Minor Thoughts from me to you

President Bush: "General Musharraf, you can't be the president and the head of the military at the same time."*

General Musharraf: "Aren't you?"

President Bush: "...Uh... Well.... Hell. Yeah."

I have to admit that I've been on the fence for a while about whether or not waterboarding constitutes true torture. Mainly, I was ignorant about what waterboarding really was. And I was blissfully ignorant. I passed up many opportunities to find out what it really was.

This morning, my ignorance ended and my certainty began. Waterboarding is Torture… Period (Updated) (SWJ Blog):

1. Waterboarding is a torture technique. Period. There is no way to gloss over it or sugarcoat it. It has no justification outside of its limited role as a training demonstrator. Our service members have to learn that the will to survive requires them accept and understand that they may be subjected to torture, but that America is better than its enemies and it is one's duty to trust in your nation and God, endure the hardships and return home with honor.

2. Waterboarding is not a simulation. Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word.

Waterboarding is a controlled drowning that, in the American model, occurs under the watch of a doctor, a psychologist, an interrogator and a trained strap-in/strap-out team. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim's face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs which show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.

Wisconsin Congressman David Obey wants to pass a war tax. I realize it's more of a political stunt, but I discovered that I'm not entirely opposed to the idea.

Noting that "we need to stop pretending that this war doesn't cost anything," Obey also announced that Murtha, McGovern and he will be introducing a bill to create a war surtax to pay for operations in Iraq instead of passing those costs on to future generations as the President has requested.

"I'm tired of seeing that only military families are asked to sacrifice in this war; and they are asked to sacrifice again, and again, and again, so we are putting together this bill in the hope that people will stop ignoring what this war is costing American taxpayers and call the President's bluff on fiscal responsibility," Obey said. "The President is threatening to veto our efforts to provide one-tenth the amount of money that he is spending in Iraq for investments in education, health, medical research, science, law enforcement, and other areas that are crucial to creating a stronger country and more prosperous families. If the President is really serious about combating deficit spending then we'd be happy to help him avoid shoving the costs of the war in Iraq on to our kids by providing for a war surtax."

I want the bill to guarantee that the tax would be gradually phased out as the war is phased out, but I do support paying for the war instead of continually increasing the deficit.

Courtesy of The Jerusalem Post's Blog Central:

"Yale’s chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon, another fraternity, garnered infamy in 1967 for branding new pledges with hot coat-hangers... The Yale Daily News reported the incident, quoting one DKE brother who called the branding ‘insignificant’."

That brother lived on, of course, to be our 43rd president, Mr. George W. Bush, Class of '68. Which raises the following fascinating possibilities:

1: When President Bush claims the US does not treat terrorists inhumanely, and human rights activists claims the US does, is it possible this is all simply a misunderstanding, and what most of us wimps would call "torture", President Bush just thinks of as good old-fashioned hazing? Is the liberal media withholding photos of Iraqis chugging beer by executive order?

And:

2: Does our commander-in-chief have a question mark on his bum?

President Bush has cannily refused to comment, possibly in an attempt to increase interest in his forthcoming presidential library. Only conjecture is therefore currently possible, and even too much of that probably wouldn't be healthy. But comfortingly, it can be safely said that the truth will eventually come out, as while men of power in America may opt to take their secrets to the grave, we know our representatives in the media are perfectly willing to follow them there.

From the New York Times: Syria Is Said to Be Strengthening Ties to Opponents of Iraq's Government

Syria is encouraging Sunni Arab insurgent groups and former Iraqi Baathists with ties to the leaders of Saddam Hussein's government to organize [in Damascus], diplomats and Syrian political analysts say. By building strong ties to those groups, they say, Syria hopes to gain influence in Iraq before what it sees as the inevitable waning of the American presence there.

In July, former Baathists opposed to the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki scheduled a conference for insurgent groups -- including two of the most prominent, the 1920s Revolution Brigades and Ansar al Sunna -- at the Sahara Resort outside Damascus.

The meeting followed two others in Syria in January that aimed to form an opposition front to the government of Iraq, and an announcement in Damascus in July of the formation of a coalition of seven Sunni Arab insurgent groups with the goal of coordinating and intensifying attacks in Iraq to force an American withdrawal. That coalition has since expanded to incorporate other groups.

The July conference was canceled at the last minute, however, indicating the political perils of Syria's developing strategy. It was called off by the government of President Bashar al-Assad, participants, diplomats and analysts said, primarily because of pressure from Iran.

Iran is Syria's chief ally and a staunch supporter of Iraq's Shiite-dominated government. The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, visited Damascus just days before the conference was to have taken place.

"Iran is the big player in Iraq," said Mr. Hamidi, of Al Hayat, "but it lacks influence on the Baathists and the Sunnis."

That would seem to create a natural opening for Syria, a predominantly Sunni country governed by its own version of the Baath Party. But its relations with the Iraqi Baathists have long been strained. Syria backed Iran in its war with Iraq in the 1980s and supported the United States against Mr. Hussein during the Persian Gulf war of 1991.

Syria has long had a regional strategy of influencing its neighbors' politics by harboring their opposition groups. Washington imposed economic sanctions on Syria in 2004 for, among other things, its support of Hamas and several other militant Palestinian groups.

Suspected of orchestrating the 2005 assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, Syria has also come under increasing pressure from the United States and France for its support of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia.

I can think of two possibilities here, neither of them particularly good. The first is that Syria wants to escape from Iran's shadow. Iran is busy trying to establish influence over Iraq's Shiite parties. Perhaps Syria wants to establish influence of Iraq's Sunni and Baathist parties, in an attempt to outflank Iran. However, I just don't see Syria having the will to actually go against Iran.

The second possibility is that Iran is using Syria to establish even more control over Iraq. While Iran establishes influence over the Shiite parties, Syria establishes influence over the Sunni parties. Together, they play the Iraqi government like fiddles.

Perhaps. The whole situation is muddled by the fact that Iran told Syria to knock it. Pique at Syria's attempts? Wanting to hide the strategy before it gets too obvious? Something else? I don't know, but I'm worried about the whole situation.

About a month ago, the Israeli Defense Force bombed a target inside Syria. This is a bit of a problem for Syria.

If you believe the Syrian foreign minister, then the Israelis flew through the heart of his nation's air defenses--apparently undetected--to strike at targets near the country's eastern border. And it wouldn't be the first time that the IAF has accomplished such a feat; in 2003, Israeli jets struck a Palestinian terrorist complex near Damascus, taking advantage of confusion within the Syrian air defense system to bomb the target and escape, with no reaction from fighters or ground-based air defenses. The success of this particular raid suggests that despite a reported shake-up of the Syria's air defense organization, the system remains incapable of defeating an Israeli attack.

And, making matters worse, the IDF raid apparently included a ground attack, featuring commandos that were (presumably) ferried in by helicopter. While IAF CH-53 Sea Stallions have the range (540 NM) to reach distant targets, getting the chopper(s) and the commandos in and out of enemy territory was indeed an impressive feat. Apparently, the Syrians fared no better against the heliborne element of the mission than they did against the IAF jets. However, given the location of the target area--and initial Syrian comments about Israeli aircraft "coming out of Turkey," it's quite possible that the helicopters (and commando elements) staged from a "foreign" base.

The initial speculation was that the Israeli's were targeting a nuclear facility in Syria. More worisome was the idea that the facility was courtesy of the North Koreans.

But the real stunner in the Times report comes in the sixth paragraph, with this revelation from an unnamed member of the Bush Administration:

One Bush administration official said Israel had recently carried out reconnaissance flights over Syria, taking pictures of possible nuclear installations that Israeli officials believed might have been supplied with material from North Korea. The administration official said Israeli officials believed that North Korea might be unloading some of its nuclear material on Syria.

"The Israelis think North Korea is selling to Iran and Syria what little they have left," the official said. He said it was unclear whether the Israeli strike had produced any evidence that might validate that belief.

The possible transfer of "nuclear material" from North Korea to other rogue states is something we've written about at length, including this most recent installment. Fact is, we don't know the full extent of the "relationship" between Pyongyang, Tehran and Damascus. Clearly, North Korea has been the primary source of ballistic missile technology for both Iran and Syria; both countries have active WMD programs and an interest in acquiring nuclear weapons. But clear evidence of a nuclear transfer has never been offered, at least publicly.

The Israeli attacks looks like a major success for Israel and a major embarrassment for Syria.

Obviously, the Israeli strategy worked; the operation caught Damascus by surprise (there was apparently little reaction from Syria's air defense system); the Israelis inflicted serious damage on the target, and both the F-15I crews and the commandos escaped unscathed. Syria has threatened retaliation, but its options are limited. The odds of Syrian aircraft penetrating Israeli airspace are slim, and a missile strike would invite a devastating response, as would an attack across the Golan Heights.

Still, the Times article leaves a number of questions unanswered. We'll begin with the issue of Israel successfully penetrating Syria's air defense system. While it's happened before, the Syrian air defense network was supposedly re-organized after an embarrassing 2003 Israeli strike against a Palestinian terrorist camp near Damascus. During that raid, the Israelis reportedly exploited confusion over geographic responsibilities within the Syrian defense system. The most recent mission--which involved a much deeper penetration into Syrian territory--suggests that (a) Bashir Assad's air defense network hasn't improved, or (b) the Israelis are using more advanced measures to target the system, and render it impotent.

Then, there's the matter of that commando team. If the Times is correct, those personnel arrived in the target area a day ahead of the fighters, inserted (we'll assume) by Israeli Sea Stallion helicopters. As we've noted before, the successful infiltration of a commando team by helicopter, deep into Syrian territory, is an impressive operational feat, indeed. But getting the commandos (and their choppers) all the way across Syria (and back again), undetected, represents a monumental challenge, even for a state-of-the-art military like the IDF.

The success of the raid has given Iran serious concerns as well.

According to Strategy Page, Iran is a bit upset over the alleged "failure" of Russian air defense systems during the raid. Both Tehran and Damascus have spent billions on radar and missile systems built in Russia, with the assurance that such equipment could defend against an Israeli attack. Complaints that have made their way onto Farsi-language message boards (presumably from Iranian military officers) suggest that the IAF was able to blind Syria's defensive systems, rendering them useless. The Israeli strike package flew across hundreds of miles of Syrian airspace, strike the target and return, unmolested by air defense systems.

Iran's concerns are three-fold. First, there is logical speculation that the recent raid on Syria was a dress rehearsal for an attack on Iran's nuclear sites, although that raid would be larger and much more complex. Secondly, Tehran is footing the bill for Syria's most recent upgrade, the acquisition of the Pantsir-S1 air defense system. Iran is also slated to acquire the system, although initial deliveries were made to Damascus.

Equipped with two 30mm cannon and twelve Tunguska missiles, the Pantsir-S1 was supposed to provide point-defense for high-value targets--like that Syrian nuclear facility. The system's on-board radar can detect medium-altitude targets up to 30 miles away; the Pantsir's cannons are effective against targets up to 10,000 feet, and the missiles have a maximum range of roughly nine miles. In terms of close-in air defense, the Pantsir is supposed to be state-of-the-art, but it (apparently) proved ineffective against the Israeli raid.

Tehran's third concern? The Iranian air defense network is far more chaotic than its Syrian counterpart. In recent years, there have been credible reports about Iranian fighters sent out in pursuit of mystery lights and "UFOs," and near-fratricide incidents involving civilian airliners. If the Israelis were successful in blinding Syria's more centralized system (which covers a relatively small area), then they should have little problem in creating mass confusion within the Iranian network. Assuming that Israel eventually attacks, Iranian air defense crews could find themselves operating in a de-centralized mode, chasing targets that don't exist, and illuminating their radars with the knowledge that an anti-radar missile may be on the way.

Finally, the U.S. recently confirmed to ABC News that Israel did indeed bomb a nuclear facility in Syria.

The September Israeli airstrike on a suspected nuclear site in Syria had been in the works for months, ABC News has learned, and was delayed only at the strong urging of the United States.

In early July the Israelis presented the United States with satellite imagery that they said showed a nuclear facility in Syria. They had additional evidence that they said showed that some of the technology was supplied by North Korea.

One U.S. official told ABC's Martha Raddatz the material was "jaw dropping" because it raised questions as to why U.S. intelligence had not previously picked up on the facility.

Officials said that the facility had likely been there for months if not years.

