The Common Ills: Big meet-up in Paris, Haider brings the whine

Tuesday, June 02, 2015

Big meet-up in Paris, Haider brings the whine

Yesterday, Haider al-Abadi declared that the international coalition was failing Iraq since foreign fighters continued to enter the country. Today, the prime minister of Iraq is in Paris and seems intent upon turning the City of Lights into the City of Sleights.

Patrick J. McDonnell (Los Angeles Times) reports:

In his comments early Tuesday, Abadi stressed what he called an inadequate global response to the threat of Islamic State, which arose from the tumult of the war in Syria and later expanded into Iraq.
“I think this is a failure on the part of the world,” Abadi said, reported the BBC. “There is a lot of talk of support for Iraq, [but] there is very little on the ground.”

John Irish (Reuters) adds:

"The problem is not exclusively in Iraq. We are trying to do our part, but Daesh was not created in Iraq," he said, referring to Islamic State by its mildly derogatory Arabic acronym.
Abadi said Iraq urgently needed more intelligence and weapons, including anti-tank guns. He said Baghdad had received very few arms or ammunition despite coalition pledges to provide more weapons.

"Almost none. We are relying on ourselves," he said, noting that he was waiting for U.N. approval to buy weapons from Iran.

To slightly alter John Lennon's "Instant Karma," "and we all whine on." With Hadier in the lead.

Blinken's Tweet can be seen as an indication of who's leading the conference. As we noted yesterday, France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has been vocal on the need for a political solution. If he's leading -- or just one of the leads -- the conference might actually accomplish something.

One person who could have added to the discussion is Emma Sky. Fred Hiatt (Washington Post) notes:

Though her opinion of Bush, Blair and the invasion endured, other views evolved — about the U.S. military, about Iraq and, ultimately, about what caused Iraq’s unraveling, which is the title she gave to her entertaining, sad, enlightening new book.

“The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq” is entertaining because Sky is a wry and intelligent companion. It is sad for its account of how the Obama administration squandered what Sky views as the victory that the surge had snatched from the first catastrophic years of U.S. occupation. It is enlightening for how it helps us unlearn much of what we think we know — for example, that “ancient hatreds” rending the Shiite, Sunni and Kurds make Iraq a hopeless case.

The following community sites -- plus FPIF, the Guardian and Jody Watley -- updated: