Elections

"I do not want to go over all the successes of the last eight years." Yeah, let's not -- that would take soooo long.

Speaking of Afghanistan, I see where old Steve Coll responds to comments posted on this blog. Having the author of one of the best books ever on Afghanistan (and one who is also an expert on bin Laden) wade in here is a real tribute to the quality of the debate you guys are maintaining. Thank you. Kudos especially to "smci60652," whoever you are.

SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images

Someone killed 13 people in al Anbar province, many of them relatives of a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party. Is this more pre-election jockeying, or what? The Baghdad government is calling it a tribal dispute. That may be true -- but it certainly is what I would say if I wanted to just chalk it up to those rowdy Anbaris.

Anybody got a clue as to what is happening in Anbar?

KHALIL AL-MURSHIDI/AFP/Getty Images

The Kirkuk primary begins -- with the assassination of a Sadrist leader.

In other Iraq news, two guys planting a bomb in Mosul blew themselves up.

Poetic justice, right? Sort of. But it reminds me of a day in Baghdad when  some guys who had been firing mortar shells to near where I was were killed when a shell detonated in their tube. I was surprised and a bit taken aback at the glee I felt at this turn of events. An Iraqi I worked with warned me against taking pleasure in such events, saying that by giving way to such feelings we give up some of our humanity. He told me about his brother, a policeman, who had gotten so accustomed to violent death that one day, after collecting body parts at bombed market, swung his official pickup truck by his home for lunch -- only to have his young son, pleased to unexpectedly see his father at midday, jump up into the bed of the police pickup, and land in the parts.

kurdistan/Flickr   

In the new issue of the New York Review of Books, Joost Hilterman of the International Crisis Group offers a good summary of why he thinks the coming year will be a turbulent one in Iraq. I think he is right -- and that 2010 will stand alongside 2003 and 2007 as a turning point. In short,

...just as Odierno will be pulling out his first combat brigades, starting in March, Iraq will be entering into a period of fractious wrangling over the formation of a new government. If Iraqi national forces fail to impose their control, an absence of political leadership could thus coincide with a collapse in security; if politicians and their allied militias resort to violence, the state, including its intelligence apparatus so critical for maintaining internal stability, could fracture along political, ethnic, and sectarian lines."

Fasten your seat belts. Meanwhile, here is a bunch of headlines from this morning:

• Bomb wounds 4 civilians in Baghdad
  November 4, 2009 - 10:37:30

• 4 wounded in 3rd explosion in Baghdad
  November 4, 2009 - 09:03:50

• 2nd sticky bomb in Baghdad wounds 5 people
  November 4, 2009 - 08:22:02

• 3 wanted men nabbed in Wassit
  November 4, 2009 - 08:07:17

• Sticky bomb injures 7 people in western Baghdad
  November 4, 2009 - 07:33:56

Bfelice/flickr

I am not going to comment on yesterday's round of off-year elections. Why? Mainly because I've seen domestic political columnists and other such experts venture into foreign policy and military issues, and it ain't pretty. I always wonder if I would look as muddled as they do if I wandered over to their turf. So I am not gonna. 

SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP/Getty Images

And that means you start chewing on your fingernails, too:

... the U.S. strategy rests on an undemocratic, corrupt and weak central government, a president who cheated his way into office in an election held under American supervision, an election that even the government of Afghanistan concedes was stolen. The script couldn't have been improved if Taliban chieftain Mullah Omar had put himself to the task.

Can this get any worse?

What I'm hearing today from some of the U.S. troops in Afghanistan is: uh-oh. . . . For the Taliban, Karzai's assumption of a second presidential term validates their argument that the U.S.-backed government in Kabul is terminally corrupt and must be overthrown; re-energized, they will recruit and fight harder."

Majid Saeedi/Getty Images

One of the most interesting sub-genres of journalism is the article reporters write as they leave a country or beat. Often, they vent feelings and views they've kept pent-up for year.

Here is a classic of the type. As she leaves Iraq, Alissa Rubin of the New York Times summarizes the harsh lessons she learned from years of living in Baghdad:

. . . Army checkpoints -- legal ones -- are the only ones that stop you, but huge posters of Imam Ali punctuate the streets, a signal that this is now Shiite-land. Imam Ali is revered as a founder of the Shiite branch of Islam, but a poster of him is also a silent rebuke to Sunnis, a way of marking territory, of reminding them that the Shiites run things now. It is a sign of victory as much as peace.

And victory in Iraq almost always begets revenge.

In my five years in Iraq, all that I wanted to believe in was gunned down. Sunnis and Shiites each committed horrific crimes, and the Kurds, whose modern-looking cities and Western ways seemed at first so familiar, turned out to be capable of their own brutality."

I think this is a good prism through which to view Iraq's upcoming national elections.

Photo: ALI YESSEF/AFP/Getty Images

As predicted (at the end of the post) in this blog on Friday, old Abdullah Abdullah is threatening to pull out of the Afghan run-up.

Here is a comment from my friend Mac McCallister, who has spent a lot of time on the ground in dangerous places recent years:

My prediction... He won't [pull out]... He is only maneuvering for a better deal... more access to spoils.

We have helped create this situation... and may actually still be manipulating the process. We have weakened Karzai by calling him out... (blood in the water).  We have strengthened Abdullah Abdullah with hagiographic fawning in the popular press... Karzai needs us more than ever becasue we have explained in no uncertain terms that we can always change horses.

Abdullah Abdullah's faction is now taking advantage of the situation to gain at the expense of his rival... "Never let a good crisis go to waste"... Abdullah Abdulah can not allow this power play to get out of control... and he will therefore manage the "crisis" accordingly. He can't rule A-stan and he knows it.. Abdullah Abdullah now needs us more than ever..

Win-win for the U.S.  My compliments to Sec of State Mrs Clinton and her strategists.

The Pashtun Karzai is still the front-man in this charade... In the meantime all will send delegates to Abdullah Abdullah to talk him off the ledge... The negotiations to keep Abdullah Abdullah in the game will be interpreted by all that Abdullah Abdullah has both credibility and legitimacy. In the end.. Abdullah Abdullah's faction will be offered a greater share of the spoils... Karzai will be President... and the government will continue to frustrate the hell out of us.

Or maybe not...