Middle East

As if Brett Favre isn't already a source of shame for denizens of Wisconsin, now Iraqi detainees are trying to use the sore spot to their advantage.

Iraqi prisoners at a detainment camp run by the Wisconsin National Guard have learned some English, unfortunately for the soldiers, it is mainly about the former pride of Green Bay.

"They know Favre by name," said First Lieutenant Tim Boehnen, who is from New Richmond, Wis. 

"One of the big words they know now is shenanigan.  They'll constantly talk about 'Favre shenanigans,' 'He's so good for the Vikings,' and 'The Packers have got to really feel bad about that one.'  "

Boehen may be responsible for some of the onslaught or anti-Favre remarks. He said the detainees started their Brett-bashing after the guards put up Green Bay Packers paraphernalia all over the compound. That was the beginning of the end.

"They obviously then started up the conversations, and started talking about Brett Favre.  They soon learned about Favre going to the Vikings, and things just started going downhill from there." 

Hat tip: Deadspin

Scott Boehm/Getty Images

This afternoon, the New America Foundation hosted "The New Forgotten War," a talk about the future of Iraq. It featured Ad Melkert, the special representative for the U.N. secretary-general in Iraq.

Melkert, a former Dutch member of parliament, remains cautiously optimistic about Iraq's future, with an emphasis on the cautious part. The good news is that security in Iraq is better than it was two years ago. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been able to confront violence in the southern part of the country, Melkert said. As a result of the safer state, investment is starting to rise, but it still has a long way to go. Corruption, the terrible infrastructure, and legal concerns hamper Iraq's ability to draw serious investment.

One serious problem for the nascent state is budgetary, Melkert said. When oil prices are high, the government spends all of its revenue, but when they fall, they have to slash the budget.

Further, Iraq is still under dozens of UN chapter seven sanctions, stemming from Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. The current leadership says these sanctions need to be lifted because they were implemented against Hussein and not the current government.

These problems could potentially be amplified in the coming months and years as foreign security forces draw down in the country. Melkert said that one of two things will happen. Either the Iraqi forces will somehow maintain order, or the insurgents will attack as soon as the United States leaves. Right now, police officers, public servants, and UN workers and buildings remain prime targets.

New America Foundation/Flickr

Where is the worst place for children to be born in 2009, especially girls? Surprise! Afghanistan. Today, UNICEF published a special report titled State of the World's Children; Daniel Toole, UNICEF regional director for South Asia, told a news briefing in Geneva earlier today: 

Afghanistan today is without a doubt the most dangerous place to be born.

After eight years since the U.S. invasion, this is just one more incentive to encouarge the Obama administration to make a decision on its role in the region.

More optimistically, the reports highlights signatory countries of the UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child who have shown marked improvement, including India, Serbia and Sierra Leone.

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The Palestinian leadership seems caught in limbo these days, alternating between threats to tear down the Palestinian Authority and promises to build up the institutions of a nascent Palestinian state, which will then seek international recognition with or without Israeli consent. Prime Minister Fayyad and the chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat mentioned this possibility over the weekend, with Erekat suggesting that the Palestinian Authority is building a case for recognition of Palestinian statehood before the United Nations Security Council.

If the PA goes through with this plan, it will be the second time a Palestinian state has been declared. The first was on Nov. 15, 1988, when Yasser Arafat unilaterally declared Palestinian independence. Around 100 countries recognized the new Palestinian state, but the declaration had no force on the ground. Israel, cracking down during the First Intifada, maintained a tight grip on all the functions normally performed by a state: they enforced their laws, strictly controlled movement around the West Bank and Gaza, and regulated commerce and trade. The new Palestinian state existed only on paper.

I asked Ghassan Khatib, who was a member of the Palestinian delegation to the 1991 Madrid peace conference and served as the Palestinian Authority's Minister of Labor in 2002, what it would take for a unilateral declaration of statehood to actually have an impact on the ground. He made the case that many of the institutions required for a viable Palestinian state have been established in the last several years. "We have a public financial system that has been recognized by the World Bank and the IMF, and is one of the best systems in the region," he noted. "We have a security system that has been proving itself, and even the Israelis have expressed satisfaction with [its] professionalism."

Israeli officials have already threatened that a unilateral declaration of statehood would be met with an "appropriate Israeli response." They would have a number of weapons at their disposal, most notably the ability to prevent a Palestinian state from providing a viable economic future for its citizens. "[T]he Israeli occupation is not allowing us to deal freely with our natural resources, or allowing us to move freely inside the territories or to the territories outside," said Khatib. There is no airport in the West Bank - though Prime Minister Fayyad's ambitious blueprint for a Palestinian state within two years contains a plan to construct an airport in the Jordan Valley. Because Israel geographically separates Gaza and the West Bank, Israel could easily strangle trade between the two territories and cut off trade through the port in Gaza. And that's not even mentioning Hamas, which has already come out in opposition to the PA's plan.

But Mahmoud Abbas, Salam Fayyad, and Saeb Erekat appear to be gambling that they can go over the heads of both Israel and Hamas by appealing directly to the United Nations Security Council. If they can present a viable plan for maintaining security and developing effective institutions for a Palestinian state, the Obama administration may yet be convinced not to exercise its veto and bless the declaration of statehood. If the Security Council throws its support behind the plan, Israel would be hard-pressed to kill the new Palestinian state in its infancy. That's a lot of "ifs," to be sure, but there is just a chance that the Palestinian leadership may emerge from the current limbo looking as if they had a plan all along.

ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/Getty Images

The Pakistani military reported that they entered and largely cleared the "Taliban headquarters" in South Waziristan today. The reported success is part of a large-scale offensive in the region, which is a stronghold of Tehrik-i-Taliban, an umbrella organization of Pakistani Taliban factions drawn together under the leadership of (the recently-killed) Baitullah Mehsud. The "headquarters" referred to is the town of Makeen, which had been Mehsud's hometown.

How important is it to clear Taliban headquarters, whether in Waziristan or Balochistan? In an interview with FP, Sameer Lalwani, a research fellow at the New America Foundation, argues the answer largely depends on what comes next:

[Makeen] might have been the center of TTP [Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan] organization, but I suspect that at some level, ‘headquarters' doesn't mean as much to an insurgency that's able to melt away and reappear down the road at different locations and continue operations... it certainly disrupts the organization of the group. [But] it's a very fluid network, they have alliances with other neighboring tribes, they're able to parlay their way, probably, for a safe haven within Afghanistan, or in the mountains, for a period of time.

So, it really depends on what the follow-up operations are.... I think this is one of the biggest demonstrations of Pakistani commitment, in their ground invasion of South Waziristan, and the most targeted, and probably one of the stronger efforts we've seen in recent years, but I'd still be apprehensive to say this is a categorical success, even [having] secured a few militant strongholds and, I guess, the center of operations, because the real question becomes ‘how long can they hold it?'"

The Taliban certainly isn't handing the territory off. Responding to Pakistan's recent military successes, a Taliban spokesman said simply, "We are prepared for a long war."

Photo: NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images

The New York Times published an absolutely brilliant story today about the bomb detecting wands yielded by Iraqi security forces. Though the piece is written in the even-handed language you expect from the NYT, you can still practically hear the journalist screaming about how ridiculous this whole subject is.

You have the Iraqi general who claims: "I know more about bombs than anyone in the world."  There's the description of how the bomb-detecting wand works: a human operator, who must be well-rested and have a steady body temperature, inserts cardboard cards into the device, which does not have batteries or any other source of power. The piece even concludes with the reporter's failed attempts to use the wand to detect a grenade and pistol in plain sight on the table in front of him.

When you have facts like these, you don't even need editorials.

There is going to be a Muhammad biopic. Yes, that Muhammad. Many readers may wonder: How is that possible, with the whole he-shall-not-be-depicted rule? Well, it's pretty simple; the movie will never show him.

Due to start shooting in 2011, producer Barrie Osborne of Matrix and Lord Of The Rings fame will throw $150 million into a movie that he said is, "an international epic production aimed at bridging cultures. The film will educate people about the true meaning of Islam."

Osborne has enlisted Egyptian cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi to help guide the film's positive portrayal of Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance, though it should be noted that Qaradaw is also barred from entering the U.K. because he defended suicide attacks on Israelis as "martyrdom in the name of God."

KARIM JAAFAR/AFP/Getty Images

28 years ago, Israel launched an airstrike against the Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad, terrified by the prospect of an Iraq with nuclear weapons. 19 year ago, the U.N. imposed comprehensive economic sanctions against Iraq, declaring the country's nuclear program needed oversight. Seven years ago, former president Bush announced that an Iraq with access to weapons of mass destruction, potentially including nuclear technology, demanded a U.S. military response.

And six years after that invasion, Iraq is lobbying to rebuild nuclear reactors. Just one more entry for FP's list of states looking to go nuclear to lose sleep over.

Photo: RAMZI HAIDAR/AFP/Getty Images