They bit themselves and went mad

There was an interesting article in The Independent entitled "Special report: Is Al Qa'ida in pieces?" by Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank. Bergen is the author of two books on al-Qai'da so I'm rather inclined to listen when he writes on the subject.

The thrust of the piece is that Islamists are turning against al-Qaida. It refers to a conversation between a Libyan militant and bin-Laden, where the former referred to the indiscriminately violent tactics of the Algerian jihadists that ultimately alienated all their support and led to their being crushed.

The jihadi later become one of many religious leaders and ex-militants who have criticized al-Qaida for its takfiri tactics which allowed them to go after any Muslim they don't consider to be a "true" Muslim.

The article referenced polls that showed that support for al-Qaida has been declining worldwide, with support for suicide bombing declining in Indonesia, Lebanon and Bangladesh, for instance. This general trend adds some useful context to the turning of Sunnis in Iraq against al-Qaida in Mesopotamia. As an ICG report pointed out that it was AQI's high-handedness that turned the Sunnis against them even before the surge began and further undercuts its claims of success.

Democratic supineness on the war

The Democrats were elected to narrow majorities in both houses of Congress to a large extent on anti-war sentiment, however Congress hasn't been able to cut off funding for the war.

A recap, in March-April 2007, Congress passed a war appropriations bill with a mandatory withdrawal timetable to end in August 2008 but it passed both houses with narrow majorities. The vote to override Bush's veto of it failed by a considerable margin. Congress then passed the funding without any timetables. In the House, 40% of the Democrats voted for the measure with no timetables; often for the reason that they didn't want to risk totally cutting off funding for the soldier in Iraq. Thus funding was provided until September.

The Senate's attempts to put through timetables later that year were constantly thwarted by Republican filibusters. As a result, further votes on funding were delayed until the convening of the 2nd session of the Congress, in 2008. Eventually, the Democrats conceded the issue to Bush, assessing that they didn't have the numbers to override a veto or to break a filibuster in the Senate.

Although this would seem to show them flouting the will of the American people, recent polls suggest that there isn't a popular supermajority in favor of ending the war any more than there is one in Congress. ABC's last poll had 55-41 tilted towards withdrawing US forces as opposed to keeping them there until civil order is restored. The latest NBC poll had 54-40 tilting towards victory in Iraq being not possible as opposed to possible. Finally, the latest CBS poll had 42% wanting "large numbers of US troops" there "Less than a year, 21% "One to two years" and only 20% "As long as it takes".

As to that impact on Congress's supineness. First, it takes more than one election cycle for a consistent popular sentiment to change the Senate given its staggered election schedule. Second, although said sentiment is enough to change the House, it doesn't appear to be strong enough to have created a veto-overriding supermajority (although it should change the party in the White House in 2008). This is an intentional part of the Constitutional design--requiring more than one election cycle (anticipating further Democratic gains in the Senate and the White House) to push the government.

This delay on the implementation of changes in popular sentiment into policy is also a function of the separation of powers. One of the intended results of that is that a change in the White House is often as necessary as a change in Congress for policies to be changed. Further, the Democrats can anticipate increased majorities in both houses.

It may also take another election for many of the incoming Democrats to obtain some extra boldness. There are 45 representatives who come from districts that voted for Bush in the last two elections. 22 of them are freshmen and likely looking over their shoulders. Longer term, this could actually be a good development if it represents the beginning of a long-term realignment. For example, three of Indiana's nine Representatives are exactly that type of freshmen. That this could be a harbinger of other things is shown in that Obama is actually competitive in polls in Indiana.

In a parliamentary system, the type of change in power that took place in 2006 or 1994 would've led to a new government. Not so here.

Kristol's balls

It's hard to pick out which is the more outrageous assertion in Kristol's column in yesterday's Times. His target is a MoveOn.org ad that plays off McCain's stated willingness to be in Iraq for 100 years if necessary. His assertion is that the ad expresses "contempt for all who might choose to serve their country in uniform." It reads as follows:

“Hi, John McCain. This is Alex. And he’s my first. So far his talents include trying any new food and chasing after our dog. That, and making my heart pound every time I look at him. And so, John McCain, when you say you would stay in Iraq for 100 years, were you counting on Alex? Because if you were, you can’t have him.”

Now, Kristol has a rare moment of lucidity when he points out that McCain's statement was in a context of a prolonged peacetime presence such as we have in Germany and Japan and that the implication of the ad is that he envisions a prolonged war. One might point out in response that does, however, speak volumes about his desire to have permanent bases in Iraq, exactly the sort of thing the Bush administration is claiming that it doesn't want.

