Friday, April 6, 2018

Facebook

An e-mail from a guy who says he “caught you out” – whatever that means, was I sliding into first? – informs me that Elaine and I avoided Facebook yesterday to protect Sheryl Sandberg or whatever her name is.  Sorry, you’re wrong.  Elaine and I don’t lean in.  That piece of corporate trash has been mentioned on community sites only once – when C.I. quoted from Susan Faludi’s piece calling Sheryl and her ‘lean in’ nonsense out.  It’s not feminism and we don’t have any respect for Sheryl.

 

Why didn’t we cover Facebook yesterday?  I don’t think we’ve covered it all week.   Maybe I’m wrong.  I know we wanted to cover other topics.  I spent my week largely on MLK which is a much more worthwhile topic than Facebook.  Elaine wanted to cover Iraq at least once – and she did.  And if I hadn’t covered MLK yesterday, I would have joined her and Rebecca and covering disgusting Chase Madar:

 

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11 hours ago

 

 

I’ve been focusing on MLK.  But I can cover Facebook today.

 


Tara Francis Chan (Business Insider) has a report and here are the bullet points:



 

 

·         Facebook deleted private messages sent by CEO Mark Zuckerberg and senior executives years ago without notifying the recipients.

·         Deleting messages is not a function Facebook offers to ordinary users, even though the Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Instagram offer varying abilities to unsend messages.

·         In explaining the move, Facebook said it made the decision after the 2014 Sony hack, indicating the company was concerned it could be the target of a data breach that could compromise user data.

·         The news comes amid the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which has seen Zuckerberg say as many as 87 million users' data was exposed to the political-consulting firm.

 


This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


Friday, April 6, 2018.  Iraq from above and on the ground.



Starting with NASA:



A stunning work of art or an image of our beautiful planet? The transformative power of water, wind & gravity is on full display in this satellite image of Iraq's Ga'ara Depression. Varied wavelengths identify rock + soil types & detect moisture







NASA notes:


The transformative power of water, wind, and gravity is on full display in Iraq’s Ga’ara Depression. The rim of this large, oval-shaped basin near the Iraq-Syria border rises a few hundred meters along its southern and western edges.

Geologists call the rock at the bottom of the basin the Ga’ara Formation. It is made up of alternating layers of sandstone and soft claystone that formed roughly 300 million years ago, when the area was covered by a shallow sea. Later, types of carbonate rock (dolomite, limestone, and marl) were layered on top of the Ga’ara Formation, and the entire sequence of rock was gradually pushed up into a dome shape by tectonic forces.

The dome achieved its maximum height about 30 million years ago. Erosive forces have since chipped away at this layer-cake of rock. The combined effects of water, wind, and gravity wore through the thin carbonate layers at the top of the dome, and then hollowed out the oval-shaped depression from the soft, crumbly rock of the Ga’ara Formation, leaving behind a rim of tougher carbonates. These steep cliffs along the southern rim have played a key role in widening the basin over time. The regular stream of landslides and rockfalls that tumble down the cliffs have caused the southern rim to continue moving south over the years.



That's Iraq from space.  On the ground?  ALSUMARIA reports an armed attack just outside of Baghdad left three people injured today and, yesterday, security forces killed 7 suicide bombers in Anbar Province before the bombers could detonate, a Diyala sticking bombing left one person injured, and  Nineveh saw the rape of a young girl and the kidnapping of two people.  On yesterday's violence, Margaret Griffis (ANTIWAR.COM) counts "62 killed or found dead."

And to the realm of pimping war.  Tuesday, the United States Institute of Peace held three panels to push further war in Iraq and Syria.  The third panel was moderated by leaker Stephen Hadley and featured Special Envoy Brett McGurk, US Gen Joseph Vogel (CENTCOM commander) and US AID's Mark Green.

Let's note this segment and, as you read along, grasp the question asked and then Green's response which starts out on a different topic completely and then, mid-way, begins offering nonsense that is little more than definition and has nothing to do with any actual work being done.

Stephen Hadley: [. . .] one gentleman said to us, you know, we've won three wars in Iraq.  One against Saddam Hussein, one against al Qaeda and we're on the threshold of winning one against ISIS but we haven't had an enduring peace.  It was to emphasize -- as you [Mark Green] did and as Gen Votel did -- the importance of the stabilization piece.  Part of that, of course, a mission near and dear to the heart of USIP, is the reconciliation mission, bringing groups -- sectarian groups that are divided by grievances, by history, threats of retaliatory violence -- bringing them together both at the national level and the local level.  Can you talk about what-what the United States and its coalition allies are doing on the reconciliation front in terms of Iraq?


Mark Green: Uh, sure.  Uh, in Iraq, one thing we're doing is help to restore the cultural diversity that has been a hallmark of Iraq.  So in northern Iraq, uh, we're working, again, to help Yazidis and Christian minorities to be able to return home -- to feel secure enough to be able to return home and-and sort of re-establish their communities.  So that's one thing that we're doing in particular.  And, in fact, I know that USIP was at our broad agency co-creation conference when we were working with, uh, a wide range of-of civil society groups -- Iraqi, American, but also from other parts of the world to try to look at this element of, uh, of reconciliation.  On top of that, what we're also doing is strengthening civil society and working with civil society groups. So in addition to having responsive governments and capable governments -- and governments that are capable of delivering services in an equitable way so that groups aren't disenfranchised.  It's also important to strengthen the capability and the role of civil society so that the needs and desires of citizens can be organized and marshalled in their dealings with government.  So, uh, to have effective governance, you have to have an effective government that can deliver.  You also need the cultural ethic and, uh, and community constructs that allow those desires and needs to be organized and pushed forward to the government.  That's part of the work that we're doing there.


Reconciliation?

It refers to one of the benchmarks that was supposed to be tied to continued US financial and military support for Iraq near the end of Bully Boy Bush's second term.  No progress was ever made and soon it was forgotten.  But reconciliation refers to the Sunnis and the Shi'ites.  Specifically, it refers to overturning Paul Bremer's de-Ba'athification.  That policy stripped most Sunnis of the ability to serve in government.  That policy stripped them of many jobs.  It is thought by many -- including every -- that's every! -- witness who appeared before the UK's Iraq Inquiry -- civilian and military witness -- that Bremer's de-Ba'athification was a disaster which destroyed Iraq.

The benchmarks included reconciliation but nothing was done on it -- even to this day.

Another election will be held May 12th and yet again the Justice and Accountability Commission is screening candidates despite the fact that most people were shocked in 2010 that the commission was still around because it had outlived its mandate.

Asked about reconciliation, Mark Green offered nonsense about Christians and Yazidis.  Asked about reconciliation, Green spoke definitions of governance, he did not provide one single example of reconciliation and he knew that as he spoke, it was all over his face.  The others averted their eyes.

June 14, 2014, then-US President Barack Obama insisted that there needed to be a diplomatic push but, though he soon began bombing Iraq daily, there never was a diplomatic effort.  In the time Donald Trump's been president -- about 15 months -- there had been no real diplomatic effort.

Though reconciliation is the best thing for Iraq, it clearly is not the best thing for the occupation of Iraq.  A reconciled Iraq could work together and could expel the foreigners in Iraq including the US occupiers.  As the US government and the UK government have now spent years admitting that Iraq needs a national reconciliation process but have also spent years refusing to help facilitate that, it is very obvious that the governments do not want a reconciled Iraq -- an Iraq that might take charge of its own destiny.

We've previously noted the US Institute of Peace's Tuesday events in  Wednesday's "Iraq snapshot" and in yesterday's snapshot.

While we're noting Brett, let's offer a note to Gina Chon, Rukmini is the new Judith Miller, yes, but she's also got quite a relationship going with your husband.  Considering that you left your husband for Brett when you were both in Iraq and he left his wife for you, you might want to wall Rukmini off from your husband.


May 12th, Iraq is set to hold parliamentary elections and no one's been bothered by the fact that Ramadan takes place from May 15th to June 14th.   Past elections in Iraq have resulted in many delays -- in the case of the 2010 parliamentary elections, many months -- to settle.  If the post-election process goes even 1/4 as poorly as it did in 2010, Ramadan will only compound that.  Holding the election three days before Ramadan was very poor planning.

Hayder al-Abadi staked his future on the premature claim that he vanquished ISIS in Iraq.  That, of course, hasn't proven to be the case.   ISIS was supposed to be Hayder's big claim to fame.

Nouri al-Maliki was ousted by Barack Obama in 2014 because ISIS had seized Mosul and other spots.  Otherwise, the US would have kept installing Nouri every four years as Bully Boy Bush and Barack had already done.  It's that 'stability' that Cordesman is arguing for.  Forget that Nouri was running secret prisons and torture sites, forget that this had been exposed in the press, forget that he was disappearing people, forget that he was having the military use tanks to circle the homes of members of Parliament that he didn't like, none of that mattered.  Nor did his attacks on journalism and journalists.  His forces kidnapped reporters who covered the protests.  Even after both NPR and THE WASHINGTON POST reported that, Nouri was still given a pass by Barack.


Hayder hasn't been very effective eliminating corruption either.  MEM reported two weeks ago, "Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi yesterday ordered an immediate investigation into allegations that fake jobs in the public sector were being offered to citizens by political parties in order to win votes in the country’s upcoming general elections.ALSUMARIA reported today that the Badr Organization's Hadi al-Amiri stated they would eliminate corruption.  He stated that they would create needed jobs and punish those who had stolen Iraq's wealth.  Hadi is a militia thug and he's also one of the corrupt -- most infamously, he ordered a plane  to remain on the runway and wait for his spoiled son Mahdi to make the flight but the plane left Lebanon without Mahdi on board so al-Amiri, then-Minister of Transportation in Iraq, refused to allow the plane to land.  It caused quite an uproar -- as CNN noted in real time.


Geneiva Abdo (THE NATIONAL) offers:


As Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi was deciding on coalition partners for his re-election this May, the two operatives in the room were Qassem Suleimani, the notorious commander of the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Hadi Al Ameri, one of the most important commanders of the Shia militias in Iraq under Mr Suleimani’s command.

Mr Suleimani pressured the Iraqi prime minister into partnering with Shia militia commanders such as Mr Al Ameri, whom Iran funds and controls. Mr Al Abadi, who is Shia, initially caved under pressure, but reversed his decision two days later and is now in a coalition that includes Sunni Muslim parties in an attempt to show cross-sectarian unity.

That meeting speaks volumes about the state of Iraq’s elections – the first since the defeat of ISIL last year – and the country’s political future. At first glance, Iran appears to still wield enormous influence over Iraqi politics. Indeed, Tehran has been entrenched militarily in Iraq since the United States-led invasion of the country in 2003. It also exercises considerable soft power, in the form of running religious schools and educational programmes. However, there are several changes in the political landscape that make it difficult for Iran to maintain the significant power it has built up. And the Iranian regime appears to be worried.

Other election issues?  Predicting the outcome:



MERI predictions/speculations on Iraq elections:
Total Shiite= 169 +/- 11
Total Kurds= 56 +/- 6
Abadi: 46
Hashd: 41
Maliki: 32
Sadir: 29
Hakim: 21
Allawi: 30
KDP: 25
Barham: 10
Gorran: 8
PUK: 7
Kurdistan Islamists: 6
Read full report & political map





Voter cards need to be presented in order to vote and not everyone has received them.



1.7 million people in Nineveh Province have not yet received their electoral voter cards that allows them to vote in the upcoming Iraqi elections in May. So far 531,684 people got their voter cards.







Turning to other problematic areas in the US: Tammy Duckworth.  She's the manliest of the troops in Congress, or thinks she is.




I will not be lectured about what our military needs by a five-deferment draft-dodger.
—Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D, IL), an Iraq War veteran and Purple Heart recipient who lost both her legs in a combat mission






Yes, you will be lectured.   Donald Trump is the president of the United States.  The people and the system have spoken.  As the president, he is over the US military in his role of commander in chief.  You're insults towards him go far beyond disrespect and attest to your own ethical vacancy.  Your insults of people who got deferments go to the fact that you were not raised with manners.  Your parents failings reflect in your behavior.  You're a member of Congress, try conducting yourself as such.  It's raw meat for the knuckle draggers like Bill Morris, but for a lot of others, your insults have crossed a line and go to your own lack of manners and possible derangement.

Considering the lawsuit brought against you for attempting to gag whistle blowers at the VA -- a lawsuit that was settled out of court, not in your favor -- maybe you should learn to seek a lower profile.  It's not surprising that someone as disgusting and vile as you would try to hide abuse of veterans at the VA but it is surprising that after this was known you would still try to play Super Solider and Last Voice of Veterans.  Well, maybe not surprising.  Those raised without manners often were also raised without the ability to feel shame.

The following community sites -- plus PACIFICA EVENING NEWS and Jody Watley -- updated:




















  • Thursday, April 5, 2018

    Ajamu Baraka on MLIK



    This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

     
    Thursday, April 5, 2018.  The reselling of the Iraq War is in full swing.


    "We had to get the Iraqi government ready to fight back," explained Brett McGurk at Tuesday's US Institute of Peace event.  He was explaining how the US re-started the military mission in Iraq and speaking from his position as Special Envoy to Iraq.

    And speaking with all the hubris you can imagine, serving up all the patronizing We-know-best you can expect.  And all to resell the Iraq War (and the war on Syria).


    The government had to be taught to fight back.

    Think about that for a moment.  The government had to be taught to fight back.  Why?  Maybe because it wasn't a real government.  It certainly didn't spring up on its own.  Puppet governments never do.  The US created the Iraqi government.  It doesn't represent the people of Iraq so why would it fight for them?  That is what the world saw.

    In June of 2014, ISIS seized control of the city of Mosul.  The city was 'liberated' when?  July 2017.  Three years and one month later.  Supposedly, 3,000 ISIS fighters held the city at one point.  And the Iraqi government had to be taught to fight back?

    And look at that great 'teaching.'  The US government started 'teaching' Iraq in the summer of 2014.  October of 2016, the operation to 'liberate' Mosul finally began.  Over two years after the city had been seized, the operation to 'liberate' the city finally began.

    That's not a real government.

    That's a puppet government installed by foreigners.  It's a government that doesn't represent the people.  It fears the people.  That's why the leaders are hunkered down in the Green Zone still -- all these years later.  The heavily fortified Green Zone.  And Mosul could be in ruins and controlled by ISIS but the puppet government never worried until they thought Baghdad might be seized.

    The US installed the government.  That needs to be grasped.  The people of Iraq didn't.  The US installed a bunch of exiles, people who fled Iraq decades ago and only returned after the US invaded in 2003.  From Vivienne Walt's TIME profile of the current prime minister Hayder al-Abadi published last month:

    An electrical engineer raised in Baghdad, al-Abadi spent more than 20 years in exile in London during Saddam’s regime. He flew home in 2003, just as the U.S. invasion began.


    What instills pride and a strong bond better than turning the leadership of a country over to . . . cowards who fled decades before and only returned after foreigners invaded?

    But that's how it's been.  One exile after another made prime minister -- all made prime minister by the US government.

    Are you surprised they have to be taught "to fight back"?  What do they do when not hiding out behind the fortified walls of the Green Zone?