"Israel tends to be very thorough about its intelligence coverage, particularly when it takes a major military step, so they would not have acted without data from several sources," said ABC military consultant Tony Cordesman.

Some in the administration supported the Israeli action, but others, notably Sect. of State Condoleeza Rice did not. One senior official said the U.S. convinced the Israelis to "confront Syria before attacking."

Officials said they were concerned about the impact an attack on Syria would have on the region. And given the profound consequences of the flawed intelligence in Iraq, the U.S. wanted to be absolutely certain the intelligence was accurate.

Initially, administration officials convinced the Israelis to call off the July strike. But in September the Israelis feared that news of the site was about to leak and went ahead with the strike despite U.S. concerns.

Jules Crittenden wonders what kind of stability the State Department was trying to protect.

There's the stability enforced by dictatorial regimes in places as Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia. There's the stability places like Lebanon and Iraq are barely managing to maintain ... no thanks to Syria, Iran, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, the Palestinians, etc., but thanks in large part to the Lebanese Army, the Israeli Defense Forces and the United States military. There's the stability of Gaza, accomplished in part when one group of Palestinian terrorists decided to throw the other group of Palestinian terrorists off rooftops, but really thanks to the Israeli Defense Forces, which make it impossible for either group to be much more than a nuisance. There's the stability of the West Bank, where they've had enough.

Anyway, so Israel gets the nod, blows up the Syrian nukes, and what happens? Nothing. Syria is hardly likely to want another humiliating ass-kicking. That leaves terrorism. ... That'd be different.

Just kidding. Except that ever since Israel introduced some stability to Lebanon, Hezbollah hasn't been quite on its game. The Lebs, meanwhile, appear to have watched and learned from the Israelis. Blowing the crap out of terrorists and those who harbor them works. It can actually introduce stability to places where stability had been wanting. So the Lebs have been taking care of business in the camps.

Just for the record, I fully support Israel's actions in humiliating Syria, scaring Iran, and reducing the threat the terrorist nutters in Hezbollah will get the bomb. Thank-you for doing what we won't and thank-you for seeing what we couldn't.

Pajamas Media: Mullahs vs. Mullahs (Part 1)

A power struggle is in progress in Iran. Is there anyone to root for or is the reform faction a myth? Banafsheh Zand-Bonnazi defines the players and their relationships - as complicated and bloody as the Medici - in a new series for Pajamas Media.

I think we're making progress in the War on Terror -- both in Iraq and in the rest of the world. Here is my evidence for tonight.

American Thinker: A Quiet Triumph May be Brewing

There are signs that the global Islamic jihad movement is splitting apart, in what would be a tremendous achievement for American strategy. The center of the action is in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the very territory which is thought to harbor Usama, and from which Al Qaeda was able to launch 9/11. Capitalizing on existing splits, a trap was set and closed, and the benefits have only begun to be evident.

There were already signs of a split, but recent events strengthen that trend. In March and again in May of this year I reviewed relevant South Asian media reporting to predict that the global Islamic jihad movement was cracking up. That theory focused on a split between the leadership of al Qaeda and the jihad groups that secure them in Pakistan such as the Taliban.

He is probably the most responsible for turning the Taliban -- which he had a significant hand in creating -- against al Qaeda. Which means, believe it or not, on some level he may be working with the Pakistani government and possibly the US government, since he is purely an opportunist. No doubt he will not advertise that fact to his jihadists buddies.

This cannot be overstated: it is the most crucial development since the capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Cutting al Qaeda's support in Pakistan has been a massive coup, of which our media has no clue of right now. It is the exact sort of thing that the Democrats and their media accomplices always complain that we are not doing and then completely ignore when we do it.

Check it out.

Next up, casualties in Iraq have been falling sharply lately -- both civilian and military. The media is doing their best to ignore it, Senator Clinton is doing her best to deny it, but it's happening.

Engram, at the Back Talk blog, has been crunching the numbers for the past week or more.

As you can see, deaths caused by Shiite militias in Baghdad dropped instantaneously when the troop surge began to unfold. This occurred because Muqtada al Sadr cooperated with US efforts by pulling his fighters off the streets as the new troops began to arrive. Up until that time, his Mahdi Army was eradicating Sunni males in an effort to quash al Qaeda suicide bombings against Shiite civilians. Note that there were other deaths occurring in Baghdad over this period, but this chart shows the number attributable just to Shiite death squads.

The next amazing chart shows the number of people killed by suicide bombers in Iraq. The IBC database has a field that describes "weapons," and the first word of the weapons description is almost always "suicide" when a suicide bomber is involved. I used that fact to identify casualties due to suicide bombers. If you don't know who the suicide bombers of Iraq are, then you don't much about this conflict (and you should not have strong opinions about the war). The suicide bombers are almost all foreigners that al Qaeda brings into Iraq (mostly through Syria) to indiscriminately slaughter Shiite civilians in an effort to incite civil war (read more about them here). They are not participants in that civil war, contrary to what clueless reporters would have you believe when they preposterously refer to these wretched terrorists as "insurgents."

As you can see from this chart, the suicide bombing campaign reached a peak in August, just before General Petraeus testified before Congress. It was a desperate ploy, and I say so because the victims were among the widely despised Yazidis. Killing 500 Yazidis did nothing to advance al Qaeda's goal of goading the Shiite militias back into the fight. All it did was provide fodder for the anti-Petraeus elements in America. They needed those casualties in order to have any hope of convincing Americans that the troop surge was a failure. But it did not work. And I know what this chart is going to look like when IBC updates its database to include results from September (because ICCC has recorded all known suicide bombings for that month already). It is going to look something like this:

Hit the link to view the astounding charts. I'm very much encouraged by this news.

Finally, we've been killing off a lot of the top leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Some of our recent kills are shedding light on who, exactly, is leading the group.

In a press conference today, Major General Kevin Bergner, the spokesman for Multinational Forces Iraq, provided further evidence of al Qaeda in Iraq's foreign influence. Bergner highlighted the killing "Muthanna," al Qaeda's the emir of the Iraq/Syrian border. "During this operation, we also captured multiple documents and electronic files that provided insight into al Qaeda's foreign terrorist operations, not only in Iraq but throughout the region," Bergner said. "They detail the larger al-Qaeda effort to organize, coordinate, and transport foreign terrorists into Iraq and other places."

