Maliki Feels the Pushback

Someone probably blistered Maliki good--via video conference call or perhaps in person. Someone had to have felt the rage of John McCain today. Somewhere, Bob Gates is smiling, and, somewhere, the cracks in the rotten edifice of this administration showed a little more clearly than before. They cannot control Maliki, but they can threaten him and get him to backtrack after he humiliates them.

Shortly after embracing Barack Obama's plan to get US combat troops out of Iraq, Maliki sent a flunky out to "clarify" things--no doubt after hearing and earful.

But a spokesman for al-Maliki said his remarks "were misunderstood, mistranslated and not conveyed accurately."

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the possibility of troop withdrawal was based on the continuance of security improvements, echoing statements that the White House made Friday after a meeting between al-Maliki and U.S. President Bush.

In the magazine interview, Al-Maliki said his remarks did not indicate that he was endorsing Obama over presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain.

"Who they choose as their president is the Americans' business. But it's the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that's where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited," he said.

"Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic," al-Maliki said.

The interview's publication came one day after the White House said President Bush and al-Maliki had agreed to include a "general time horizon" in talks about reducing American combat forces and transferring Iraqi security control across the country.

Am I the only person who believes we're going to have do this all over again? In ten or twelve years, are we going to have to send five combat divisions to Kuwait in order to take down the dastardly Maliki regime? Am I the only person who can see that Defense Secretary Bob Gates is getting everything he wants when he wants it every single day? The man is not losing--he's gaining. He wants US troops out of Iraq because his DoD can't sustain it. He wants Gitmo closed. He wants the State Department to start acting like a State Department. He wants the Congress to stay out of his way, and they do.

When was the last time Gates was blistered before Congress, by the way? Remember when Rumsfeld would sit there with a shit-eating grin and give them the "stuff happens" look?

UPDATE: I don't buy that this was a clarification. Why does the "clarification" and the retelling of what Maliki said always seem to be in favor of the Bush Administration when what he originally said was in opposition to it? That suggests pushback to me--as in, "here's what I meant to say" after someone has complained about my original statement. Especially if the "clarification" comes from CENTCOM.

--WS

Is The Game Afoot?

So, did anyone catch that the crown prince of Abu Dhabi arrived in the US today, and is at Camp David?

President Bush gave a leader from an oil-rich Persian Gulf ally a plum reward on Thursday: a stay at the Camp David presidential retreat.

Bush welcomed Sheik Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, to the rustic wooded retreat in the Maryland mountains in typical fashion.

I just checked the White House briefing page, the news page--nothing about this visit. Bush last visited Abu Dhabi in January and paid tribute to Sheikh Zayed, the crown prince's father.

Is the crown prince a go-between to the Iranians? Is something afoot? Or is this just a pleasant courtesy call?

--WS

A special bonus for you--what has Judith Miller (formerly of the New York Times) been up to? Writing about Abu Dhabi, it looks like.

The Hostages No One Talks About

US citizens have been held hostage in Colombia for five years, and aside from very casual mentions in the media, they have largely been forgotten. Speaking their names isn't even something this government can do when it is on Colombian soil--it would draw attention to another diplomatic failure.

Don't be surprised if you have never heard of Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell; The [Washington] Post has published only three substantial stories about them in the past five years. All three are U.S. citizens who were working for Pentagon contractor Northrop Grumman when their surveillance plane crashed in a remote Colombian jungle on Feb. 13, 2003. Since then, they have been hostages of the FARC, confined with chains and forced to endure a nightmarish life of isolation, disease and brutality.

The three men were taken hostage after their plane crashed into the remote Colombian jungle. This was certainly not the first or only time the US has lost aircraft and personnel in Colombia:

In July 1999, an American spy plane monitoring the skies and intercepting communications traffic crashed into a mountainside in Colombia, killing the seven men on board - five of them US military personnel.

It's difficult to specify what, if anything, the Bush Administration has done to secure their release. By antagonizing the government of Hugo Chavez, the United States cannot expect any help from the Venezuelan allies of the FARC.