    The Iraq War is being resold.  That's the point of the US Institute of Peace's Tuesday event -- noted in yesterday's "Iraq snapshot" -- and a sub-thread of Friday's CSIS event -- see Tuesday's "Iraq snapshot" and Monday's "Iraq snapshot."  Fresh from moderating the CSIS event, Anthony Cordesman shows up at THE HILL with "Don't take the wrong steps in Syria, Iraq and the fight against terrorism" to argue to continue the US occupation of Iraq as well as for an editor to proof his copy:


    As for costs, we need strategic patience, and it is fundamentally wrong to talk about costs of $7 trillion. Anything like this total must include the total cost of the Afghan and Iraq conflicts, massive estimates about additional opportunity costs, and large amounts of regular defense spending that were concealed in the wartime overseas contingency accounts.
    In any case, the U.S. military has vastly reduced the cost of our presence in Syrian and Iraq by relying on airpower and limited numbers of train and assist forces to support host country ground forces. This eliminates the need to deploy U.S. ground combat units, and massively reduces our costs as well as casualties. If one looks at the president’s fiscal 2019 budget request, the cost of training and equipping Syrian opposition forces drops from $500 million in fiscal 2018 to $300 million. No estimates are provided of the cost of airpower, but these too are likely to be far smaller.
    The costs of staying Iraq are also dropping from $1.27 billion in fiscal 2018 to $850 million in fiscal 2019. We should have learned from rushing out of Iraq, and trying to rush out of Afghanistan, that doing so before host country forces are ready could waste the money we plan to spend on making Iraq secure, allow it to truly defeat ISIS, and give it the strength to deal with Iran.


    The costs of staying in Iraq, maybe?  "In"?  Pull the string on the 12 inch Anthony doll and he says, "Prepositions is hard."  So is common sense which explains why he writes that "it is fundamentally wrong to talk about costs of $7 trillion."


    There's not much effort going into ending the Iraq War but there's sure a lot of work going on to keep it going.   RUDAW reports:

    The KRG’s representative to the United States has called on the US administration to stay the course in Iraq, despite the fact that many Americans are "sick and tired" of their country’s intervention in Iraq. 

    Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, who heads the KRG’s office in Washington, said she understands the US wants to pull out from the likes of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, but the facts on the ground require their active involvement going forward.

    "I do believe the United States has a critical role to play in this," she said during a panel discussion at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington on Tuesday. The discussion was part of USIP’s conference titled ‘Iraq and Syria: Views from the US Administration, Military Leaders and the Region.’ 



    In other news, IRAQI NEWS reports:

     Iraq’s President has stressed that his country would not allow Turkey to make any military incursions at the northern region, but voiced concern about a possible reproduction of the Turkish operation against Kurdish factions in Syria.
    Speaking in an interview with London-based al-Hayat, Fuad Masum stressed that “after the withdrawal of the party (Kurdistan Workers Party- PKK), no foreign force can come and occupy any part of Iraq.
    Masum, however, asked about the possibility of Turkey copying its operations against Kurdish factions in Syria’s Afrin to Iraq, said “We hope they do not take that step”.
    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech last month that his country would, at any time, launch operations in Iraq’s northern Sinjar region against PKK, a group designated by Ankara as a terrorist group for engaging in decades of armed confrontations with it.  He said in a more recent speech that Turkey would not ask for permission to start the operations.



    May 12th, Iraq is set to hold parliamentary elections and no one's been bothered by the fact that Ramadan takes place from May 15th to June 14th.   Past elections in Iraq have resulted in many delays -- in the case of the 2010 parliamentary elections, many months -- to settle.  If the post-election process goes even 1/4 as poorly as it did in 2010, Ramadan will only compound that.  Holding the election three days before Ramadan was very poor planning.

    Hayder al-Abadi staked his future on the premature claim that he vanquished ISIS in Iraq.  That, of course, hasn't proven to be the case.   ISIS was supposed to be Hayder's big claim to fame.