"Muthanna was the emir of Iraq and Syrian border area and he was a key facility of the movement of foreign terrorists once they crossed into Iraq from Syria," Bergner said. "He worked closely with Syrian-based al Qaeda foreign terrorist facilitators."

Bergner said several documents were found in Muthanna's custody, including a list of 500 al Qaeda fighters from "a range of foreign countries that included Libya, Morocco, Syria, Algeria, Oman, Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom."

Muthanna's capture in early September is but one of 29 al Qaeda high value targets killed or detained by Task Force 88, Multinational Forces Iraq's hunter-killer teams assigned to target senior al Qaeda leaders and operatives. Five al Qaeda operatives have been killed and 24 captured. * 5 Emirs at the city level or higher in the AQI leadership structure. * 9 geographical or functional cell leaders. * 11 facilitators who supported foreign terrorist and weapons movements.

Four of the senior al Qaeda leaders killed during the month of September include: * Abu Usama al Tunisi: The Tunisian born leader who is believed to be the successor to Abu Ayyub al Masri. * Yaqub al Masri: The Egyptian-born leader who was in the inner circle with Zarqawi and then also in the inner circle of Abu Ayyub al Masri. He was a close associate of Ayman al Zawahiri. * Muhammad al Afari: The Emir of Sinjar, who led the barbaric bombings of the Yazidis in northern Iraq. * Abu Taghrid: The Emir of the Rusafa car bomb network.

Have no doubt about it, we are making progress.

The Progress magazine has a good summary of the situation in Iraq. The article is a little long, but it is well worth reading. Since it's too long -- and too complex -- for me to summarize, I'll just quote from their concluding paragraphs.

Understanding this expensive victory is a matter of understanding the remaining violence. Now that Iraq's big questions have been resolved--break-up? No. Shia victory? Yes. Will violence make the Americans go home? No. Do Iraqis like voting? Yes. Do they like Iraq? Yes -- Iraq's violence has largely become local and criminal. The biggest fact about Iraq today is that the violence, while tragic, has ceased being political, and is therefore no longer nearly as important as it was.

The argument of this article -- that with nothing more to resolve from political violence, Iraqis can now settle down to gorge themselves at the oil trough -- is based on two premises: Sunni acknowledgement of the failure of their insurgency and the need to reach an accommodation with the new Iraq, and a conjunction of interests between the coalition on one hand and the Kurds and Shias on the other.

We have become very familiar with General Petraeus and the disputed numbers of his surge. Does US strategy reflect the phenomena I have described? The Americans have never argued this way. But reading between the lines, American thinking does seem broadly to accord with the conclusions of this argument, if not its premises. Petraeus has already announced the first marine and army drawdowns for September and December respectively. His boss, defence secretary Robert Gates, is hoping publicly for a net withdrawal of 60,000 troops next year. Bush too is promising cuts. These plans are a recognition that the job in Iraq is moving rapidly towards something closer to Iraqi police work than American war.

To get to that point, the article discusses the sources of Iraqi violence, the status of the political situation, the role of al-Sadr in promoting peace (seriously!), the Sunni's desparate efforts to retain control after Saddam was killed, and the Shia's patience in not wiping out all of the Sunni's long ago.

So, really, go read it.

I spend a lot of time discussing Iraq with a friend. We both agree that the U.S. needs to stabilize Iraq, but we have occasional disagreements about what that will take and what the best plan is. We're both frustrated with the lock of political progress in Iraq. It's great that casualties are down, that civilian deaths are down, that terrorist deaths are up. But it feels like we're running in place without political progress to backup the military progress.

Well, today I read the first explanation that made any sense about why there has been no real political progress: several of the political parties involved in the national government are front groups for the terrorists themselves. Obviously, such parties would have every interest in tying the government up in knots and delaying progress.

So while it is true that Al Qaeda seeks to kill the Shiites, and the Mahdi Army seeks to kill the Sunnis, they need one another to block other political options from emerging from either side's adherence to Sharia.

On the Sunni side, the terror bloc is composed by most of the Tawafuq slate of three fundamentalist parties that include individuals like Khalaf al Ayan who plotted terror attacks from his office inside the green zone, including what Iraqis and Americans suspect was the April suicide bombing of the parliament cafeteria. Mr. al Ayan has denied his guilt. He has also gone on satellite television and declared himself the next Saddam.

On the Shiite side, the saboteurs include the politicians loyal still to Moqtada al Sadr, who remains popular in Iraq, though not as popular as he was in 2005, and whose deputies turned Iraq's health ministry and Baghdad's hospitals into an instrument of ethnic cleansing by refusing to treat the Sunnis freshly wounded by Mr. Sadr's militias.

While General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker did not say this directly last month, it is obvious that they too have given up hope of reaching a meaningful accord within the current government. Hence Mr. Crocker touted some of the de facto cooperation on oil profit sharing in the absence of a petroleum law.

A fruitful approach for now is to mold alternative local Shiite and Sunni parties through the tribal network that could challenge the confessional terror parties in the national elections at the end of 2009. Until those elections come, it would be wise for Mr. Graham to abandon his wish for national reconciliation and be content with the local variety.

I've been reading more good news from Iraq. Here's a brief roundup.

Officials: Shiites Interested in Alliance With American Troops

American commanders in southern Iraq say Shiite sheiks are showing interest in joining forces with the U.S. military against extremists, in much the same way that Sunni clansmen in the western part of the country have worked with American forces against Al Qaeda.

Standing up the Concerned Citizens in southern Baghdad - The Long War Journal. This is critical because southern Baghdad is far more complex -- politically, ethnically, and religiously -- than Anbar is. And yet:

The impact of the Concerned Citizens on security in regions where these units have been established is unmistakable. In Haswa, IED attacks have dropped by 80 percent. Casualty causing IED attacks have dropped by 60 percent throughout Multinational Division Central’s battlespace. Markets are beginning to reopen and reconstruction projects are moving forward.

Empty wards in Baghdad hospital offer hope

A row of beds lies empty in the emergency ward of Baghdad's Yarmouk Hospital. The morgue, which once overflowed with corpses, is barely a quarter full.

Doctors at the hospital, a barometer of bloodshed in the Iraqi capital, say there has been a sharp fall in victims of violence admitted during a seven-month security campaign.

Last month the fall was particularly dramatic, with 70 percent fewer bodies and half the number of wounded brought in compared to July, hospital director Haqi Ismail said.

"The major incidents, like explosions and car bombs, sometimes reached six or seven a day. Now it's more like one or two a week," he told Reuters.

All three of these articles sound like reason for optimism about Iraq. We'll have to see if it holds up -- especially once General Petraeus starts withdrawing troops -- but I can't help but feel that we and the Iraqi people are slowly turning a corner.

In a recent entry (Sunday's "Alan Greenspan's life is for sale. We don't know where.") I noted that Mr. Greenspan's autobiography The Age of Turbulence, now on sale, has received rather odd publicity: some newspapers are running whole articles about the book's declaration that the U.S. is mainly in Iraq due to oil-related reasons, but somehow failing to -... er, well, mention the name of the book in said articles (one again, that's The Age of Turbulence, Folks!).

I suggested that this was because Democrat-filled newsrooms are in a bit of a pickle: on the one hand, Alan Greenspan - the (Perceived) Bush-Lover and Elder Statesman of Finance - dissing Mr. Bush is too tempting a tale for them to resist reporting. On the other hand, Alan Greenspan's opinions are not the kind to which they'd prefer drawing a lot of attention.

How little did I know.

Mr. Greenspan has since clarified his book's comments to the world, and in a surprising twist, yes, Mr. Greenspan says, he (rightly) rips Mr. Bush to pieces concerning a lot of the president's fiscal policies - but, his tome's analysis of Desert Storm II as primarily oil-driven wasn't one of the negative bits. Actually, Mr. Greenspan thinks insuring the world's continued access to Iraqi oil is a dandy reason to have invaded.

Got that? Mr. Greenspan is not - repeat, not! - accusing President Bush of invading Iraq in order to secure access to Iraq's oil. He is just saying that nobody in power is willing to admit that securing access to that oil is a great benefit of the invasion, much less that killing Hussein for such reason alone probably would've been perfectly justifiable.

I mean, why not, right? He wasn't the elected leader of a people or anything; he was the man with his boot on an entire people's neck. And the homicidal nutcase was in control of one of the world's largest oil reserves. If anyone's whack-worthy in our national interest, why not him?

Now I disagree with that viewpoint, but it's certainly more interesting than what every news story about his book has entirely (and suspiciously) focused on: the news that one more creditable guy technically disagrees with President Bush.

What a bunch of dishonest people these journalists are. At least I can justify the glaring errors in my news stories; I'm just an amateur blogger.

Here's another example of how we're making progress in Iraq. Operation Alljah: The Swarm

Commenced on May 29 and ending last week, Operation Alljah was the latest and most successful bid to achieve security in the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, marrying projection of force with aggressive civil affairs outreach. During the operation, the city was subdivided into 10 neighborhoods in efforts dubbed "the swarm," a coordinated series of counterinsurgency components: US troops and Iraqi Security Forces rolled into a neighborhood and established security, cordoned it off with concrete barrier checkpoints, created a local police precinct, recruited a neighborhood watch, provided employment for day laborers, conducted an information campaign to inform the citizenry of the operation, arbitrated any claims against Iraqi or US forces, distributed food and began meetings with neighborhood leaders to address infrastructure concerns.

More and more Fallujans are signing up to become members of the Iraqi Police or of the local neighbor watch teams.

When asked about how security had changed so drastically, what they think of Americans and IPs, and why so many Fallujans had formerly backed the insurgency, one volunteer had this to say: "I want to be neighborhood watch to protect the city and 150 dinars is good pay, and I want to {become an] IP. And when I become an IP, I'll have 750 dinar. Like you said, four, five, seven months ago, the city was not good. But the reason the city is now good is because of us, we protect the city, because we're from this city; we know who's the good guy, we know who's the bad guy. So, the bad guy? To jail or get out [of] my city. The good guy? You're welcome, you can stay here."

What turned this situation around? Well, the locals realized how evil Al-Qaeda was and the Army smartened up.

Asked why it took so long for Fallujans to switch sides or rise up against the insurgency, another volunteer said, "Before, we had the terrorists, they controlled the city, so they had the power to do what they wanted to do. But you can say we woke up right now, we were asleep. We woke up to move the bad guy, to push him out, to kill him or to put him in jail. We were waiting for help from the government."

Several volunteers expressed that the key to building security momentum was the empowerment of the Iraqi Police with cover from Marine firepower. Their opinion of US troops has changed:

"At first, Americans were not doing a good job, because if they were attacked, they would kill [civilians] in the surrounding area, but now they are good to the people and trying to help. They are going out sooner or later, and it is a good gesture of them to try to help us before they leave."

Iraq has been a disaster for many years. But it'd be a mistake to write off the country now when we've finally learned how to fight and -- more importantly -- how to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi citizens.

Read the whole thing. My excerpts don't do it justice.

The situation in Iraq is changing so rapidly, it can be hard to keep up with. For instance:

Thomas Ricks' Fiasco is one of the most influential books about the war in Iraq. It was published just over a year ago, to considerable acclaim. It was only a few days ago, however, that I began to read the book.

One of the first things is noticed is a map that precedes the title page. The map is entitled "The Sunni 'Triangle': Heart of the Insurgency". That title speaks volumes about the dramatic changes in Iraq over the past six months.

A year ago, when Fiasco was published, it seemed delusional to hope that the US and its Iraqi allies could ever take back the Sunni provinces of Western Iraq. We understood the war in Iraq as essentially a civil war between Shi'ites and Sunnis. Since we had taken the side of the Shi'ites after the fall of Saddam, it seemed perfectly logical to assume that the most heavily Sunni parts of Iraq were the natural home of the insurgency.

Gen. Petraeus has up-ended that logic and shown that we can turn many of Iraq's Sunnis into our most effective allies -- more effective than most Shi'ites. This strategy has its perils, but those perils are almost infinitely preferable to the status quo of July 2006.

A 75% reducation in attacks in what was once the heartland of the insurgency. Is there any hope of extending that progress to the rest of Iraq? There are good reasons to say 'no'. Whereas Anbar is all-Sunni, Baghdad is a mixed metropolis with vicious Sunni-Shi'ite violence. How can any US strategy succeed on such dangerous terrain?

