Nathaniel Deutsch, professor of religion at Swarthmore College, writes for the New York Times, Oct. 6:

Save the Gnostics
The United States didn’t set out to eradicate the Mandeans, one of the oldest, smallest and least understood of the many minorities in Iraq. This extinction in the making has simply been another unfortunate and entirely unintended consequence of our invasion of Iraq — though that will be of little comfort to the Mandeans, whose 2,000-year-old culture is in grave danger of disappearing from the face of the earth.

Iraq's bitterly divided political leadership came together Sept. 30 to denounce a non-binding US Senate resolution approved last week that endorses the decentralization of Iraq through the establishment of semi-autonomous regions. That same day, the US Embassy in Baghdad issued a statement of its own criticizing the resolution, which advocates a "federal system" with a weak central government and strong Sunni Arab, Shi'ite and Kurdish regions. "The Congress adopted this proposal based on an incorrect reading and unrealistic estimations of the history, present and future of Iraq," said Izzat al-Shahbandar, a member of ex-prime minister Ayad Allawi's parliament bloc. "It represents a dangerous precedent to establishing the nature of the relationship between Iraq and the USA, and shows the Congress as if it were planning for a long-term occupation by their country’s troops." The statement was also signed by Iraq's leading Shi'ite parties and the main Sunni Arab bloc. The US Embassy's highly unusual statement said the resolution would seriously harm Iraq's future stability.

The Turkish government signed an agreement with Iraq Sept. 28 to cooperate in fighting guerillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), who are launching attacks on Turkey from Iraqi territory. That same day, the PKK attacked a military post in Turkey's Hakkari province, leaving two guerillas dead in the ensuing battle. The following day, at least 12 pro-government village militiamen and civilians were killed when their minibus was ambushed by PKK fighters in neighboring Sirnak province. (VOA, Press TV, Iran, Sept. 30)

At least seven young men were killed in an apparent US helicopter attack on an outdoor Ramadan gathering in the Baghdad Shi'ite suburb of Abu Dshir late Sept. 27. Witnesses say the men were playing a traditional Ramadan game called mihaidis, in which teams try to find a hidden ring, when the helicopters appeared, briefly hovered over the crowd—and then began firing machine-gun blasts and rockets. Maj. Brad Leighton, identified by the New York Times as "a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad," responded with the following sensitive statement:

Juan Cole's Informed Comment blog Sept. 24 has an enlightening commentary on a Sept. 20 AP story about the Pentagon's latest report to Congress on supposed "progress" in Iraq. Cole writes that the report, entitled "Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq," "has two graphics that should make us very suspicious about all the declarations that the troop escalation or 'surge' has significantly reduced violence in Iraq... The first graph shows average daily casualties (dead and wounded badly enough to go to hospital) by month in Iraq." This graph indicates that such casualties have (if you will) surged from just over 50 in January 2006 to just shy of 150 in August 2007, with a slight dip in June of this year. In nearly every month, "Coalition Forces" is the smallest category, "Iraqi Security Forces" the next largest, and "Civilians" the big majority. Writes Cole:

Former US Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan famously spills the beans in his new memoir, The Age of Turbulence: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." (London Times, Sept. 16) On her blog Sept. 25, Arianna Huffington lauds leftist icon Naomi Klein for calling out Greenspan on this point in a Sept. 24 interview with him on Democracy Now: "Are you aware that, according to the Hague Regulations and the Geneva Conventions, it is illegal for one country to invade another over its natural resources?" (Contrast Ann Coulter's "Why not go to war just for oil? We need oil! What do Hollywood celebrities imagine fuels their private jets? How do they think their cocaine is delivered to them?")

Another blow in Iraq's escalating Sunni civil war—and further evidence that any attempt at "reconciliation" will be doomed as long as the US remains in Iraq, allowing the jihadis to pose as the "resistance," and anyone advocating co-existence to be tarred as collaborators. (Not that these collaborationist sheikhs necessarily do want co-existence with Shi'ites.) Contrary to the depressing conventional wisdom, the first absolutely necessary requisite for a de-escalation in Iraq and isolating the al-Qaeda types is a withdrawal of all occupation troops. From the New York Times, Sept. 25:

While Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Sept. 24 soapbox session at Columbia University sparked high-profile protests and a media feeding-frenzy, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's appearance that same day at a Shi'ite mosque in Queens went largely unnoticed—despite the fact that he runs a death-squad state and also aspires to Iran-style Shi'ite totalitarianism. Why is that? OK, here's a clue: The mosque where he appeared is named after and linked to the foundation established by a late imam of al-Maliki's tendency who was no more progressive (or "moderate") than Iran's reigning mullahs where rights for women, gays, secularists or Sunnis is concerned—but who happened to be on the CIA payroll. In other words, as FDR said of a particular Central American dictator, "our son of a bitch." While al-Maliki's visit did make the New York Times, it was only the Queens Times-Ledger which noted (without comment) his rather sinister comments at the affair (emphasis added):