However, as if he were unaccustomed to accuracy, he then quotes the mother of a soldier who said--

“Does that mean that she wants other people’s sons to keep the wolves at bay so that her son can live a life of complete narcissism? What is it she thinks happens in the world? ... Someone has to stand between our society and danger. If not my son, then who? If not little Alex then someone else will have to stand and deliver. Someone’s son, somewhere.”

This presupposes that what McCain wants is to only use our soldiers when our society is in danger. The problem with that is that such a danger didn't exist either in Iraq, and still doesn't, or in Iran, about which he likes to sing songs about bombing. There is also nothing in the ad that could reasonably support the implication that the mother wants her son to live a life of complete narcissism. Perhaps she envisions her son being a teacher rather than putting his life on the line for the type of neo-con pipe dream that Messrs. McCain and Kristol like to play around with.

Kristol caps off his delusional interpretation of the ad with

The MoveOn ad is unapologetic in its selfishness, and barely disguised in its disdain for those who have chosen to serve — and its contempt for those parents who might be proud of sons and daughters who are serving. The ad boldly embraces a vision of a selfish and infantilized America, suggesting that military service and sacrifice are unnecessary and deplorable relics of the past.

And the sole responsibility of others.

He has tremendous balls to try to pass that off as the thrust of the ad when the language clearly is aimed at McCain's Iraq policy.

What really calls for the extra helping of chutzpah is when he presumes to accuse other people of considering that military sacrifice is the responsibility of others when many of his neo-con fellow travelers actually acted on exactly that consideration.

People like the President, who pulled strings to get into a National Guard unit that, as such, wouldn't face being deployed to Vietnam, and then failed to put in his time.

People like the Vice President who took five draft deferments because he had "other priorities".

People like Newt Gingrich, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle who spent some or all of the second half of the 60s in grad school.

But it's not about the oil!

There is an article in today's NYTimes about how four western oil companies (Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP) and some small fry are negotiating with the Oil Ministry (remember, that's the one government office we protected from looters back in '03) for no-bid contracts to service Iraq's largest oil fields.

Although the contracts are small, the companies getting them will have an in when longer-term deals are made. The article notes that the Oil Ministry still has American advisors.

Although they are service contracts rather than a license to develop the fields, the companies are being paid in oil.

The Oil Ministry stated that the companies had been chosen because they had already been advising the ministry for the last two years. Of course, the fact that American troops were keeping the government in place had nothing to do with that.

Which Iraqis?

Thomas Friedman's column in yesterday's Times, Iraq: Still Inscrutable makes a reference to "Iraqis [who] will tell him on day one that we can’t leave Iraq precipitously because it will explode."

The first thing that comes to mind with that statement is that Obama has never advocated a precipitous withdrawal. He position is to be out of Iraq at a rate of 1-2 brigades a month.

The second issue is exactly which Iraqis don't want us to go and how representative are they? Although the Iraqi Foreign Minister lectured Obama about the importance of the US staying in Iraq, other events on the ground suggest a rapidly diminishing Iraqi patience with the US presence there. For example, there is the total breakdown in negotiations for a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). The majority of the Iraqi parliament insists on a withdrawal timetable as a condition for any SOFA.

The surge causing long-term problems?

Here is an article in the current edition of Foreign Affairs, the summary of which reads--

The Bush administration's new strategy in Iraq has helped reduce violence. But the surge is not linked to any sustainable plan for building a viable Iraqi state and may even have made such an outcome less likely -- by stoking the revanchist fantasies of Sunni tribes and pitting them against the central government. The recent short-term gains have thus come at the expense of the long-term goal of a stable, unitary Iraq.

Boumediene--Robert's dissent

Roberts referred to the mechanism for Gitmo detainees as "the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants."

As far as the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) are concerned, one military insider has a different take. Col. Abraham, an Army Reserve officer described them as a rubber-stamp designed to ratify decisions already made. The CSRTs don't permit the detainee counsel or the ability to see the evidence against him and permits unlimited hearsay evidence.

His argument that the court's action was premature since the appellate procedures under the Detainee Treatment Act hadn't been exhausted was eloquently answered by Souter's concurrence, which pointed out that many of these people had already been there for six years. As a recent McClatchy story pointed out, many of them were innocent. Further, since the DTA only permits the DC Appellate Court to look at the procedures and whether they were followed, there is no review of the ruling on the case itself. As Roberts himself admitted, any protection offered is because "CSRT and D. C.Circuit review to operate together, with the goal of providing noncitizen detainees the level of collateral process Hamdi said would satisfy the due process
rights of American citizens. " Thus, the inadequacies of CSRT doom Roberts's dissent.

