Thread: The Iraqi 'Nation' By ROBERT MCFARLANE

"Robert McFarlane" <[email protected]> Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
To: "Robert McFarlane" <[email protected]>
Subject: FW: Blair advises against capitulation
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 20:00:28 -0400


Interesting Comment by former Prime Minister Tony Blair

Bud
Excerpts by Prime Minister Tony Blair:

We are making a fundamental mistake. We think we are creating this
problem;
we are not creating it, it is being created for us. The very forces
that we
are fighting in Iraq, which are basically al-Qaeda doing the suicide
bombing, including the bombing of that shrine, deliberately to provoke
sectarian conflict, the elements of the Iranian regime who are backing
the
Muqtada al-Sadr people down in Basra, these are the elements that we
are
fighting in Afghanistan, that we are fighting everywhere, if we do not
stand
up and fight them back, and at some point in time we are going to have
to,
they are going to get stronger. What they now believe is that they can
give
us, and the politicians who are democratically elected in the West,
such a
serious problem, in terms of the destruction and carnage that they are
able
to cause, that we will lose our will and fall away.

As we began to get the country on its feet, as they started to make
preparations for democracy, then of course the people who were fighting
suddenly realised, "If you let these guys succeed here, how do we
manage to
get across our case? How can we say that the purpose of the West and
America
is to oppress the Muslim world if actually Muslims for the first time
in
Iraq and Afghanistan are getting the right to vote", it is a difficult
argument to make.

I am in a position where I do not write what is on my tombstone, other
people do. I do not know what they will do. What I do know is that if
we end
up saying that because these people are committing these acts of
terrorism
in Iraq or Afghanistan that we should not have done the removal of
Saddam or
the removal of the Taliban, then we are making a fundamental mistake
about
our own future, about security, about the values we should be defending
in
the world. We cannot be in a situation where the harder they fight us
the
less our will is to succeed. If we are not careful, we will be in that
situation.

I think we will have difficulty defeating this terrorism until we stop
buying a little way into its argument, or even quite a long way into
its
argument. I was stopped by someone the other day who said to me, "Look
at
all these people who are dying in Iraq", and I said to them, "We are
not
killing them." How can we be said to be oppressing the ordinary Muslim
on
the street when if the violence - perpetrated incidentally by other
Muslims
on Muslims - stopped we would be able to get the country on its feet,
it is
a prosperous, wealthy country and its people would prosper? My point
is, I
do not dispute that on the Arab street there is a lot hatred of the
West,
but my point is you are not going to defeat that until you challenge
it.

Friends I will send you periodic news clips on the situation which concern our reconcilation effort. The second one excerped below involves Tariq Al Hashemi, the Suni Vice President of Iraq who was a co-sponsor of the Baghdad meeting.

:Please do not feel as though you need comment or respond to these clips.

Best regards,

Bud

Iraqi Shiite Parties Agree To Try To Unite Moderates (New York Times). In a tacit admission of the troubles between Iraq ’s two largest Shiite political parties, their respective leaders signed an agreement this week to work together and back appointments to the cabinet and other posts based on professional experience rather than party allegiances, officials said. Link to article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/wo...=1&oref=slogin



Iraqi VP seeks Egypt 's help in stabilizing Iraq (Jerusalem Post). Iraq 's Sunni Arab vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi, was in Egypt Monday to seek help from the Arab region's most populous country to stabilize his strife-torn country. Link to article: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...le%2FSShowFull



US diplomat expresses hope for progress in Iraq (San Diego Union Tribune). America 's No. 2 diplomat in Iraq predicted progress by fall on bringing together Iraq 's feuding factions as violence claimed more lives Wednesday… “We're in a very significant period of political turmoil. ... But we do expect Iraqis to work through these issues,” U.S. diplomat Daniel Speckhard told reporters. “My expectations are still that they'll rise to the challenge of producing some key legislation by September.

White House faces tough crowd on Iraq (Houston Chronicle). President Bush is sending his top aide on national security affairs to Capitol Hill on Thursday to confront what has become a tough crowd on the Iraq war. Link to article: White House faces tough crowd on Iraq | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Iraq strategy geared to US pullout (Los Angeles Times). U.S. commanders plan a summer of stepped-up offensives against Al Qaeda in Iraq as they tailor strategy to their expectation that Congress soon will impose a timeline for drawing down U.S. forces here. Link to article: Sign Up



