Catching up

* With the announcement of the Iraqi election results, Robin Wright of the Washington Post observes that "one of the greatest ironies" of the US invasion has come to fruition. Iraqis, she writes, now have "elected a government with a strong religious base -- and very close ties to the Islamic republic next door. It is the last thing the [Bush] administration expected from its costly Iraq policy."

* In accord, Newsweek profiles Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, "now indisputably the most powerful man in Iraq," and Stanley Reed of Business Week examines whether Iraq is likely to become an Islamic state.

* Ed Herman compares the trends in media coverage of the Iraqi election with past "demonstration elections" in the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and El Salvador, stressing that in each case the polls were "mainly designed to placate (and mislead) the home population of the United States rather than to decide anything important in the countries in which the election was held."

* In related commentaries, Jonathan Steele and Naomi Klein note that the election was far from a ratification of the US invasion or occupation. To the contrary, both contend it was another cry for the US to get the hell out of the country. Along similar lines, Omayma Abdel-Latif claims the elections were hyped to justify Western intervention and Tariq Ali says the polls were "designed not so much to preserve the unity of Iraq but to re-establish the unity of the west." See more on "PR, Lies and the Iraqi election."

* The Washington Post's Jackie Spinner revisits Fallujah, Dahr Jamail submits testimony to and reports from the World Tribunal On Iraq, and Jeremy Iggers probes whether the Americans committed war crimes in Iraq.

* Dexter Filkins of the NY Times reports on the "political resurrection" of Ahmad Chalabi, who "has seen his usefulness in Washington ascend again" as he longs to fill the post of Iraqi Prime Minister.

* From Cursor: "With 'Post-election Optimism Ebbing in Iraq,' and insurgents directing a wave of carnage at civilians, the Independent reports that 'training of Iraq's security forces...is going so badly that the Pentagon has stopped giving figures' for the number of combat-ready Iraqi troops, who may number as few as 5,000 out of an overall target of 270,000."

* In a review of Ken Pollack's new book, The Persian Puzzle, Christopher de Bellaigue nicely summarizes some of the issues on the front burner regarding Iran's alleged nuclear tomfoolery.

* Confirming a bevy of Iranian news stories, the Washington Post reports, "The Bush administration has been flying surveillance drones over Iran for nearly a year to seek evidence of nuclear weapons programs and detect weaknesses in air defenses," activity that is "standard in military preparations for an eventual air attack and is also employed as a tool for intimidation."

* Jim Lobe can hear those Iran war drums beating, loud and clear. See also: "If Not Now, When?" and the "Top 20 Indications that Bush Invades Iran -- Soon!"

* Up to 50 Iranian citizens on the CIA's payroll "were executed or imprisoned in the late 1980s or early 1990s after their secret communications with the agency were uncovered by the government," reports the LA Times, in what a number of former CIA officials described "as a major setback in spying on a regime that remains one of the most difficult targets for U.S. intelligence."

* "A strategy document outlining proposals for eliminating the threat from Al Qaeda, given to Condoleezza Rice as she assumed the post of national security adviser in January 2001, warned that the terror network had cells in the United States and 40 other countries and sought unconventional weapons," reports the NY Times. The January 25, 2001 memo from Richard Clarke and corresponding 13-page plan "laid out ways to step up the fight against Al Qaeda, focusing on Osama bin Laden's headquarters in Afghanistan. The ideas included giving 'massive support' to anti-Taliban groups 'to keep Islamic extremist fighters tied down'; destroying terrorist training camps 'while classes are in session' and then sending in teams to gather intelligence on terrorist cells; deploying armed drone aircraft against known terrorists; more aggressively tracking Qaeda money; and accelerating the F.B.I.'s translation and analysis of material from surveillance of terrorism suspects in American cities."

* In the New Yorker, Jane Mayer has the goods on the secret history of the US' policy of outsourcing torture, what's euphemized as "extraordinary rendition." Meanwhile, several former Gitmo detainees, such as Mamdouh Habib and Martin Mubanga, have recently come forth to tell about their ordeals in captivity.

