do not easily reach Gaza through Egypt though. Egypt has proven more hostile to the Palestinians than I would have guessed last year. And by Egypt I mean Mubarak. If there is a pattern in my mispredicting the Middle East, it is that I am overoptimistic that the pro-Israel/US dictators will start acting more independent. These guys are well under US/Israeli control, as much I as wish and even predict otherwise.

It is easy to predict that the United States will continue to insist that Lebanon's Shiites will not have proportionate power in Lebanon's government and that Lebanon's Shiites will not end the current stalemate as long as US allies in Lebanon reflect this position. This policy will pointlessly lead to Lebanese deaths that otherwise would not have occurred. In the end, the Shiites will have a veto just as smaller population groups do. This must be the stupidest political stalemate in the world today.

Next year at this time there will be a government in place in Lebanon. Hezbollah will not be disarmed and may be in the process of folding into the Lebanese army. Effectively, the Shiites will have veto power and there will be reforms to the electoral system. Nasrallah will describe it as a victory. I'll probably agree. In other words, the stalemate will have been broken in Hezbollah's favor.

This was almost too easy.

I expect a pretty uneventful year in Syria.

I'm going to take credit for this.

Hopefully Kirkuk will not be part of Kurdistan this time next year. I'm optimistic that it will not. Most likely the postponements of the referendum in Kirkuk will be so routine that everybody knows the referendum is never going to happen.

2008 looks to be a good year in terms of not many US soldiers killed in Iraq.

Now I owe a commenter a post about Kirkuk and the Kurds in general. Essentially, in the global south I oppose separation movements. Later.

I'm going to take credit for the Kirkuk prediction. The low levels of US fatalities in Iraq was easy since the numbers were way down by the time I made the prediction.

I for a moment thought that if it looked like it would help Obama, and Iran thought Obama would be better, Iran might turn the heat up and raise US casualty levels in Iraq. That's really not Iran's style though and Obama by the summer didn't seem that much better than McCain. McCain would not bomb Iran any faster than Obama or Clinton. If the US military thought Iran could be bombed, Bush certainly, certainly would have ordered it.

Iran has informed the IAEA that it is testing a new centrifuge design. At this time next year there will be at least some operational. What Iran has now is really enough though, so getting a few hundred of another design running doesn't change the strategic picture at all. Of course neither the US or Israel are going to bomb Iran in 2008.

I don't think Iran has uranium running through its IR2s yet. So that may be wrong, or it may not yet be reported. The bombing thing was easy but there were some who thought a bombing was plausible.

**

So I haven't tallied up a score. I think I did pretty well though actually. A lot of the predictions were easy but once they are committed to the internet there is always the chance they can be proven wrong.

Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia really want to be under the US umbrella though at least for now. Elections in any of those countries would change that, but as much as it hurts me to write this, I don't think that will change in any of those countries without a regime change.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia have successions coming up. When their next leaders take over I'll get a feel for them, for now it is safe to project that they will be as reliably controlled by the US and Israel as the current leaders.

A New Day?

I don't know if I was worried about jinxing the Obama campaign somehow or if I for a period just lost the motivation to blog, but it's been almost a year since I've been here.

At the time of my last post I really didn't think Barack had a chance to win. His pledge, or at least stated plan to hold a conference of Middle Eastern parties, even enemies of the US, to discuss ways to counter terrorism struck me as enough to disqualify a candidate from a major national office in the United States.

Obama's statements since then present him as much more favorable to Israel than he appeared at the time, but he has not explicitly gone back on his earlier statements. We are going to have to learn who the real Barack Obama is over the next few months. His nominations show him as in line with previous US Middle East policy. But he insists that he, not his appointees will make policy - which just may be the case.

No verdict is in. I'm not optimistic but I am prepared to be pleasantly surprised at the degree to which Obama is able to break from the US' previous Middle East orientation. The reason is that Obama's goals in Iraq and Afghanistan would be a lot easier to reach if he can convince the region that he has or is willing to change policies on Israel and Israel-related issues such as Iranian uranium enrichment.

There's not much more to say except we shall see.

