Frenemies

Powerful Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr instructed his followers on Sunday to target US troops deploying to Iraq as part of the military campaign against ISIS.
Sadr, who rose to prominence when his Mahdi Army battled US troops after the 2003 invasion, posted the comments on his official website after a follower asked for his response to the announcement.
"They are a target for us," Sadr said, without offering details.
Sadr, who commands the loyalty of tens of thousands of supporters, is also leading a protest movement that saw demonstrators storm Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone government district twice this year, hampering parliament for weeks.

Does U.S. think Iraq is already a broken state?

Last week, a memorandum of understanding on military cooperation between the KRG and the United States was signed in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region. The signing was followed today with an announcement of a visit to Kurdistan by General Joseph Votel, the head of the United States Central Command and the highest ranking officer to visit the KRG. President Masound Barzani recently met a Defense Department delegation headed by Elissa Slotkin, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.
These visits, agreements reached, and recent U.S. commitments to provide direct military aid and financing of $415 million is further evidence of the importance of the Kurds and their Peshmerga fighting forces in the fight against ISIS, and potentially the coming battle for Mosul.

What is Kurdistan?

Kurds and residents of Kirkuk demand the Province be included in the Kurdistan Region referendum, but Turkmen and Arab parties are against the move.
The referendum is expected to include the disputed territories, including Kirkuk and the city of Sinjar (Shingal).

What's after ISIS?

Even as Iraqi special forces and Shia militias roll back the self-proclaimed Islamic State, Baghdad has done little to address the underlying causes of Sunni militancy, says journalist Ned Parker....
There is no consensus about what the state should look like. Sunnis are in disarray, their population ruined and displaced by war, their political leadership seen as discredited. The Shia elite are fighting each other to control the state. The army has not been rebuilt. Shia paramilitary forces challenge the state. All of that prevents any meaningful discussion of what the social contract should be for Iraqi Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds. There is a real mystery hanging over what will come the day after ISIS is defeated.
Another question is, what do we mean by defeated? ISIS fighters are leaving cities, but are still in the deserts of Anbar, Salahuddin province, and the mountains of Diyala [see map]. They can wage an insurgency for years to come. If there’s no solution for the different sides to live together under a workable governing system, Iraq risks a future in which once again an uprising will take away land from the state, just as in June 2014, when cities were swept up in an uprising that ISIS either spearheaded or stole, depending on how you define it. Whether it’s in the name of ISIS or some other radical group, it promises only more violence and bloodshed for the country....
Around the country, the state has not reestablished the rule of law; there are parallel power structures in places. No one is guaranteed that they will be safe.
Ramadi was recaptured in December. Six months later, people say not enough has been done there for people to live decently and safely. The city is bereft of human services. You can win the battle, but if there’s no funding for credible reconstruction, it doesn’t win the local population over to the Iraqi government.
Some argue Tikrit is a success because most civilians have returned to the city, but internally displaced people were running out of money and had no other place to go. There is a local government and police force there, but any Sunni from that city—in safety, behind closed doors—will say that the ultimate powers there are Shia militias. They worry that they could be detained or kidnapped at any time and no one will be held to account. It’s similar across the rest of Salahuddin province.
“The idea that the state controls the territory of Iraq has been exposed as an illusion.”

Why does nobody care about this?

News reports about the recently released 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 attacks are typically dismissive: this is nothing new, it’s just circumstantial evidence, and there’s no “smoking gun.” Yet given what the report actually says – and these news accounts are remarkably sparse when it comes to verbatim quotes – it’s hard to fathom what would constitute a smoking gun...
In any case, what we have access to makes more than just a substantial case: it shows that the Saudi government – including top officials, such as then Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and other members of the royal family – financed and actively aided the hijackers prior to September 11, 2001...
The two hijackers had extensive contacts with Saudi naval officers in the United States, according to telephone records. And when Abu Zubaydah, one of the 9/11 conspirators, was captured in Pakistan, they found the phone number of a Colorado company that managed “the affairs of the Colorado residence of the Saudi Ambassador.” Prince Bandar is practically the star of the suppressed 28 pages – no wonder the Bush administration, which had close ties to him, fought so hard to keep this secret.
The 28 pages also reveal that an individual – name redacted – associated with al-Qaeda and the hijackers sneaked into the US, avoiding Customs agents and the INS due to the fact that he was traveling with a member of the Saudi royal family. We are also told that “Another Saudi national with close ties to the Saudi Royal Family, [redacted], is the subject of FBI counterterrorism investigations and reportedly was checking security at the United States’ southwest border in 1999 and discussing the possibility of infiltrating individuals into the United States.”
The Saudi government’s financial and operational ties to at least two of the 9/11 hijackers are myriad, and largely substantiated.

Housing bubble sort-of

Home prices have hit record highs in some major U.S. metropolitan areas, and house-flippers are behaving like it’s 2005: It’s no wonder people are chattering about another housing bubble.
But residential real estate isn’t in a speculative bubble, industry observers contend. Instead, a low inventory of available homes is driving prices higher—prices, however, will eventually recede as buyers throw up their hands, or as more new homes come on line.