Today's
Stories
November 12 - 14, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
A Very Bitter Woman
Rannie Amiri
The Quest for Power in Iraq
Gareth Porter
Intel Failure in Yemen
William E. Alberts
Why Are the Feds Targeting Black Officials?
Jonathan Cook
Re-Unifying the Palestinian Nation
Ramzy Baroud
Another Baghdad Massacre
James Zogby
Whither Obama's Middle East Agenda?
Mark Weisbrot
Why It Could Get Even Worse for the Democrats
Tanya Golash-Boza
Targeting Jamaicans
Paul Wright
The Case Against Stacia A. Hylton
Martha Rosenberg
Vioxx All Over Again?
Celia McAteer
London Calling: Student Militancy a Welcome Surprise
Michael Winship
Riding the Rails, Looking for Work
Brian McKenna
Anorexia and Capitalism
Gerald E. Scorse
Channeling Reagan on Tax Reform
Christopher Brauchli
Making Oklahoma Safe From Sharia Law
Roberto Rodriguez
Arizona: Where Fear is the Predicate
J. T. Cassidy
Unlocking Imagination in Japan
Farzana Versey
The Misinterpreters of Kashmir's Maladies
Phil Rockstroh
Public Like a Frog
David Swanson
Tall Tillman Tales
Saul Landau
"Stone:" Walking Invisibly in the American Crowd
November 11, 2010
Peter Linebaugh
Laying Down of Arms
Paul Craig Roberts Licensed to Kill
Bill Quigley
Bush Pens True Crime Book
David Macaray Dissing the Boss: the NLRB Files a Landmark Complaint on Free Expression in the Workplace
Liaquat Ali Khan / Jasmine Abou-Kassem
Why the Oklahoma Shariah Law is Unconstitutional
Dedrick Muhammad
Race and Economics
Robert Bryce
Cars for the Elite: Obama's Electric Vehicle Fetish
Alan Farago
What, No Phone Books?
Website of the Day
London Calling
November 10, 2010
Allan Nairn
US-Backed Death Squad Files Surface in Indonesia
Dean Baker
Wall Street's TARP Gang Rides Again: Now They're Coming After Your Social Security!
Nicola Nasser
Waiting for Godot in Palestine
Missy Beattie
Running Scared:
My Colonoscopy Saga
Sergio Ferrari
Worrying Signs From Venezuela to Ecuador
Patrick Cockburn
Can Iraq's Leaders Do a Deal?
Dave Lindorff Mumia: New Lawyer, New Round
Sherwood Ross
How Affirmative Action Brought Willie Mays to the Giants
Joshua Frank
Sinking the Breakwater
Website of the Day
Stiglitz: "Throw the Bankers in Jail to Save the Economy"
November 9, 2010
Uri Avnery
Obama's Defeat
Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Dollar Policy
Jordan Flaherty
The Incarceration Capital of the US: the Crisis Inside New Orleans' Jails
Afshin Rattansi
Red Poppies
Annie Gell
Haiti's Unnatural Disasters
Dean Baker
The Fed's Second Shot
Dave Lindorff
BS From the BLS: Things are Much Worse Than They are Telling Us
Stewart J. Lawrence
The Nancy Monster That Refuses to Die
Walter Brasch
Love and Loss Among the Wild Horses
Website of the Day
Cut This: an Open Letter to the Tea Party
November 8, 2010
Paul Craig Roberts
Phantom Jobs
Thomas Healy
An Interview with Wendell Berry
David Swanson
A CIA Kidnapping in Milan
David Smith-Ferri
What Laila Sees
Ralph Nader
When Betrayed Voters Go to the Polls
Ray McGovern Torture Sans Regrets: Bush's Confessions
John Feffer
The Lies of Islamophobia
Christopher Ketcham
TV Toxicosis: What the Stewart / Colbert News Clowns Are Really Up To
Website of the Day
Sam Husseini Interrogates Rand Paul and Mike Pence
November 5 - 7, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
Now for the Good News
Vijay Prashad
Obama in India: a Tide of Turbans
Patrick Cockburn
If al-Qa'ida Really Want to Hit the West, They Can
Darwin Bond-Graham
Guess Who's Not Coming to Tea?