Myth: Most Palestinians Accept the Legitimacy of Israel

Westerners, across the political spectrum, often demonstrate an inability to mentally process challenges to the idea that Israel is legitimately a Jewish state that I find somewhat puzzling. By this I don't mean that they disagree with challenges to Israel's legitimacy. I mean further that they seem to create in their own minds a world where there is essentially no disagreement over whether or not there should be a Jewish state between Jordan and Egypt.

When a Westerner encounters the opinion that there should not be a Jewish state, that Westerner, whether liberal or conservative, interprets the opinion as an opinion that Jews should be murdered or some other bizarre fantasy that is entirely unrelated to the original opinion.

I'm completely certain that Westerners reading this blog have reached the conclusion that I hate Jews and want them killed to create a Jew-free Middle East. I don't hold anything like those opinions but Westerners interpret challenges to Israel's legitimacy that way, and there is nothing I could write that would change that.

It is part of reality that in the minds of many Westerners, a non-hateful, non-genocidal belief that Israel should not be a Jewish state does not, and cannot exist.

This inability to perceive, to mentally process, the fact that others believe Israel should not be a Jewish state colors the creation and interpretation of polls I see from time to time of Palestinian opinion with respect to Israel. Here is a typical example:

63% support and 35% oppose mutual recognition of Israel as the state for the Jewish people and Palestine as the state for the Palestinian people after the establishment of a Palestinian state and the resolution of all issues of conflict.

The support shown here is the result of a contrived effort to inflate reported acceptance of a Jewish state. The additions "the establishment of a Palestinian state" and after "the resolution of all issues of conflict" make respondents more likely to give the right answer, but makes their answers less meaningful.

Whenever the question is asked clearly, "should there be a Jewish state" or "is Israel as a Jewish state legitimate" in nearly any Muslim population or any Middle Eastern population outside of Israel there is consensus approaching unanimity that Israel is not legitimate.

From the same study:

43% support and 54% oppose a permanent settlement in which the refugee problem is resolved based on UN resolution 194 but with restrictions on refugee return to Israel which would be subject to an Israeli decision.

This is a step that is skipped by the headline finding that 63% of Palestinians accept Israel. 43% of Palestinians support a permanent settlement where Israel can limit the return of refugees. But even that is overstated because this in many cases does not reflect a belief that Israel morally has some right to deny refugees. Instead it in those cases reflects a belief that though Israel is immoral, fighting is not worth it.

The view that Israel's Jewish identity is immoral and illegitimate but cannot be successfully challenged under the current circumstances is also a prevalent view of US/Israeli "allies" in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. This view is dependent on current circumstances though and can change rapidly with them. That view is ignored, probably non-voluntarily, by most Western observers of the Middle East.

• Most people in throughout the Middle East do not hate Jews, do not advocate genocide and do not accept Israel's legitimacy as a Jewish state.
• There are reasonable people who do not accept Israel's legitimacy as a Jewish state.

The above are two sentences that are true and that I believe many, even most Western supporters of Israel, whether Jewish or non-Jewish, whether liberal or conservative, are just not able to process.

If Iran Were America

Linking to a really good essay.

Here is an excerpt:

1980–1988: The America-Mexico War

The Iranians have previously maneuvered one of their long-time Mexican intelligence assets, whom we'll call "José Husseino," into the position of dictator of Mexico. Now they provide their pet dictator with arms, aid and intelligence, and launch Mexico into an invasion of the United States.

Ideally, this policy will topple the revolutionary Christianist government in Washington. Failing that, the Iranian leadership hopes Mexico will seize the oil-rich province of Texas, denying revenue to the new Washington government, while keeping Texas oil within the Iranian "sphere of influence."

The Canada/Israel analogy misses some important elements, but that is my only criticism of the essay. The essay itself is astonishingly well written for something by a Westerner.

Bribes For Iraq's Parliament

A computer-generated translation of an article in the Akhbar Alkhaleej newspaper.

An Iraqi MP preferred to remain anonymous told the newspaper that highly confidential negotiations took place by representatives from American oil companies, offering $5 million to each MP who votes in favor of the Oil and Gas law.

I've always assumed that direct corruption is an important element of US leverage over Iraq's government. And I've read reports that Iraq under the occupation has become the most corrupt place in the Middle East.

