ORIGINAL MATERIAL PRODUCED BY THE GLOBAL BEAT SYNDICATE Ehsan Ahrari: on how Pakistan's Musharraf could be the key to a Bush election victory by aiding in the capture of bin Laden

New York University

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Supporters take to the streets to support Iraqi Shiite Leader Muqtada Sadr

President Bush holds a remote control televised NSC Meeting to deal with Iraq, while on an Easter vacation at Crawford, Texas. (April 7, 2004)

U.S. ISSUES AN ARREST WARRANT FOR AN IRAQI SHIITE FIREBRAND
L. Paul Bremer's decision to exercise an arrest warrant for Shiite leader Muqtada Sadr, and subsequently to disband his armed militias, known as the Mahdi Army, spells the end to a tenuous truce. It will leave U.S. troops fighting both Sunnis and Shiites in an increasingly explosive environment. (BBC, April 5, 2004)
•U.S. Central Command Background briefing (April 5)
•U.S. Coalition briefing on Monday, (April 5)

IRAQ NOW ENTERING PHASE TWO OF THE REVOLT?
University of Michigan Middle East scholar and expert on Shia Islam, Juan Cole, suggests that the explosion of violence over the weekend may have been triggered by the U.S. decision last week to close Muqtada's newspaper, al-Hawza, which had a circulation of 10,000 copies and was distributed mostly in mosques. While Bremer intended merely to silence a radical publication spreading incendiary opinions about the U.S. occupation, Muqtada, who has an apocalyptic vision of politics in Iraq, may have interpreted the closing as the first step to silencing his organization and eventually arresting and possibly executing him. As Muqtada saw it, the only option left for political survival was open revolt. (JuanCole.com, April 5, 2004)
•Cole's analysis of Iraqi Arabic news reactions to the fighting...April 6...Muqtada faces resistance from Sistani's forces as well.
•The competing Shiite factions in Iraq (Fall 2003)•(in pdf format) Muqtada onlyheads a third of Iraq's Shiites, but the movement occupies a pivotal position because of its strong representation among the young and poor.(Juan Cole in The Middle East Journal, Fall 2003)
•Samer Shehata and Adeed Dawisha discuss the immediate implications on PBS' News Hour.

RICHARD LUGAR AND JOSEPH BIDEN ON THE SCHEDULED TURNOVER OF IRAQI SOVEREIGNTY
The U.S. crackdown on unruly Shiite elements appears to have been an effort to clear the decks before the scheduled turnover of political authority on June 30. On that date, Bremer is expected to leave Iraq and be replaced by an as yet unnamed American ambassador. Both the Republican and Democratic heads of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warn that the administration has not been able to supply a roadmap of how the transition will work or who will actually be in charge. Worse, consultation with Congress on the administration has slowed to a trickle. Says Lugar, "My perception is that there is indecision within the administration as to how our questions would be answered." (Richard Lugar, Joseph Biden, PBS News Hour, April 5, 2004)

WHY MUCH OF THE WORLD REMAINS INHERENTLY UNSTABLE: A NEW LOOK ATTHE RISE IN URBAN SLUMS
Mike Davis, writing in the New Left Review, notes that in 1950 only 86 cities in the world had a population over one million. Today there are 400, and by 2015, there will be more than 550. Cities have absorbed two thirds of the global population explosion, and are now growing by more than a million babies and migrants a week. The urban population will soar to 4 billion, and by 2025, Asia will have ten or more cities with populations over 20 million each. No one knows if that kind of growth will be biologically or politically sustainable. (Mike Davis, NewLeft Review, March-April 2004)
•U.N. Habitat's report on the global situation

HAITI'S NEW STRAWMAN?
Gerard Latortue was hastily chosen to replace Aristide by a U.S.-sponsored group of "wise men." Latortue has no real backing from the Haitian public and has excluded both Aristide's followers and Aristide's opposition from the new government. The only sense of order comes from 3,000 foreign troops patrolling the streets. Columbia University associate journalism professor Amy Wilentz comments. (Amy Wilenz, The Nation, April 1, 2004)

FALLING THROUGH THE CRACKS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
As far as the White house is concerned, prisoners at Guantanamo have no rights because, technically, they are neither soldiers nor civilians. If that is true, what are the rights of the employees of the Pentagon's growing legions of contract-hired private military firms? Peter Singer, writing in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, examines the world's efforts to come to terms with the increasing employment of irregular military personnel. (Peter Singer, JTL via Brookings Institution, April 2004)