Mike Whitney
Dollar in the Dustbin
Linn Washington, Jr.
An Epidemic of Brutality: Oakland Filmmaker Feels Police Wrath
Rannie Amiri
STL = Sandbag the Lebanese
Ramzy Baroud
The Middle East's Stagnant "Change"
Larry Portis
Chou Sar? What Happened in Lebanon?
Gary Leupp
The Yemeni Toner Cartridge Bomb Story
William Loren Katz
Are Cruel Years Coming to a Neighborhood Near You?
Brian Cloughley
Spheres of Influence
Mark Weisbrot
The Fatal Mistake
Rubén M. Lo Vuolo, Daniel Raventós / Pablo Yanes
Basic Income in Times of Economic Crisis
Joseph Nevins
Ecological Privilege and the Frequent Flyer Activist
Neve Gordon
Thought Crimes
Alan Farago
The Bhopal Economy
Stewart J. Lawrence
Immigration Policy After the Midterm Elections
James R. King
The Other Side of Yemen
Ron Jacobs
How Ken Kesey Turned On America
Franklin Lamb
Israel Claims Victory in US Midterm Elections
James McEnteer
Beyond the Rational:
the Alamo Election
Richard Phelps
Guy Fawkes and the Pressure of a Terrorism Spotlight
Saul Landau
Where's the Sanity Clause?
David Ker Thomson The Long Argument
Evelyn Pringle
The Vaccination Profiteers
Joseph G. Ramsey Until Pigs Fly: the Morning After With Michael Moore
Stanley Heller
Up Yours, John Stewart
Missy Beattie
The Big Universe
Harvey Wasserman
Vermont's Great Green Election Day Victory
Billy Wharton
Where Did Everybody Go?
Shamus Cooke
Democrats Run to the Right
Linh Dinh
War Games: Guns and Balls
Windy Cooler
Rallying Through This
Charles R. Larson
Witnesses of Haiti's History: Edwidge Danticat's "Create Dangerously"
Phyllis Pollack
Keith Richards' Demon Life
David Yearsley
Bach and the Music of Time
Website of the Weekend
Smearing Jean-Luc Godard as an "Anti-Semite"
November 4, 2010
Doug Peacock
Desert Solitaire, Revisited
Andrew Cockburn
Why Summers Goes and Geithner Stays
Iain Boal
Crisis at Pacifica: the Two-Percent Putsch
Paul Craig Roberts
The Impotence of Elections
Chase Madar
Guantánamo: Exception or Rule?
Dave Lindorff
Take That You Smug Bastards!
Russell Mokhiber
Bought and Paid For
Laura Flanders
Lessons From Elizabeth Warren
Website of the Day
Moyers: the Howard Zinn Lecture
November 3, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
America the Clueless
Franklin C. Spinney
Democratic Debacle
Chris Floyd Dissatisfied Mind: Flickers of Hope in a Deadly Political Cycle
William Blum
Jon Stewart and the Left
Sheldon Richman
Provoking Yemeni Terrorism
Stephen Soldz
Fleecing Members, Colluding in Torture
Mark Weisbrot
Dilma's Victory in Brazil
Stewart J. Lawrence
Court Sends Mixed Signals on Arizona Immigration Law
Manuel Garcia, Jr. Election Night in Oakland
Norman Solomon
Now What?
Website of the Day
Save Our Social Security
November 2, 2010
Vincent Navarro
What's Happening in Europe?
