{"id":217,"date":"2007-01-02T10:25:09","date_gmt":"2007-01-02T15:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=217"},"modified":"2007-02-27T22:02:37","modified_gmt":"2007-02-28T03:02:37","slug":"cheney-and-sistani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=217","title":{"rendered":"Cheney and Sistani"},"content":{"rendered":"
In a preview of 2007<\/title>In a preview of 2007, the <em>Financial Times<\/em> asks <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/483be022-9769-11db-a680-0000779e2340.html\">how Vice President Cheney will fare<\/a> in the new year.\u00c2\u00a0 There will be some trouble for Cheney:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Dick Cheney has forged a reputation as the most powerful but also least \tvisible vice-president in recent history. In the next few weeks, however, he \twill be forced to fight some of his battles in the open \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in the courtroom \tand on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n<p>The first test will come in the <strong>criminal trial of his former chief of \tstaff, Lewis \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Scooter\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Libby<\/strong>, charged with lying to a grand jury during \tan investigation into how a CIA agent\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name was leaked. The trial, due to \tbegin in two weeks, is likely to set an ignominious precedent when Mr Cheney \tbecomes the first vice-president to testify in a trial.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Cheney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s legal team are also steeling themselves for the <strong>launch of \tlegislative investigations by the new Democrat-controlled Congress<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Neither of these external threats will likely do much damage.\u00c2\u00a0 The real question is Cheney’s role inside the White House.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>His influence has never come from his popularity outside the White House, \tbut from his access within it. That has not changed. Josh Bolten, the White \tHouse chief of staff, told the FT: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He is a welcome participant in every \tmeeting the president is in, he sits in on almost all the policy meetings…<\/p>\n<p>Even so, there are signs that the president\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s confidence in his judgment \thas waned. <strong>He was cut out of the decision to oust his ally Donald \tRumsfeld as secretary of defence, a move he vigorously opposed<\/strong>. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They \treally are genuinely close friends but the president doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always take his \tadvice,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Mr Bolten.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The <em>FT<\/em> mentions that Cheney may lose some influence to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson on question of economic policy, including Social Security reform.\u00c2\u00a0 One might add China policy to that list.<\/p>\n<p>But the <em>FT<\/em> ultimately dodges the crucial question: <strong>does Cheney call the shots on US foreign policy in the Middle East<\/strong>, especially Iraq and Iran?<\/p>\n<p>If Bush “doesn’t always take [Cheney’s] advice,” as Bolten says, neither does he always take the advice of Right Arabists like James Baker.<\/p>\n<p>The big post-mid-term election story of 2006 was the unexpectedly cold White House reception given to Baker’s <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=203\">Iraq Study Group Report<\/a> (for some background on the “push back” against Baker, see previous posts <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=194\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=200\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=205\">here<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=206\">here<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cheney Drives the Bus<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Until Bush formally announces the results of his Iraq Policy Review, it will remain difficult to discern the course of US policy ahead.\u00c2\u00a0 Nevertheless, there may be some hints in the news, all of which point to Cheney at the wheel.<\/p>\n<p>The strongest signals of late seem to indicate that the “<a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=200\">Shiite Option<\/a>” in Iraq may still have some legs, even as this is linked to an aggressive policy toward Syria and Iran.<\/p>\n<p>If so, an early casualty will be US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.<\/p>\n<p>Much of Khalilzad’s “timetable” for Iraq was written into the Iraq Study Group Report and his tenure as Ambassador has corresponded with US efforts to court Sunni political support and move against Moqtada al-Sadr’s Shiite militia, the Mahdi Army.