Roberts also places much stock in the ability of the DC Circuit to send the case back to a CSRT for a new assessment. However, without any ability to change the flaws that make the CSRT a rubber-stamp process, such a step is meaningless.

Oops! We got some of the wrong guys in Gitmo

I just came across an article that McClatchy is doing as part of a series on the detainee prison system that the U.S. has set up. It's thrust is that in Gitmo and elsewhere, we have dozens, possibly hundreds, of people detained "on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments."

Boumediene, a further thought

In addition to the points I covered in an earlier post on that decision, there is also the question of the military commission that tried the detainees in Eisentrager. In Eisentrager, SCOTUS stated-

The other claim is that they were denied trial "by the same courts and according
to the same procedure as in the case of persons belonging to the armed forces of
the detaining Power," required by Article 63 of the Convention. It may be noted
that no prejudicial disparity is pointed out as between the Commission that
tried prisoners and those that would try an offending soldier of the American
forces of like rank.

Although the specific procedures aren't mentioned, that fact that the court didn't find a significant difference between the commission in question and one that would try American soldiers suggests that, unlike the commissions in Gitmo, the one here made the minimal standards of a fair hearing. Which brings us to the subject of Justice Roberts's dissent.

CCR and ACLU on Boumediene

I thought I'd just pass this on. It is an analysis of the decision by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

The ACLU website also has a history of the Gitmo issue. It starts here.

Constitution 3, Gitmo 0

In Boumediene v. Bush, the Supreme Court held that the constitutional guarantee of habeas corpus does apply to Gitmo detainees. The opinion, written by Kennedy, was 5-4 with a concurrence by Souter and dissents by Roberts and Scalia.

SCOTUS first held that the Military Commissions Act did strip the federal courts of habeas jurisdiction over Gitmo. Although Congress could, and did, remove any statutory right to habeas, it could only remove the constitutional right pursuant to the language covering suspension of the writ--invasion or rebellion.

The big issue was whether that applied to Gitmo. SCOTUS looked at prior cases, The Insular Cases, Reid v. Covert and Johnson v. Eisntrager, and drew from them the conclusion that the question of application of the writ turned on pragmatic questions rather than a determination of who was the formal sovereign. Specifically, on the extent to which US power over the site of the detention excluded any other legal jurisdiction. For example, Eisentrager hinged on the practical problems of producing the prisoners. There was also the fact that the US occupation force in Germany operated under an Allied command, not a US one and that the plan was ultimately to turn power back over to Germany. In Gitmo, the Cubans have been boxed out for over a century. Further, any practical difficulties in applying the habeas writ that had been dispositive in the earlier cases didn't apply in Gitmo.

The court then held that the limited appellate process that the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA) assigned for overview of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) was not an adequate substitute for the habeas writ in that it didn't allow for admitting exculpatory evidence discovered after or review of the CSRT's findings of fact.

It's a surprisingly encouraging victory and I expect I'll be sending a celebratory check to the ACLU.

I think Scalia's dissent is the more amusing of the two. His assertions that the opinion "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed" and that "The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today" are exercises in hysterics rather than legal thought. His assertion that the military can't always tell who is a threat and who isn't (invoking stories of released Gitmo detainees killing people after release) is an argument for more civilian oversight, not less. If the military can't get it right, what innocent persons are being held as unlawful enemy combatants?

His dissent also ignores that, in Eisentrager, the holding that constitutional protections didn't apply to an alien enemy was distinguishable since no proper procedure had determined that the Gitmo detainees were enemies to begin with. The petitoners in Eisentrager were "active in the hostile service of an enemy power". Scalia embraces the assumption that Gitmo detainees are enemy aliens, when the enemy part is a key fact in dispute for each detainee.

Scalia also has no response to the implication of the opinion's argument that, if US protections don't apply, who has the jurisdiction? The United States is sovereign in Gitmo in all but name. This is also important since Eisentrager also relied on the petitoners never having been within US jurisdiction. Scalia would have us believe the administration's fiction that Gitmo is somehow a territory beyond the reach of anyone's authority.

He also ignores, as the opinion doesn't, Eisentrager's emphasis on the practical difficulties of effecting the habeas writ on the petitioners in that case.