Ishmael Reed
Brown Shirts, Black Shirts, T-Shirts
Uri Avnery
The Occupation and Political Corruption in Israel
Mark Driscoll
When the Pentagon "Kill Machines" Came to an Okinawan Paradise
Mike Whitney
Midterm Day of Reckoning: "Let the Landslide Begin"
Linh Dinh
Prone Pioneers: Punishing the Desperate for Being Desperate
David Macaray
Bring Back the Fifties! America's Most Misunderstood Decade
Randall Amster Wikilessons: War is a Joke, But It Isn't Funny
Betsy Ross
How the Banks Trumped Keynes
Yves Engler
A Sad Spectacle:
Canada and the Jewish National Fund
Website of the Day
Gulf Oil Toxic to Humans
November 1, 2010
Ted Honderich
The Farce of Fairness
Steven Higgs
Don't Act Don't Sell: Why Liberals Will Get What They Deserve on Election Day
John Ross
A Ding-Dong Year for Death in Mexico
Dean Baker
A Darkening Future: Why Growth Still Feels Like a Recession
Ralph Nader
When Corporations are the Government
Justin E. H. Smith
The People Without History
Marjorie Cohn
Hyping Fear
Scott Boehm
Juan Williams and Katrina
Brian Tierney
The Struggle of DC's Nurses
Trish Kahle
Jon Stewart, Are You Really That Sane?
Martha Rosenberg Bathrobe Erectus: Feting Hugh Hefner
Website of the Day
Scary New Wage Data
October 29 - 31, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)
Joe Bageant
Flatworm Economics
Peter Lee
China-Bashing Among the Elites
David Rosen
Class War in America
Mike Whitney
Bernanke Gets His Pink Slip
David Smith-Ferri Afghanistan: "Is This Normal?"
David Macaray Chamber of Horrors: Turbo-Lobbyists for the Ruling Class
Rannie Amiri
"Man Up," Juan Williams
Jonathan Cook
Protest Met With Rubber Bullets
Ramzy Baroud
Obama as a Salesman
Ellen Brown
Time for a New Theory of Money
Dr. Nina Pierpont
Wind Turbine Syndrome
Dave Lindorff
America's Happy News Media
Brian Horejsi
Mountain Biking in National Parks:
a Sordid and Destructive Affair
Daniel Raventós Worldwide Concentration of Wealth: What the Figures Say
Richard Anderson-Connolly
Obama and the Politics of Misrule
David Thomson
Democracy is Effigy
Christopher Brauchli
It's the Muslims Fault!
Bob Fitrakis / Harvey Wasserman Charging Rove With Racketeering
Roberto Rodriguez Arizona Blues: a Time and Decade of Betrayal
Ron Jacobs
Vietnam's Revolution in the Revolution
Farzana Versey
Obama's Hawkish Policy in India
Michael Donnelly
Break Out the Clothespins: It's Voting Season
Gerald E. Scorse
Deficit Rises, Hypocrisy Rises Faster
John Grant
Xbox. vs. Wikileaks
Mickey Z.
When Criminals Vote ...
Charles R. Larson
Fear of Growing Up
Kim Nicolini
"Catfish": DIY Horror Film-making
Peter Stone Brown
The New Old Dylan
David Yearsley
Wagner v. the Machine
Poets' Basement
Davies, Ford and Clark
Website of the Weekend
CSPAN: Cockburn and St. Clair on Seattle WTO Protest and Beyond
October 28, 2010
Paul Craig Roberts
America's Job Losses are Permanent
Joseph Grosso
Wal-Mart and New York City
Kirkpatrick Sale
Getting Back to the Real Constitution?
Michael Winship
All They Ask For is an Unfair Advantage
Sherwood Ross
Gitmo's Indelible Stain: the Ordeal of Murat Kurnaz
Mark Weisbrot
Kirchner's Legacy: Rescuing Argentina; Uniting South America
Sam Smith Washington: Where Smart People Go to Do Stupid Things
Nicholas Arguimbau
Winning the War in Afghanistan at $50 Million per Kill
Sheldon Richman
Leaking the Truth
Franklin Lamb
Squeezing Hezbollah: Feltman's "Really Great Plan"
Website of the Day
The Anthropology of Garbage
October 27, 2010
Conn Hallinan
Money Wars
Michael Schwalbe
When Drones Come Home to Roost
Dave Lindorff
Obama's Black Site Prison: What are They Hiding at Bagram?