A year ago, we were asking the same question about Anbar.

I've surely got be the world's worst blogger, to have yet written nothing here on Minor Thoughts about the recent kidnapping (and release) of twenty-three Korean missionaries in Afghanistan.

After all, not only have Joe and I always given over the majority of our attention here to politics, economics, and that portion of God's kingdom which extends onto this Earth, the Church, but (a) I personally am living in South Korea right now and (b) have relatives of my own living in Afghanistan. Throw in my own associations with a number of missionaries and one might justly suspect, considering I am that obnoxious kind of people perfectly willing to offer his unsolicited opinion on just about anything, that the hostage situation would receive at least a mention.

But during such crises, there's very little one lone lil' blogger can say that isn't being said everywhere else. The very point of the blog-o-sphere (that's still what the kids are calling it these days, right? I told you I'm out of touch) is, after all, the opportunity it presents to receive alternative perspectives generally unavailable from the mass media - that is, we no longer need to be told by news corporations what your typical man on the street thinks, because the man on the street is basically running his own newspaper, and what he thinks is sometimes far more interesting than previously reported, even if his presentation is inferior. Republican radio shows in the U.S. became popular for the same reason.

The aftermath of the Korean hostage situation suggests far more interesting questions.

That's 'cause, as Reuters has recently noted, the nineteen Korean missionaries recently released by Afghani terrorists haven't exactly received a hero's welcome home. Oh, the Korean people are glad their brothers and sisters are safe, sure, but they still have a bone to pick; their complaint is that twenty-two people foolishly put themselves in an extremely dangerous situation and as a result, Korea itself (and the Afghani reconstruction effort) paid the price - being forced (a debatable term, yes) to deal with terrorists to insure their recovery.

"This crisis [has] raised grave questions about the divide between the country's responsibility and the responsibility of individuals," JoongAng Ilbo, a large Korean newspaper, has grimly muttered.

Indeed it has - but they're questions with fairly obvious answers. As countries all over the world have embraced populism and rejected (if only rhetorically, in many cases) the concept of absolute rule by the few, the notion has naturally evolved that any citizen - and not just royal and government officials - who gets in trouble overseas deserves rescue by his or her government.

On any sensible review, however, that's a ridiculous premise. First of all, making all men equal, one must remember, does not always mean elevating every man to the level of importance once accorded kings; often it means simply knocking the kings themselves down a few pegs, to a lower level on par with their brothers and sisters. Nation-states of old paid high ransoms for captured kings and the like because the citizens of those nation-states believed those people were divinely chosen to rule, or simply were gods themselves. If someone captures a god, it's important to the whole country to get him or her back. The disappearance of one man who knowingly left the safety of his country for private reasons is far less worth negotiations with extremists, especially when those negotations may have real consequences for every other citizen of his country (Koreans are now banned from entering Afghanistan; all of them have lost their freedom to travel there on any business).

Of course, any government employee sent into a foreign country by his or her superiors should rightfully expect as much assistance as possible, should trouble come; such officials are their fellow citizens' official representatives, speaking (or killing, or whatever) in their name. But missionaries arrive at their destinations as representatives only of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Let men and women such as the captured Koreans go forth and spread the Gospel, then, but let them not burden their brothers and sisters - who asked for no part in the holy mission - with the fallout from their actions. From a pragmatic standpoint, there is no compelling reason today why the kidnapping of any citizen should lead to negotiations with the kidnappers. No person is worth it.

Nor can the government - and by extension, every citizen in a country - afford to clean up after the missteps of those who voluntarily risk themselves for religious, political, or personal reasons. Logically, the adoption of that unfair weight should not even be a consideration; it's a mismatch with any government's purpose, which is to supervise the specific, limited geographic area in which its citizens reside.

This brings us to a second point, which is an answer to the obvious moral appeal: "But isn't any life worth saving, even if it's costly, and even if the person brought it on himself or herself? What, should a government just leave someone to die?"

Well, leaving aside the evident fact that many lives would probably not be in such danger if their governments didn't keep negotiating with kidnappers, the harsh but just responses are "no" and "Why should that be the government's job?". We make decisions concerning how much a life is worth every day; if we lowered every speed limit in America to 5MPH, we'd have a lot less traffic-related death, but nobody suggests it would be worth it. And why should the government, charged with representing the interests of all, allow its policies for all to be swerved because of an unnecessary risk knowingly taken on by one of its citizens?

Korea's caving in to terrorist demands was a mistake, as are the preventative measures it's introduced in hopes of never seeing the situation repeated.

The line between personal and national responsibility should be clear: it's the border line.

Several weeks ago, journalist Michael Yon posted a series of dispatches from Iraq, entitled "The Ghosts of Anbar". I recently read through them and was struck by several passages. I'm offering them here as a teaser and as an advertisement for the full series.

Michael uses lots of pictures set the mood throughout the series. His captions are more than merely descriptive. They offer a wealth of information in their own right. He also intersperses quotes from the Army's counterinsurgency manual. These quotes illustrate the model that the Army and Marines strive daily to implement.

The overall tone of the series is both reflective and hopeful. Michael offers the tantalizing vision of a strong, free Iraq as a friend of the United States -- if only we will learn the lessons of Anbar. He paints a picture of an Iraq that wants to be free -- but desperately needs us to model both the military and civil side of a functional democracy.

Here's Michael.

Michael Yon : The Ghosts of Anbar, Part I of IV

Better Business Partners

Anbar was the special provenance for al Qaeda, the one place in Iraq they could establish and maintain a robust and largely unchallenged dominance. To achieve this, al Qaeda had used the stick of terrorism and the carrot of promises to gain allies. A lot of carrots, actually, in the form of promises that they would cast out the Americans, and reward the people of Anbar with ministries in the new government.

Ironically, in Anbar al Qaeda has become our best ally for killing al Qaeda. They've managed to do this directly, just by being al Qaeda. Despite the promised carrots, what al Qaeda consistently delivered here was mostly stick, and with a special kind of hypocritical contempt that no sensible person would believe possible. (Not unlike the notion of baking the children of resistant parents or ordering shepherds to diaper the corrupting genitals of goats.)