Even worse, from the perspective of the captives, their government and media rarely even speak about them. It's not just The Post: Both President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have visited Colombia in the past year, but neither mentioned Gonsalves, Howes and Stansell in their prepared public statements.

[Luis Eladio] Pérez, a former Colombian senator, could not help but feel the men's distress. At the time Bush visited, Pérez was chained by the neck to Howe. Taken hostage himself in June 2001, Pérez lived with the Americans from late 2003 to late 2004, and then again from October 2006 until his release in February. The 55-year-old politician was freed in a deal orchestrated by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and appears to be in remarkably good health now. But he is anguished about those he left behind. "It hurts me to be here enjoying coffee and knowing that they are there in the jungle chained to each other," Pérez told me. "I'm not happy to think of them rotting. I haven't stopped one day trying to help them."

Pérez came to Washington in part because the men gave him letters addressed to President Bush, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the presidential candidates and The Post, among others. FARC guards confiscated the letters, so Pérez is trying to deliver their messages himself. "They are asking the country to please not abandon them," he said. "They are saying that they love their country, they love the flag, that they are rotting in the jungle and please do something for them."

What could be done? Pérez wishes that Bush would consider the FARC's demand that two of its members imprisoned in the United States -- including one sentenced in January to 60 years for conspiring to hold the Americans hostage -- be exchanged for the three men. He points out that Colombian President Álvaro Uribe has expressed a willingness to exchange FARC prisoners for hostages and that French President Nicolas Sarkozy has promised to accept FARC detainees temporarily in France if it will lead to the release of Ingrid Betancourt, a former Colombian presidential candidate who holds French citizenship.

Taking care of our own and doing the difficult work of diplomacy is the Achilles heel of the Bush State Department. Letting a few narco-terrorists go would do what in the war on drugs? Set us back a decade or more? We're so far behind in the war on drugs that it wouldn't make a lick of difference if we let a few of them go. Good luck to them--anyone we let go would be ostracized by their former associates anyway. Keeping them in prison does what for us when we could let them go and get our personnel back?

It all comes down to the State Department. It used to work pretty well. It used to be something to be proud of. Good people led astray and held back and forced to retire is the best way to describe what we have right now. We have eviscerated our diplomatic corps. We have hundreds of empty positions and a desperate need to engage our friends, enemies, and neutral partners on every level.

Jackson Diehl goes on to say:

Among other things, the release of convicted FARC terrorists would undermine what has been a successful extradition program between Colombia and the United States and give a political boost to a crumbling movement. The implosion of the FARC has been a huge setback to Chávez, who was trying to rehabilitate it and use it as a vehicle to export his "Bolivarian revolution" to Colombia.

Therein may lie the Americans' best hope. Pérez confirms that the FARC "is looking for a political solution" in conjunction with Chávez. He's hoping its leaders can be convinced that such an end must begin with a unilateral release of the remaining hostages. "The FARC must make a decision," Pérez said. If Betancourt or other hostages die, he added, "it will be the end of the FARC." That would be a triumph for Colombia and for the Bush administration -- but not much consolation for three American families.

Perhaps the next President will solve the problem. Sad to say, we're just running out the clock.

Christopher Hill and the art of the last laugh

As aWol's second term got underway, Condi Rice convened a series of strategy meetings to discuss what actions the U.S. could take to persuade North Korea to give up their nuclear weapons program. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, who was present at the meetings didn't have much to say, other than his oft-repeated refrain... "If you just let me go to Pyongyang, I'll get you a deal."

Much eyerolling resulted from this bold assertion every time it was made. No mid-level underling could possibly pull off such a diplomatic coup. Who did this megalomaniac think he was???

The answer to that question is - the guy who had the right stuff to pull off the greatest diplomatic coup since the Camp David Accords.

In the twilight of the Bush presidency, the nuclear agreement that Hill has tirelessly pursued over the past three years has emerged as Bush's best hope for a lasting foreign policy success. In the process, Hill has become the public face of an extraordinary 180-degree policy shift on North Korea, from confrontation to accommodation.

With crucial support from Rice, Hill has often triumphed over his bureaucratic rivals, making him a lightning rod for conservative critics. They caustically call him "Kim Jong Hill" -- a play on the name of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il -- and assert that he made concession after concession in a desperate effort to keep the talks from collapsing.

No assistant secretary of state can so dramatically change policy without the full backing of the secretary or the president. But for a mid-level official, Hill has had unusual access to the president, often joining breakfast meetings that include Rice, Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley. He has even had an occasional one-on-one chat with Bush.

Through deft use of public appearances and the news media, Hill also has become an international figure in his own right. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon last year hailed him as a "diplomat par excellence" whose "persistence and skillful negotiation have brought us close, I believe, to resolving this last legacy of the Cold War." Along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Aga Khan, Hill is even a finalist for Britain's prestigious Chatham House Prize -- given to the statesman who has had the greatest impact on international relations -- for keeping the North Korean "talks alive and viable, against seemingly impossible odds," including the "complex internal politics of Washington."

Under the agreements Hill has reached, Pyongyang has shut down its nuclear reactor, disabled key facilities and provided thousands of pages of records meant to verify the size of its stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium. Hill is traveling to Asia this week to prod North Korea to fully declare its nuclear programs. But the United States has backed off an earlier demand for detailed information about North Korean uranium enrichment or assistance to a clandestine Syrian reactor -- and is poised to remove key sanctions against North Korea.

Hill has been amazingly successful at tamping down the threat of a nuclear North Korea, but the greatest test is looming...Will North Korea give up their Plutonium stockpile and pledge to make no more weapons from it?

That is the $64,000 dollar question.


How long can Hill maintain his perch on the tightrope? He has managed the impossible thus far - he has managed to commit actual diplomacy while dealing with an administration that finds peaceful resolution of conflict anathema, and will only accept a diplomatic solution if there is no other alternative.

All the while, chickenhawk Übermensches have awaited his failure with bated breath, and the administration has been less than pleased with his successes. Indeed, they have denied him plaudits he richly deserved, just to remind him who works for whom.

Hill, for instance, was largely responsible for arranging the unprecedented visit to Pyongyang this year by the New York Philharmonic, even lobbying reluctant musicians to make the trip over a pizza lunch in the chorus rehearsal room last fall. "It was a spectacular thing to witness. He was direct and honest, and . . . changed a lot of minds that day," said Eric Latzky, spokesman for the orchestra.

But Rice ordered him not to attend the news conference announcing the trip after administration officials realized he would share the stage with a North Korean envoy.

"On the one hand, he is an effective negotiator," said Victor Cha, a former director of Asian affairs at the National Security Council, who was Hill's deputy at the nuclear talks in 2006. "But you can also view him as a media hog trying to be a hero."

The sort of dismissive drivel that Cha spouts is what prompts eyerolling from me - and most other reasonable, thoughtful, reality-based people.

Diplomacy is not appeasement, and Christopher Hill is a damned fine diplomat. The next administration needs to find a more powerful position from which he can showcase his talents. I don't know his party affiliation and I don't care. Obama says he is "post-partisan" so he shouldn't either.

What I do have a crush on is competence, and Hill has that in trump.

Will Bush and McCain call the Israelis "Appeasers?"

Don't hold your breath...

Israel confirmed Wednesday that it is holding indirect peace talks with Syria mediated by Turkey.

The statement from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was the first official Israeli admission of the contacts.

Wednesday's statement said the sides "have declared their intent to conduct these talks in good faith and openly." The statement says the goal is "to reach a comprehensive peace agreement."

There have been reports in recent months of new Israeli-Syrian contacts through Turkey. Syria wants Israel to return the Golan Heights, which it captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

U.S.-mediated peace talks between the two countries broke down in 2000 because of disagreements over the extent of an Israeli withdrawal.

