Word: itely
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...reaction to the Erbil arrests could be a foretaste of things to come as the U.S. ramps up its operations against Iran inside Iraq. Tehran enjoys far warmer ties than Washington does with the Shi'ite ruling alliance in Iraq, ties that have been regularly affirmed by high-profile visits to Tehran by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani (a Kurd) and other key leaders such as recent White House guest Abdulaziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). As long as Washington's objective was to oust Saddam and enable...
...Recent and past history offers little reason to believe the Kurds and Shi'ites will back U.S. moves against Iranian influence in Iraq. Not only are the main Shi'ite parties traditionally far closer to Iran than they are to Washington, but the Kurds add a pragmatic rationale for seeking good relations with the Islamic republic. As Foreign Minister Zebari explained to CNN on Sunday, Iraq's leaders know they will have to "live with" Iran next door - whereas Washington's presence in Iraq is temporary. President Talabani appeared to signal his independence from U.S. foreign policy on Sunday when...
...anybody ask the Iraqis? While U.S. officials commonly use terms such as "meddling" to describe Iranian involvement in Iraq - an accusation echoed by Sunni leaders inside Iraq and by the Sunni Arab regimes with which Secretary Rice has been meeting in recent days - the Shi'ite and Kurdish parties that lead Iraq's government don't share Washington's animus towards Tehran; in both cases they have close ties with Iran forged during years of exile and warfare...
...down. Third, this is no longer an insurgency; it's a civil war. Counterinsurgency tactics are designed to help a credible indigenous government fight a guerrilla opponent. The idea that Nouri al-Maliki's government is responsible is laughable: it's little more than a fig leaf for Shi'ite militias. Finally, as Mosul shows, these tactics require lots of time. I asked a leading active-duty Army counterinsurgency expert how long it would take before we knew if the surge had succeeded. "Ten years," he said. That's not a surge. It's a glacier...
...Iranian border. U.S. Navy SEALs have trained teams to guard the Caspian's underwater pipelines, and U.S. Customs agents have overseen border and airport security systems. With Baku just a couple of hours' drive from Iran, "Azerbaijan could be the world's only secular country with a Shi'ite majority," says the State Department official...