I've never read a report of a direct accusation of a specific instance of corruption until now.

My first thought on reading this is to congratulate the Iraqi parliament for so far resisting what I'm sure are huge pressures from the US to succomb to this type of corruption.

My second thought is that I guess it's mathematically possible that this report is fabricated from nothing, I find that completely implausible. I see no reason that the US would not engineer the writing of an oil law substantially more favorable to the US than the standard oil laws of the region and attempt to use corruption to split the difference between US companies and whichever Iraqi leaders are willing to be paid off.

My third thought though, is that I am very disappointed by the failure of the Western press to uncover and present this story earlier.

When Iraq's parliament, at the urging of the Sadr faction, prepared to nominate Jaafari for another term as Prime Minister, Bush said that was not acceptable. Rice flew into Iraq for consultations on stopping his candidacy. As adamant as the US or England could be, the fact was they had no votes on Parliament. My questions at the time were "What leverage does Rice have?" "What can Rice be saying that could be persuasive to members of Iraq's parliament?"

The common answer at the time was since the US has around 150,000 troops in the country it has to have some leverage. While as a generality that may qualify as a true statement, the specific story of what Rice could and did promise to change the votes of Iraq's parliamentarians had to be an interesting and important story.

It was very frustrating at the time to watch the Western press fail to even address that question. I concluded that the reason for that failure was partly that the Western press was sympathetic to the aims of the Bush administration, more widely than they pretended and partly that many members of the press are not able to immediately see the disconnect between the influence the US had in theory and the influence the US was acting as if it had. If members of the press had perceived that gap, they would have worked to explain it, instead the gap never entered their field of vision.

We're getting the first concrete indications that US influence in Iraq's parliament is powered at least partly by direct monetary payments. It is true that every skeptical observer, including myself, has believed this to be the case for years now. But belief via ruling out of alternatives is different from having specific examples. A press that was doing its job would have provided specific examples a long time ago.

Along with Iraq's legistlature, congratulations are also in order for the Akbhar Al-Khaleej Newspaper that has done in Arabic what no Western press source has done in English to my knowledge.

Predictions

Reading "Waving Goodbye to Hegemony", a New York Times essay whose message is pretty well contained in the title, I came across author Parag Khanna's predictions of the world in 2016.

It is 2016, and the Hillary Clinton or John McCain or Barack Obama administration is nearing the end of its second term. America has pulled out of Iraq but has about 20,000 troops in the independent state of Kurdistan, as well as warships anchored at Bahrain and an Air Force presence in Qatar. Afghanistan is stable; Iran is nuclear. China has absorbed Taiwan and is steadily increasing its naval presence around the Pacific Rim and, from the Pakistani port of Gwadar, on the Arabian Sea. The European Union has expanded to well over 30 members and has secure oil and gas flows from North Africa, Russia and the Caspian Sea, as well as substantial nuclear energy. America’s standing in the world remains in steady decline.

I'd say these are more wrong than right. I'd say as a rhetorical point that predictions should never be used to advance an argument. I expect to see a decline in US power pretty much from now on, but that's probably hopeful thinking as much as anything. US power increased from 1980 to 1990. I'm not sure there is anything fundamental I can say about 2008 that I could not say about 1980.

So about the US overall standing in the world eight years from now. The US has less standing than it had last year at this time. Maybe that trend will continue, maybe it will not.

I really do not expect to see an independent Kurdistan. If there is an independent Kurdistan then I expect Turkey to take a major symbolic step against US interests. Something like closing a US base in Turkey, or joining a free-trade agreement with Iran or leasing a naval base to Russia. Something dramatic.

It is easy to predict that there will not be a pro-US government in Iraq eight years from now. I find it harder to predict how many US troops will be in ideologically hostile Iraq. The easiest guess is more than 100,000 troops. The United States invaded so that it could have leverage over the Iraqi government, and it needs a substantial amount of troops to do that.

The bases in the Persian gulf remaining is a pretty easy guess.

Afganistan being stable is unlikely. The Taliban being either routed or disbanded and territory where Taliban is currently influential being under the sway of Kabul is close to inconceivable. The US is more likely to pull out of Afganistan and leave it under a ruling arrangment negotiated between local groups, Russia, Iran and Pakistan. The most likely situation is that Afghanistan in 2016 looks a lot like Afghanistan in 2008. A lot of territory is contested. Not a lot of open warfare.

Iran being nuclear as in having a weapon is very unlikely. Iran being "nuclear capable" is a very easy guess, since Iran is "nuclear capable" today. It is easy to predict that Iran will receive more investment in its energy sector than it does today. US sanctions of some sort will continue to have some modest impact.

China absorbing Taiwan is very unlikely. China will steadily increase its commercial ties with Taiwan. Public opinion in Taiwan may be more favorable towards unification in 2016 than it is today. That is not a safe prediction though.

China's navy will be stronger than it is today. It will not be strong enough to capture Taiwan. The global naval balance will feel in 2016 a lot like it feels in 2008. The US will remain by far the most powerful naval force.

The EU may expand. EU access to gas will probably be secure, but access to gas is for the most part secure now. I guess that's a safe prediction. I'm not sure what unsecure access to gas would mean in the context of the EU.

In the Middle East, it seems that a consensus is forming that the US is not and should not be the only game in town. Saudi Arabia and now Egypt seem to be pulling out of the US orbit. I expect this to continue, but sliding out of an orbit is a gradual process and it is hard to predict what landmarks will have been passed in eight years if any. Egypt in particular will have a new leader in 2016. The safest prediction is that it will unfortunately be Mubarak's son.

2016 is a long way off though. I'm more interested in what 2009 will look like.

The United States is going to expend a lot of resources this year keeping both Olmert and Abbas in power. Once one is gone though, it can let go of the other. I'm confident that in two years, both Israel and Palestine will be represented by more radical leaderships. One year is harder to predict. I'm leaning towards either more radical elements of Fatah or Hamas being in power in the West Bank and Israel's right wing replacing Olmert by this time next year.

It is easy to predict that the United States will continue its policy of refusing to engage Hamas until Hamas renounces the right to return. And Hamas will not renounce the right of return. Forgetting morality, this is the most impractical possible policy for the US to take and it will take a toll on US relationships with other powers in the region while pointlessly leading to Palestinian and Israeli deaths that otherwise would not have occurred. US Gaza policy bears the mark of an exceptionally untalented administration in the US executive branch.

Next year at this time, Hamas will be in power at least in Gaza. One way or another goods will easily reach Gaza through Egypt. The weaponry and skill of anti-Israel forces in Gaza will increase substantially. It is possible but not quite probable that over this year rockets from Gaza actually are going to become routinely fatal to Israelis. I hope though that in two years, after a year without Bush and Rice, a long term cease-fire is reached that stops the rockets and ends the siege. This siege is comically stupid. It accomplishes nothing. It has to be the stupidest siege in history.

It is easy to predict that the United States will continue to insist that Lebanon's Shiites will not have proportionate power in Lebanon's government and that Lebanon's Shiites will not end the current stalemate as long as US allies in Lebanon reflect this position. This policy will pointlessly lead to Lebanese deaths that otherwise would not have occurred. In the end, the Shiites will have a veto just as smaller population groups do. This must be the stupidest political stalemate in the world today.

Next year at this time there will be a government in place in Lebanon. Hezbollah will not be disarmed and may be in the process of folding into the Lebanese army. Effectively, the Shiites will have veto power and there will be reforms to the electoral system. Nasrallah will describe it as a victory. I'll probably agree. In other words, the stalemate will have been broken in Hezbollah's favor.

I expect a pretty uneventful year in Syria.

Hopefully Kirkuk will not be part of Kurdistan this time next year. I'm optimistic that it will not. Most likely the postponements of the referendum in Kirkuk will be so routine that everybody knows the referendum is never going to happen.

2008 looks to be a good year in terms of not many US soldiers killed in Iraq.

Iran has informed the IAEA that it is testing a new centrifuge design. At this time next year there will be at least some operational. What Iran has now is really enough though, so getting a few hundred of another design running doesn't change the strategic picture at all. Of course neither the US or Israel are going to bomb Iran in 2008.

So we'll see by January 2009 how well these predictions held up.

Iran: We'll Have Relations with Israel After Zionism

If the Iranians and other Muslim anti-Zionists understood how effective it is rhetorically in the West to associate Zionism with Apartheid, they'd explicitly draw the comparison every single time their position on Israel comes into discussion.

Unfortunately, Zionism is aided, somewhat, in its efforts to keep Western support by Zionism's supporters having a better understanding of which terms carry which emotional leverage in the West than many of Zionism's opponents.

May steps toward closing this gap become a trend:

"Iran is not threatening Israel and does not want nuclear weapons, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Saturday.

... ... ...

The Iranian foreign minister went on to say that Iran did not recognize two countries, South Africa and Israel. "With South Africa, the problem was solved with the end of apartheid and if the situation also changes in the other case [Israel], there is no reason why relations with that country cannot change too," he added.

What She Said. She Being Helena Cobban.

I had expected 2008 to be a firework-less year in the Middle East. A stalemate has been reached in Lebanon that everyone is more or less comfortable with. An agreement between Abbas and Olmert cannot be reached because of structural reasons on both sides but they both have reasons to continue pretending to go through the motions. An agreement has to have been reached between the US and Iran over Iraq and Iran's nuclear program that both sides are comfortable with through the end of Bush's term.

But now Hamas has broken out of its blockade. This is Hamas' biggest victory yet. Bigger than winning the elections, bigger than getting Saudi support for a unity government and bigger than its removal of Abbas/Dahlan forces from Gaza. This is a huge victory that destroys the US/Israel/PA narrative that Hamas is stubbornly bringing destitution to Gaza and Palestinians should be realistic to accept US/Israeli terms for cooperation.

Helena Cobban's coverage of this has been by far the best I've come across in the blogosphere.

There's a joke from Europe in the early 1900s that a Jew asks another why he reads the anti-semitic newspapers. The reader says, "This is the only place I can go for good news. Look at this, the Jews control this, the Jews dominate that ..."

Israel's Debka File is becoming one of the best places for anti-Zionist news. They were an early source that commented on the obvious breakthrough between Iran and the US, but when they claimed earlier this week that Hamas would use the electricity crisis to take control of the Rafah border crossing I thought they were being overly alarmist. Turns out they were underly alarmist, as Hamas took down not the border crossing, but the entire border.

(Debka File is not perfect. I never believed their assessment that Israel planned and the US authorized an Israeli takeover of enough Gaza territory to establish bases that Israel would then turn over to Abbas. But Debka File gets a pass on that because even if it had been true, recent events would have forced the cancellation of those plans.)

I'm now shocked by the total lack of response from Israel and the US to this game changing development. I can only figure they are paralyzed by the scope of it and what it can mean.

1. At minimum blockades cannot work any more.
   
2. Israel now cannot prevent Hamas from delivering a better quality of life in Gaza than Abbas can deliver in the West Bank.
   
3. The hope that the Palestinian people would learn their lesson and never elect Hamas again has been dashed.
4. Hamas now has access to all the concrete it wants to build Hezbollah-style fortifications in Gaza - meaning an Israeli ground assault is moving off of the table.
5. Hamas can upgrade its rocket weaponry nearly without limit now.

Debka File reports these developments as, according to its Israeli military sources, "irreversible". This is a serious short, medium and long term setback for Zionism in that case.

Why the War Over the Legitimacy of Israel is Lost

In the long term, the US is not going to be able to get pro-US dictatorships over the entire Muslim world. Without pro-US dictatorships, the US cannot get governments that will adopt cooperative policies in the supposed "war on terror". Therefore the US will lose the Global War over the Legitimacy of Israel.

I doubt the US will ever successfully get even one more pro-US dictatorship than there is already.

• No pro-US dictatorship for Pakistan, (Musharraf having to become less pro-US for domestic reasons). The death of Bhutto emphatically marks the end of that dream.
• None for Palestine (pressure is already building for Abbas to accept Hamas in a unity gov't). The Arabs that the US needs to isolate Hamas are just not willing to do that.
• None for Lebanon.
• None for Iraq (Iranian-supported parties will at least be a stakeholder in the country, preventing the US from imposing a dictator who can go against Iraqi wishes on foreign policy)
• None for Iran (of course regime change is way way way off the table by now)

So since a loss is nearly certain in the long run, it is only a matter of time before US political class understands the impossibility of its global war and withdraws. The US will say in different words: "OK, we cannot convince you to accept leaderships friendly or even tolerant with Israel. What policies would the US have to pursue for you to accept leaderships friendly or at least tolerant of the US?"

