The conflict in Darfur is deteriorating, as full deployment of the new UN force has been postponed to 2009. The war has killed an estimated 300,000 people in five years.

Denmark and the Netherlands have moved all the staff from their embassies in Afghanistan to secret safe locations because of concern about security.

Americans and Iraqis tell two different stories about the war in Iraq. Most Iraqis say that the United States-led invasion and occupation have fueled violence. The dominant American story is that US forces are curbing sectarian violence and making things better in Iraq. This gap in perception severely undermines public diplomacy efforts throughout the Muslim world, necessitating a much greater effort toward understanding the Iraqi point of view.
Recently, I was sipping tea with a group of Iraqi community development workers in Amman, Jordan. The conversation shifted from a focus on their attempts to reconcile Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders in villages across Iraq to the larger question of how to reconcile US and Iraqi narratives about the war.
“Do Americans know they have made the situation worse?
Do they know there was no Al-Qaeda here before the war, but now our cities are full of terrorists?“

US Abdication
The dominant Iraqi version of the conflict (though of course not the only one) goes something like this:
“While some of us wanted the United States to help overthrow Saddam Hussein, most of us think the Americans have stayed too long.
The US presence in Iraq fuels sectarian violence and has been a magnet for Al-Qaeda and other foreign fighters.
Iraqis feel humiliated by the occupation and believe the US continues to stay in Iraq to justify building permanent military bases and to ensure access to Iraqi oil for American corporations.
We want the US to announce a timetable for its departure. Violence will decrease when the Americans leave.“
Iraqis name the indignity of the occupation as the major reason why they want the US to leave their country. Many Iraqis believe that American interests in both Iraqi oil and the establishment of permanent military bases in Iraq sway, if not control, Iraqi politics. They point out the irony that those wanting a “soft partition“ of Iraq are unlikely allies; as such, a partition would allow greater influence by the United States, and Al-Qaeda, and corporate oil interests.
Most Iraqis themselves, on the other hand, prefer a strong central government that controls its own oil.
This Iraqi narrative is confirmed by polling data. A recent ABC-BBC poll showed that over 70 percent of Iraqis wanted the US to leave Iraq.
Most believed the US troop “surge“ had increased rather than decreased violence in Iraq. Earlier polls by World Public Opinion showed that while nearly half of the Iraqi population supported attacks on US troops, only 1 percent agreed with attacks on civilians across sectarian lines.

US Responsibility
In the US, the dominant narrative is quite different. It goes something like this: “While some of us believe we should not have gone to war in the first place, many now believe the US has some responsibility to prevent the sectarian violence that we believe threatens to pull Iraq apart.
American leaders across the political spectrum believe the US should stay in Iraq until security improves. The American public generally agrees that a vibrant democracy in Iraq is central to US interests in the war on terror.“
Within this narrative, many Americans see two choices: a long-term US military presence, or a US withdrawal leading to sectarian warfare. But there is a third option for responsible US engagement in Iraq. The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, cautioned more than a year ago that “there is no military solution [in the country], the solution is economic and political.“ If the US presence is indeed fueling rather than curbing violence in Iraq, it is time to go a step further: withdrawing US troops, supporting international peacekeeping forces, initiating robust regional diplomacy, and investing in reconstruction and humanitarian aid for the nearly 5 million displaced Iraqis.
This plan would more accurately respond to the true democratic wishes of the Iraqi people.
It is time Americans engage Iraqis more directly in dialogue to build a bridge between these two very different stories. Our policy discussions of “what to do about Iraq“ need to include Iraqi civil society, government or religious leaders--and seriously consider polling data and Iraqi elections as signals of Iraqis’ desire to have US military forces leave their country.

Daily Star

Pakistan’s new government has drafted a peace agreement with Taliban in its troubled tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, officials and a rebel spokesman said Wednesday.
The government launched talks with the rebels soon after winning elections in February, amid concerns that the military-orientated tactics of President Pervez Musharraf were spawning more violence, AFP reported.
The aim is to transform a month-long lull in a wave of suicide bombings into a permanent peace with the rebels, who have fought the government since Islamabad joined the US-led “war on terror“ in 2001.
“Work is in progress swiftly on a new peace agreement with the Taliban Movement of Pakistan,“ a senior security official said, adding that “indirect negotiations“ through tribal elders were ongoing.
“The draft agreement contains clauses under which both sides will not take armed action against each other. Military will be withdrawn from certain areas, attacks on security forces will be stopped by militants,“ the official said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan told a news conference he has sent a letter to Yerevan calling for dialogue with Armenia and saying Turkey wanted to normalize ties between the two countries.
Babacan said on Monday Turkey desires to normalize its relations with Armenia and is keeping channels of dialogue open with the new Armenian government, the Turkish newspaper “Hurriyet“ wrote on Wednesday.
“Turkey wants to see peace, stability, security and prosperity in its region, but as you know our relations with Armenia do not fit into that formula. We have problems and the only way to solve these problems is through dialogue. Our doors are open to dialogue in the new period ahead,“ Babacan said, when he was asked about Turkey-Armenia relations during a news conference with visiting Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik.
Turkey closed its border with ex-Soviet, Armenia in 1993 during a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan--a Muslim ally of Ankara. The move hurt the economy of tiny, landlocked country, sandwiched between Turkey and Azerbaijan in the region.
As the result of Armenia’s February general election, Serge Sarkisian, a former prime minister, was sworn in earlier this month as the country’s third president since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Armenia, with the backing of the diaspora, claims up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in orchestrated killings during the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey categorically rejects the claims, saying that 300,000 Armenians along with at least as many Turks died in civil strife that emerged when the Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia.

PKK Discussed
The foreign ministers of Iraq, Turkey and the US met on the sidelines of a conference of Iraq’s neighbors as the Washington administration welcomed the cooperation between Ankara and Baghdad in fighting the terrorist organization PKK.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday she is pleased with the cooperation between Iraq and Turkey toward fighting Kurdish militants on Iraqi soil. Rice told reporters in Kuwait everyone is “concerned that Iraq not be a place that can be a haven for terrorists to attack Turkey.“ She added “cooperation is producing some results there.“
Rice also said the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers Party, “an enemy of stability and therefore an enemy of Iraq, Turkey and the United States.“ Turkey launched several aerial attacks and a major ground operation in northern Iraq against outlawed PKK positions in February.

The chief spokesman for the country’s umbrella militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban (Taliban Movement) Pakistan, Maulvi Omar, confirmed to AFP by telephone that “our negotiations with government are going on.“
“There is significant positive development, we have accepted most of each others’ demands. In next few days we hope that a positive outcome is achieved,“ Omar said.
More than 1,000 people have been killed in suicide bombings since the start of last year, including former premier Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated at an election rally in December.