    Nouri al-Maliki was ousted by Barack Obama in 2014 because ISIS had seized Mosul and other spots.  Otherwise, the US would have kept installing Nouri every four years as Bully Boy Bush and Barack had already done.  It's that 'stability' that Cordesman is arguing for.  Forget that Nouri was running secret prisons and torture sites, forget that this had been exposed in the press, forget that he was disappearing people, forget that he was having the military use tanks to circle the homes of members of Parliament that he didn't like, none of that mattered.  Nor did his attacks on journalism and journalists.  His forces kidnapped reporters who covered the protests.  Even after both NPR and THE WASHINGTON POST reported that, Nouri was still given a pass by Barack.

    The passes would have continued were it not for the rise of ISIS.

    Hayder was installed by Barack to to get rid of ISIS.

    He hasn't.

    Hayder hasn't been very effective eliminating corruption either.  MEM reported two weeks ago, "Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi yesterday ordered an immediate investigation into allegations that fake jobs in the public sector were being offered to citizens by political parties in order to win votes in the country’s upcoming general elections.ALSUMARIA reported today that the Badr Organization's Hadi al-Amiri stated they would eliminate corruption.  He stated that they would create needed jobs and punish those who had stolen Iraq's wealth.  Hadi is a militia thug and he's also one of the corrupt -- most infamously, he ordered a plane  to remain on the runway and wait for his spoiled son Mahdi to make the flight but the plane left Lebanon without Mahdi on board so al-Amiri, then-Minister of Transportation in Iraq, refused to allow the plane to land.  It caused quite an uproar -- as CNN noted in real time.
     
    The election will require a get-out the vote program.  The United Nations Development Program's David Aasen recently spoke with Nawal Hussein Khaled who heads Iraq's Electoral Commission's Electoral Media and Public Outreach Department.


    UNDP: What does Electoral Media do?

    NH: This Section establishes and implements the electoral media plans—for the National Office and for each of the Governorate Electoral Offices (GEOs). We oversee the production of TV/radio spots based on the key messages we provide, and coordinate with the Graphics Unit to design and print the materials.
    These are the booklets, posters, banners distributed in the meetings with voters and displayed nationwide during each phase of the campaigns. The Electoral Commission has just completed the Voter Registration Update stage of the Governorate Council Elections. The next phase will focus on the concept of ‘get out the vote’, which is part of the polling phase. We also organize the production of promotional materials and place official notices of procedures, like registration of candidates, in the press.

    UNDP: How have electoral media campaigns changed since the first elections of the political transition?

    NH: In the first elections, the UN was responsible for the whole media campaign. We have been trained by the UN and now we’re doing the job. The campaign is being carried out by Iraqi hands.
    We learn from our mistakes in each campaign and take measures to avoid them in the future. Some activities can be a challenge but we adapt to meet the needs of the GEOs. We can call on the UN for advice. They help us to accelerate certain actions; like UNDP placing banners on Yahoo! sites for this campaign. (The website banners, illustrated by ‘Abu Mutar’ (Father of Rain), a popular cartoon character created by the Electoral Commission artists, appear in Yahoo! mail accounts in Iraq. Abu Mutar’s captions clarify electoral information.)
      

    Prime Minister Abadi has announced his plan to lead a coalition of mostly Shia parties and independent Sunni figures under the framework of his Victory (Nasr) Alliance. In launching his own coalition, Abadi is competing with Vice President and former prime minister Nouri al Maliki, who, like Abadi, is a leading member of the Dawa Party. Maliki’s State of Law alliance has been critical of Abadi’s leadership, and some State of Law members are vocal opponents of Iraq’s security partnership with the United States. Several former leaders of the Popular Mobilization Force (PMF) militias organized to help fight the Islamic State are participating in the elections as candidates under the rubric of the Fatah Alliance (see textbox below).
    Other prominent Iraqi figures have organized coalitions and lists to contest the election, including a largely Sunni list led by Vice President Osama al Nujayfi and the National Alliance jointly led by Vice President Iyad Allawi, COR Speaker Salim al Juburi, and former deputy Prime Minister Salih al Mutlaq. Among Shia leaders, Ammar al Hakim’s Wisdom (Hikma) movement has formally withdrawn from the Prime Minister’s coalition, but Hakim reportedly intends to coordinate with Abadi during government formation negotiations after the election. Shia cleric Muqtada al Sadr is directing his followers to support the multiparty, anti-corruption oriented Sa’irun coalition. Sadr has criticized the participation of PMF leaders in the election and is campaigning on a populist reform and anti-corruption platform.


