Charles Tripp, "The Politics of the Local in Iraq," Le Monde Diplomatique (January 2008). In the latest English edition of Le Monde Diplomatique, Tripp, Professor of Middle East Politics at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), predicts the possibility of a second round of civil war in Iraq, rooted in an evolving political atmosphere of local warlordism, institutional weakness, and emergent military elitism. Tripp explains the complexity of the situation while remaining highly critical of US policy, suggesting that the privileging of its counterterrorism interests – containing and defeating insurgents and Al Qa’ida elements – is being done at the expense of a future democratic Iraq. The current US approach to cultivating both local brokers and the Iraqi military in its fights against Al Qa’ida, Tripp suggests, has historical analogues in the "imperial protectorates that shaped the politics of the middle east for much of the first half of the 20th century" and "the close and often sinister relationship between Latin American military institutions and the US military." Food for thought.
In With the Old, Out With the New
Nicholas Schmidle, "Next-Gen Taliban," NYT Magazine (Jan 2008). Schmidle’s relatively new on the war-witness writing scene, and I’m really enjoying his coverage of crisis issues. He’s been fairly prolific, his work appearing in, among others, Slate, Mother Jones, The New Republic, the Washington Post, and the NYT, primarily on Pakistan, but also on Bangladesh, Central Asia, and Iran. A bibliography of his writing can be found on his personal website here. "Next-Gen Taliban" takes an inside look at the state of militancy within the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (J.U.I.), "widely considered," Schmidle writes, "a political front for numerous jihadi organizations, including the Taliban." Old school militants, he suggests, threatened by the new extremism of the younger generation, are facing a situation in which survival means moderating their own views of governance, and "trying to preserve democracy from being destroyed".
The Fog of…
Princeton’s Gary Jonathan Bass, commenting in "Independent Daze" in the 6 Jan 08 NYT Magazine on secessionist politics and Kosovo’s impending status resolution, notes that "whatever the proper standard for secession might be, the next president cannot simply improvise." Noting other examples, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Belgium, and of Kurdistan, Chechnya, Transdniestria, among others, Bass is sober: "The costs of fogginess are too high, and we aren’t the ones who pay them."
The Violence Beneath the Violence
Anna Husarska, a senior policy advisor at the International Rescue Committee, wrote "The Hidden Wounds of Congo’s Wars" in the Dispatches section of Slate, posted on 4 Jan 08. I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that she’s a former colleague/friend of Samantha Power’s (who’s written something on Iraq in The New Yorker that I’ve yet to get to), both old Bosnia hands, but that’s neither here nor there. Nothing uplifting in Husarka’s piece, only that in Congo, as if things aren’t bad enough, "The invisible side of the war in northeast Congo is the most painful one: a virtual epidemic of rape, and – if it is possible – worse forms of sexual assault…"
Kenyan Church Refuge Attacked
“Kenyans burned to death in church,” BBC World (1 Jan 2008).
MICHAEL A. INNES 