Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for The Independent, discusses the enforcement power of Iraq’s Status of Forces Agreement in light of comments by General Ray Odierno, the influence Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani still has over the major decisions on Iraq’s future, the disappearance of Iraq as a media topic since the “successful surge” narrative became definitive, the instability in Kurdistan, how the U.S. inadvertently aided Iran’s rise as a regional power and the perils of not learning from history’s blunders.

MP3 here. (32:04)

Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for The Independent, has been visiting Iraq since 1978. He was awarded the 2005 Martha Gellhorn prize for war reporting in recognition of his writing on Iraq. He is the author of The Occupation: War, Resistance and Daily Life in Iraq and Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia revival and the Struggle for Iraq.

Robert Dreyfuss, reporter for The Nation, discusses the Iraqi resistance, the myth of the surge’s responsibility for the reduction in violence, Iran’s brokering of Sadr’s cease-fire, Maliki’s tightrope act in needing the U.S. to back him now, but leave soon, the problem of Kirkuk and Russia’s role in the changing Mideast dynamic.

MP3 here. (40:00)

Based in Alexandria, Va., Dreyfuss been writing for Rolling Stone for at least a decade, and currently covers national security for Rolling Stone’s National Affairs section. He’s a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, and a senior correspondent for The American Prospect. His articles have also appeared in The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, Newsday, Worth, California Lawyer, The Texas Observer, E, In These Times, The Detroit Metro Times, Public Citizen, Extra!, and, in Japan, in Esquire, Foresight and Nikkei Business. His blog, The Dreyfuss Report, is now at The Nation.

Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for the Independent, discusses the slightly less violent, yet still horrific, conditions in Iraq, the fear and violence that dominates daily life there, the various factions influencing Maliki, the Sunni “Awakening” movement and the volatile tensions in Kurdistan.

MP3 here. (35:05)

Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent of The Independent, has been visiting Iraq since 1978. He was awarded the 2005 Martha Gellhorn prize for war reporting in recognition of his writing on Iraq. He is the author of, his memoir, The Broken Boy (Jonathan Cape, 2005), and with Andrew Cockburn, Saddam Hussein: An American Obsession (Verso, 2000), The Occupation: War, Resistance and Daily Life in Iraq (Verso, 2006) and Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia revival and the Struggle for Iraq.

Aaron Glantz of IPS News, KPFA, WarComesHome.org and author of How America Lost Iraq, discusses the Bush administration’s unforgivable neglect of American veterans, their hollowing out of the states’ guard units, Bush refusal to count suicides, the hypocrisy of John McCain and his ignorance about Iraq, the Turkish war against the PKK in Kurdistan and the coming break up of Iraq.

MP3 here. (40:05)

Aaron Glantz has visited Iraq three times during the U.S. occupation: for a month immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein; from February to May 2004; and during the elections in January of 2005. His work from Iraq has also been syndicated to newspapers around the world by Inter Press News Service.

He is author of the San Francisco Chronicle best-selling book How America Lost Iraq (Penguin/2005), which describes how the war turned to disaster from the perspective of the Iraqi people.

Aaron is a founding producer of Pacifica Radio’s national newscast, Free Speech Radio News In the course of his work he has also reported from Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, South Korea, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, France, and Denmark and their new project WarComesHome.org.

Before becoming an international reporter, Aaron served as California State Capitol reporter for Pacifica’s flag-ship station, KPFA, in Berkeley CA, where he won the California Journalism Award for radio in 2000.

He maintains his own website at AaronGlantz.com.

Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for the Independent discusses the assassination of Benhazir Bhutto in Pakistan, the problem of Islamists there, how terrorism works, and the situation between competing factions in Iraq as it stands in Iraq at the end of 2007.

MP3 here. (49:04)

Patrick Cockburn is the author of The Occupation: War, resistance and daily life in Iraq, a finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for best non-fiction book of 2006.