"Our Arab region is besieged by a number of dangers, as if it was a powder keg waiting for a spark to explode," he told the rulers of the oil-rich monarchies gathered in Riyadh for a two-day meeting to the backdrop of mounting sectarian violence in neighboring Iraq.

The Palestinians were reeling from "a hostile and ugly occupation" by
Israel while the international community watched their "bloody tragedy like a spectator," Abdullah said.

But "most dangerous for the (Palestinian) cause is the conflict among brethren," he said in a reference to the differences between Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's
Fatah faction and the Islamist Hamas movement that have blocked the formation of a unity government.

In Iraq "a brother is still killing his brother," Abdullah said of the tit-for-tat killings between the Sunni Arab former elite and the ruling Shiite majority.

Abdullah also warned that Lebanon, which was rocked by civil war in 1975-1990, risked sliding into renewed civil strife as a result of the current standoff between pro- and anti-Syrian camps.

"In Lebanon, we see dark clouds threatening the unity of the homeland, which risks sliding again into... conflict among the sons of the same country," he said.

The heads of state of Gulf Cooperation Council members Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates were present alongside the Saudi monarch, the first time in several years that all six rulers have attended the bloc's year-end summit.

Gulf Arab leaders are also concerned about Shiite
Iran's growing role in Iraq and its standoff with the West over Tehran's nuclear program, although GCC Secretary General Abdulrahman al-Attiyah said the GCC states do not feel threatened by the Islamic republic.

"The United States talks openly of the danger of Iranian military activity in the region, but our countries do not feel threatened by Tehran. Iranian officials assure us that their nuclear program is peaceful," Attiyah said.

In his opening speech, King Abdullah said there remained "outstanding issues" and "ambiguity surrounding some policies" in the Gulf.

He did not elaborate, but called for the GCC states to "stand as one" to tackle the problems confronting the Arab world.

A GCC source told AFP that the recommendations put forward to the heads of state by the bloc's ministerial committees focus on the potential fallout of the mayhem in Iraq.

The recommendations call for "instructing security agencies (of GCC states) to draft a joint plan of action" to deal with the risks arising from the situation in Iraq, including "population displacement, terrorist and criminal acts and the smuggling of weapons... and infiltration (of militants)" across common borders.

The recommendations also call for protecting the GCC states from the potential "sectarian repercussions" of the conflict in Iraq.

The Sunni-dominated Gulf Arab states have Shiite minorities of various sizes -- except Bahrain where Shiites form a majority.

Attiyah earlier told AFP that repercussions of "developments in Iran's nuclear program and the dangerous security situation in Iraq on the six GCC members will be the focus of the summit."

GCC officials have said in the past they fear a radioactive leak from Iran's nuclear facilities would be catastrophic for the Gulf environment.

"Gulf states are worried by the possibility of a US-Iranian confrontation" over Tehran's nuclear ambitions, the GCC source said Saturday, adding that "a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities would create environmental dangers" for the region.

During their summit, GCC leaders will also discuss steps toward economic integration, chiefly moves to establish a common market by 2007 and launch a monetary union and a single currency by early 2010.

Consider this recent gem from Mark Noonan at Blogs for Bush, in a post reacting to the Iraq Study Group's report:

[...The] report asserts things are deteriorating in Iraq: to me, this is just conforming the report to the phony story of Iraq produced by the MSM. I think it was more of a, "ya know, if we tell the truth about all the good things that are happening in Iraq, no one will believe us because the MSM has spent the past two years broadcasting enemy propaganda".

Yes, he is that dumb (Noonan trusts what Gavin at Sadly No! calls "an official Department of Defense 'information warfare' propaganda site" for his info about Iraq).

Anyway, Editor and Publisher noted that the Baker-Hamilton report has some bits that are sure to create some serious cognitive dissonance among the wing-nut set:

[The report says], bluntly, that "there is significant underreporting of the violence in Iraq" by the U.S. military. "The standard for recording attacks acts as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases," the report continues.

Looking at one day, the report found undercounting of violent attacks by more than 1000 percent.