Due to their lack of historical context or actual knowledge of diplomacy, it is highly unlikely that the Bush Administration will know how to react to this. The Israelis will not be denounced as appeasers, for it is likely that the Israelis took Bush aside last week and casually told him of their own "appeasement" of their sworn enemy. And, please note that the US Secretary of State was probably kept, deliberately, out of the loop and out of the room. I say probably, but I would hasten to add "definitely."

Failing to Actually Catch Terrorists

The Bush Administration will go down as the worst in history, in many categories, but one of the most important categories will be in "fighting terrorism." No one does it worse, and no one screws it up like they do:

Almost eight years after al-Qaeda nearly sank the USS Cole with an explosives-stuffed motorboat, killing 17 sailors, all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials.

Jamal al-Badawi, a Yemeni who helped organize the plot to bomb the Cole as it refueled in this Yemeni port on Oct. 12, 2000, has broken out of prison twice. He was recaptured both times, but then secretly released by the government last fall. Yemeni authorities jailed him again after receiving complaints from Washington. But U.S. officials have so little faith that he's still in his cell that they have demanded the right to perform random inspections.

Two suspects, described as the key organizers, were captured outside Yemen and are being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. Many details of their alleged involvement remain classified. It is unclear when -- or if -- they will be tried by the military.

The collapse of the Cole investigation offers a revealing case study of the U.S. government's failure to bring al-Qaeda operatives and their leaders to justice for some of the most devastating attacks on American targets over the past decade.

A week after the Cole bombing, President Bill Clinton vowed to hunt down the plotters and promised, "Justice will prevail." In March 2002, President Bush said his administration was cooperating with Yemen to prevent it from becoming "a haven for terrorists." He added: "Every terrorist must be made to live as an international fugitive with no place to settle or organize, no place to hide, no governments to hide behind and not even a safe place to sleep."

Since then, Yemen has refused to extradite Badawi and an accomplice to the United States, where they have been indicted on murder charges. Other Cole conspirators have been freed after short prison terms. At least two went on to commit suicide attacks in Iraq.

"After we worked day and night to bring justice to the victims and prove that these Qaeda operatives were responsible, we're back to square one," said Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent and a lead investigator into the bombing. "Do they have laws over there or not? It's really frustrating what's happening."

We have laws here--we don't follow them, either. How can the United States of America lecture Yemen, or any other country, when we don't believe in the rule of law, we have no honor code, we don't have leaders who tell the truth, we don't reject torture, we don't even have Habeas Corpus anymore. We don't have privacy rights, we don't have oversight and we don't have a Justice Department that will actually investigate anything because of political affiliation, not the law.

Our moral authority has been pissed away. So when you see stories like this, it makes one wonder--how do you continue to support the Bush administration. How do you claim to be in that shrinking percentage of people who approve of the President's job? In short, what delusion makes one a wingnut in the face of the fact that actual terrorists who killed US sailors are running free because we couldn't get a foreign government to give them up?

When do we invade Yemen? Because they held then released terrorists who actually have attacked a US ship, not the theoretical ones that weren't even in Iraq.

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall...

The meeting in London of Foreign Ministers that convened on May 2 has concluded, with the assembled diplomats voting to offer Iran a new package of incentives to increase IAEA transparency and curtail the nuclear program the nation is pursuing. The new offer is an update of the offer originally put forth in 2006 that was rejected by Iran. British Foreign Secretary Davic Miliband declined to disclose details of the package, but said it is aimed at showing Tehran "the benefits of cooperating with the international community."

The biggest diplomatic offer was broad negotiations with the world's major powers, including the first talks with the United States since relations were severed in response to the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

A diplomat in London, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the centerpiece of the new offer is international assistance for a civilian nuclear program and "a reminder to Iran that there is a good offer on the table." One European official said that the new offer adds "a bit" to the 2006 offer but that "there's a limit to how many incentives can be added."

The five permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany, have been discussing a strategy that includes both sanctions and incentives to persuade Iran to roll back its nuclear program.

"We very much hope that they will recognize the seriousness and the severity with which we have approached this issue and that they will respond in a timely manner to the suggestions we are making," Miliband said, referring to Iranian officials.

