Maliki, Can You Spare a Dime?

As Washington prepares to tap taxpayers for a bipartisan bailout of the US financial system, is it out of order to ask our Iraqi friends who are sitting on $80 billion of oil profits to put a little something into their own pot?

After our expenditure of half a trillion dollars, $10 billion a month of American money is still going there. Our friends in Baghdad could ease the credit crunch here by taking over some of that tab from now on without going broke themselves.

The suggestion might be most palatable coming from their best friend, John McCain, who is presenting himself as responsible for their victory over chaos. Would we be leaving Iraq with less honor if they starting buying some of the blessings of democracy with their own money?

One incentive for such a selfless gesture might be the prospect of Barack Obama moving into the White House next January with his plans for troop withdrawals that would speed the day when the Iraqis run their own country and pay for its upkeep.

The old song of the 20th century Depression had a war veteran asking, "Buddy, can you spare a dime?" Nouri, old buddy, can't you spare a billion or two or three?

Double Talk in the Mideast

After what must have been awkward conversations in Kabul with President Hamid Karzai, who he last week said "has not gotten out of the bunker and helped organize Afghanistan and government, the judiciary, police forces, in ways that would give people confidence," Barack Obama has arrived in Baghdad to consult with Nouri al-Maliki, who agrees with his timetable for American troop withdrawal--sort of, maybe, depending.

The Iraqi Prime Minister turned into a tower of jello this weekend at first publicly backing Obama's proposal and then, after a call from the US Embassy "to express concern and seek clarification," said he had been misinterpreted.

What Obama is learning first-hand on this trip will surely have less to do with Mideast policy than the serpentine course of politics in that part of the world, where friends, allies and enemies are subject to variable definitions at a moment's notice.

The national leaders he's meeting have to walk a line between six more months of dependence on the Bush Administration and the prospect that the money and military aid crucial to their political survival may depend on Obama's totally different mindset next year.

If Karzai and al-Maliki, to say nothing of American diplomats and military commanders, are running true to form, the potential new Commander-in-Chief is hearing a lot about how well we're doing now along with promises to do even better under policies 180 degrees from those now in place.

The chief benefit from Obama's "fact-finding" trip may be a glimmer of who in the cast of characters will give him some semblance of frankness amid all the double talk he will be hearing. It's a safe bet that there won't be much.

Doing Afghanistan

So endeth Day One. Barack Obama did Afghanistan yesterday, where more Americans are now dying than in Iraq--a photo op with President Hamid Karzai, bacon and eggs with the troops (hold the grits) and shooting hoops with them.

His comments were low-carb, too. "To see young people like this, who are doing such excellent work with so much dedication and pride, it makes you feel good about the country," he said. "You want to make sure that everybody back home understands how much pride people take in their work here and how much sacrifice people are making. It's outstanding."

If and when he visits the Middle East again as president, the atmosphere won't be as relaxed. If Obama keeps his campaigning word, the emphasis of the war on terror will shift to Afghanistan from Iraq, where Nouri al-Maliki is now waffling on endorsing Obama's withdrawal plan.

Nine US soldiers were killed last week fighting Taliban militants in eastern Afghanistan during the deadliest attack on American troops in Afghanistan in three years.

Obama won't be visiting Pakistan on this trip, but that's where the problem lies, getting the post-Musharraf government to stop tiptoeing around the tribes shielding al Qaeda there. If he can do something about that, Obama would lessen the "sacrifice people are making" of the troops he visited today.

Obama's Magical Mystery Tour

He's in Afghanistan today and will go on to Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and England on what his campaign hopes will be a 21st century reprise of the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour with its theme of "All You Need Is Love" but at the same time has the potential to be a gauntlet of political minefields and security nightmares.

Despite the advance secrecy, John McCain yesterday blurted out that Obama would be going "either today or tomorrow" and that "Sen. Obama is going to arrive in Baghdad in a much, much safer and secure environment than the one that he would've encountered before we started the surge." Maybe so, but someone might remind McCain of the old World War II slogan, "Loose Lips Sink Ships."

Physical security aside, Obama may get a warm reception in Baghdad if what Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has told the German magazine Der Spiegel about troop withdrawal is any indication:

"U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

As he departed, Obama pointed out, "I’m more interested in listening than doing a lot of talking. And I think it is very important to recognize that I’m going over there as a U.S. senator. We have one president at a time, so it’s the president’s job to deliver those messages.”

That may be what the Democratic candidate is saying, but what will the world leaders along his route be hearing? Something alone the lines of "All You Need Is Tough Love"?

Maliki and Obama Want Timetables

Unintentionally or not, the Iraqi prime minister is siding with the Democratic candidate for president on getting American troops out of his country.

"Today, we are looking at the necessity of terminating the foreign presence on Iraqi lands and restoring full sovereignty," Nouri al-Maliki is telling Arab ambassadors during an official visit to Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.

Maliki says he is negotiating "either to have a memorandum of understanding for the departure of forces or a memorandum of understanding to set a timetable for the presence of the forces."

That makes it near-unanimous, with only George W. Bush and John McCain dissenting from what the American people, Barack Obama and now the Iraqi government want--a foreseeable end to our costly Middle East adventure.

Any day now, McCain's campaign may start telling us that our man in Baghdad is going soft on the insurgents.

Iraq: Three-Dimensional Chess in the Dark

Our future in Iraq is being settled, but no one there or here knows all the details or approves of what they do know.

The status of forces agreement (SOFA) will establish principles for a continued US military presence in Iraq beyond the expiration of the UN mandate at the end of this year, but as a July deadline approaches, the end game is as murky and confused as the start of it all.

"We have reached an impasse," Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said last weekend, "because when we opened these negotiations we did not realize that the US demands would so deeply affect Iraqi sovereignty and this is something we can never accept."

Back here, Congressman Bill Delahut, Chairman of a key House Subcommittee, is complaining that “Congress has received, to be polite, minimal information from the Bush administration on the agreement.”

Last summer Andrew Cordesman described Iraq as 'three-dimensional chess in the dark while someone is shooting at you." Now the shooting has subsided somewhat, but no one has turned the lights on.

One of the fascinating side shows is reflected in an OpEd in yesterday's New York Times: "With only perfunctory debate, the Bush administration is pressuring a divided Iraqi government to approve a security agreement that could haunt Washington’s relations with Baghdad for years to come.

"The 'strategic alliance' that President Bush is proposing eerily resembles, in spirit and in letter, a failed 1930 treaty between Britain and Iraq that prompted a nationalist eruption in Baghdad, a pro-Nazi military coup and a pogrom that foreshadowed the elimination of Baghdad’s ancient Jewish community."

This conclusion is based on the arguments of Ayad Allawi, the first prime minister after our occupation, backed by the CIA and now in exile agitating against al-Maliki with the help of very expensive Republican lobbyists in Washington

Today Thomas Friedman observes that the reconciliation process "has not reached a point where Iraq’s stability is self-sustaining. And Tuesday’s bombing in Baghdad, which killed more than 50 people at a bus stop in a Shiite neighborhood, only underscores that. The U.S. military is still needed as referee. It still is not clear that Iraq is a country that can be held together by anything other than an iron fist. It’s still not clear that its government is anything more than a collection of sectarian fiefs."

In fact, nothing about Iraq is clear other than it was huge blunder for the US to get in and it will be an unholy mess getting out.

Is This a Great Country or What?

In Washington, our Congress has settled in to business as usual now that the Surge is going so well. Democrats are overjoyed at news of Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize, while Republicans are fresh from the triumph of sliming a brain-injured 12-year-old boy to make sure he and others like him don’t rip us off by getting health care insurance.

In Iraq today, other people acting in my name and yours killed six women and nine children during an air and ground attack on senior Al Qaeda leaders. We issued a statement of regret that “civilians are hurt or killed while Coalition forces search to rid Iraq of terrorism."

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, AP reports, “has recently confronted top American commander Gen. David Petraeus about what he sees as overly aggressive U.S. tactics that harm innocent civilians, according to Iraqi officials.”

Last Friday, a pre-dawn U.S. raid on Khalis, a Shiite city north of Baghdad, killed 25 people when troops called in air strikes while hunting suspected smugglers of arms from Iran to Baghdad. Village leaders said the victims included civilians, but the military insisted the 25 killed were militants.

Meanwhile, Shiites and Sunnis are reported to be making no progress toward national reconciliation. But the Surge is working just fine, isn’t it?

We can all go on getting Halloween costumes for the kids and maybe driving somewhere for a little leaf-peeping.