Gareth Porter
The Futile Surge
Dean Baker
An Economic Disaster
Clancy Sigal
The Sissy Left: Wimps Can't Win
Ram Etwareea
Why the Debt Crisis Hit Europe Harder Than the Emergent Countries of the South
Stewart J. Lawrence
Was Juan Williams "Lynched"?
Alan Farago
The Juan Williams Affair
Binoy Kampmark Offshoring Middle Earth: Prostituting the Hobbit
Website of the Day
Nature's Sting
October 26, 2010
Pam Martens
The Far Right's Secret Slush Fund to Keep Fear Alive
Joann Wypijewski
The Days of the Dead
Clarence Lusane Sold Brothers: the Bizarro World of Juan Williams and Clarence Thomas
Gareth Porter
The Futile Surge
Stephen Soldz
Iraq War Logs: Early Highlights
Lawrence Davidson
Ashcroft's Immunity and the Obama Administration
Alan Farago
The Florida Growth Machine
Dean Baker
The Abused Sibling
Jerica Arents
The Women's Harvest
Gerald E. Scorse Messing with Mankiw: Whining About Taxes and Work
Website of the Day
"A Project of Death and Destruction"
October 25, 2010
Nancy Scheper-Hughes
Body Parts and Bio-Piracy: Tissue, Skin and Organ Harvesting at Israel's National Forensic Institute
Patrick Cockburn
Echoes of El Salvador in US-Approved Death Squads
Kathy Kelly
"You're Not Alone"
Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Dilemma
Bill Quigley
The Class War at Home
Winslow T. Wheeler
How Many More Trillions for the Pentagon?
David Macaray
Sick Leave as National Policy
Stewart J. Lawrence
Latina "Mama Grizzly" Stalks Her Den
Ray McGovern
Honoring Julian Assange
Missy Beattie
Ginni and Clarence: Just Us at Home
Website of the Day
Please Vote for Washington Stakeout Today!
October 22 - 24, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
Your Money, Our Life
Lee Ballinger
After the Coal Rush: Music v. King Coal
Franklin C. Spinney
Memo to Obama: Three Strikes and You're Out
Rannie Amiri
Palestine's Olive Harvest Horror
Ralph Nader
Ten Questions for Tea Partiers
Laura Carlsen
Ecuador's Failed Coup: the Latin American Backlash
Avi Shlaim
Dishonest Broker: the US, Israel and Palestine
Mike Whitney
Thank God for France
Josh Stieber
An Iraq Surge Vet on Wikileaks
Kathy Kelly
"War Does This to Your Mind"
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The Left and Iranian Exiles
Conn Hallinan
Rising Tensions in the China Seas
Linn Washington, Jr.
The Ignored Dark-Sides of Joblessness
Christopher Brauchli
The Arms Sale Economy
Mark Weisbrot
Why French Protestors Have It Right
Stan Cox
"Nuke Them!"
When Juan Williams Said Something Worse
Ramzy Baroud
The Violence Debate
Dave Lindorff
Arise, Ye Homeowners of America, You Have Nothing to Lose But Your Mortgages!
Benjamin Dangl
Ecuador's Challenge
Peter Stone Brown
Bob Dylan and America
Julie Hilden
High School Rumors and the First Amendment
David Ker Thomson
Bunker U
Missy Beattie
Owning the Shares of Shame
Suzy Dean
Ignoring the Social Benefits of Drinking
Charles M. Young
Crackpot Curriculum
M. Shahid Alam
A Dialectical Approach to the Qu'ran
Charles R. Larson
How to Destroy Your Marriage
David Yearsley
Learning and Lust in Berlin's New Library
Poets' Basement
José M. Tirado
Website of the Weekend
Help Bring Yoga into Prisons
October 21, 2010
Diana Johnstone
French Fury in the EU Cage
Joanne Mariner
A Glimpse into the Silicon Heart of the CIA's Drone Program
Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Biggest Problem: China as Collateral Damage
Lawrence Davidson
Invisible Israel?
Bill Quigley /
Laura Raymond
Artist Resistance in Honduras
Alan Farago
The Next Idiot Might Be You
David Smith-Ferri
Building Bamiyan Peace Park
Tolu Olorunda Educational Heroes and Myths
Website of the Day
Don't Just Deplore Bullying--Fight It!
October 20, 2010
Philippe Marlière
France Erupts: Sarkozy Under Siege
Tariq Ali
Red Hot France; Tepid Britain
Anthony Pahnke / Mark N. Hoffman
Digging Deeper: the San Jose Mine Disaster in Context
David Smith-Ferri
Bamiyan (Afghanistan) Diaries: Day One
Patrick Madden
QE2 and Foreclosures: Bank of America's Wager
Ishmael Reed
Professor Joe, Oakland's Next Mayor?
Dean Baker
Mortgage Mayhem
Mike Roselle
I'm Not Going Down Without a Fight
Dave Marsh
The Great General Johnson
Pete Redington
Dork is the New Cool
Website of the Day
The Poster Boy of Foreclosures
October 19, 2010
Pam Martens
The Koch Empire and Americans for Prosperity
Uri Avnery
The State of Bla-Bla- Bla
Ralph Nader
The Media and the Far Right
Clarence Lusane
From the White House to Obama's House: Race and Political Transition
Sherwood Ross
Union-Busting in Iraq
Trudy Bond
The Despot of Oklahoma:
Mr. Coburn Goes to Haiti
Sherry Wolf
Our Not-So-Great Depression
Yves Engler
Why the UN Rejected Canada's Bid for the Security Council
Camilla Fox /
Chris Genovali
Killing Carnivores for Cash
Erin McManus
Hanoi Jane: War, Sex and Fantasies of Betrayal
Website of Day
Solar Done Right
October 18, 2010
Mike Whitney
How to Kickstart the Economy
Jonathan Cook
Settler Takeover of Israeli Police
Martha Rosenberg
The Return of Mad Cow Disease?
Stewart J. Lawrence
Does Jerry Brown's Campaign Have a Death Wish?
P. Sainath
The Narcissism of the Neurotic
James Zogby
Texas Takes a Dangerous Step Backwards
Ken Cole, Ralph Maughan / Brian Ertz
Governmental Disdain for Wolves
Patrick Brennan
Matt Taibbi's Epiphany: Dumping on the Tea Party
Jack Heyman
Justice for Oscar Grant! Jail for Killer Cops!
John Grant
Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Think
Website of the Day
Eating in Public
October 15 - 17, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
Daughters of the Gipper
Slavoj Žižek
What is the Left to Do?
Paul Craig Roberts
The War on Terror: What's It All About?
Adrienne Pine /
David Vivar
Saving Honduras?
