Iraqi Unemployment

Perhaps one of the main problems in Iraq today is employment. Poor employment figures are likely to be proportional to high recruitment into the insurgency and militias. One recent assessment put the figure at 50% of Iraq as unemployed.

Iranian Election Results

Note: These reports are based on partial results

The elections in Iran have been judged by some Western observers as a blow to the hard line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Conservative opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took an early lead in Iran’s local elections, according to partial results announced by the Interior Ministry on Monday.

The trend appears to be an embarrassment for Ahmadinejad whose anti-Israeli rhetoric and unyielding position on Iran’s nuclear program have provoked condemnation in the West and moves toward sanctions at the U.N. Security Council.

Partial results of Friday’s polls provided by the Interior Ministry suggested that Ahmadinejad’s allies had largely failed to win control of local councils. Instead, candidates supporting Tehran Mayor Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf, a moderate conservative opposed to the president, have taken the lead.

The partial results also indicated that reformers were making a comeback, after having been suppressed in the parliamentary elections of 2004 when many of their best candidates were barred from running. [link]

The results will not affect foreign policy but may have a moderating effect on the Assembly of Experts; the body that elects the Supreme Leader. Don’t take my word on this but I believe that a change in the top of the Iranian government is imminent…

A Palestinian Civil War?

The Passport points out that things continue to simmer between the two top factions in the Palestinian territories. An Israeli intel report indicates that Iran may be training Hamas fighters.

Israeli military officials said Monday that dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Hamas militants recently left the Gaza Strip to receive advanced military training in Iran.

The training is similar to that received by thousands of Hezbollah guerrillas from Lebanon over the past few years, and Israel fears it will greatly improve Hamas’ military capability in any future battle with Israel Defense Forces troops in Gaza, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter.
…
The mass training of Hamas fighters in Iran is a new development reflecting the growing alliance between Shiite Iran and the Sunni Hamas movement, Israel warned.

This development comes as the Palestinian president has called for new elections; a move Hamas has rejected. This, in addition to other events, brings the territories closer to a civil war (if one isn’t already happening).

[2006-12-18 2:42 PM] From The Guardian (h/t John Robb) in an article entitled ‘This looks like civil war’ – Palestinians battle on the streets:

Mr Haniyeh’s trip abroad, during which he secured promises of around $350m in funding from Iran, Qatar and Sudan, was seen by many Palestinians as an endorsement of his rule. “That was a message for people here that he received legitimacy in the Arab world,” said Mr Khatib.

Despite the donations, Hamas remains far short of the approximately $600m Israel has kept from the Palestinian Authority in tax revenues. But the economic crisis does not seem to have dampened Hamas’s support. Mr Khatib said his polling research suggested Hamas would keep its majority if elections were called now.

That is, if they participate…

[2006-12-18 3:04 PM] Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan calls the call for new elections “…a ‘very negative’ move so soon after the last Palestinian elections.”

[2006-12-19 2:15 PM] Mark I Levenstein provides deeper analysis of the existing poll data between the two factions; Hamas and Fatah. Along with a brief look at the constitutionality of this possible move by Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah