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...Another key chairman-to-be, Joseph Biden, who will take over the Foreign Relations Committee in January, was miffed that the commission dismissed his proposal to federalize Iraq, setting up Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish regions run by largely autonomous governments. Shortly after the 96-page report's public release, Biden issued a lengthy critique of its recommendations. The changes the commission proposed, Biden complained, "are necessary, but not sufficient to achieve the objective most Americans share: to leave Iraq without leaving chaos behind." The commission's proposal to beef up U.S. military trainers embedded in Iraqi units while withdrawing...
...force nor the Lebanese Army appears likely to even try and disarm Hizballah, which has agreed simply to refrain from openly bearing arms in the border zone. Now Israeli officials, Western diplomats and Arab sources hostile to Hizballah and its allies are all warning that the radical Shi'ite movement is actually replenishing its missile arsenal with the help of Iran and Syria...
...from being part of the solution, the Iraqi military and police forces are often part of the problem. The police, in particular, are thoroughly infiltrated by Shi'ite militias and are frequently complicit in the kidnapping and murder of Sunnis and the ethnic cleansing of mixed neighborhoods. If the U.S. mission in Iraq is, indeed, redefined along the lines suggested by the ISG, things are more likely to get worse than better...
...ite politicians such as radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and President Bush's recent visitor, Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, are also keen to see the Americans back off. With U.S. forces no longer in charge, there will be no restraining the Shi'ite militias - including those controlled by al-Sadr and al-Hakim - from bullying and butchering the Sunni minority. In Washington, al-Hakim was careful to emphasize he doesn't want Americans to leave. But Shi'ite leaders want the U.S. to focus on defeating the Sunni insurgency, not on the Shi'ite militias...
...Still, the notion of a "Shi'ite crescent" emerging in the Middle East may be based more on Sunni fears than Shi'ite ambitions. The anti-Western alliance, which includes Sunni Palestinians, is more political than religious in nature, motivated by antipathy toward Israel and a determination to rid the region of U.S. influence. Hizballah calculates that by toppling the Western-backed government in Beirut, U.S. influence in Lebanon and the wider region will be curbed. The conflict playing out in Lebanon, then, may not simply be based on the country's age-old sectarian tensions, but in a regional...