A while ago, when the Turkish troops were bombing northern Iraq in their effort to root out the Kurdish anti-Turkish government, PKK, and when the Iraqi gang, including the Kurdish leaders, were silent about the attacks that killed dozens of innocent Iraqis, I wrote an entry telling the readers my own analysis of the situation. In the entry, I said that the whole issue is a behind-closed-doors deal with the Turks, Americans and Iraqis to solve several issues. The issues, as I saw them, were: Iraqi Kurdish side: the Oil Law, which was opposed by the Iraqi political gangs; the issue of Kirkuk, which was delayed over and over again by the Iraqi gang; the issue of Kurdistan’s share of Iraq’s revenues, which the Kurds wanted it to be 17% and the Iraqi gang only offered 14%; and the salaries of the pes merga, the Kurdish security forces.

In my entry, I said that in order for the Americans, who label the PKK “terrorist group, and the Turks, who consider the PKK a dangerous political rival, to get rid of the PKK, they needed the Iraqi Kurds to allow the attacks. The deal was, I thought, that the Kurdistan government will be silent and only verbally “condemn the offensive actions” in northern Iraq as long as the Americans help the Kurds to solve the issues above with the Iraqi government.

Now, here is the news:

Yesterday, the Iraqi gang, headed of course by Dawa party and SIIC, signed on the Oil Law, as was proposed at the beginning with no amendments, even though the Iraqi parliament amended several articles and did not agree on the first draft. [that shows how much effective and respected the Iraqi parliament is!] The law gives the Kurdistan government total control of the oil wells and refineries in Kurdistan.

The Iraqi gang also signed an agreement that tasks the Iraqi Ministry of Defense with paying the salaries of the pesh merga, which number about 200,000.

The Iraqi gang also signed an agreement to put a new timeframe for Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, which deals with the city of Kirkuk and its future. The UN will be supervising the process.

Now you believe that Iraqis who have lived in Iraq all there lives and struggled through the baathist regime and suffered and lived through three wars, an invasion and fatal sanctions and survived, know much much more about Iraqi politics and the former “opposition” leaders and their interests than anyone else on the planet?

Painting by Iraqi artist Betool Fekaiki

Dear readers,
The blog is back! But this is a temporary site until I get my own website up and running, soon.

Here is the entry that I tried to post last week and I couldn’t:

THE GAME of “Iraq politics” started to irritate me, and millions of other Iraqis. Every day we realize more that what Iraq has turned into is not worth the sacrifice we’ve paid in the last five years. One of the results of that, unfortunately, is that now Iraqis compare Iraq under the dictator Saddam Hussein to the Iraqi they live in now, and believe that under Hussein the situation was much better.

But as one of them, I understand where the Iraqis come from when they make such comparison and conclusion. What the country has turned into after the invasion in 2003 gives the average Iraqi no space to think about he benefits we’ve been given by just toppling Saddam Hussein. When they compare the number of enemies and criminals in the streets now, and the number of threats they face these days to the one enemy they had under Hussein, which is the government itself, they realize that it was easier to survive under the former dictatorship than now. At least they knew the redlines and they tried not to cross them into the danger. But now, there are no redlines. Everyone is a target and for no reason. Just a target.

From a country with unified borders and security forces that protected everyone, except the government’s opposition, to lawless territories where no one is safe, not even inside their houses. From a country where the education system was deteriorating, but still produced students who are now acing their way through the world’s best universities, including American universities, to a land where just being a student makes you a target.

Sunni areas are dangerous for Shiites, and vice versa. We don’t have Iraqi provinces now. Instead, we have Shiite territories and Sunni territories. And in Baghdad, Diyala and Kirkuk, the only provinces where populations of different backgrounds still exist, they don’t live together; there are different neighborhoods for different sects and ethnicities. In Baghdad, they are separated by “separation walls.”

All this was done without even asking the Iraqis themselves. Maybe they would have agreed on the separation, maybe not. But the average Iraqis weren’t asked.

And to make it worse, two parliament members proposed to separate Sadr city and make it a province by itself.

And the Maliki government is still in power!

I believe what is happening in and to Iraq is because the lack of politics. We don’t have politicians in the country. The decision makers in Iraq now [and by “decision makers” I mean the people who stir things up and launch campaigns to kill Iraqis and terrify the rest to control the country] are Nouri al-Maliki, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, Adnan al-Dulaimi and Muqtada al-Sadr. None of them is a politician, or has any amount of experience in politics or international relations. None of them has a network of advisors beyond their relations with Iran, or tribal traditions and power. They’ve kidnapped Iraq. None of them has friends in the international community and therefore, we see them acting alone and are backed by no one, but Bush, who, ironically, is exactly like them [has no political experience or international experience prior to being president.]

Those people are holding Iraq hostage. A country led by Quran interpretations [and they are many and they differ] will never have the chance to stand on its feet.

A 1000 Iraqi security forces members, including high ranking officers, refused to participate in the military operations against the Mehdi Army in Basra last week. To deal with this, Maliki went to Shiite tribes, whose leaders support his terrorist Dawa party, and asked them for back up. He included 10,000 Shiite militia members in the Iraqi security forces in the last two weeks. What does that mean?

Maliki is forming a shield of armed supporters around him and his terrorist party. He is preparing to take over Iraq and run it alone.

This is exactly what Saddam Hussein did when the Baath party took power in 1968. He assassinated a few of his enemies in the party and then, with family members and supporters from his clan, he formed Jihaz Hunein, which was the equivalent of the criminal Badr organization now. Jihaz Hunein was responsible for the assassinations of everyone that disagreed with the Baath party ideologies. And that was the beginning of the Saddam Hussein era.

Am I the only one whose seeing this?!