AFGHANISTAN: TRYING TO STAY ON THE RADAR SCREEN
The Pentagon has quietly shelved a report by a retired U.S. Army Special Forces colonel, Hy Rothstein, detailing missed opportunities in Afghanistan. one of Rothstein's observations was that an over reliance on aerial bombardment and smart weapons had allowed elements from both the Taliban and Al Qaeda to melt away. The desintegrating situation in Afghanistan seems to bear out Rothstein's assessment, but it also runs counter to Donald Rumsfeld's contention that an ultra high-tech army reduces the need for costly "boots on the ground." Seymour Hersh details Rothstein's assessment in the New Yorker. (Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker, April 5, 2004)
•A lack of security remains the single greatest problem (Center for Strategic and International Studies, April 2, 2004)
•Insufficient funding?
The recent donor's conference in Berlin pledged $8.2 billion for Afghan reconstruction over the next three years. Without security, though, there's little of lasting value that can be done. Afghan president Hamid Kharzai wanted three times that amount. The U.S. pledged to increase its contributions by $2.2 billion. That is a fraction of the $12 billion that the Bush administration is now spending on American military operations in Afghanistan directed at chasing Osama Bin Laden and the remnants of Al Qaeda. At the current rate, U.S. military effort is costing $1 million per U.S. soldier stationed in country. (Camella Entakhabi, Eurasianet, April 2, 2004)

PAKISTAN: NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION DEJA VU
Leonard Weiss, writing in the Journal of the Atomic Scientists, notes that Pakistan's history of nuclear proliferation goes back 25 years. The problem has always been one of weighing Pakistan's value as a political ally against the dangers of its readiness to offer forbidden technology to rogue states. (Leonard Weiss, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May-June, 2004)

BRAZIL: THE NEXT NUCLEAR POWER?
Brazil's reluctance to allow international inspections of the uranium enrichment plant that it is building near Rio de Janeiro has international experts concerned. (Peter Slevin, the Washington Post, April 4, 2004)

CONTINUING TERRORISM IN UZBEKISTAN COULD PROMPT GEOPOLITICAL SHIFT
The recent string of terrorist attacks in Uzbekistan are likely to lead to a shift towards closer ties with Russia and tougher pressure on international organizations campaigning for human rights. (Sergei Blagov, Eurasianet, April 2, 2004)

PALESTINIAN GROUPS UNITE
The latest wrinkle in the Middle East is a bid by Hamas to be part of the Palestinian Authority. Not too long ago, Hamas might have rejected any dialogue because of its opposition to the Oslo peace accords. The new initiative may be a sign that Hamas is taking a softer approach in the wake of the Israeli assassination of its founder, Sheik Yassin, or it could signal a strategy to try to take over the Palestinian leadership from within. Over the last year, the normally fractious Palestinian resistance groups have begun collaborating on terrorist attacks, and some attacks claimed by the PLO's Al Acqsa Martyr's brigade were actually directed by members of Hamas. Middle East Access columnist Khaled Abu Toameh comments on strategic differences within the movement. (Khaled Abu Toameh in Middle East Access, April 5, 2004)
•The new unity among Palestinians (Washington Post)

KOREA: CAN'T LIFE WITH AMERICANS, BUT CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT THEM EITHER
David Isenberg, writing in Asia Times, notes that most Koreans have serious problems with the Bush administration, but Korea's fate is so intertwined with the United States that there is still a recognition that severing the link is impossible. (David Isenberg, Asia Times, April 6, 2004)

CONTINUED SUPPORT FOR THE WAR, BUT WANING CONFIDENCE IN WHERE IT IS ALL GOING
Popular support is still strong according to the latest Pew survey, but confidence in the White House's handling of the War in Iraq and the War on Terror is beginning to shift. Roughly 57% of the public still feel that the war was justified (compared to 63% last September). However, another 57% think that the administration lacks a coherent strategy for what to do in Iraq, and only 50% think U.S. troops should stay (compared to 44% who want them home now). 53% disapprove of the president's handling of Iraq and another 53% disapprove of his handling of the economy.
(Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, April 5, 2004)

SAMUEL HUNTINGTON: THE DENATIONALIZATION OF THE AMERICAN ELITE
As American corporations go increasingly global, they have less need of American employees. It is not hard to understand why the interests of the highly paid elite executives who run these multinationals are diverging increasingly from those of the American public. In addition to a successful economy,most ordinary Americans also want some degree of security and predictability in their everyday lives-- a fact that is often forgotten when the main interest is cheap labor and the bottom line. (Samuel Huntington, In The National Interest [article excerpt, full article available to subscribers only ] March 30, 2004)
•Added comments in American Renaissance

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