Al Qaeda has a management style--doing drugs, laying up sloppy drunk, raping women and boys, and cutting off heads, all while imposing strict morality laws on the locals--that makes it clear that they have one set of principles for themselves, and another for everyone else.

In that kind of scheme, it didn't take long before people in Anbar realized that any benefits from al Qaeda having control would not be distributed equally. Once that realization spread, the tribal sheiks--almost all Sunni--had to consider the alternatives.

The sheiks of Anbar turned against al Qaeda because the sheiks are businessmen, and al Qaeda is bad for business. But they didn't suddenly trust Americans just because they no longer trusted al Qaeda. They are not suddenly blood allies. This is business, and that's fine, because if there is one thing America is good at, it's business.

Reframed thus from a position of strength, this stage of the Anbar-war is more a sort of business transaction, where alliances beneficial to all sides--except al Qaeda--are formed. From this perspective, there is now a moment of genuine ground-floor opportunity in Anbar, if the people here can see that by doing business with the Coalition, everyone benefits--except al Qaeda, an exclusion that most can live with.

Michael Yon : The Ghosts of Anbar, Part II of IV

Media -- The Key to Victory

Many people know the old adage about restaurant kitchens: to know if the kitchen is clean, check the bathroom. The same holds true for Soldiers, only it calls for checking windows. If you are going on a combat mission and Soldiers have not cleaned all their windows to a sparkle (during times when it is possible to do so), do not go with them. Soldiers with dirty windows are not watching for tiny wires in the road, nor are they scanning rooftops. They are talking about women, football, and the car they will buy when they get home. I will not go into combat with Soldiers with dirty windows.

On the command level, there are other indicators. In counterinsurgency, as our Vietnam veterans will vouch, press has both strategic and tactical influence. Commanders who are afraid of the press or who cannot handle it cannot win this fight. They are often the same people who alienate Iraqis. I remember one captain who had allowed his men to ransack an Iraqi home, much later shouting in my face while his lip quivered with anger, "You are a piece of shit!" He could not handle having press around, and resented the very air they breathed, and he made sure they knew it. Of course anyone whose idea of winning is to bully Iraqis would not want media around. I watched him for months as a study in how not to do certain things. Tactically, he was competent and knew how to win the gun battles, but he was incompetent and inadequate for counterinsurgency.

Dealing with the press is just a reality, like the weather. We would never put a commander in the field who refused to make plans for fighting in the cold or heat. Although it's just a reality, cold weather, for example, could destroy a unit overnight if they had not prepared for it. As with the weather, the press also influences the enemy. Cold weather freezes everyone's toes; bad press stalls progress. In either instance, he who is better-suited and more adaptable has a supreme advantage. There was a time when many of our enemies in Iraq were beating us in the press, both their press and ours, but now that is changing.

Changing Enemies into Allies

In mid-May, 2007, days before I arrived, the Iraqi Army and Police had conducted a "Combined Medical Exercise" in the village of Falahat, wherein Iraqi doctors saw about 200 villagers. About two days after that, the Iraqi Police opened a police station at the Falahat train station. That was just about the same time I was driving out to stay with a small team of Marines who were assigned as "MiTT 8" (Military Training Team 8)

The men of MiTT 8 are living along with their Iraqi protégées in filthy shipping containers on a highway. Several months ago they were attacked by a car bomb. But at about 0900, while I was traveling to their location with Marines in a Humvee (with sparkling glass) some Falahat villagers went to the new police station to report the presence of a culprit they knew to emplace bombs on the road.

It happened that quickly.

Within mere days of opening the station, people spoke up. The Iraqi Police (some of whom freely admitted to having been recent insurgents) called the tip into the Iraqi Army who were living with the Marines of MiTT 8. The Iraqi Army in turn told Marine Captain Koury, whose Command Operations Center is conjoined with the Iraqi Army unit there. Finally, CPT Koury told Staff Sergeant Rakene Lee to take care of the developing situation.

Michael Yon : Ghosts of Anbar Part III of IV

Respecting Justice

Iraqis respond to a sense of justice. The importance of this fact cannot be overstated, and it is this sense of justice on an international scale that gets undermined when people are held in prisons without being charged with any crimes.

To many of the Iraqis I've spoken with, terrorists are fair game. Kill them. But if we kill justice while doing so, we will create terrorists out of farmers. Here the Marines are creating farmers, police officers, shepherds, and entrepreneurs out of insurgents. To do that, they have to be seen as men who respect and honor legitimate systems of government and justice.

The Value of Character

Iraqis in every province I have traveled all respond to strong leadership. It's a cultural touchstone. A man like SSG Rakene Lee is not someone they would overlook. Physically, the man is amazingly strong. But what is most amazing is the strength of his moral fiber. Whatever the man talked, he walked. After all of al Qaeda's false promises, the people here have learned a hard lesson about the true value of character.

Over the next several days, I saw how much the Iraqis respected Rakene Lee and the other Marines who were all courageous, tactically competent, measured, and collectively and constantly telling even the Iraqis to go easy on the Iraqis. It's people like Rakene Lee who are winning the moral high ground in Iraq. It is people like this who are devastating al Qaeda just by being themselves. Over those same several days, I would also see the Iraqi Lieutenant Hamid treat prisoners with respect and going out of his way to treat other Iraqis the way he saw Americans treating them. Lieutenant Hamid, in his young twenties, seemed to watch every move of the Marines and try to emulate them.

The Character of Our Enemy

In August, when people were groping for answers as to why about 400 Yazidis were murdered with bombs during an attack in Nineveh, the BBC and others asked me why I thought the Yazidis had been targeted.

Al Qaeda and related groups do not need reasons. They buy press with blood.

Michael Yon : Ghosts of Anbar, Part IV of IV

The Importance of Learning Lessons

Fortunately, everyone had gone in easy and not blown doors off with explosives. Those mistakes also happen sometimes. Sometimes our own guys blow down doors to the wrong homes. Back in the early days of the war, this might have seemed like an innocent "Oh well that's war" type mistake, but after spending all this time with Iraqis I now see that it was in part actions like that which also blew open the door in Iraq for al Qaeda to come in.