In Washington, French Prime Minister François Fillon said Iran faces global isolation unless it engages with the international community over its nuclear program.

"We have to do everything we could to avoid finding ourselves faced with the only solution of bombing Iran," he said through an interpreter at a news conference, the Reuters news agency reported. "The only option is to pressure the Iranian government through diplomatic means, economic means and financial means."

I would love to have been privy to the talks. I can't imagine that Condi had a pleasant go of it. The rest of the world could care fuck-all about George Bush's legacy, and have no intention of stepping aside and saying "after you, I insist" and holding the door for Mad King George while he ushers in $200.00 per barrel oil. Diplomacy might not mean anything to these imperialistic, neocon goons; but it does to older nations with longer histories that have seen war on their own soil in the last century.

The Incompetent Diplomat Strikes Again

In a moment of unusual stupidity, gall, and otherwise idiocy, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice plays to the base and makes America look bad again:

BAGHDAD — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mocked anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward on Sunday, hours after the radical leader threatened to declare war unless U.S. and Iraqi forces end a military crackdown on his followers.

Rice, in the Iraqi capital to tout security gains and what she calls an emerging political consensus, said al-Sadr is content to issue threats and edicts from the safety of Iran, where he is studying. Al-Sadr heads an unruly militia that was the main target of an Iraqi government assault in the oil-rich city of Basra last month, and his future role as a spoiler is an open question.

"I know he's sitting in Iran," Rice said dismissively, when asked about al-Sadr's latest threat to lift a self-imposed cease-fire with government and U.S. forces. "I guess it's all-out war for anybody but him," Rice said. "I guess that's the message; his followers can go too their deaths and he's in Iran."

Was it too cute to just say "bring 'em on!" or did you just think, hmmm...I'll make juvenile remarks about a sworn enemy of the United States who just happens to hold a sword over the head of thousands of vulnerable, exhausted US troops who are going to be in harms way if the Mahdi Army comes out of hibernation and resumes attacking our forces?

The schoolyard taunt doesn't work when you consider that Sadr is not a military man in any way, shape or form--he is a religious figure, a cleric. He is a spiritual leader and organizer, and his followers do not follow him because he risks death. They follow him because they have a far more sophisticated view of who is a leader and who is not a leader than anyone in the Bush Administration can fathom right now.

I mean, really. How fucking stupid can you be?

UPDATE I - Blue Girl - 0230 4/21

Pale Rider hits the nail on the head when he stresses that Sadr is not a military man, but a cleric, and that fear of death is unlikely to dissuade his followers and cause them to lay down arms. Quite the opposite is the case, in fact.

Last May, when Sadr emerged from hiding after four months of laying low, he emerged wearing a funeral shroud, signifying that he is willing to die, and indeed, expects to be martyred.

Within months, Shi'ite militants were wearing shrouds during street demonstrations.

Consider that most militia fighters are anonymous, the stereotypical black-clad, masked gunman.

Now look at the followers of Sadr. They show their faces and they wear funeral shrouds:

These are not actions to be taunted, mocked and ridiculed. Just the opposite, in fact. This should be taken quite seriously.

News That Would Make a Wingnut Squirm

If this is true, I'm quite certain we'll see someone denounce it as appeasement, right?

Iran and the United States have been engaged in secret "back channel" discussions for the past five years on Iran's nuclear programme [sic] and the broader relationship between the two sworn enemies, The Independent can reveal.

One of the participants, former senior US diplomat Thomas Pickering, explained that a group of former American diplomats and experts had been meeting with Iranian academics and policy advisers "in a lot of different places, although not in the US or Iran".

"Some of the Iranians were connected to official institutions inside Iran," he said in a telephone interview from Washington. The group was organised by the UN Association of the USA, a pro-UN organisation. Its work was facilitated by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a government-funded think-tank chaired by the former chief UN weapons inspector for Iraq, Rolf Ekeus.

Could this be one of the reasons why Deputy Secretary of State Negroponte went to Pakistan earlier this year? As a cover story for meeting with Iranian officials? If this ends up being the case, will Negroponte become the poster boy for appeasement and face withering attacks from the neoconservatives like John Bolton:

John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, told Tory delegates today that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country.