This will be seen in Israel, accurately, as a spectacular betrayal or at least abandonment.

Unfortunately, the realization and withdrawal will not be this election cycle, even though some candidates, even a one-time front-runner, seem to see the writing on the wall.

Does Musharraf Benefit From Bhutto's Death?

I'm sure if Sharif had died while Bhutto lived, she would be holding power-sharing negotiations with Musharraf and publicly calling for elections while totally ignoring the Supreme Court and Pakistan's electoral law. I'm sure if only one was to die, Musharraf would have chosen Sharif. Given the choice.

If Musharraf can weather the coming attacks from Sharif on his own, then he might be better off because he does not in that case have to share power. It will be harder and more stressful though. I think Musharraf willingly made the trade and told the world he'd rather Bhutto be there when he allowed her return. Maybe, probably, Musharraf can maintain his grip on power despite opposition, but he'd rather not take the risk.

Even getting both would leave him worse off than if both were still in London. I can't see Musharraf benefiting, or thinking he would benefit from these assassination attempts.

I don't think the attacker expected to kill Bhutto. It is impossible to get close enough to a VIP car in a crowd of supporters to kill the VIP with a suicide bomb on a two-wheel vehicle. The planners of the attack could not have known that Bhutto would be standing out of the sun roof and that the attacker would get a clear shot. I think he carried the gun just in case, or maybe as part of a camoflauge police uniform.

I think the aim of the attacks was to scare people away from her rallies and Bhutto's actual death was unexpected.

Musharraf might have benefitted from an attack, but not a successful one. I'm sure there are many parties that cooperated to bring about the attack. Some pleasantly, maybe some unpleasantly surprised by the result.

A Whole Lot of Kurds Killed By Turkey

Turkeys claims to have killed 150 Kurdish fighters in its attacks on the mountains of Iraq.

Turkish airstrikes on Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq have killed more than 150 rebels and hit more than 200 targets in recent days, the Turkish military said Tuesday, countering Kurdish claims that only a handful of people were killed in the attacks.

My only question is how is Turkey sure it didn't kill 1,500 Kurdish rebels, or 1.5 million Kurdish rebels. If they're going to just make up numbers. Maybe the attacks did kill that many.

Of course Turkey knows it cannot accomplish any military objective by attacking dug-in mountain-based guerrilas from the air. This is pure theater aimed at accomplishing political objectives.

The first political objective is to rehabilitate the image of the United States and even Israel in the minds of Turkey's voters. I'm sure it has had some effect. I'm sure that will be countered the next time the Kurds mount an offensive. Kurdish offensives are set to become more deadly and more continuous over time.

A Turkish envoy said here Wednesday it was American intelligence that made Turkey's latest raids in northern Iraq on Kurdish rebels possible.

and

Personnel from Israel's Aerospace Industries are assisting the Turkish army in activating Israeli-made unmanned aircrafts for use in military operations in Kurdish northern Iraq, Turkish sources were quoted as saying in a report to be published Thursday in the Turkish Daily News.

The second objective is to pressure the US to pressure Kurdish authorities to order the guerrillas to curb their attacks. This is a short term effect that has happened, but guerrillas have ways to use the time productively.

The third objective is to pressure the US to pressure Kurdish authorities to give up Kirkuk. That may work, but Kirkuk is a luxury, not a necessity for Kurdistan. The Kurds have pushed the referendum back 6 months. This will become indefinite, but in the mean time the Kurdish non-oil economy and the oil they actually control will continue to fund the guerrillas who will resume attacks when they feel conditions are favorable.

DebkaFile Thinks US/Iran Deal is Being Reached

I come from a different ideological angle than either Debka or Stratfor, but there really is just not another coherent way to explain the December 2007 NIE. The difference is only in what various explainers think Iran got in exchange for working to calm down Iraq.