"A murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack," the report explained." If we cannot determine the source of a sectarian attack, that assault does not make it into the database. A roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt U.S. personnel doesn't count. For example, on one day in July 2006 there were 93 attacks or significant acts of violence [officially] reported. Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence.

"Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals."

Indeed.

Baghdad and its environs are far too dangerous for most reporters to go visit, for example, hospitals or morgues in the country's worst hot spots -- most of the info we get from the media is based on these official data. So if the military is underreporting the 'bad news' the dreaded EM-ES-EM is as well.

And then there's the very real likelihood that the "good news" about the status of reconstruction projects in Iraq coming from USAID and other agencies is quite significantly overreported. That suggests that, if anything, the commercial media is painting a better picture of Iraq than the facts on the ground warrant, which is a scary thought.

The right's ridiculously vitriolic reaction to the Baker-Hamilton report is largely explained by the fact that it is blunt in its condemnation of the preznit's conduct of the war and that it calls for talking with Iran and Syria. But I would imagine that this part about the underreported violence has something to do with it as well.

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.

"The objective of the conference is not to deny or prove the Holocaust. Its main aim is to create an atmosphere for thinkers to discuss freely the Holocaust," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told the opening ceremony.

There was "no logical reason for opposing this conference," Mottaki said.

The conference, dubbed "Study of the Holocaust: A Global Perspective," was initiated by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had called the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jewswere killed, a "myth."

The Iranian Foreign Ministry's Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS), which organized the conference, said67 researchers from 30 countries would attend the meeting.

"Some people who had been asked to attend refused, saying it aims to deny the Holocaust. Others assumed the international conference was politically motivated and were reluctant to attend," IPIS chief Rassoul Moussavi said.

"Officials in charge of organizing the conference do not intendto deny or confirm it (the Holocaust). The duty of the IPIS is to create a suitable atmosphere for discussing historical issues," hesaid.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has strongly opposed any attempt to question or deny the Holocaust, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Thursday, underlining that Annan will deeply deplore any conference whose purpose is to question or deny the reality of the Holocaust.

The conference has also aroused criticism from the United States and Germany.

U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Friday that "this meeting is really focused on highlighting those people who deny that there was, in fact, a Holocaust."

"In that regard, it's just yet another disgraceful act on this particular subject by the regime in Tehran," he added.

The German Foreign Ministry called in Iran's top envoy in Berlin on Friday in protest against the conference.

Against this background, a two-day conference on the Holocaust, starting in Tehran tomorrow, has attracted considerable suspicion abroad. The Foreign Affairs Ministry, which is running the event, says 67 international researchers will attend, including some from Britain and Germany. It is not yet clear whether they will include known revisionists or respected academics, but Khaled Mahameed, a lawyer who set up the Arab world's first Holocaust museum in Nazareth, said he had been invited to speak.

However, Mr Ahmadinejad has been condemned on the eve of the conference by Mahmoud al-Safadi, who was sentenced to 27 years by Israel for throwing Molotov cocktails during the 1988 intifada. In an open letter to the Iranian president, he says that Mr Ahmadinejad's stance is a "great disservice to popular struggles the world over".

"Perhaps you see Holocaust denial as an expression of support for the Palestinians," he writes. "Here, too, you are wrong. We struggle for our existence and our rights, and against the historic injustice that was dealt us in 1948.

"Our success and our independence will not be gained by denying the genocide perpetrated against the Jewish people, even if parts of this people are the very forces that occupy and dispossess us to this day."

Mr Safadi says that reading the works of Arab intellectuals helped convince him that the Holocaust was a historical fact.

On the question of direct talks, "the first and most essential step ... is the United States announce they have decided to withdraw from Iraq", Mottaki told reporters at a security conference in Bahrain.

"Iran is ready to help the administration to withdraw its troops from Iraq," he said, but his country did not "see such political will yet in the United States".

Washington has said it will keeps its troops in Iraq as long as the Iraqi government wants.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said last month his country's forces would be able to assume security command by June 2007 -- which would allow the United States to start withdrawing troops.