Mr Bolton, who was addressing a fringe meeting organised by Lord (Michael) Ancram, said that the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was "pushing out" and "is not receiving adequate push-back" from the west.

"I don't think the use of military force is an attractive option, but I would tell you I don't know what the alternative is.

"Because life is about choices, I think we have to consider the use of military force. I think we have to look at a limited strike against their nuclear facilities."

He added that any strike should be followed by an attempt to remove the "source of the problem", Mr Ahmadinejad.

Clearly, the choice has been to try to negotiate. This marks a reversal wholesale rejection of neoconservative rhetoric and returns us to the policy advocated early on by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, before he put his common sense, his decency, and his integrity into a blind trust to be opened only after all of the Bush neocons are out of office. Too bad there's so much intellectual dishonesty out there--it would do wonders for the political discourse in this country to acknowledge the wisdom of negotiation and diplomacy as a means of solving problems. It doesn't make you a "pussy" if you don't want to bomb people or torture them, you know.

Iraq appeals to Iran for help defusing the Kurdish crisis

As tensions ratchet up between Turkey and Iraq over PKK terrorists who find safe haven in Iraq from which to stage cross-border raids and kill Turkish soldiers, and the United States stands by helplessly, unable to even comprehend the scope of the clusterfuck created by the hubris of George Bush, Iraq is reaching out to Iran for help.

That's gonna go over like a pregnant pole vaulter.

On Wednesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki met with Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki and asked him to help present Iraq's positions at a regional summit meeting in Istanbul scheduled for Thursday. “The prime minister asked the Islamic Republic to present their full support to Iraq during the Istanbul meeting and also to participate in solving the border crisis between Turkey and the P.K.K.,” a statement from Mr. Maliki’s office said. The summit will be attended by representatives from countries in the region, including Syria, Iran, Iraq andTurkey. The United States will be represented by Condoleeza Rice, and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and a number of other foreign ministers are also expected to attend.

P.K.K. terrorists have killed over 35,000 Turks since launching their most recent separatist terror campaign in the 80's. For perspective, consider that in 2 decades, the P.K.K. has killed ten times the number of Turks that America lost on September 11.

Turkey, tired of the terrorists who attack them finding safe haven in Iraq, hiding beneath the petticoats of Turkey's NATO ally the United States in the Kurdish north of Iraq, has massed troops on the border and announced that they will pursue Peshmerga and P.K.K. fighters across the border, engage them and kill them.

Iran has been sympathetic to the Turkish position, because the P.K.K. launches terrorist raids into Iran as well. But the situation is not that simple. Iran and Iraq are both Shi'ite majority countries, and the Iraqi government is Shi'ite majority (al Maliki spent many of his years in exile in Tehran).

From the New York Times:

Iraqi diplomats said they were worried that after the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, met with President Bush on Nov. 5, Turkey may take action against the Kurdish guerrillas, a step that could further antagonize Iraq’s Kurds.

“They are under a lot of pressure from the public, so we think they will do something,” said a senior Iraqi official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter. “We hope they will not.”

Mr. Erdogan has asked the United States to help the Turks take “concrete steps” to reduce the P.K.K. threat.

In Washington, Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon spokesman, confirmed that the United States military was giving “lots of intelligence” to Turkey in its effort to halt the rebel attacks.

As if the situation were not complicated enough, the American forces are still holding five Iranians that were taken into custody in January. Iran says they are diplomats, the United States insists they are members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. “The arresting of Iranian consular officials is a very big strategic mistake,” said Mr. Mottaki. Mr. Mottaki also expressed his displeasure at a comment made by General Petraeus that the Iranian ambassador in Baghdad was a member of the Quds Force, an elite unit of the Revolutionary Guard.