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sistani: Foil to US Occupiers?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It was Khalilzad who was most closely associated with plans for the formation of a new “moderate” Iraqi government that would see Prime Minister Maliki dump Sadr and align himself more closely with Sunni forces.<\/p>\n<p>This idea hit a major hurdle when Grand Ayatollah Sistani allegedly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/worldlatest\/story\/0,,-6300409,00.html\"> rejected the plan<\/a> in late December.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/justworldnews.org\/archives\/002296.html\">Helena Cobban at “Just World News”<\/a> has interpreted this move by Sistani as one more instance in which the Grand Ayatollah has again “foiled” the US occupiers.\u00c2\u00a0 A similar analysis accompanied the Iraqi elections of 2005 when <a href=\"http:\/\/www.needlenose.com\/node\/view\/1043\">Swopa claimed<\/a> that Sistani had forced the to hold elections that Bush never wanted.<\/p>\n<p>There is more than a bit of truth to these claims.\u00c2\u00a0 But it is also worth noting that in both instances Sistani’s actions represented a <em>defeat<\/em> for Right Arabists in the Bush administration but were <em>quite compatible<\/em> with the path promoted by Right Zionists like AEI’s Reuel Marc Gerecht.<\/p>\n<p>Gerecht <a href=\"http:\/\/www.weeklystandard.com\/Content\/Public\/Articles\/000\/000\/005\/228jwcnr.asp\"> celebrated the 2005 Iraqi elections<\/a> for all the same reasons Right Arabists opposed them and more recently he warned against Khalilzad’s effort to split the Shia.\u00c2\u00a0 In an essay entitled, “<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aei.org\/publications\/pubID.25344\/pub_detail.asp\">In Iraq, Let’s Fight One War at a Time<\/a>,” Gerecht argued:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In Baghdad and in Washington, officials privately and the press publicly \tsuggest that the Bush administration would prefer that Prime Minister Nuri \tKamal al-Maliki fell… Mr. Maliki is politically too dependent, the \treasoning goes, on the young Shiite militia leader Moktada al-Sadr, a scion \tof a prestigious clerical family and the boss of a pivotal bloc of votes in \tIraq\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Parliament…<\/p>\n<p>Since President Bush is now immersed in a top-to-bottom Iraq review, in \twhich a substantial surge of American soldiers into Baghdad seems ever more \tlikely and the Army is again seriously considering directly confronting Mr. \tSadr, the appeal of Mr. Mahdi and the Supreme Council may grow in Washington \tand Baghdad.<\/p>\n<p>If so, the administration should nip in the bud such inclinations. <strong> \tChanging the Shiite parts of the Iraqi government and quickly taking on Mr. \tSadr would do nothing to end the Sunni insurgency and the holy war of \tforeign jihadists against the new Iraq<\/strong>…<\/p>\n<p>[S]ome Shiites, and perhaps <strong>most Sunnis, may threaten to walk out of \tIraq\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s government and forsake reconciliation talks<\/strong> if the Americans get \tserious about pacifying Baghdad and the insurgency elsewhere. <strong>Let them<\/strong>. \tIf the city\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <strong>Shiites<\/strong>, who <strong>represent about 65 \tpercent of Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s population<\/strong>, see that the Americans are committed to \tcountering the insurgency, any protest from Mr. Maliki or call to arms by \tMr. Sadr will have increasingly less power.<\/p>\n<p>No, it won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be easy–but with American and Iraqi troops all over Baghdad \tand daily life returning to some normality, the situation will certainly be \tmore manageable than what we confront now. <strong>The politics of peaceful \tShiite consensus, which is what Grand Ayatollah Sistani has tried to advance \tsince 2003, could again rapidly gain ground<\/strong>…<\/p>\n<p>The key for America is the same as it has been for years: to clear and hold \tthe Sunni areas of Baghdad and the so-called Sunni triangle to the north. \tThere will probably be no political solution among the Iraqi factions to \tsave American troops from the bulk of this task. The sooner we start in \tBaghdad, the better the odds are that the radicalization of the Iraqi \tShiites can be halted.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>The Shiite Option in 2007<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There may already be signs that the Bush administration is preparing to pursue this course.