Is David Brooks kidding?!?!

In his column today, it seems that David Brooks wants to blame the sub-prime scandal and the increasing rich/poor inequality on a collapse of morals. He opines

The United States has been an affluent nation since its founding. But the country was, by and large, not corrupted by wealth. For centuries, it remained industrious, ambitious and frugal.

Over the past 30 years, much of that has been shredded. The social norms and institutions that encouraged frugality and spending what you earn have been undermined. The institutions that encourage debt and living for the moment have been strengthened. The country’s moral guardians are forever looking for decadence out of Hollywood and reality TV. But the most rampant decadence today is financial decadence, the trampling of decent norms about how to use and harness money.

First, his history is way off. The United States has long had a history of financial bubbles, manias and panics--it is hardly a recent innovation. Speculation in the United States is older than the country itself, going back to bonds issued by the states to pay their soldiers during the Revolution. Speculators bought up many of these at a discount, leading to a controversy when Hamilton moved to enact Federal assumption of the various debt instruments out there as to whether they should be reimbursed at the face value of the bonds they had purchased at a discount. In fact, that prospect led to a speculative mania at the very onset of the New York Stock Exchange in bank notes and government debt instruments and first stock market crash in 1792.

Since then, there have been financial panics in 1819, 1837, 1857, 1869, 1873, 1892, 1907, 1929 (how could he have missed that!). The crash of 1869 was caused by an attempt by speculators to corner the gold market; those of 1857 and 1873 by railroad speculators. The crash of 1929 came after years of widespread stock speculation fueled by margin buying. These are hardly examples of thrift and frugality.

The so-called Gilded Age was marked by displays of wealth that matched what we had in the 1990s and that gave rise to the phrase "conspicuous consumption". The 1920s were proverbial for consumption ("The Great Gatsby") and an increase in inequality as workers suffered a decline in real wages. The boost in consumer purchases of new products was financed, therefore, by an increase in retail credit and consumer debt--another 90s parallel.

Indeed, the idea of the 1990s that new technologies and increases in productivity caused by better management techniques created a new economy that wasn't subject to the old rules had its parallel in the 1920s.

He should remember that this country wasn't just founded by Puritans. There were merchant adventurers in Virginia and New York. In Devil Take the Hindmost, Edward Chancellor observes that the colonial venture behind the settling of this country was a gamble of sorts. This is enhanced by the fact that, without an aristocracy of medieval vintage, status was more a function of wealth than birth.

Of course, by blaming a corruption of morals, Brooks can ignore the lack of government oversight or deregulatory measures such as the repeal of Glass-Steagall. He can ignore the fact that manias, panics and crashes, to evoke the title of Charles Kindleberger's book of the same name, have had a similar rhythm in American history and often were followed by regulatory and legal reform. It's so much easier to play the neo-con game and wail about contemporary society's fraying moral fiber. Too bad that it has a very scant basis in history.

Election prognostication, 2 of 2

Here is Lichtman's take on the 2008 election. He predicted a Democratic victory. For a discussion of his theory, see my last post.

He stated that the mandate key (based on representation in the House) turned against the Republicans as a result of the 2006 election and that they wouldn't have the incumbency key. However, he also stated that the Republicans would lose the party contest key. In fact, McCain became the presumptive nominee early on in the campaign and has considerably more than 2/3s of the delegates.

He asserted that the Republicans lost the policy change key; and there haven't been any successful initiatives since then. Had Bush's immigration reform passed, perhaps that would've counted. Lichtman argued that Iraq cost Bush both the foreign policy failure key and the success key. I think this also has been overtaken by events. The surge can't be considered a strategic success by any means as there hasn't been any movement towards a political solution in Iraq. However, it has achieved tactical success and the tamping down of violence that it was a part of (though not the only part) does keep it off the radar of the voting public so that the failure key arguably won't turn against him. He still won't get the success key though.

He then argued that the Republicans wouldn't get the charisma/hero key. Although McCain deserves respect for what he went through as a POW, the hero key appears to tie in with people seen as a key part of a national success. Being a Vietnam POW doesn't meet that standard.

So of the six keys that Lichtman had turn against the Republicans in his October 2007 piece, events have intervened that only have four turn against them.

He has three keys that turn in the Republicans' favor. First, the lack of serious social unrest. Second, the lack of any major scandal. Things such as the torture discussion or the Plame incident simply didn't touch the White House. Arguably they should have but that isn't the political reality. Finally, he argued that the Democrats aren't likely to have anyone who turns the charisma key. That is borderline in my opinion. Certainly Obama has tremendous oratorical and political skills. Whether its on a par with a Roosevelt or a JFK is an interesting question.