JOINT PRESS CONFERENCE WITH BRIGADIER GENERAL KEVIN BERGNER, SPOKESMAN, MULTINATIONAL FORCE IRAQ; AND DANIEL SPECKHARD, CHARGE D'AFFAIRES, U.S. EMBASSY, BAGHDAD TOPIC: UPDATE ON MILITARY OPERATIONS AND THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS IN IRAQ LOCATION: THE COMBINED PRESS INFORMATION CENTER, BAGHDAD, IRAQ TIME: 7:00 A.M. EDT DATE: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 2007 (MNF-I) “…And an emphasis in that new way forward was on a couple of key elements, including strengthening our efforts beyond the international zone, focusing on building moderates and supporting moderates at the local levels, improving the security enough so that we could buy some space for the political and reconciliation process to occur and emphasizing the importance of employment generation opportunities, to help bring young people in particular off the unemployed rolls and to give them opportunities to work and to keep them from moving in directions of terrorism or insurgency that were risking the future of Iraq…If you look at the province of Anbar and seen the political changes that have occurred there, you see many of the tribes coming together, rejecting al Qaeda and terrorism and violence and have made significant strides in changing the political dynamic locally. And that in turn has had a significant effect on the economic situation in Anbar, in terms of opening up again businesses and opportunities and employment opportunities there….And last, on the employment creation side, I wanted to highlight there that we have in our program created more than 50,000 employment opportunities since the beginning of this year and that we have passed the 100 million mark on microfinance loans in terms of the loans that have been made through those programs…what you see is a very integrated effort, with the coalition forces and the civilian side working hand in glove to both support security in the neighborhood, put in place programs and opportunities by going to local business leaders and asking them what they need, small shop owners to get their businesses back up and going, then to provide opportunities to actually provide those services through microfinance, to work with the national government and the different ministries to bring in some services to get things going again…a completely different security environment that's creating new political opportunity in Anbar as well as economic opportunities. And the job creation effort that we had there went from virtually none in April to more than 9,000 here in June, and that's because of what we talked about, which is the security situation can be an enabler for this economic and political activity.” Link to transcript: Multi-National Force - Iraq - Press Briefing, June 27



Iraq rushes to guard its mosques (Christian Science Monitor). Six of the most important Shiite and Sunni mosques and shrines have been attacked over the past month. Now, politicians are vying for the title of religious protector. Link to article: Iraq rushes to guard its mosques | csmonitor.com

To: "Tommy"
From: "Robedert McFarlane"
Subject: FW: Cairo Meeting
Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2007 12:55:28 -0400

Friends,

I posed the question to Andrew "Will the Egyptian Government accept
Shia
participation (there is a formal edict against it)?" Also what level or
participation do you expect?

The answer (below) is very encouraging.

Best regards,

Bud
-----Original Message-----
From: Canon Andrew P B White [[email protected]] On Behalf
Of
Canon Andrew P B White
Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2007 12:07 PM
To: [email protected]
Cc: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Subject: RE: Cairo

Dear Bud,

The Eyptian Government is in regulat contact with us and they are
certainly
willing for Shia to go. At the moment it looks as if the delegates will
be
of a very high standard indeed.

From the Sunni Community we have:

Shekh Ahmed Al Qubasi the most senior Iraqi Sunni now living in Dubai
Shekh
Abdul Latif Humayeem leader of the Iraqi Scholars Associaltion Sheikh
Abdel
Melekh Sadi The most senior Sunni leader in Iraq


From the Shiah Community

Shekh Fateh (very close to Sistani)
Ayatollah Abu Ra Geef
Sayed Mohmed Riddah Sistanis son
Ayatollah Al Hakim (Head of SCIRI)

I am meeting with Muqtada Al Sader's most senior people this week so I
hope
one of them will come. I am also certain that either the Assyrian or
Arminian Archbishop of Baghdad will come. So it will be a very high
level
delegation.

Sheikh Fateh, Chaplain Hoyt and I had a very good meeting with General
Scott
today. He is very supportive and we shared the things I mentioned in
the
previous email. All of the above will bring somebody with them.

Blessings

Andrew

Thank you Neno, IMO this should be mandatory reading.
God's Blessings to you and all of our RC family.
Teshema/Virginia

Bad News
Friends,

Over the weekend I received word from Andrew that he was facing a serious threat from Shia extremists (most likely Moqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army) who had labeled him an Israeli spy and promised to kill him if he didn't leave the country.

As background, in late May, prior to the Baghdad conference Andrew lost four of his team (3 security guards and a staff assistant) who were kidnapped while Andrew was visiting the Iraqi Minister of Finance. The kidnappers were disguised as local police. Since then Andrew has been working with US, British and Iraqi security services to try to find the kidnapped personnel, thus far without success.

I suspect that Moqtada al Sadr (who sent a representative to the Baghdad conference) concluded that Andrew had assembled a very powerful core constituency who were seriously interested in reconciliation but that he (Sadr) would be subordinated to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani (who supports Andrew's work very strongly and is the dominant Shia in Iraq) in any new division of the political portfolios (Cabinet posiitons) in Iraq.

British security in Iraq took the threat to Andrew very seriously and evacuated him to London two days ago. In addition British MI-6 considered the threat sufficiently credibly to also place Andrew's family under police protection.

Finally, however, Andrew stated firmly as he left Baghdad that he intended to carry on with planning for Cairo and expected to see the principal delegates there.

I'll keep you posted.

Bud

Robert C. McFarlane
Chairman
McFarlane Associates Inc.