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/today.reuters.com\/news\/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-01-02T143500Z_01_L308031_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsHome-C1-topNews-2\"> execution of Saddam Hussein<\/a> might be one place to begin looking, despite some <a href=\"http:\/\/today.reuters.com\/News\/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=MAC154835\"> protestations from Khalilzad<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Then there is the news of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/01\/01\/AR2007010100265.html\"> a US military raid<\/a> on the offices of Saleh al-Mutlak, an ex-Baathist Sunni politician once <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2006\/04\/12\/AR2006041201966_pf.html\"> actively courted by Condoleezza Rice<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And National Security Council Adviser Stephen Hadley floated a pro-Shia trial balloon.\u00c2\u00a0 The <em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/01\/02\/washington\/02war.html?ref=world&pagewanted=all\"> New York Times<\/a><\/em> welcomes the new year with a story that features Hadley reflecting on the failures of recent US policy and preparing the way for an anti-Sunni military “surge” in Iraq:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153<strong>We could not clear and hold<\/strong>,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Stephen J. Hadley, the president\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \tnational security adviser, acknowledged in a recent interview, in a frank \tadmission of how American strategy had crumbled. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Iraqi forces were not able \tto hold neighborhoods, and the effort to build did not show up. The \tsectarian violence continued to mount, so we did not make the progress on \tsecurity we had hoped. We did not bring the moderate Sunnis off the fence, \tas we had hoped. <strong>The Shia lost patience, and began to see the militias as \ttheir protectors<\/strong>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d…<\/p>\n<p>In early August, the United States was forced to reverse course and <strong> \tadd troops<\/strong> in Baghdad. On reflection, Mr. Hadley said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153<strong>Finally the \tpatience of the Shia had worn thin<\/strong>,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153By the time the unity \tgovernment took over the cycle of sectarian violence had begun. And they and \twe have not been able to get ahead of it .\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The <em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/01\/01\/AR2007010100912_pf.html\"> Washington Post<\/a><\/em> offers a similar profile of Khalilzad’s failure to gauge Shia impatience:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad declared the Shiite militias the most \tsignificant threat to Iraq’s stability, replacing the Sunni insurgency and \tal-Qaeda. Frustrated by the Shiite government’s inability to govern and \tbring security, U.S. officials began pressuring Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki \tto dismantle the militias. They zeroed in on the Mahdi Army of radical \tcleric Moqtada al-Sadr, upon whom Maliki depends for power…<\/p>\n<p>Shiite politicians and analysts say Khalilzad is backing the Sunnis to \tlimit the power of Shiites in the government…<\/p>\n<p>“We know the U.S. is under great pressure from Arabic and Islamic \tcountries, who are Sunni,” said Ridha Jawad Taqi, a member of parliament \twith the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite party \twith strong ties to Tehran. “They fear the growing power of the Shia inside \tIraq.”<\/p>\n<p>“The Americans have a wrong reading of Iraq,” said Hasan Suneid, a member \tof the Shiite Dawa party and a close aide to Maliki. “And who is responsible \tfor this reading? It is the diplomatic channel, that is, Khalilzad.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The idea of a military surge in Iraq is already generating <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/9d3e56c6-99bd-11db-8b6d-0000779e2340.html\"> Republican resistance<\/a> within the Senate.\u00c2\u00a0 Any move to dump Khalilzad and tilt US policy toward Iraqi Shiite political dominance will likely generate similar howls of protest from Right Arabists in the James Baker crowd.<\/p>\n<p>But it would represent an enormous victory for Grand Ayatollah Sistani and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zmag.org\/content\/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10185\">the Right Zionists who have long pinned their hopes on him<\/a> as the key to “dual rollback” in Iraq and Iran.<\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a preview of 2007In a preview of 2007, the Financial Times asks how Vice President Cheney will fare in the new year.\u00c2\u00a0 There will be some trouble for Cheney: Dick Cheney has forged a reputation as the most powerful but also least visible vice-president in recent history. In the next few weeks, however, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}