Finally, he has three uncertain keys. First, the third-party key. He speculated about a Bloomberg candidacy. That won't happen but I have to wonder if Bob Barr's Libertarian campaign will draw off enough McCain supporters to reach the 5% mark. I think the presumption has to be no, but it is a rebuttable presumption.

Both economic keys were marked as uncertain by him. I believe that they turn against the Republicans. Regarding the recession key; whether we will technically be in a recession is less important than the public perception. CNN.com reported that the Conference Board's Employment Trends Index (ETI) indicated that the job market would continue to sink. Further, unemployment and job losses have risen this year. Consumer confidence is at its lowest level in 28 years. Here are some polls from pollingreport.com indicating the same trend.

Likewise, per capita GDP, although higher in Bush's second term than in his first, is still lower (and here) than the average of the last two terms. 4.7% average growth in Clinton's second term and 3.5% in Bush's first term for an average of 4.1%. The numbers I have for the last three years average out at 4.5. However, if the 2008 figure comes out at 2.5% or less, the second-term average would go below 4.1%. Even if we don't have a recession (negative growth), the slowing economy should come in below that number. I eagerly welcome any correction of these numbers.

To sum up, the mandate, incumbency, short-term economy, long-term economy, policy change, foreign/military success keys turn against the Republicans--hitting the six minimum needed to defeat the GOP. If Obama turns out to be charismatic enough to turn the charisma key or the Barr candidacy gets any traction (by third-party standards), it could be seven or eight.

Election prognostication, 1 of 2

One of the more interesting books I've read is The Keys to the White House: A Surefire Guide to Predicting the Next President by Allan Lichtman. He and his co-author crunch a number of variables to ascertain which ones most reliably determined who would get more popular votes in a Presidential election. The thesis he derived from this is that such elections are a referendum on the party in power. He posited 13 keys and if 6 or more turn against the party in power, it will lose the popular vote. This system correlates 100% with Presidential elections from 1860 to 2004. Bear in mind that it predicts popular vote and thus didn't pick the actual winner for 1876 (the controversial Hayes-Tilden election, the Gilded Age counterpart to the 2000 race), 1884 and 2000.

The keys are divided into four groups:
The first four deal with the political strength of the party in power in the White House.

• Does the party in the White House have more seats in the House after the midterm than it did in the last midterm?
• Is there a serious contest for the nomination (serious contest being defined as the winner has less than 2/3s of the delegate vote). Interestingly, such a contest in the challenging party doesn't correlate with election results.
• Is the sitting president running?
• Is there a significant third-party campaign? Significant being defined as getting at least 5% of the vote.

The next seven deal with the incumbent party's performance.

• Is the economy in recession during the campaign? This is more a question of perception of a recession than whether the economic agencies in question declare one. Indeed, such a declaration would not likely take place until after the election.
• Per-capita growth in the current term against the average of the prior two terms.
• Did the incumbent administration make major policy changes in the current term?
• Was there significant social unrest? This has to be on the scale of the Red Scare of the 1920s or the riots of 1968.
• Is the administration tainted by major scandal (think Teapot Dome or Watergate).
• Did the administration suffer a major foreign policy failure?
• Did the administration obtain a major foreign policy success?

The last two deal with the personality of the candidates.

• Is the incumbent party candidate charismatic or a national hero?
• Is the challenger either or both of these?

The standard here is quite high. For example, Grant and Eisenhower led victorious armies and obtained this advantage in elections occurring less than a decade afterwards. JFK and both Roosevelts had considerable charisma, as did Reagan.

Allan Lichtman did to an analysis of the keys as they could apply to 2008 in October 2007. In my next post, I'll discuss, and update, his analysis with my own take.

Obama in a blowout?

There is a post on Alternet by one Gary Saperstein in which he predicts that Obama will win the presidential race in a blowout. He cites the generally bad political environment for Republicans, Obama's superior fund-raising and the idea that McCain will prove gaff-prone. He argues that Obama will end up with 300-350 electoral votes.

One of my recommended links is to RealClearPolitics.com. It IS a right-wing site but is tracking polling information in many of the battleground states and so is a good resource.

