ATTENTION ALL READERS: BLOG IS MOVING and IMPROVING!

There are some serious changes taking place at 'Understanding the Middle East and Islam'.

First, Understanding the Middle East and Islam is no more: I will now be posting at 'The Talibatan' (http://thetalibatan.wordpress.com/) so change your homepages.

Second, as the new blog title suggests to you Arabic speakers (for those who don't: talibatan means 'the two students' (female) in Arabic) I will be one of two posting at this blog. My close friend and fellow Middle East and Arabic enthusiast/scholar, Andrea, will also write on the new site. Double trouble.

The blog will be on all things Middle East as this one was, but will also include Andrea's brilliant musings, and dispatches from me from Suleimaniya, Iraq where I am moving this Sunday, Sept 6. I will be working at the American University of Iraq at Suleimaniya, AUIS.

A Match Made in Heaven (Hell)

Reports coming out reveal that the CIA hired Blackwater to kill/ assassinate Al Qaeda figures.

Somehow, the vision of the modern day Richard the Lionheart in charge of hunting terr'ists worries me.

Augustus Apologia.

Postings for the month of August have been sparse, I know, for two reasons:

1. I have been doing a lot of crap to prepare for leaving for Iraq on Sept 6. These errands and activities have limited the time I usually spend reading and writing on my blog.

2. August is a lazy, lazy month. I'll admit there have been times I have not been engaged in the aforementioned Iraq preparations that I could have posted and did not.

Please don't abandon me, readers, I will return to my usual consistency soon. And when I do, I will also be including reports from Suleimaniya, Iraq. Exciting for me and you. So stay tuned.

Eric Prince manslaughter charge in federal court = Swift kick in ass to resume writing blog

It's just too good to be true.

There is nothing, nothing, like reading that Erik Prince (founder, Blackwater among other skeezy and sketchy operations) "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe" and "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life" to bring this gal back into the blogosphere after a brief weeks' hiatus. That these charges were brought in a federal court makes it oh so the much better.

Ray's the Vultures.

So, yes, this is a blog about the Middle East, but you all have known me to tangent over to discussions of steak, red wine and food on occasion.

This is one of those posts.

Considering my love of red meat and red wine, Rays' the Steaks was a natural selection for my 30th birthday celebration. My mom and 8 of my closest friends ventured out to Northern Va (eek!) with the highest expectations. But Ray's the Steaks did all they could to try to spoil by entrance into the third decade of my life! Fortunately the company and conversation were so awesome that they did not succeed, but they sure did try....and here's how: (You might find a similar review on the Wash Post (abbreviated), Yelp, and anywhere else I can post it.)

I have lived in DC for years now, grew up here, and eat out a lot (I mean a lot). I also spend a totally inappropriately insane amount of time researching and carefully selecting restaurants. All my friends think I’m a bit obsessive about it, but they take my advice! I have had some negative experiences but have never written about any of them…until now. My favorite meal consists of steak and red wine (I even write about steak on my blog which is really supposed to be on the Middle East!) so after much contemplation, I selected Ray’s the Steaks for my 30th birthday celebration. I will admit that, hands down, it was the best steak I have ever had. But the service did not match the steak; it was deplorable. We were a party of 10, including my mom and closest friends (some meeting for the first time ) and we had a 6:30 reservation. Almost immediately after we sat down, we were ‘ordered’ to order. Interesting role reversal that was. Exact words of the waiter, in total, impolite, seriousness, “I’m going to need to take your order”. We were then informed about the party of 20 that was coming in right after us. Why we were told this is still beyond me. I’m sorry, but my mom is about to drop hundreds of dollars at your restaurant, so I’m not really concerned with who is coming in next. Unprofessional; inappropriate…and it only got worse. By 8:15 Rays’ the Steaks had turned into Ray’s the Vultures; the waiters and hosts swarmed the tables like buzzards removing glasses and plates and offering sides with our boxes to sweeten up the sweep out the door. They then dumped (literally dumped is the right verb here) four mousses on the table, forgetting about the personalized and lovely cake my mom had left with them at the start of the meal. We had also clearly become the mortal enemy of the waiter by the end of the night; the man who had been Mr. McFriendly for the first hour, literally by 8:00 would not speak to us or look at us, words were replaced by annoyed looks and rolling eyes, echoed by the hostess. By 8:45 the vultures were so intense they succeeded in their plot to make it so awkward and miserable for us that the pressure would literally force us from our chairs and out the door. I had to finish my wine on my ‘plank’ walk (literally I left it on the host stand), then we had to finish the unfinished evening outside. It was an all out eviction. Full disclosure: 2 of my friends were very late. This was the *excuse* the restaurant manager used when we complained about said eviction. I’m sorry again, but this is a load No. 2: It did not matter that my friends were late because we did not (we were not allowed) to wait for them. Their tardiness had no impact on the meal and when we ordered. The biggest problem in my mind was the manager’s other ‘explanation’: for a table of 10, they allow 2 to 2.5 hours. This is totally unreasonable for a high quality, expensive restaurant to assume. And even if they do, and a party goes over its assigned ‘time-limit’, they should reorganize to accommodate their paying customers (my mom, for example) and move to a plan B. We had several bottles of wine (it would have been more had we not been shoveled out), appetizers, many, many steaks and a rather forced dessert and did not deserve this disappointing treatment. I had the highest expectations, and left with the lowest regard.