Peter Lee
The Detention of Xie Chaoping
Jonathan Cook
My Loyalty Oath
Bitta Mostofi
Admiring Ahmadinejad and Overlooking Activists
Franklin Lamb
On the Road with Ahmadinejad in Lebanon
Rannie Amiri
A Small Shove Back
Robert Alvarez
Nuclear Testing and the Rise of Thyroid Cancers
Joe Paff
Beyond Brown v. Whitman:
the Late Great State of California
David Rosen
Sexy Sisters: the New Republican Women
David Correia
Greenwashing the Wal-Mart Way
Sam Hitchmough
Competing Americas: the Rise of the Tea Party
Ramzy Baroud
The Tide Has Changed
Dave Lindorff
Don't Act, Don't Lead: Obama Stiffs Gays in the Military Again
Graham Usher
Waiting on America
Gary Leupp
The Non-Jewish Immigration Loyalty Oath
David Macaray
In the Trenches of Union Politics
Ron Jacobs
Jimi Hendrix's "Machine Gun" and Obama's iPod
Peter Cervantes-Gautschi
Wall Street and the Criminalization of Immigrants
Lawrence Swaim
How Neo-Cons Became Honorary Christians
Linn Washington
Corporate Charter Schools Get the Cash
David Ker Thomson
Under Democracy
Norman Solomon
Progressive Canaries
Michael Dawson
Electric Evasions: the Green Car Con
John Stanton
Defense Contractors From Hell
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Leaving Las Vegas
Paul Buchheit
Stop the HURT
Ziad Abbas
Palestine: Without Water, There is No Life
Anthony Papa
Life for an $11 Robbery
Hardy Jones
New Threats to Dolphins: Toxins and Viruses
Missy Beattie
The Bedbug War: Nearly Helpless
Charles R. Larson
Fighting to End Africa's Worst Human Rights Crimes
Peter Stone Brown
Music Under the Radar
David Yearsley
Apollo's Fire
Poets' Basement
Moser & Rihn
Website of the Weekend
On This Earth
October 14, 2010
Mike Whitney
Bernanke Ponders the "Nuclear" Option
Jonathan Cook
The Transfer Scenario
Dean Baker
Globalizing Health Care
Marjorie Cohn
Israeli Raid on Gaza Flotilla: US Fails to Condemn, Despite UN Finding
Stewart J. Lawrence
Sex and the Orgasm Gap: Are Men Still Dominating Women in Bed?
Carl Finamore
San Francisco's Hotel Frank(enstein): a Horror Show for Employees
Dave Lindorff
9 Million Stolen Homes:
Getting Tough on Banker Crime
Raúl Zibechi
Brazil's Elections: the Continuation of Lulismo
Willie L. Pelote
Shock Therapy for California?
Website of the Day
Can Mushrooms Rescue the Gulf?
October 13, 2010
Vijay Prashad
The Waning of Obama
Uri Avnery
His Father's Son:
the Real Bibi
Dean Baker
The Counterfeit Recovery
Winslow T. Wheeler
Where is the Payoff for Huge Pentagon Budget Hikes?
Patrick Bond
"To Exist is to Resist:" From Apartheid South Africa to Palestine
Michael Winship
Cash You Can Believe In
Myles B. Hoenig
Are We Expendable? An Education Manifesto From the Trenches
Tom Turnipseed
Money Talks (and Swears)
Website of the Day
The Return of Ben Tripp, as Zombie Novelist
October 12, 2010
Ralph Nader
Tricks and Traps in the Fine Print
Franklin C. Spinney
Techno War: Money Talks, Counter-measures Walk
Mike Whitney
The Future is Ugly
Robert Alvarez
The Tritium Deficit
Deepak Tripathi
India's High Stakes Foreign Policy
Chris Genovali / Camilla Fox
Death Cults Among Us:
the War on Wolves
Harvey Wasserman
Calvert Cliffs on the Brink
Robert Jensen
Soils and Souls: the Promise of the Land
Mark Weisbrot
How to Change the IMF
Charles R. Larson
America's Religious Veneer
Website of the Day
How You Can Help Fund Radical Grassroots Green Groups (and Double Your Money)
October 11, 2010
Michael Hudson
Why the U.S. Has Launched a New Financial World World War
Bill Quigley
A Million Haitians Slowly Dying
Linn Washington
American Justice on Trial
Paul Krassner
Eat, Pray, Be Disappointed: an Open Letter to Obama
Jonathan Cook
Israel's Other "Peace" Plan
Cal Winslow
Big Money, the Big Lie and Fear
Sherry Wolf
Why are Liberals Building the Right?
Peter Stone Brown
Brother Solomon Burke
David Michael Green
How Do You Take Your Tea?
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Disclose This
Website of the Day
"Seize the Jail! Tear It Down!!"
October 8 - 10, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
The Soros Syndrome
Paul Craig Roberts
America's Third World Economy
Alain Gresh
What Does a "One State Solution" Really Mean?
Patrick Cockburn
Is Pakistan Falling Apart?