Ohio (20 Electoral Votes (EV)), Pennsylvania (21 EV), Wisconsin (10 EV), Iowa (7 EV), Missouri (11 EV), New Mexico (5 EV), Nevada (5 EV), Colorado (9 EV), Michigan (17 EV), New Hampshire (4 EV), Virginia (13 EV) and North Carolina (15 EV) all show only single-digit margins for one of the candidates, as does the nationwide popular vote total. That's 137 electoral votes total.

Interestingly enough, RCP doesn't have a polling list for Indiana, which surprisingly is also in play. Pollster.com has three late-April polls that show each with an eight-point lead and one statistical tie.

Given an element of racism that some voters will have; given the snit that some Clinton votes will still be in and given that some of the God, guns and gays crowd will support McCain, I wouldn't feel terribly comfortable predicting a blowout, although I do feel the trend favors Obama.

Just a tad imperial

All the ostensible progress in Iraq isn't going to offset this. It's an article in The Independent (by the invaluable Patrick Cockburn) on how the US is using its hold over $50 billion in Iraqi assets to get an agreement that would allow the US to maintain bases, 150,000 troops and legal immunity for US soldiers and contractors (read "mercenaries").

There is some time sensitivity here as the UN Security Council mandate that covers the U.S. military presence expires on June 15. The Chinese and the Russians are unlikely to smile upon a renewal of that mandate.

One interesting wrinkle is the administration's argument that this is an agreement rather than a treaty, and therefore doesn't require Senate approval. Although Status of Forces Agreements (SOFA) themselves generally don't require Senate approval, they also usually take place in the framework of a treaty that does (NATO, the defense agreement with South Korea). Certainly, it would be difficult to argue that an agreement that doesn't directly get Senate approval or isn't derived from a Senate-approved agreement (i.e., a treaty), would be at all binding on the incoming administration.

ICG on Iraq, de-Ba'aathification

I neglected to mention the ICG report's take on the Iraqi legislation passed in January 2008 that ostensibly addresses the sweeping de-Ba'athification implemented during the CPA regime. Although some neo-cons (I'm thinking of a Wm. Kristol column) touted this as an advance, there are problems with it.

First, party officials above a certain rank were forced into retirement. Although that was sweetened with a pension, it doesn't change the fact that you have a Sunni constituency that won't have its members in the higher positions of the bureaucracy. Even the lower-level functionaries have to face a lifetime of the threat of civil suits (no statute of limitations).

International Crisis Group take on Iraq

I'll start with something fairly simple, just to get in the habit of this blog. A think-tank called the International Crisis Group (ICG) did two reports on the Sunni's apparent switch-over from the insurgency.

The first dealt the Sunnis themselves. The reports acknowledges the improved counter-insurgency capabilities of US forces but points out that much of the Sunni tribes change was in response to the high-handedness and brutality of Al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI). The US push against AQI did facilitate this in that its damage to AQI leadership did lead to a breakdown in discipline, however AQI's agenda would seem to have put it on a collision course with the Sunni tribes notwithstanding. Specifically, its methodology and the clash between its ambition of an Islamic state and Sunni nationalism.

The report continued to argue that the tactical changes are potentially transient and contingent upon the long-term political fixes that the surge. Further, the arming of Sunni tribes creates a more powerful non-state actor--a potentially huge complication should the current marriage of convenience break down.

At best, the surge's ostensible success would seem to have consisted of facilitating independently existing developments; at worst, it has produced strategically barren gains.

The strategic aim of the surge was to provide a space that would permit a political solution among the Iraq factions. The claims of its success based on the very real reduction in violence confound means and ends. This may very well be consistent with what I suspect is the unspoken political aim of the surge, which was to get the Iraq issue of the front pages until after the election.

International Crisis Group take on Iraq, part 2

The ICQ's companion report discusses the four main areas where a political reconciliation would need to happen: Hydrocarbons legislation, resolution of the federalism issue, provincial elections and de-Ba'athification. One interesting point is how what is perceived by some as sectarian warfare is actually a group of intra-communal conflicts.

No bill regarding developing Iraqi oil resources has been passed. One part of the controversy involves who has the ultimate say in signing off on oil contracts in an area. This ties in to the Arab-Kurdish divide over the demarcation of the Kurdish region. There has been no significant progress in either.

Further, the ISCI (former SCIRI) and Kurd factions insist on extreme decentralization and have dragged their feet on provincial elections that may erode their current power. In response to its own question about the possibility of compromise, the report concludes that "forces seem
diametrically opposed without a clear mechanism for resolving the question."

These problems may be resolvable, but it's important to note that any security gains to which the surge may have contributed were supposed to be a means, not an end.