And I would like to point out, again, that Petraeus really hasn't done much, if anything, right. Last summer, he managed to piss Maliki off to the point that Maliki threatened to have the General recalled. Generals have to be politicians, that's how they get past the rank of Captain. But this is 4G warfare. They need to be diplomats. And lets differentiate right now: diplomacy and ass kissing are two completely different things. Petraeus has a handle on the latter, there's no doubt. But the former? Not so much.

Generals Have to be Politicians, But They Need to be Diplomats

[Cross-posted from Watching Those We Chose]

The relationship between General David Petraeus and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Kemal al-Maliki is so strained that Mr. Maliki may ask Washington to withdraw the general.

Mr. Maliki, a Shi’ite, is a seemingly reluctant leader. He spent years in exile during the Hussein regime, and he vociferously protests arming Sunni insurgents under the guise of “fighting al Qa’eda.” His loud complaining has come to little – It has resulted in a pledge by U.S. forces to let al Maliki’s security vet the recruits. Aids say he complains bitterly about delivery delays of promised materiel.

And while he is at loggerheads with Petraeus, the United States forges ahead with the arming of Sunni Sheiks.

In short, al-Maliki is feeling put upon and unduly burdened, and not entirely without justification.

From Air Force Times

Petraeus says his ties with al-Maliki are “very good” but acknowledges expressing “the full range of emotions” on “a couple of occasions.”

U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who meets together with al-Maliki and Petraeus at least weekly, concedes “sometimes there are sporty exchanges.”

Al-Maliki has spoken sharply — not of Petraeus or Crocker personally — but about their tactic of welcoming Sunni militants into the fight against al-Qaida forces in Anbar and Diyalah provinces.

As for Petraeus, he really is facing a nightmare scenario. The Iraqi police and military forces are only nominally under the control of al Maliki, and in many cases those forces act not in the interest of the Iraqi government, but in sectarian – that is to say Shi’ite – interests. In addition, al Maliki has proven unwilling to cut his ties to fundamentalist Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who controls the Mahdi Army militia.

Meanwhile, Ambassador Ryan Crocker has his own issues with the stagnation of the political process. (Imagine. The Iraqi parliament is not bending over backwards to meet externally set benchmarks.) Crocker can not continue to insist that American G.I.’s are fighting and dying to give the Maliki government “breathing room” when al Maliki either can not or will not make an opportunity from it.

The ambassador, one of the State Department’s most seasoned Middle East diplomats, appeared to be genuinely fond of al-Maliki and profoundly understanding of the Iraqi leader’s troubles.

“We are dealing with existential issues. There are no second tier problems ... so there is a lot of pressure. And we all feel very deeply about we’re trying to get done. So yeah, sometimes there are sporty exchanges,” he said.

“And believe me I’ve had my share of them. That in no way means, in my view, strained relations. I have great admiration for Prime Minister Maliki, and I know General Petraeus does as well. And I like to think it is reciprocal. Wrestling with the things we’re all wrestling with here, it would almost be strange if you didn’t get a little passionate from time to time.”

Generals, who obtain flag rank and continue to advance with presidential and congressional approval, are politicians. Get your head around that fact. To advance to O-4 takes a degree of political acumen (well – it used to, and it will again) and to go beyond O-4 – you have to display the appropriate political ability; and you have a career.

That’s how it works, in a nutshell.

Generals aren’t just politicians. They are also perpetually fighting the last war. Newsflash fellas – Desert ≠ Jungle. (And by the way, it was stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid to deemphasize counterinsurgency after Vietnam like that was an anomaly, ya morons.)

I would like to say that that is all well and good; but I can’t because it isn’t.

All sides spoke with the critical September reports by Crocker and Petraeus to Congress clearly at the front of their minds — the need to make it clear to an increasingly hostile U.S. legislative branch that progress is being made and it would be wrong to start pulling out troops and cutting support now.

It will be a tough sell, but not for lack of getting their views before the public in advance of walking into Congressional committee rooms about seven weeks from now.

In 4-G warfare, what Generals really need are not so much political skills, but Diplomatic skills.

This is, apparently, not a gift that David Petraeus possesses or that the Army engenders.

Keep this in mind. September is right around the corner.

This is it. They do not get any more Friedmans.