U.S. and Iraqi officials at the conference were skeptical about any Iranian help for U.S. troop withdrawal.

"I don't know how Iran can help the United States withdraw from Iraq peacefully. They should define that ... What about the Iraqis? Nobody asked them," said Saadoun Dulaimi, adviser to Maliki.

Washington blames Iran and Syria for stirring up conflict in Iraq nearly four years after the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein.

"The biggest help Iran can make is to stop what they're doing in Iraq right now," a senior U.S. military official, who did not want to be named, told Reuters.

"The Iranians are good chess players ... and they are going to find a way to prolong this effort and help discredit the United States ... to gain more influence and possibly work on their nuclear program," he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has suggested Tehran would demand some payback in return for any help on Iraq, probably over its nuclear program, which the West fears could include nuclear weapons. Iran says it has no intention of acquiring nuclear weapons.

Asked if Iran would ask for concessions if it helped the U.S. withdraw, Mottaki said: "When they announce they have decided to withdraw from Iraq, then we will explain how the region can help the Americans to withdraw."

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said Syria or Iran would demand payback for any help they offer the United States.

"No country will come and offer you good services free of charge. What's the price?" he said.

But he has indicated that he has no plans to embrace the report wholesale and will spend most of this week pondering options with his national security advisers for tackling America's increasingly calamitous engagement in the country.

Mr Talabani indicated his agreement on the need to talk with Damascus and Tehran, but denounced other recommendations which he sees as setting conditions for future support for Iraq's government.

He rejected changing the law to allow former Baathist members of the Saddam government to return to the civil service, for example, and criticised a proposal to increase the number of US troops embedded with the Iraqi army to train its soldiers. The report, he said, "is not fair, is not just, and it contains some very dangerous articles which undermine the sovereignty of Iraq and the constitution. It is not respecting the desire of the Iraqi people to control its army and to be able to rearm and train Iraqi forces under the leadership of the Iraqi government.

"If you read this report, one would think that it is written for a young, small colony that they are imposing these conditions on. We are a sovereign country."

He criticized the recommendation by the Iraq Study Group calling for increasing the number of U.S. troops embedded with Iraqi units to train Iraq's forces from 3,000 to 4,000 currently to 10,000 to 20,000.

"It is not respecting the desire of the Iraqi people to control its army and to be able to rearm and train Iraqi forces under the leadership of the Iraqi government," he said during an interview with several reporters in his office in Baghdad.

Talabani was the most senior government official to take a stand against the report, which has also come under sharp criticism from American conservatives who claim it amounts to a veiled surrender in the war against terror.

Talabani said the Iraqi government planned to send a letter to President George W. Bush "expressing our views about the main issues" in the report. He would not elaborate.

"I believe that President George Bush is a brave and committed man and he is adamant to support the Iraqi government until they've reached success," Talabani said. He said setting conditions was "an insult to the people of Iraq."

A key area

Talabani's criticism of U.S. training was directed at a key part of the study group's recommendation, which called for accelerated training of Iraqi forces and the withdrawal of most U.S. combat troops by the first quarter of 2008.

Some U.S. military experts have expressed concern that Iraqi forces will not be ready to assume full responsibility for the fighting by then. However, opposition to the war is rising within the United States, increasing pressure on Bush to shift strategy.

Talabani said the 2008 date was realistic if the Iraqi government is given more responsibility for security.

"If we can agree with the U.S. government to give us the right of organizing, training, arming our armed forces, it will be possible in 2008 [for U.S.-led forces] to start to leave Iraq and to go back home," he said.

"If you read this report, one would think that it is written for a young, small colony that they are imposing these conditions on," Talabani said. "We are a sovereign country."

He also pointed to the report's call for the approval of a law that would allow thousands of officials from Saddam Hussein's ousted Baath party to return to their jobs.

That was what cold logic indicated. But this is not what happened. What happened was the very opposite.

American policy was not led by cold logic. Instead of drying one swamp, it created a second swamp. Instead of pushing the Israelis and Palestinians towards peace, it invaded Iraq. Not only did the hatred against America not die down, it flared up even higher. I hoped that this danger would override even the oil interests and the desire to station an American garrison in the center of the Middle East.