YHGTBKM.

From Arabic Media Shack:

"Alberto Fernandez, one of the few high-level US Foreign Service Officers who knows Arabic well enough to speak it on TV is being assigned to Equatorial Guinea. Some people have speculated that his 2006 on-air comment during an al-Jazeera interview that the US was “stupid and arrogant“ in Iraq got him reassigned to Sudan. On another note, I can’t remember hearing a US government official on either BBC Arabic or al-Jazeera in well over a year. I don’t know what explains this gap but ever since Fernadez went to Sudan there has been a notable absence of US officials on the Arabic airwaves."

The Chasers.

WHY on earth did I JUST find out about these guys?

Better question, can I come along next time, please? These guys are taking 'calling out' to a while new level!

I mean dude is standing Gitmo style on the desk in the middle of John Yoo's Constitional (constitutional my ass...) Law class.

(By the way, the fact that Berkley hasn't given him the boot, that they even have him on staff is a disgrace.)

If anyone could change my mind on Afghanistan, it's Sarah Chayes.

Even though (or maybe because of the fact that?) I am a humanitarian in heart and mind, I have always been skeptical about American efforts in Afghanistan, whether we are hurting more than helping, creating more enemies than fighting, endangering more civilians than we are protecting.

I have failed to consider, however, that the person who serves (unknowingly) as my role model in life tends to side on the other side, however for some different reasons than most.

Sarah Chayes has lived in Afghanistan since she decided to leave her job at NPR that took her to that country in 2001. For years she has lived and worked with local population in Khandahar running a cooperative, and generally participating in indigenous life there. This has given her unique insight on Afghan society whci she has shared in a book, on Bill Moyers, with Charlie Rose, and in countless articles, including one fairly recently for the LATimes called many for the LATimes.

Chayes' main goal is helping the people of Afghanistan to rebuild and live prosperous, healthy lives in safety and secruity. (As opposed to many who might have US security interests first and foremost in mind, as those who directed the surge in Iraq were first and foremost looking for a US exit strategy. Fortunately said exit strategy included first and foremost protecitng the population. SO here again, COIN and humanitarian 'ideology coincide...kind of. By the way, I did not write the previous sentences in a critical light, everyone has a right to have their own interests and priorities and look at the world and situations like Afghanistan and Iraq from different perspectives; we need them all.) So considering Chayes' aforementioned perspective and goals, the fact that she titled her last article in the LATimes "'Lower your sights' is the wrong vision for Afghanistan" makes me think twice (well, a gagillion times) about blindly leaping into the Bacevich - Rory Sewart camp. She is also currently serving as an advisor to NATO and US led forces. I know she was in communication with Patraeus and no doubt the same is now true to McChrystal.

Stalker moment:
1. Sarah Chayes and I both served in the Peace Corps in Morocco.
2. Sarah Chayes and I both have a MA in Middle East History. (Full disclosure: her Harvard, me UVA)
3. I really want to be Iraq's Sarah Chayes.
4. Sarah Chayes might actually occupy my No. 1 person in the world spot. Close runners up: Karen Armstrong, Noam Chomsky, George Packer, Amy Goodman, Bill Moyers, Steve Coll, Andrea Turpin, Andrew Sullivan, Crooks and Liars, Marc Lynch

Sarah, if you are reading this, which you aren't, please don't be scared by my stalker moment, I'm not crazy. I swear the fact that I want to be just like you is totally harmless. Pure admiration! (Call me k?)


