September 17, 2008

LAT's Parker on US influence collapse in Iraq

The L.A. Times's Ned Parker has a great piece of reporting from Baghdad in today's paper, charting the main dimensions of the recent collapse of the US's influence in Iraq....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:20 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

September 16, 2008

Reidar Visser on the Democrats' 'Biden problem' re Iraq

Thank goodness Reidar Visser has been paying some good close attention to what the senator and Veep candidate has been saying about Iraq since the Democratic convention, when suddenly all...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:16 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

September 04, 2008

Text of the draft Iraq-US SOFA

On August 31, Al-Sharq al-Awsat published a leaked version of the nearly completed text US-Iraqi security (SOFA) agreement. That text was dated August 4. Raed Jarrar of the American Friends...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:00 PM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

September 03, 2008

International tensions and the US election

Many parts of the world stand on the brink of major new escalations that could erupt before the day of the US elections, November 4. I would include in that...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:16 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

Iraq: Another Quaker in the 'Red Zone'

The best-known U.S. Quaker to have undertaken a peace-witnessing mission inside post-invasion Iraq was Tom Fox, the widely loved member of Christian Peacemaker Teams who was killed there in early...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:13 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

August 28, 2008

Conway does a Dannatt (sort of)

At the Pentagon yesterday, the Commandant of the US Marine Corps established an unequivocal link in a meeting with journalists between the need to draw down quickly in (at least...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:01 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

China gets Iraq oil deal

The WaPo's Amit Paley has just reported that the Iraqi government has signed a $3 billion oil deal with the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. that's described as "much more...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:48 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

August 26, 2008

Still no US-Iraq security agreement (yawn)

Alert readers of JWN will have noticed that I haven't posted much recently. A number of reasons for that, among them the desire to sit around with the spouse watching...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:52 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

August 22, 2008

Iraq-US: More disagreement than 'Agreement'

Yesterday, the news from Baghdad was that the visiting Condi Rice was very close to nailing the longer-term security agreement with the 'government' of Iraq that the Bush administration has...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:49 PM | Fulltext link (23 comments)

August 21, 2008

Condi in Baghdad: YES on a timetable (aspirational)

AP tells us that at a joint appearance with Iraqi "Foreign Minister" Hoshyar Zebari in Baghdad today, Condi Rice agreed that, regarding a troop withdrawal plan, We have agreed that...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:07 AM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

August 12, 2008

Faiza: Blogging from inside the Iraqi refugee crisis

Back on August 1, I wrote this post about the new report the International Crisis Group has on the situation of Iraq's refugees. I wish at the time I had...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:06 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

August 10, 2008

Iraqi FM insists on 'clear timeline' for US troop pullout

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari still insists on a "clear timeline" for the withdrawal of US troops from his country, according to this report from AP's Robert Reid. Reid writes...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:10 PM | Fulltext link (27 comments)

August 04, 2008

Badger's sit-rep on the US-Iraq SOFA etc talks

The ever-diligent Badger has been reading Al Sabah, which he describes as "the Green Zone newspaper", and gives his translation (scroll down) of what today's edition says about the progress...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:55 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

August 01, 2008

Joost Hiltermann on Iraq's refugees

Yesterday, I went to a thought-provoking discussion at the Carnegie Endowment in which the International Crisis Group's Joost Hiltermann presented and discussed ICG's recent report on the continuing crisis of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:36 PM | Fulltext link (17 comments)

July 30, 2008

Bolani on the fulcrum of the US-Iraqi balance

It was an interesting performance this morning, to see Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad Bolani do some deft diplomatic footwork-- while visiting Washington-- to stay atop the fulcrum of the Washington-Baghdad...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:50 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

July 28, 2008

Bush's 'Surge': How successful?

This, from Reuters in Baghdad today: Three female suicide bombers killed 28 people and wounded 92 when they blew themselves up among Shi'ites walking through the streets of Baghdad on...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:42 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

July 26, 2008

That USIP session on US troop presence in Iraq

I live-blogged the session just briefly here, yesterday; and Marc Lynch gave his somewhat longer-- and later-- "first take" on the discussion, here. We can hope that USIP's own audio...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:39 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

Keeping a sense of humor between Baghdad's ever-encroaching walls

McClatchy's Iraqi staffer Laith has a great little post on the Inside Iraq blog, describing one instance of how Baghdad's people keep their sense of humor --and therefore, their sanity...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:26 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

July 25, 2008

USIP event on US military presence in Iraq

I'm sitting here in this two-hour discussion, which has had four panelists: * Kimberly Kagan, President, Institute for the Study of War: a big surge supporter, who wants to see...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:49 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

July 24, 2008

Assessing the 'surge' in Iraq (contd.)

Yesterday, I wrote that, when assessing the surge, it's important to look at the financial and other costs incurred when the Bushists rejected the recommendations of the ISG (Baker-Hamilton) report...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:13 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

A new way to discuss US public spending

It's been a long while since someone-- was it Kos?-- suggested we all use the term 'Friedman Unit' to describe any six-month period, given Tom F's frequent reference in earlier...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:25 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

July 23, 2008

What Bush's surge has cost

1,110 dead Americans, tens of thousands of dead Iraqis, and $180 billion of US taxpayer money... Bush's military surge in Iraq represented, essentially, an 18-month prolongation of the war there....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:20 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

July 21, 2008

Iraq: Provincial elections and displacement

In all the recent reporting that I've seen on the Iraqi provincial elections, and their now almost certain postponement, I've seen almost no mention of one of the biggest administrative/political...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:55 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

Obama and Maliki, face to face

They met today in the Green Zone. That Reuters report has no further details. But it notes that Obama, has also welcomed a suggestion by Maliki that a timetable be...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:23 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

Centcom's propaganda about Maliki

Der Spiegel, the New York Times and other reliable media organizations, having reviewed the tapes of PM Nouri al-Maliki's interview with Spiegel, have confirmed that he said what Spiegel reported...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:01 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

July 19, 2008

Who influences whose elections?

In 2004, when the US occupation authorities in Iraq went along with Ayatollah Sistani's insistence that his country be allowed to elect its new leaders, the assumption among the Bushists...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:34 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

July 18, 2008

When is a timetable not a timetable?

... When it's a time "horizon", of course! As accepted yesterday, regarding the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, by no less a personage than (drum roll, please) President George...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:24 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

July 14, 2008

Obama's plan for Iraq: Strengths & Weaknesses

Today, Barack Obama used the NYT op-ed pages to lay out his current thinking on Iraq. What he writes provides a clear and welcome alternative to what John McCain proposes...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:28 AM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

July 12, 2008

Washington's 'Dannatt moment' approaching?

So is the Bush administration finally coming close to experiencing the "Dannatt moment" that I have been waiting for ever since October 2006, when the British Army's chief of staff,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:49 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)