Thus I committed the very mistake that I have warned others against many times: to assume that what is logical will actually happen. A rational person should not ignore the irrational in politics. In other words, it is irrational to exclude the irrational.

George W. Bush is an irrational person, perhaps the very personification of irrationality. Instead of drawing the logical conclusion from what had happened and acting accordingly, he set off in the opposite direction. Since then he has just insisted on "staying the course".

Enter James Baker.


SINCE I am already in a confessional mood, I have to admit that I like James Baker.

I know that this will shock some of my good friends. "Baker?!" they will cry out, "The consigliere of the Bush family? The man who helped George W steal the 2000 elections? The Rightist?"

Yes, yes, the very same Baker. I like him for his cold logic, his forthright and blunt style, his habit of saying what he thinks without embellishment, his courage. I prefer this style to the sanctimonious hypocrisy of other leaders, who try to hide their real intentions. I would be happy any time to swap Olmert for Baker, and throw in Amir Peretz for free.

But that is a matter of taste. More important is the fact that in all the last 40 years, James Baker was the only leader in America who had the guts to stand up and act against Israel's malignant disease: the settlements. When he was the Secretary of State, he simply informed the Israeli government that he would deduct the sums expended on the settlements from the money Israel was getting from the US. Threatened and made good on his threat.

Baker thus confronted the "pro-Israeli" lobby in the US, both the Jewish and the Christian. Such courage is rare in the United States, as it is rare in Israel.


THIS WEEK the Iraq Study Group, led by Baker, published its report.

It confirms all the bleak forecasts voiced by many throughout the world - myself included - before Bush & Co. launched the bloody Iraqi adventure. In his dry and incisive style, Baker says that the US cannot win there. In so many words he tells the American public: Let's get out of there, before the last American soldier has to scramble into the last helicopter from the roof of the American embassy, as happened in Vietnam.

Baker calls for the end of the Bush approach and offers a new and thought-out strategy of his own. Actually, it is an elegant way of extricating America from Iraq, without it looking like a complete rout. The main proposals: an American dialogue with Iran and Syria, an international conference, the withdrawal of the American combat brigades, leaving behind only instructors. The committee that he headed was bi-partisan, composed half and half of Republicans and Democrats.


FOR ISRAELIS, the most interesting part of the report is, of course, the one that concerns us directly. It interests me especially - how could it be otherwise? - because it repeats, almost word for word, the things I said immediately after September 11, both in my articles at home and in my lectures in the US.

True, Baker is saying them four years later. In these four years, thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died for nothing. But, to use the image again, when a giant ship like the United States turns around, it make a very big circle, and it takes a lot of time. We, in the small speed-boat called Israel, could do it much quicker - if we had the good sense to do it.

Baker says simply: In order to stop the war in Iraq and start a reconciliation with the Arab world, the US must bring about the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He does not say explicitly that peace must be imposed on Israel, but that is the obvious implication.

In his own clear words: "The United States will not be able to achieve its goals in the Middle East unless the United States deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict."

His committee proposes the immediate start of negotiations between Israel and "President Mahmoud Abbas", in order to implement the two-state solution. The "sustainable negotiations" must address the "key final status issues of borders, settlements, Jerusalem, the right of return, and the end of conflict."

The use of the title "President" for Abu Mazen and, even more so, the use of the term "right of return" has alarmed the whole political class in Israel. Even in the Oslo agreement, the section dealing with the "final status" issues mentions only "refugees". Baker, as is his wont, called the spade a spade.

At the same time, he proposes a stick and carrot approach to achieve peace between Israel and Syria. The US needs this peace in order to draw Syria into its camp. The stick, from the Israeli point of view, would be the return of the Golan Heights. The carrot would be the stationing of American soldiers on the border, so that Israel's security would be guaranteed by the US. In return, he demands that Syria stop, inter alia, its aid to Hizbullah.

After Gulf War I, Baker - the same Baker - got all the parties to the conflict to come to an international conference in Madrid. For that purpose, he twisted the arm of then Prime Minister Itzhak Shamir, whose entire philosophy consisted of two letters and one exclamation mark: "No!" and whose slogan was: "The Arabs are the same Arabs, and the sea is the same sea" - alluding to the popular Israeli conviction that the Arabs all want to throw Israel into the sea.

Baker brought Shamir to Madrid, his arms and legs in irons, and made sure he did not escape. Shamir was compelled to sit at the table with representatives of the Palestinian people, who had never been allowed to attend an international conference before. The conference itself had no tangible results, but  there is no doubt that it was a vital step in the process that brought about the Oslo agreement and, more difficult than anything else, the mutual recognition of the State of Israel and the Palestinian people.

Now Baker is suggesting something similar. He proposes an international conference, and cites Madrid as a model. The conclusion is clear.


HOWEVER, THIS baker can only offer a recipe for the cake. The question is whether President Bush will use the recipe and bake the cake.

Since 1967 and the beginning of the occupation, several American Secretaries of State have submitted plans to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All these plans met the same fate: they were torn up and thrown in the trash.

The same sequence of events has been repeated time after time: In Jerusalem, hysteria sets in. The Foreign Office stands up on its hind legs and swears to defeat the evil design. The media unanimously condemns the wicked plot. The Secretary of State of the day is pilloried as an anti-Semite. The Israeli lobby in Washington mobilizes for total war.

For example: the Rogers Plan of Richard Nixon's first Secretary of State, William Rogers. In the early 70s he submitted a detailed peace plan, the principal point of which was the withdrawal of Israel to the 1967 borders, with, at most, "insubstantial alterations".

What happened to the plan?

In face of the onslaught of "the Friends of Israel" in Washington, Nixon buckled under, as have all presidents since Dwight D. Eisenhower, a man of principle who did not need the Jewish votes. No president will quarrel with the government of Israel if he wants to be re-elected, or - like Bush now - to end his term in office with dignity and pass the presidency to another member of his party. Any senator or congressman who takes a stand that the Israeli embassy does not like, is committing Harakiri, Washington-style.

The fate of the peace plans of successive Secretaries of State confirms, on the face of it, the thesis of the two professors, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, that caused a great stir earlier this year. According to them, whenever there is a clash in Washington between the national interests of the United States and the national interests of Israel, it is the Israeli interests which win.


WILL THIS happen this time, too?

Baker has presented his plan at a time when the US is facing disaster in Iraq. President Bush is bankrupt, his party has lost control of Congress and may soon lose the White House. The neo-conservatives, most of them Jews and all of them supporters of the Israeli extreme Right, who were in control of American foreign policy, are being removed one by one, and this week yet another, the American ambassador to the United Nations, was kicked out. Therefore, it is possible that this time the President may listen to expert advice.

But that is in serious doubt. The Democratic Party is subject to the "pro-Israeli" lobby no less than the Republican Party, and perhaps even more. The new congress was indeed elected under the banner of opposition to the continuation of the war in Iraq, but its members are not jihadi suicide bombers. They depend on the "pro-Israeli" lobby. To paraphrase Shamir: "The plan is the same plan, and the trash bin is the same trash bin." 

In Jerusalem, the first reaction to the report was total rejection, expressing a complete confidence in the ability of the lobby to choke it at birth. "Nothing has changed," Olmert declared. "There is no one to talk with," - immediately echoed by the mouth and pen brigade in the media. "We cannot talk with them as long as the terrorism goes on," a famous expert declared on TV. That's like saying: "One cannot talk about ending the war as long as the enemy is shooting at our troops."

On the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis I wrote that "the dog is wagging the tail and the tail is wagging the dog." It will be interesting to see which will wag which this time: the dog its tail or the tail its dog.

Squadron Leader Jason Chalk, a spokesman for Nato regional command in Kandahar, described the reports as "disconcerting" and promised a thorough investigation by Royal Military police. "If people are found to have acted outside the rules of engagement, they will be held to account for their actions," he said.

But Lieutenant Colonel Andy Price, spokesman for the UK taskforce in Helmand, said the troops acted within their rules of engagement. "I can categorically state that we did not indiscriminately open fire," he said.

The extent of the allegations has only emerged in Guardian interviews with medics, witnesses, local journalists and western officials in Kandahar.

The suicide bomber struck at about 11am last Sunday as the British convoy passed on its way to Camp Bastion in Helmand. The blast flung an open-topped vehicle near the rear of the convoy on to a central reservation. Three Afghan labourers were killed, witnesses said, and three British soldiers suffered life-threatening injuries. The convoy security detail moved the wounded into two vehicles and started towards an evacuation point. Seconds later gunfire erupted.

Abdul Wali, 26, a baker, was cowering inside when he heard the first bullets. Stepping into the street, he saw a taxi driver with apparent bullet wounds being pulled from his car. "The British were shooting and shouting 'Go! Go! Go!'" he said yesterday. "They were scared and they were taking their revenge."

The British convoy pressed towards the city centre. At the busy Martyrs Square junction Abdul Rahim stopped his motorcycle to let it pass. More gunfire rang out, sparking panic. Bystanders dived into shops for cover, he said. Abdul Rahim tried to push his motorcycle back but it was too late. The first bullet passed through his upper back. The second pierced his side and lodged near his spinal cord. Grimacing with pain, the 35-year-old spoke softly from his bed at Kandahar hospital. "The British say they came to bring peace to our country. What kind of peace is this?" he said.

Noor Khan, a reporter for Associated Press, who was sitting in his car nearby, feared he would also be shot. "They aimed their guns straight at me. I immediately raised my hands," he said.

The convoy pushed towards the Helmand road. But as they left the city the British soldiers allegedly opened fire again, more than five miles from the suicide attack site, on a taxi carrying three men. "The taxi was trying to park along the road. The driver and one passenger were wounded," said Rahmatullah, 19, a security guard, who witnessed it.

At Kandahar hospital the third man in the car, Dost Muhammad, said: "Our driver reduced his speed and tried to stop on the side of the road. The British passed by very close and started firing."

Colonel Price said the Marines believed they were under threat from a possible secondary attack. Bullet marks on two vehicles in the convoy indicated possible hostile fire from Taliban marksmen, he said. He said the British soldiers fired more than 300 warning flares as the Marines raced through the city carrying their wounded. But civilian cars drove up one-way streets and blocked their escape.

"It's very regrettable that civilians got hurt. But the Taliban detonated a bomb that killed innocent people on a busy street. That is not our fault," he said.

Gunfire and secondary attacks do not usually follow suicide bombings in Afghan towns. Suicide bombers have struck six times in the past 12 days.

In the latest attack, a bomber killed one Afghan and wounded nine, including a six-year-old girl, but a Canadian convoy nearby escaped unscathed. The driver said the fleeing Canadians had shot the boy. But the British incident stirred the most emotion. Mourners at funerals on Tuesday spoke of a jihad against British soldiers. On Thursday the deputy commander of Nato forces in southern Afghanistan, Col Tim Bevis, spoke on local television to explain the events.

"The foreigners should leave," declared Fida Muhammad. "Some say they are our enemy. I agree," he said. But others said the alternative - a return to Taliban rule or internecine bloodshed - was a worse prospect. "At the bottom of their hearts they don't want the coalition to leave," said Noor Khan.

Ayman al-Sabawi, the son of Saddam's half brother, Sabawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti, escaped from Badoush prison northwest of the northern city of Mosul at 4 p.m. (13:00 GMT), a senior police officer told Reuters.

Brigadier Mohammad al-Waqaa, the head of the Mosul police operation room, said the nightwatch commander had helped Sabawi to escape. It was unclear how they made their getaway.

Sabawi's father was head of the Iraqi secret service in 1991 and head of the General Security Directorate from 1991 to 1996. After Saddam's overthrow in 2003, Washington offered a $1 million reward for information leading to his capture or death.

It is believed that Syria turned over Sabawi's father, who had been in hiding, to the Iraqi authorities in February 2005.