* Following the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, the NY Times reports that the US is going to get tough on Syria, even though it has "no concrete evidence of Syria's involvement in the killing." Already, the US ambassador to Syria has been withdrawn.

* "Is the US government’s determination that the atrocities in Darfur qualify as 'genocide' an accurate depiction of the horrors of that war and famine?" asks Alex de Waal in the Index on Censorship. "Or is it the cynical addition of 'genocide' to America's armoury of hegemonic interventionism – typically at the expense of the Arabs? The answer is both."

* In an updated excerpt from her book, Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948, Tanya Reinhart throws some cold water on the "euphoria" over the recent Sharm El-Sheikh summit between Sharon and Abbas, cautioning that recent events are essentially replicating the steps taken during the failed Oslo period.

* Coming on the heels of news that Israel activated a land claim law that was dormant for years, a Washington Post investigation has concluded that the "Israeli government and private Jewish groups are working in concert to build a human cordon around Jerusalem's Old City and its disputed holy sites, moving Jewish residents into Arab neighborhoods to consolidate their grip on strategic locations."

* The LA Times reports that Bush's 2006 budget proposal of $2.5 trillion dollars nevertheless calls for billions of dollars in cuts, affecting a total of 154 programs, "that will touch people on food stamps and farmers on price supports, children under Medicaid and adults in public housing." To make things worse, Jonathan Weisman and Peter Baker of the Washington Post report that Bush's budget is set to blow up around 2010: "By the time the next president comes along, some analysts said, not only will there be little if any flexibility for any new initiatives, but the entire four-year term could be spent figuring out how to accommodate the long-range cost of Bush's policies."

* In his NY Times column, Paul Krugman calls the budget "top-down class warfare in action. And," he adds, "it offers the Democrats an opportunity, if they're willing to take it."

* Even though Bush has requested $419 billion for the Pentagon in his spending plan, Robert Higgs estimates that "the government's total military-related outlays in fiscal year 2006 will be in the neighborhood of $840 billion."

* "Uncle Sam wants you," announces Tom Dickinson in Rolling Stone. "He needs you. He'll bribe you to sign up. He'll strong-arm you to re-enlist. And if that's not enough, he's got a plan to draft you."

* "It's global-warming time again," declares Tom Engelhardt in an excellent summary of recent news about climate change for TomDispatch.

* With the Kyoto Protocol set to take effect today, Mark Hertsgaard says the international treaty doesn't go far enough towards addressing the threat of climate change.

* In a Washington Post opinion piece, Elizabeth Warren summarizes the implications of the recent Health Affairs survey on medical bankruptcy in the US.

* Writing for FAIR's publication Extra!, Steve Rendall argues that, in order to revive American democracy and the credibility of the American media, the Fairness Doctrine needs to be brought back.

* "Four years ago," Robert Parry writes, "some hopeful political analysts predicted that the rightward swing of the media pendulum, which so bedeviled Bill Clinton in the 1990s, would lurch back leftward once Bush took office in 2001." How wrong they were. Today, Parry says, the pernicious "Bush standard of journalism" reigns supreme.

* Nick Lemann wonders, "Why is everyone mad at the mainstream media?"

* Chris Paterson takes on the Eason Jordan brouhaha, asserting that questions about the deliberate targeting of journalists by the US military are, indeed, far from settled.

* Salon's Eric Boehlert probes the Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert imbroglio, which seems to grow more bizarre by the day. AMERICAblog is the place to go for running updates on this story.

* Scott Smallwood rewinds the clock to discern how the Ward Churchill controversy took on legs in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Plus: Robert Jensen on Churchill's "rights" and Clay Evans on Churchill's ego.

* Chris Floyd, putting it bluntly, as usual: "Bush lied. He stole. He murdered. In broad daylight. And he got away with it. That's the story. But you'll never hear it at the Press Club."

* You can watch Outfoxed, Robert Greenwald's documentary on Rupert Murdoch and the Fox News Channel, here.

* Joel S. Hirschhorn pens memo to Howard Dean, the new DNC chair, on some strategic initiatives to begin working on.