Rannie Amiri
An Evaporating Palestine
Conn Hallinan
Ecuador: Coup or Riot?
Ramzy Baroud
Dying to Win
Saul Landau
Harboring Terrorists
Sam Smith
What's Missing in the Talk About Education Reform
Yvonne Ridley
On the Road to Damascus, Thinking of Monty Python
Ellen Brown
Foreclosuregate:
a Massive Fraud
Santwana Dasgupta
A View From the Top of the World
David Macaray Labor Secretaries: Frances and Elaine
Gerald E. Scorse
Tax System Favors Wealth Over Work
Tony Newman
The Perils of Prohibition
David Ker Thomson
Soundtrack for a Beating
Christopher Brauchli
Authentic Dishonesty: Newt and Dinesh Save America!
Jon Mitchell
Oliver North, Ospreys and Agent Orange
Kevin Zeese
The Longest War
Steven Best
Rethinking Revolution
Missy Beattie
Invasion of the Blood-Sucking Bedbugs
Binoy Kampmark
England's Football Inc.
Charles R. Larson
Egypt's Camus?
Kim Nicolini
"Social Network:"
Narcissism and Claustrophobia Among the Techno-Elites
Dave Marsh
"American Idiot:" Finally, a Musical That Rocks
David Yearsley
The Dark Side of Musical Enlightenment
Poets' Basement
Three by Peter Branson
Website of the Weekend
Help the Great Michael Fracasso Revolutionize the Music Industry
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Weekend Edition
November 12 - 14, 2010
Maliki to Stay as PM, But Leaders Cut His Powers
Iraq's Stalemate Ends
By PATRICK COCKBURN
Iraqi leaders have ended eight months of political stalemate by supporting the reappointment of Nouri al-Maliki as Prime Minister but have sought to rein in his authority.
The country's parliament met yesterday and was expected to return Maliki for a second term. The parliament is also to pass a charter defining the Prime Minister's authority and seeking to ensure the cabinet makes decisions, not the Prime Minister alone.
"In recent years, Maliki hijacked the authority of the state, concentrated decision-making in the Prime Minister's office, and set up military and intelligence units answering directly to him," said an Iraqi source. "Methods of preventing this happening again have been widely discussed among other Iraqi leaders."
The Iraqi parliament was also expected yesterday to return Jalal Talabani as President and the powerful Sunni politician Osama al-Nujaifi as the Speaker of Parliament.
A Sunni-backed coalition of 57 members, including the Speaker, Ayad Allawi, walked out of in protest before the vote. Their action underlines how fragile any new government might be.
Iyad al-Allawi, the former prime minister backed by Sunni Arab countries and Turkey, is the main loser from the new agreement. He will head a newly created council for strategic policy, to which other Iraqi leaders will belong. It will be able to veto government policies if 80 per cent of council members vote to do so. Given the fractiousness of Iraqi politics, such a consensus will be difficult to achieve and the council may turn out to have little real power.
The allocation of ministerial posts will be agreed over the next month with Sunni politicians hoping to secure the job of Foreign Secretary that has long been held by Hoshyar Zebari, a senior Kurdish leader. And in a further effort to satisfy different parties and communities, the number of deputy prime ministers may be increased.
The new power-sharing agreement essentially reappoints the Shia-Kurdish coalition that has ruled Iraq since 2005 but with the Sunni given more power. Nujaifi, who controls the Sunni-majority city of Mosul in northern Iraq, will be an ambitious new player in Baghdad.
Allawi, a secular Shia leading the mainly Sunni al-Iraqiya party, sought to be prime minister himself after the March 7 election, but some factions in his party are seeking an agreement with the government.
Allawi has no real constituency of his own. Maliki rebuilt his relations with Iran and the main Shia religious parties. Much will now depend on how far Maliki keeps the agreements he has reached with other parties to stay in power. The Kurds, Sadrists and Sunni will all be wary of him reneging on his promises.
Patrick Cockburn is the author of "Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq
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