Excerpt from LATimes article:

"The answer is not to lower the bar but to raise it. What is needed is some of that patented Obama "Yes, we can!" energy.

We can, for example, work to ensure not just the security of the upcoming Afghan elections but a modicum of integrity, by observing, reporting and sanctioning instances of abuse and by distancing ourselves from those Afghan officials illegally exploiting their offices to ensure a Karzai reelection. We can insist on accountability on the part of Afghan officials, especially regarding the expenditure of international funds.

We can help Afghans give teeth to what is perhaps the most important feature of American democracy -- one that was signally ignored by the Bush administration's Afghan design: checks-and-balances mechanisms.

Additional troops are desperately needed, and they should be deployed to protect the population rather than focused on hunting high-value targets or trying to seal off Afghanistan's borders. Development assistance, well targeted and monitored, is also crucial. But only with a concurrent full-court press on governance can the most limited U.S. goals in the region be accomplished.

The sudden appetite for Afghanistan in Washington, and the real attention being devoted there, allows me to argue to my cooperative members that the "lower your sights" rhetoric is just that -- rhetoric. This time, I try to assure them, our actions will outstrip our words. May I be telling the truth."

Saad Eddin Ibrahim on political reform, Middle East style and Egyptian and Iranian cooperation.

Saad Eddin Ibrahim (top Egyptian political/ human rights reform advocate and dissident) has a great article , "The Mideast's New Spring Freedom", on Iran and how it is just one of many exmaples of cases in the region in which moderate democractic Islamist (and non Islamist) parties are making major ground: "...the events in Iran are symptomatic of a larger change in the political landscape of the Middle East -- the revival of a regional freedom movement, which stalled in 2006 after the election of Hamas in Palestine."

Ibrahim points out in the article how 'new media' and these gains toward moderation and democratic values are creating cooperation among populations of different countries in the region, such as Egypt and Iran:

"Regardless of the gains of the Middle Eastern moderates, Islamists will continue to be an integral part of the region's political landscape. But they should neither be pathologically feared nor cavalierly excluded. Rather, they should be actively engaged and encouraged to evolve into Muslim democratic parties akin to the Christian Democrats in Europe. By implicitly recognizing Hamas, President Obama may be leaning in this direction.

The next major test for democracy will be the upcoming elections in Egypt, the most populous Arab country and a strategic U.S. ally. Egyptian bloggers have made their Web sites and Twitter accounts available to their Iranian counterparts after the mullahs disrupted Iran's Internet. The youth's use of information technology has proven to be a surprising match to the brutal autocrats and rigid theocrats they oppose. The Egyptians' display of solidarity with the Iranians proves their commitment to the fundamental principles of democracy."

Cheney's policies come back to bite us in the ass.

Juan Cole has a reveals what Andrew Sullivan called an "uncomfortable truth" on his blog today weith regard to the US condemnation of the video released of the US soldier captured in Afghanistan:

"But I fear that the argument that the public humiliation of prisoners is against international law won't take the US very far after 8 years of Bush-Cheney.

After the evidence surfaced that the US military took all those humiliating pictures of prisoners at Abu Ghraib to blackmail them by threatening to make them public, the US assertion of support for this principle of the Geneva Conventions will be met with, well, let us say substantial skepticism.

In fact, as I was reminded by a former ambassador, the Bush-Cheney-Yoo-Armitage gutting of US conformance with the Geneva Conventions really makes it difficult for Washington credibly to complain about the treatment of any of our captured soldiers. The Taliban could hold the soldier hostage forever if they follow the principle put forward by Sen. Lindsey Graham. They could (God forbid) put him in stress positions naked and threaten to release the pictures to his family, and they would have done nothing that Rumsfeld's Pentagon had not done routinely and on a vast scale.

The US refusal to so much as investigate American officials implicated in torture and breaking international law also does not help us gain credibility on seeing to it that those who mistreat our troops are tried on those charges. We even have Dick Cheney defending waterboarding, for which Japanese generals were tried and executed after WW II. It is disgusting.

You obey the Geneva Conventions and the rest of international law on the treatment of captives because it gives you the moral high ground with regard to the treatment of our troops. Not doing so endangers every single one of our men and women in uniform. The chickenhawks who called such international agreements 'quaint' and outmoded should be drafted and sent to the front."

Senate does the right thing with the F-22.

The Senate (despite the efforts of Lieberman, Kerry and Kennedy) does the right thing by voting against inclusion of the F-22 in the military spending bill. This would have wasted 1.75 billion dollars, money that can now be used for technology and equipment that the military actually needs in today's battles.

Counterpoint on Afghanistan.

Peter Bergen on why Afghanistan is worth it.

Would be a good read alongside Rory Stewart's argument against a major commitment there.

Badakhshan, Afghanistan.

Interesting article on the Badakhshan province in Afghanistan.

The province is unique for many reasons; for example, in recent years poppy fields were eradicated. Its geography has prevented Taliban and extremist infiltration. This has not left it without problems, however, namely a lack of jobs and income from said poppy eradication.

Quote that stayed with me: "We need a strong Muslim leader, a real mujahed, to bring us jobs and justice" - Abdul Samad, an elder in Kesham district.

Roger Cohen on Iran in NY Review Books.

This is what I know is going to be a great article on Iran by Roger Cohen in the current NY Review of Books when I get around to reading it.

Military might: The real source of power in Iran.

There is a tremendously revealing article on who is really in charge in Iran in the NYTimes today.

Michael Slackman makes it very clear that the real power - economic, political - lies with the Revolutionary Guard rather than the Ayatollahs. Evidence in the article, as well as recent protests, should make us question whether Iran's 'religious' regime would exist without the muscle of the Rev Guard and basij forces behind it?

Most importantly, this situation as it stands is a taint on the face of 'Islamic' governance, as it is merely serving to legitimize the corrupt dictatorial power of the forces that maintain it.

(I do understand that Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei do have support among the pop - people did vote for 'tinyjad in the last election. But who were these voters? And why did they vote for him? Is it because of the vast security apparatus? The article counts Basij recruits in the millions, which could make for a a tremendous voting block.)

Rasool Nafisi, expert in Iranian affairs, calls out the regime for the pervasive role of the Rev Guard in Iranian society, economy and government in an "exhaustive study" he co-authored for RAND and in Slackman's article: “It is not a theocracy anymore...It is a regular military security government with a facade of a Shiite clerical system.”

Please refer to the article and the study linked to above for details about the Rev Guard's networks of power in Iran. Briefly, in terms of political power, Rev Guard alum hold "dozens' of seats in Parliament and occupy many top government positions. In terms of the economy, "Revolutionary Guards have been awarded more than 750 government contracts in construction and oil and gas projects." Slackman even claims that the reason behind Iran's silence on the Muslim Uighurs is the Rev Guard's economic ties to China. (Once again, Muslim solidarity prevails!) In addition, "The corps has become a vast military-based conglomerate, with control of Iran’s missile batteries, oversight of its nuclear program and a multibillion-dollar business empire that reaches into nearly every sector of the economy. It runs laser eye-surgery clinics, manufactures cars, builds roads and bridges, develops gas and oil fields and controls black-market smuggling..."

Bacevich v. Kilcullen on Afghanistan.

In the ring: Bacevich v. Kilcullen.

If Bacevich had a tag team, it would be Rory Stewart;. in Killcullen's corner would be Patraeus.

I've got the defense budget on Bacevich.

Congress and DHS's Dirty Deeds.

Congress needs to put the smack down on F-22s; not only are not even used on today's battlefields, their renewal make troops less safe by diverting money (1.75 BILLION DOLLARS)away from other needed technology. I mean for pete's sake, the Secretary of Defense doesn't even want them! It is disappointing but politically typical to see Ted Kennedy and John Kerry supporting the F-22 inclusion in the military spending bill but not surprising that the fair-weather spineless necon Joe Lieberman supports them. Obama has promised to veto the bill if the F-22s are included.

A recent decsion by the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) to extend 287(g), a nefarious and unjust Bush administration program in which law enforcement officers target and arrest illegal immigrants, is totally incomprehensible to me. It has created monsters of some law enforcement officials - inflating their jobs with too much power - and forced others to do a job they don't feel they should be doing. In my humble opinion, this was one of the most disgusting programs of the Bush administration; and we all know there were a lot. But this one, like the torture programs, treats human beings in such an unbelievably unjust manner simply because they are not American. What kind of message does this send to our own citizens? And to the world? Here's a telling editorial on the impacts of the program on families from last year.

Assumption based case against the Uighurs.

Instead of evidence, an assumption, that any Uighur in Afghanistan was there for a terrorist training camp, landed Uighurs in Guantanamo; Richard Bernstein breaks down this assumption in an article in the NYTimes.

"But the reality is quite different, said Alim Seytoff, the vice president of the Uighur-American Association. Over the years, he said by telephone, many young Uighur men, fearing political persecution and also needing jobs, have tried to go overland from Xinjiang to other countries, with Turkey, whose language the Uighurs can understand, a highly desired destination. Many of them, unable to get visas to Turkey, have ended up in Afghanistan, which shares a strip of border with Xinjiang, living in a village that has been wrongly portrayed as a terrorist training camp — a portrayal very much encouraged by China."

I like it.

Who started it? And why the Uighurs ain't got a chance in China.

Reading the International Herald Tribune (basically select articles from the NYTimes) here in Essaouira, Morocco, I stumbled across two informative articles that give some background to the Uighur conflict in China instead of just blaming the violence on ethnic hatred.

Clearly, threre have been tensions between Uighurs and the Chinese state. The first article claims that, as in Tibet, the Chinese government has slowly but surely disenfranchised Uighurs from civil service positions as well as their language and religion form daily life. Not so clear is if this disenfrachisement has caused tensions to trickle down to the population level - between Uighur population and the Han population? Just because a government oppresses a group doesn't necessarily mean that the population feels and acts the same way.

This first article also does a good job at explaining, or actually giving several different possible explanations for, the spark of the violence - a brawl at a toy facotory that employed both Uighurs and Han Chinese. Some sources say it was over a silly little rumor - one that turned out to be false - about Uighur men raping a Han woman. Another explanation is that tensions arose of long days at work, little pay exacerated differences between the two groups. Chinese officials say it was because of radical outsiders who support Xinjiang separatism. Unfortunately, due to Chinese government, the real story, which can only be reached through interviewing those who participated, won't be told anytime soon.

The Chinese government is notoriously oppressive when it comes to the plight of minority groups or any dissent, opposition groups in their Empire. Their treatment of the Uighurs is nothing new or unique, says Philip Bowring in this NYTimes op-ed. The small to big difference is the religion factor, Uighurs being Muslim. But Bowring points out that regional Muslim powers who in perfect world would pressure China never will because each of them treat their own minority groups the same way.

Rafsanjani's hairy back.

Elaine Sciolino raises the issue Rafsanjani's Khamanei-Ahmadinejad like past in discussing the meaning and significance of his current stance in today's NYTimes.

While Rafsanjani's sermon at Friday prayers evoked the just governing style of the Prophet Muhammad, and Ayatollah Khomenei's focus on the people's will, though that was more of a saying than a reality under his rule, Sciolino argues that "Still, it would be wrong to say that Mr. Rafsanjani has suddenly become a proponent of justice, human rights and freedom." He has a checkered past; for example, the speech he gave after the 1999 student protests as well as his violent stance against the protestors resemble Khamenei's speech and the reaction of the Basij against demonstrations today.

His past considered, what are Rafsanjani's purpose and goals today?

Here are some of the other points about Rafsanjani's hairy back:

"In the summer of 1999, after all, when the government crushed student demonstrations at Tehran University, he delivered a harsh sermon in the same place as he did on Friday. Back then, he blamed “enemies of the revolution” and “sources outside the country” for the unrest. He praised the use of force by the state."

During much of his earlier eight-year presidency, many Iranians were executed, including political dissidents, drug offenders, Communists, Kurds, Bahais, even clerics.

Politically, Mr. Rafsanjani was humiliated twice: in 2000 when he ran for Parliament and came in 30th and last place in Tehran (amid charges of ballot fraud in his favor), and again in 2005, when he performed dismally in his bid to regain the presidency.

But unlike many political figures, and certainly unlike most clerics, Mr. Rafsanjani is the consummate politician. He refuses to abandon the political battlefield in a country in which silence in the face of defeat is the norm.

He also knows how to shift gears. A campaign photograph in the 2000 campaign showed him without his turban. He must have thought that a clerical uniform had become a liability."