The murder last week of Kurdish journalist and student Zardasht Osman continues to trouble the water in ostensibly stable and secure Kurdistan. On Tuesday, hundreds of university students marched through Erbil, the capital of that semi-autonomous northern region, and fought with security forces at the parliamentary building there, according to the New York Times.
"The Sheik Down," by Berkeley graduate and (kidnapped) freelance journalist Shane Bauer, is a well-written, probing and humorous look at the United States military's "make-a-sheik" program, whereby America hands out hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds to Sunni sheiks for ostensible reconstruction projects.
The project was a major part of the Sahwa, or "Awakening," when Sunni tribes in the violent Anbar province decided to ally with American troops against Al-Qaeda (also Sunni) and other insurgents, Bauer reports.
Much of the money flows through the Commander's Emergency Response Program, which allows battalion-level U.S. officers to dole out projects worth up to $500,000 without seeking approval. That allows previously unheard of local leaders, like Bauer's subject, Eifan Saddun al-Isawi, to reap up to 80 percent profits and keep influence over communities through graft.
This is a good read. Let's hope Bauer and his friends, captured by Iran while hiking near the border with Iraqi Kurdistan, make it out safely and soon.
Nouri al-Maliki is spending a few days in Kurdistan; his trip included a visit to Halabja, the Kurdish town Saddam Hussein gassed in 1988. The effort towards Kurdish reconciliation is good -- albeit long overdue -- though Maliki needs to do more than talk. He's deeply unpopular with many Kurds; even president Masoud Barzani has accused him of "tyrannical" behavior.
Maliki also promised to punish the Saddam aides who carried out the Halabja attack. A number of Saddam's former confidantes have been sentenced to hang for their role in the Anfal campaign, but Iraq's Sunni vice president, Tareq al-Hashemi, refuses to ratify the sentences. Al-Hashemi claims the men were just carrying out orders.
I'll admit, when I first read the news of three Americans arrested along the Iran-Iraq border, I was a little skeptical: American tourists? In Iraq?
But upon further reflection it isn't that unbelievable. I planned a trip to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq when I was traveling in eastern Turkey in late 2007; the border crossing at Zakho is an easy trip from Diyarbakir. I was dissuaded at the last minute by a series of ghastly truck bombings that killed 500 people in northern Iraq. So I'm not terribly surprised that a few Americans trekked their way across northern Iraq.
As for the arrests, Iran certainly had the right to arrest the hikers; the U.S. would surely do the same with three Iranian tourists on the wrong side of the U.S.-Mexico border. The question is how they'll be treated, and whether Iran decides to prosecute them and turn this into a provocation (a la North Korea's detention of two U.S. journalists).
A third party in Iraqi Kurdistan is giving the powers-that-be a run for their money in recent elections, according to early tallies.
An Islamist leader and his two sons were arrested today in Pakistan, part of a larger anti-Taliban push by the government.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates -- and a host of other Obama Administration heavy hitters -- will begin arriving in Israel on Monday.
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The New York Times reports that the Kurds in Iraq have approved a constitution (two weeks ago) that lays claim to the disputed and oil-rich Al-Ta'mim province (home to Kirkuk). This basically stomps right through quiet negotiations that had apparently started recently between Kurdish and Iraqi lawmakers, organized by the United Nations and United States.
