Free Republic

Never mind the negotiations with Iran over the Islamic Republic's nuclear weapons program. Far more urgent developments are afoot. While the foreign ministers were busily counting how many centrifuges could spin in Iranian facilities, President Obama and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have arranged a working relationship throughout the Middle East that effectively puts American policy at the service of Iran.Long the goal of Obama, who sent a private emissary to Tehran as early as the 2008 election campaign to tell the Khamenei regime he wanted to be their friend, there is now a de facto alliance between the two...

Missiles of Illusion Remember al-Qaher and al-Zafer? You don't? Well, what about al-Hussein and al-Abbas? No, again? The first two were the names of missiles that the Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdul Nasser relied upon as "secret weapons" in his promised "Battle of Destiny" in 1967. The other two were names of Saddam Hussein's missiles that were supposed to secure him victory in his "Mother of Battles" in 1991. We now have to learn the names of two other missiles, Shahab and Zelzeleh presented by Iran's Khomeinist rulers as in what they regard as an inevitable war against the United States...

Jaafari Name Stirs Confusion in Iran, Iraq September 15, 2007 The Washington Times Iason Athanasiadis Will the real Mohammad Ali Jaafari, who now heads Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, please step forward? The existence of two prominent Iranians with identical names has created confusion, inside and outside of Iran, over who is in charge of the group accused by the United States of arming Shi'ite militias in Iraq. Kurdish forces briefly detained a man named Mohammad Ali Jaafari during a raid in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil in January. Press reports at the time identified that Mr. Jaafari as...

January 11, 2007: A US led raid on a consular office in Irbil, Iraq leads to the capture of six Iranians including(link): Hassan Abbassi, a strategist “close to” President Ahmedinejad and the only individual with any diplomatic credentials.Mohammad Jaafari, an aid to National Security advisor Ali Larijani Jalal Sharifi, a professional intelligence officer. Brig. Gen. Mohammad Djafari Sahraroudi, a Kurdish affairs expert wanted by Interpol Mojhadi Safderi, two Revolutionary Guard officers (link).One of the six, (Hassan?) is released. The other five remain in custody.

Amidst rumors of a coup, the prime minister may finally be willing to step aside. More than four months after the election, a shift in the position of incumbent prime minister may finally open the way for the creation of a new Iraqi government. Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari announced Thursday that he would refer his nomination for a second term back to the United Iraqi Alliance, the dominant Shi'ite bloc in the new legislature. That opens the way for the Alliance to select a new candidate and break the deadlock created by the refusal of the Kurdish, Sunni and secular...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Bowing to intense pressure, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari agreed Thursday to allow Shiite lawmakers to find someone else to head the new government, abandoning his claim on another term in the face of Sunni and Kurdish opposition.

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, under intense pressure to give up plans for a second term, agreed Thursday to let Shiite lawmakers reconsider his nomination, a step that could mark a breakthrough in the months-long effort to form a new government. Key to al-Jaafari's change of heart was pressure from U.N. envoy Ashraf Qazi and his meetings Wednesday with the most powerful Shiite cleric in the country, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical cleric who has backed al-Jaafari, said Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman. "There was a signal from Najaf," Othman said, referring to al-Sistani's office in the Shiite...

Iraq: Jaafari ready to give up its candidature for the post of Prime Minister BAGHDAD - Ibrahim Jaafari was ready Thursday to be given up her candidature for the post of Prime Minister after having lengthily insisted to succeed itself, opening the way at an exit of the political crisis in Iraq. "Doctor Jaafari was selected like candidate by the Iraqi unified list (AUI, the block Shiite) and it asks today this block to decide its candidature", declared one of its close relations Jawad Al-Maliki with the press. Outgoing the Prime Minister thus leaves with his block the choice...

* Sunni bloc tells Shias their rejection of Jaafari as PM is final BAGHDAD: Iraqi Sunni and Kurdish leaders Monday emphatically rejected Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari staying on in the next government, possibly sealing the embattled Shia premier’s political fate. The clear no to Jaafari - blamed for failing to curb sectarian bloodshed since the bombing of the Shia Samarra shrine in February - came amid a wave of violence that left more than 100 Shias dead last week. Jaafari’s Shia United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the largest parliamentary bloc, had made yet another attempt Sunday to save Jaafari’s candidature by...

Iraq's vice-president has added his voice to calls for Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to step down as candidate to lead a new government. Adel Abdul Mahdi is the most senior figure in Mr Jaafari's dominant Shia alliance to urge him to withdraw. Mr Jaafari's nomination is one of the main sticking points in deadlocked coalition talks with Kurds and Sunnis. Mr Mahdi's comments came a day after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw ended a visit to Baghdad to press for swifter movement on establishing a government of national unity.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 2 — Iraq's dominant Shiite political bloc fractured Sunday when its most powerful faction publicly demanded that the incumbent Shiite prime minister resign over his inability to form a unified government. The split came as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Jack Straw, the British foreign minister, paid an urgent visit to Iraqi leaders here to convey in the most forceful terms yet that their patience for the country's political paralysis was wearing thin. It was not clear whether the joint visit by Ms. Rice and Mr. Straw, the top emissaries of the two countries that led...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's biggest Shi'ite Islamist party will urge Ibrahim al-Jaafari to resign as prime minister, a senior parliamentarian from SCIRI said on Sunday in the first publicly hostile comments from Jaafari's key coalition ally.

Leaders of the Shiite Muslim alliance that governs Iraq have given Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari until Sunday to convince his opponents he should retain his job in Iraq's next government or face being pushed aside, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. In another sign that support for Jafari is weakening within his coalition, Qasim Dawood, an independent member of the Iraqi legislature, on Saturday became the first member of the alliance to publicly call for Jafari to withdraw his name for prime minister. I call on Jafari to take a courageous step and set a fine example by stepping down," said...

Senior members of Iraq’s ruling Shia Alliance bloc called publicly for the first time on Saturday for Ibrahim Al Jaafari to step down as prime minister to break months of deadlock over a national unity government. “I call on Jaafari to take a courageous step and set a fine example by stepping down,” Kasim Daoud, a senior member of the independent group within the Alliance, told Reuters. Other senior Alliance officials, speaking anonymously, confirmed that four of seven main groups within the bloc wanted Jaafari to give up the nomination for a second term. “There is a broad trend inside...

The Bush administration has told Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari he is unacceptable as head of the next government, the New York Times reports. Redha Jowad Taki, a member of parliament, told the Times that U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad passed on a personal message from President Bush at a meeting last Saturday. Taki, who was at the meeting, said Khalilzad told Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim that Bush doesn't want, doesn't support, doesn't accept Jaafari. Jaafari and other Shiite leaders are not taking the message well.

Iraq's Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari says he is willing to withdraw his nomination to lead the new government if the Iraqi people want him to do so. "If my people ask me to step aside I will do this," Mr Jaafari said, shortly after attending the much-delayed inaugural session of Iraq's parliament. The Shias' nomination of Mr Jaafari has been a major sticking point in forming a government as he lacks wider support. He has been criticised for not doing more to curb Iraq's violence. Growing sectarian violence in the country has prompted predictions that Iraq is on the brink...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Shiite lawmakers Sunday chose Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to head Iraq's new government, Shiite officials said. Al-Jaafari won 64 votes, one more than Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, officials said. There were two abstentions. More than 100 lawmakers from the Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, gathered to vote. The choice of the umbrella Shiite alliance is assured of becoming prime minister because Shiites won the most parliament seats in the Dec. 15 national elections. Shiite lawyers cast their votes at the heavily guarded home of Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the head of Abdul-Mahdi's party. Al-Jaafari's supporters gathered in the...

In selecting al-Jaafari as its nominee for a second term, the dominant Shiite bloc has betrayed the hopes of all those who have wanted Iraq's first constitutionally elected government to make a fresh start at reunifying the country, rebuilding the economy and putting an end to the beating, torture and murder of civilians by Shiite militia members in and out of the official security forces. Jaafari has been a spectacular failure on all these fronts over the past 10 months. He is unlikely to do a better job if he gets the job a second time, particularly since he owes...

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari(R) and visiting US Senator John Kerry, D-MA, give a press conference in the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad. Kerry warned against sectarian influences in future Iraqi government ministries and predicted a national unity cabinet could lead to a drawdown in US troops.(AFP/POOL/Faleh Kheiber)

Suicide Bomber Kills 32 at Iraq Funeral By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer A suicide bomber killed 32 mourners and wounded dozens at a funeral for the nephew of a Shiite politician, one of several attacks Wednesday across Iraq that killed a total of 53 people. The sudden surge in violence followed three weeks of relative calm after Iraq's landmark parliamentary elections on Dec. 15 and came as its three major political parties neared a deal on forming a coalition government that a Shiite politician said would include Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds. In the worst attack of the day,...