The Bush administration appears to be in the midst of developing a new foreign strategy based on five key elements:

1. The halt of Iranian weapons and road bomb shipments into Iraq for use against US forces;
   
2. An Iranian instruction to Hizballah to open the way for the election of a Lebanese president, in return for which Washington will not interfere with the formation of a new government with a place of honor for the Iranian surrogate militia.
   In other words, the Bush administration is not only engaged in a sellout of the Israeli government but also of the pro-Western Lebanese prime minister Fouad Siniora.
   
3. The cessation of Iranian arms and roadside bombs to Afghanistan.
   
4. The naming of Saudi Arabia as a channel for arbitrating American and Iranian differences.
   
5. A US pledge to backtrack on its charges that the Iran is engaged in developing nuclear weapons. This pledge was embodied in the dramatically revised US National Intelligence Estimate compared with its estimate of 2005, and effectively lifted not only the American military axe from over Iran’s strategic and economic infrastructure – and possibly regime - but also tied Israel’s hands.

That sounds about right. Iran did not and could not promise a long-term US presence in Iraq and in fact Bush can't guarantee that his successor will want a long term presence. The NIE bought a quieter Iraq until the next inauguration, or until the US pulls out which it will.

One quibble is that outside of Israel, the US does not really care about Siniora. Selling out Siniora is not separate from selling out Israel, which really seems to be what Iran demanded and got. Another quibble is that Israel's hands were already tied. And really the US' hands were tied as well, which is why the US has capitulated.

Barak Obama: Far Too Sensible to Be Electable

Would Barak Obama have won the US presidency if he did not hold this position? Maybe, maybe not. Is it possible that he could win with this position? Absolutely not.

And I've already said as president, immediately upon inauguration, I will begin to organize a summit with all the Muslim leaders around the world and have a direct conversation with them, our friends and our enemies, about how we can align the Muslim world against these barbaric actions, against terrorism. I believe that part of that will be to begin phasing out our occupation in Iraq, part of it will involve talking to actors like Iran and Syria, to get them to act more responsibly, part of it will be for us to shut down Guantanamo and restore habeas corpus and send a signal to the world that we're doing things differently. That's the kind of non-conventional thinking and approach that we're going to have to take to reverse the decline in our moral standing around the world that inhibits our ability to actually take on terrorism. That's what it's going to take to make us safer and that's what I intend to do as President of the United States.

The remaining question is will the United States continue to watch its global power decrease while losing its inherently unwinnable Global War Over the Legitimacy of Israel for four, eight or more years after 2008 is over?

Putin in Russia and Hu in China are hoping for at least eight. Olmert hopes the same for different reasons. The people of Iraq, Pakistan, the entire Muslim world and the United States would be much better off if it was shorter.

Sharif Exceeds Expectations

I wondered if Sharif was putting on a show when he asked Bhutto to boycott the elections weeks ago upon his arrival. If they are both on the scene, only one is necessary to give elections enough legitimacy to sustain Musharraf's rule and for one to participate without the other would give the participant a big relative advantage.

Sharif's return to Pakistan, obviously with the consent of Musharraf, indicated to me that a deal had been reached, and that deal would have had Sharif limit his steps to reduce Musharraf's legitimacy in exchange for being allowed back. I still believe Sharif could not have returned without an understanding. Musharraf otherwise could have refused to allow Sharif's plane to land, as Sharif once tried against Musharraf.

But on the day of Bhutto's death, Sharif calls for a boycott of elections and for Musharraf to step down. It was not a dance. Sharif really hoped both sides would boycott and now is free to boycott the elections himself.

Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif announced here Thursday that his party will boycott the scheduled Jan. 8 parliamentary elections after opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was killed in Thursday's suicide attack.

Of course the US opposes both a boycott and the removal of Musharraf from power.

The United States, in the wake of Benazir Bhutto's assassination, is urging all moderate Pakistani political forces including the party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to take part in the country's planned elections.

In terms of democracy, rule of law and effective governance advancing Pakistan's view of Pakistani interests, Sharif's recent behavior the best news to come from Pakistan since Musharraf took power.