Counterinsurgency is all about perception. Perception is how reality gets interpreted by people. It can be shaped, cajoled, hardened or distorted by innumerable influences

Differences Between Americans and Iraqis

At one of the houses, Iraqi Soldiers said that there had been a lot of shooting on a recent night. What had all the shooting been about? Were insurgents trying to take over? No, the old man said, it was just a couple of brothers having a shootout over a small land dispute. "Okay," the Iraqi Soldiers shrugged it off. It was just a shootout between brothers. Nothing more to ask about.

There are many similarities between Iraq and home, but at the end of the day, a Cain and Abel shootout is not even something that warrants paperwork. Tribal law. This is not Kansas. Some things are very different.

Senator Warner's Bad Withdrawal Symptoms

Out here in Anbar Province, al Qaeda did what religion-driven extremists always do eventually -- they over-reached, setting the bar so high that nonfanatics couldn't measure up (nor did they want to). The terrorists responded with a campaign of slaughter against their fellow Muslims.

Now the Sunni Arabs who were fighting so bitterly against us are fighting beside us to destroy al Qaeda in Iraq. And the terrorists are going down.

Out here in Anbar Province -- long the most troubled in Iraq -- the change has come so swiftly and thoroughly that it's dazzling. Marines who were under fire routinely just months ago are now directing their former enemies in battle.

Although this trend has been reported, our battlefield leaders here agree that the magnitude of the shift hasn't registered back home: Al Qaeda is on the verge of a humiliating, devastating strategic defeat - rejected by their fellow Sunni Muslims.

If we don't quit, this will not only be a huge practical win - it'll be the information victory we've been aching for.

No matter what the Middle Eastern media might say, everyone in the Arab and greater Sunni Muslim world will know that al Qaeda was driven out of Iraq by a combination of Muslims and Americans.

Think that would help al Qaeda's recruitment efforts? Even now, the terrorists have to resort to lies about their prospective missions to gain recruits.

With the sixth anniversary of 9/11 approaching, how dare we throw away so great a potential victory over those who attacked our country?

In From the Cold: Worth Saving?

The assessment, which was requested by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), has been sitting on the shelf for more than two years, and the agency vigorously fought to prevent its release. The current CIA Director, Air Force General Mike Hayden, claims that release of the report could be "distracting."

If there's any good news in the executive summary, here it is: As far as the IG can determine, CIA employees broke no laws in their counter-terrorism activities before 9-11. The bad news? The agency's efforts in the years before the attacks were characterized by bureaucratic incompetence and bungling on a scale that is almost unimaginable.

Apparently, bin Laden and his Al Qaida operatives had little to fear from the CIA; as the IG discovered, the agency was beset by ineffective leadership, serious resource shortfalls, squabbles with other agencies, and the lack of a viable plan for analyzing--and combating--the terrorist organization, among other problems. Describing the agency as an intelligence calamity waiting to happen would be charitable.

The stunning, substantive details of those failures are well-documented in the summary, suggesting that the CIA was adrift, rudderless and unaccountable in the years leading up to 9-11. Mr. Tenet steadfastly maintains that he had a plan to counter Al Qaida, but (according to the IG), that plan was never effectively communicated or implemented within the agency. Analysis of the terrorist organization was slipshod; prior to the 9-11 attacks, the CIA's last major assessment on bin Laden was completed in 1993.

Perhaps the most damning aspect of the IG summary is its recommendation for Accountability Boards to review the performance of (a) the former DCI, Mr. Tenet; (b) the CIA Executive Director in the late 1990s; (c) the Deputy Director of Operations (DDO) and (d) the two senior officers who served as Director of the CTC during the same period. In other words, the IG is inferring that CIA management--at the organization's highest levels--failed miserably at their responsibilities in going after Al Qaida, and should be held accountable for their desultory performance.

Seriously. Burn the CIA to the ground. Fire everyone there. Close down and blow up the building. Hire new intelligence people. Allow former employees to reapply, but they start the interview process with two strikes against them. Would we get a lot of new, raw employees that are unfamiliar with gathering intelligence? Sure. Could they be any worse than the current CIA, though? Hard to imagine.

Should we pull back from Iraq and change our mission from counterinsurgency to just providing security for the Iraqi government? Not according to the latest National Intelligence Estimate.

"We assess that changing the mission of Coalition forces from a primarily counterinsurgency and stabilization role to a primary combat support role for Iraqi forces and counterterrorist operations to prevent AQI from establishing a safehaven would erode security gains achieved thus far. The impact of a change in mission on Iraq's political and security environment and throughout the region probably would vary in intensity and suddenness of onset in relation to the rate and scale of a Coalition redeployment. Developments within the Iraqi communities themselves will be decisive in determining political and security trajectories."

I know it's cliche, but we really do need to stay the course in Iraq right now. Events on the ground are changing too rapidly for us to make a change and predict what it's effects will be.

Attrition: Al Qaeda Fades From Iraq

But the most compelling bit of news on al Qaedas demise in Iraq is the changing composition of the hostiles there. At the beginning of the year, about 70 percent of terror attacks were by al Qaeda, and their Sunni Arab allies. Now, only about fifty percent of , a lower number of, those attacks are al Qaeda. The rest are Iranian supported Shia Arab groups, who are also trying to establish a religious dictatorship in Iraq (one run by Shias, not by Sunnis, as al Qaeda wants.) Al Qaeda is taking a major beating because so many Sunni Arab tribes have turned on it. Three years ago, al Qaeda formed a coalition with the Sunni Arab tribes, promising that al Qaeda terrorists would put Sunni Arabs back in charge of the country. Few Sunni Arabs still believe that, and consider al Qaeda a murderous nuisance.

Iran has backed Shia Arab militias even before the 2003 invasion. Iranian involvement goes back to the 1980s war with Iraq (and even earlier). One of the reasons for that war (which began with an Iraqi invasion of Iran), was Shia clerics taking over the government in Iran, and announcing their intention to take over the world. While the rest of the world was not too concerned, Saddam Hussein was. That's because most (well, 60 percent back then) of Iraqis are Shia Moslems, just like over 90 percent of Iranians. Iran wanted to influence Iraqi Shias, and convince them (through persuasion or intimidation) to support Iran. Once Saddam was out of the way, Iran went forward with its plan. Islamic radicals in the Iranian government are willing to start another civil war in Iraq to get their way. And that's what's happening now, as U.S. troops go after Iranian supported Iraqi Shias who have been attacking American troops.