    The 2005 election was decided by the US government (Bully Boy Bush installed Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister in May of 2006).  The March 2010 election was decided by the US government (President Barack Obama had The Erbil Agreement negotiated to give Nouri a second term after he lost the election).  The 2014 election was decided by the US government (Barack, now tired of Nouri, installed Hayder al-Abadi).
    This time around Iraqis will get to decide?

    Former prime minister and forever thug Nouri wants to be prime minister again despite his flunkies repeatedly insisting that is not the case.  ALSUMARIA reported last week that Nouri has insisted Iraq is passing through a serious, make-it-or-break-it period.  Naturally, Nouri believes he's the one who can save the country -- despite nearly destroying it in 2014..  Last week, ALSUMARIA noted that he's saying Iraq needs someone who can lead the country in construction and progress.  Others who would like to become prime minister include Shi'ite cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr who has teamed up with five other groups -- including the Iraqi Communist Party -- for this election cycle.  Two others who'd like to become prime minister, Ammar al-Hakim and Ayad Allawi, have done joint photo-ops.  
     Ayad Allawi should have been prime minister per the 2010 elections.  But Nouri refused to step down for eight months and brought the country to a stalemate.  Let's review, Barack Obama, then president, refused to back the winner of the election and instead brokered The Erbil Agreement which, in November of 2010, gave Nouri a second term as prime minister -- in effect, nullifying the election results and overturning the will of the Iraqi people.


    March 7, 2010, Iraq concluded Parliamentary elections. The Guardian's editorial board noted in August 2010, "These elections were hailed prematurely by Mr Obama as a success, but everything that has happened since has surely doused that optimism in a cold shower of reality." 

    November 10, 2010, The Erbil Agreement is signed.  November 11, 2010, the Iraqi Parliament has their first real session in over eight months and finally declares a president, a Speaker of Parliament and Nouri as prime minister-designate -- all the things that were supposed to happen in April of 2010 but didn't.  Again, it wasn't smart to schedule elections right before Ramadan.


    We'll close with this from Emma Skye's new essay for FOREIGN AFFAIRS:

    On May 12, Iraqis will head to the polls for parliamentary elections. These elections are coming at a pivotal moment. Since the Iraqi military announced the defeat of the Islamic State (or ISIS) in December 2017, millions of refugees and displaced people have returned to their homes. In Mosul, students are now back in school and the library that ISIS destroyed is open again. Baghdad feels safer than it has at any point since 2003—shopping malls are doing good business, new coffeehouses are opening, and parks are once again full of families.                                                           
    Iraq has been at a similar crossroads before. In 2010, after the defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq, the sectarian war appeared to be over and both Iraqis and Americans were hopeful that elections would put the country on the path to sustainable peace. But then it all unraveled. Although the incumbent prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who led the State of Law Coalition, did not win the most seats, the Obama administration threw its support behind him. The administration was convinced that Maliki was pro-American and would allow a small contingent of U.S. forces to remain in Iraq when the status of forces agreement between the two countries expired in 2011. They also calculated that maintaining the status quo was the quickest way to ensure that an Iraqi government would be in place ahead of U.S. midterm elections. In practice, however, this decision failed to help Iraq move beyond sectarianism and undermined the notion that change could come about through politics rather than violence.


    Emma Skye is the author of  THE UNRAVELING: HIGH HOPES AND MISSED OPPORTUNITIES IN IRAQ.



    The following community sites updated: