Rough Ride In The Middle East
What is America’s role in the Arab civil war?
Michael Young
http://reason.com/archives/2010/05/18/rough-ride-in-the-middle-eastThe Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations, by Lee Smith, Doubleday, 256 pages, $26
For years the tag line on Lee Smith’s articles said he was writing a book on Arab culture. Instead, the longtime journalist has just published The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations, the title reflecting a less neutral, all-purpose approach toward a region he sought to discover after the 9/11 attacks.
Smith’s book will not please those who view the Middle East’s subtleties with uncritical sympathy. The author eschews the obligatory attempt to reconcile the region’s values with the West’s, and refuses to blame the United States for the Arab world’s predicament. “September 11 is the day we woke up to find ourselves in the middle of a clash of Arab civilizations,” Smith writes, “a war that used American cities as yet another venue for Arabs to fight each other.”
Smith, a friend I first met in Beirut in 2003, has written a bold and significant book that refreshingly rejects the conventional wisdom about the Middle East. It is somewhat contradictory, but in an instructive way. Smith doesn’t try to conceal his developing uncertainties as his narrative progresses, so that what may sometimes seem like inconsistency becomes an honest reflection of his growing realization that his initial hopefulness about the Middle East was unjustified. Ultimately he falls back on an unabashedly American reading of the Arab world that reflects well why the American public has soured on its government’s involvement there.
Smith’s thesis that the United States is caught up in an Arab civil war is not new, but it is substantially correct. Mainstream American thinking, he writes, has mistakenly regarded the Arab world as “a monolithic body, made up of people of similar backgrounds and similar opinions.” This view, Smith believes, is disturbingly close to the Arab nationalist belief that “Arabs, by virtue of a shared language, constitute a separate and single people.”
For Smith, Arab nationalism is a by-product of Sunni supremacy in the region, which the Sunni community has defended through violence “for close to fourteen hundred years.” Violence, he writes, is “just the central motif in a pattern that existed before Islam and is imprinted on all of the region’s social and political relations.” The great Arab historian Ibn Khaldoun viewed history as “a matter of one tribe, nation, or civilization dominating the others by force until it, too, is overthrown by force.” Smith calls this the “strong horse principle,” alluding to a quote from Osama bin Laden: “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.”
Smith alighted in the Middle East unencumbered by the guilt that so many young foreigners seem to bring with them. That guilt, the result of a particular interpretation of Western colonialism, is often accompanied by an embrace of prevailing local attitudes. Smith, by contrast, didn’t come to the region in pursuit of a new identity. He came here to understand, as an American, why Arab extremists had murdered his countrymen.
“It was hard not to take 9/11 personally,” he writes in his opening sentence. Some may think this line betrays an author whose conclusions were fixed before his journey began. A familiar description of Smith, doubling as an accusation, is that he is a neoconservative, with his dual perch as a writer for The Weekly Standard and a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute. Yet that label conceals the extent to which Smith approaches his topic as any liberal would: by moving to, and trying to communicate with, a world very different from his own, while retaining his own identity.
At first glance Smith’s “strong horse” conceit smacks of reductionism, since Middle Eastern societies are far more complex than the formulation suggests. But the nuances mean little when the principal factors underlying political action by states in the region are violence, intimidation, suppression of dissent, and regime survival.
Power is at the heart of politics everywhere, but Arab societies have few means of counterbalancing the stifling authority of the state and its security organs, which usually serve the interests of brutal, family-led kleptocracies. From Syria to Saudi Arabia to Jordan to Egypt, from Algeria to Tunisia to Libya, violence, sometimes explicit but usually implicit, is the glue holding state and society together, at the expense of consensual social contracts. Blaming this situation on the West, three generations after the end of colonialism, only absolves these malignant regimes of their crimes while paternalistically implying that Arabs have no say in their own future.
But does that mean the West is entirely innocent when it comes to perpetuating the region’s foul realities? Is it incapable of altering them in a positive direction? Here is where some readers might disagree with the implications of Smith’s argument, and where he sometimes disagrees with them himself.
If we accept that the Middle East is being shaped by a clash of Arab civilizations, that what we are witnessing is a civil war in Arab societies, there must be two sides to the conflict. If there is violence, there must also be those rejecting violence; if there is extremism, there must be those opposing extremism.
Yet how does this square with Smith’s view that in the region “bin Ladenism is not drawn from the extremist fringe, but represents the political and social norm”? That description suggests that if there is a clash of Arab civilizations, it must be not between liberalism and illiberalism, violence and nonviolence, but between advocates of different shades of illiberalism and violence.
Is that what Smith really wants to say? I wonder. The author’s views changed between the beginning of his travels and the completion of his book. He watched the 2003 invasion of Iraq, leading to elections two years later. He followed events in Lebanon in 2005, when popular protests after the assassination of a former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, forced Syria’s army out of the country. He also watched how the law of the gun returned to both countries.
Smith lived in Egypt and visited Syria. He met many a cosmopolitan liberal: not just well-known figures such as the actor Omar Sharif and the Nobel-winning novelist Naguib Mahfouz, but also lesser-known people yearning to live in open, intellectually challenging societies. He also saw how endangered a species they had become. Smith arrived with hope, then lost it, and that transformation is visible in the variations throughout his book—his shifts between uncompromising despair and sporadic optimism, which mirror the mood of countless others vainly trying to discern neat finalities in the Middle East.
History is not always as clear-cut as Smith claims. For instance, the tensions between Arab nationalism and political Islamism were genuine, even though they were neutralized over time as Arab nationalism failed. By positing the timeless and absolute nature of the Middle East’s pathologies, Smith misses dynamics that might temper his bleakness.
The potential for Arab states to transcend their current condition depends crucially on their capacity to become democratic, a subject that forms the conceptual core of this book. Smith very much wants to believe in democracy because he believes in the democrats he met and befriended throughout the region. He is wary of political realists who dismiss the notion that democratization should be a mainstay of American foreign policy, who think Washington should not trouble itself with the domestic behavior of its partners, dictators or democrats.
Yet Smith ends up concluding, as have many prominent realists, that while Arabs would like to choose their leaders, “the accommodations and compromises between contending points of view, which [are] the signature of a democratic and secular society...have no foundations in a region where history has convinced people that there was always good reason to fear your neighbor.” Smith nevertheless adds that for Americans to give democracy a chance in the Middle East, they would “have to show they were willing to protect the few genuine and useful allies they had, and continue to go after the groups and regimes that were doing all they could to crush any genuine liberal upsurge in the region.”
In other words, Arab democrats need the helping hand of American power. But if Arabs lack the foundations for democracy, what can American assistance build upon?
Although Smith does not resolve this contradiction, he provides the elements of an answer by describing his own experiences. The Middle East is not uniform. America removed a mass murderer from power in Iraq and it helped Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution succeed, but it will not soon rock the boat in Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Washington’s interests and relationships vary, and so too must its actions. Good policies are rarely applied uniformly. America’s inability or reluctance to promote liberty in the same way everywhere does not mean it should do so nowhere, especially since liberal orders are likely to be more stable in the long run.
The debate over promoting liberty in the Middle East is now taking place on the margins. Most of those writing about the region abandoned the topic long ago, believing that acknowledging the project’s merits would mean justifying George W. Bush’s war in Iraq. Smith, notwithstanding his doubts, refuses to be so simplistic. He is happy that the Middle East problems are “now being fought out where they belong, not in lower Manhattan, but in the region itself,” where “there is no alternative, not yet anyway, to the strong horse.”
Still, there is no guarantee that Manhattan, Washington, London, or Madrid will be spared further shocks from a region that exports its troubles with uncanny ease. Who will emerge as the strong horse years from now? It might not be America, unless it redeploys its most potent weapon, a hope for liberty.
Contributing Editor Michael Young is the opinion editor of the Beirut Daily Star and author of The Ghosts of Martyrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon's Life Struggle (Simon & Schuster).
Journalist Says Only Truth Will Set Palestine Free
Rebecca Weisser
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/journalist-says-only-truth-will-set-palestine-free/story-e6frg6z6-1225866997079THE Palestinian diaspora in Australia is facing an unexpected catastrophe. Normally, May 15, Israel's Independence Day, is the most important day of their year for celebrating their victimhood: the catastrophe, as they see it, of the founding of Israel.
But, this year, visiting fresh from the streets of Gaza, Ramallah and Jerusalem is Khaled Abu Toameh, an Israeli Arab Muslim journalist, who declares: "I'd rather be a second-class citizen in Israel than a first-class citizen in any Arab country."
And some in the diaspora are not happy about his visit. Ali Kazak, a former ambassador for the Palestine Liberation Organisation, circulated an email this week accusing Abu Toameh of being an "Israeli propagandist" on the "Israeli payroll" and warning people not to be misled by him.
Kazak told The Australian: "Khaled Abu Toameh is a traitor." These are dangerous words in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Kazak admits that many Palestinians are murdered in the West Bank and Gaza for being traitors.
He says he doesn't agree with it but: "Traitors were also murdered by the French Resistance, in Europe; this happens everywhere."
Asked why he calls Abu Toameh a traitor, Kazak says: "Palestinians are the victims. He shouldn't write about them, he should write about the crimes of the Israelis."
Kazak admits there is corruption and violence in the West Bank and Gaza. "Of course, Palestinian society isn't perfect. I myself have criticised it," he says. But Kazak objects to Abu Toameh writing about it.
Toameh responds: "It is absurd that this gentleman is calling me a traitor while the PLO whom he claims to represent is conducting security co-ordination with Israel and helping Israel crack down on Hamas and is even imprisoning Palestinians without trial in the West Bank.
"When I write about corruption and bad government in Palestine it's because I care about the people and not because I support the occupation.
"I'm more pro-Palestinian than Mr Kazak because I'm demanding reform and democracy and good government for my people while he is sitting here in the comfort of Australia, preaching to us what's good and what's bad and spewing hatred.
"I don't receive threats from Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. I receive threats from people like Mr Kazak. When he calls me a traitor he is actually sending a message to extremists that they need to kill me simply because I am demanding reform and democracy.
"Hamas, Fatah, they know I am writing the truth. They just say to me, 'Why do you have to air the dirty linen in public?' "
But he refuses to be silent, saying he does more for Palestinian human rights and freedom of speech than Kazak, and that Palestinians in the diaspora who live cut off from the reality of life in the West Bank and Gaza do nothing to help Palestinians.
"They live in a parallel universe of leftist, radical ideology. They are much more hostile towards me than Palestinians living in Gaza or Ramallah."
While Kazak's email was intended to discredit him, Toameh says he has never been refused an interview by anyone in Fatah or Hamas. On the contrary, he broke a big story about corruption in the PA earlier this year because people within the PA came to him.
He also has written about the way Palestinians spy on each other in the West Bank, comparing it with the former East Germany. Toameh denounces the intimidation of Palestinian journalists who work in the West Bank and Gaza in an atmosphere that moves beyond fear to outright danger.
"About 2000 Palestinians have been killed in the power struggle that has been raging between Hamas and Fatah since 2007," he says, claiming it got very little coverage.
"People in the West don't get an accurate picture of what is going on.
"Both Hamas and Fatah have no respect for freedom of the media and both are cracking down on Palestinian journalists."
But Toameh says this is only part of the problem.
He says some international journalists are ignorant. "They don't speak Arabic or Hebrew, they don't know the history and they are often very biased. They don't want to report the corruption and violence within Palestinian society because it doesn't fit their narrative of good Palestinians and bad Israelis."
Toameh started his career in journalism at the Palestinian newspaper Al Fajr, but he left because it was not about journalism but propaganda.
He says, "It's ironic that people like me have to go and work in the Israeli media to be able to practice genuine journalism."
While the Australian media has given scant coverage to Abu Toameh, he has been invited to speak across the world, including spending a hour with Barack Obama.
While he thinks Obama is well-intentioned, he fears the US President's impatience to restart peace talks will be counterproductive. "After Operation Cast Lead, Hamas has stopped firing rockets from Gaza into Israel. We have a de facto ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that is holding and in the West Bank things are improving," he says.
"Now comes the peace talks [which] threaten this calm and prosperity. Why? Because core issues like Jerusalem, refugees, borders and settlements are being placed on the table once again, triggering tensions. It would have been better if Obama had waited until better times.
"If Palestinians are allowed to get on with their lives, things will continue to slowly get better. But if people are forced into peace negotiations, there are explosive issues that can't be resolved and it could end with a third intifada."
Whatever transpires, Abu Toameh, unlike his critics in the diaspora, will be there to report what is happening to the Palestinian people.
Why Imposing a Solution Is Not a Solution
by Khaled Abu Toameh
http://www.hudsonny.org/2010/05/why-imposing-a-solution-is-not-a-solution.phpSome Palestinians, Israelis and Americans are demanding that President Barack Obama impose a "solution" in the Middle East should the latest round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian fail.
But a forced solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict would only aggravate tensions between Israel and the Palestinians and harm US interests in the region.
Those who support the idea are hoping that the Obama Administration would force Israel to withdraw to the pre-1967 lines, including east Jerusalem, to pave the way for the creation of an independent and viable Palestinian state in these territories.
Under the current circumstances, however, this scenario is completely unrealistic. A majority of Israelis is staunchly opposed to ceding control over the entire territories and redividing Jerusalem. Further, Israeli Arabs feel comfortable living in Israel: public opinion polls have shown that a majority of them do not want to move to a Palestinian state.
The mere talk about imposing a solution is already damaging any chance that the "proximity talks" could lead to agreement.
If the Palestinians are convinced that the Obama Administration is planning, at the end of the day, to impose a solution, why should they bother to show any flexibility? As far as they are concerned, it might even be better to deliberately foil the peace talks with the hope that Washington would force Israel to make far-reaching concessions.
As for the Israelis, the present government coalition is not in a position to make far-reaching concessions to the Palestinians. Imposing a solution on Binyamin Netanyahu would undoubtedly lead to the collapse of his coalition. There is no guarantee that if the Netanyahu government collapses, Israelis will vote for a more moderate candidate, such as Tzipi Livni. On the contrary, Obama's pressure would most likely alienate many Israelis and drive them toward even more right-wing parties and candidates.
At best, the Israelis are ready to give up large parts of the West Bank -- after already having pulled out from the Gaza Strip. Those who think that Jerusalem can be physically redivided are living under an illusion. Jerusalem can only be shared, not divided.
Even the Palestinian Authority leadership appears to have come to terms with the fact that Israel is not going to give the Palestinians 100% of the land. That is why an increasing number of Palestinian officials are now talking about "border adjustments" or "land swap" with Israel.
The West Bank and Gaza Strip are not holy lands and there is no reason why any Palestinian should be afraid to make compromises there. If Israel wishes to retain control over 15% of the West Bank in a final peace agreement, then it could always compensate the Palestinians with a similar -- or even bigger -- amount of land from Israel proper.
Ironically, the talk about a US-imposed solution comes at a time when both Israelis and Palestinians seem to acknowledge the fact that each side needs to make concessions to achieve a breakthrough.
Even if the two sides fail to reach agreement during the "proximity talks" that are about to be launched under the auspices of the Obama Administration, the option of a forced solution, should not be a possibility in the future.
The Obama Administration also needs to take into consideration that forcing Israel to pull back to the pre-1967 lines at a time when the Palestinian Authority is still weak and lacking credibility among its people would be a very dangerous move.
The last time Mahmoud Abbas was given land, it was in 2005, when Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip. Abbas later ran away from the Gaza Strip, handing it over to Hamas.
The same scenario is likely to repeat itself in the West Bank since Abbas and Salaam Fayyad don't seem to be in full control. Even worse, the two men are regarded by many Palestinians as "puppets" in the hands of the Israelis and Americans - a perception that plays into the hands of Hamas and its supporters in Damascus and Tehran.
The only way to achieve peace in the Middle East is through mutual agreement between Israelis and Arabs.
The Shape Of Things To Come With Iran
Tony Badran
http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=167522&MID=12&PID=1Just as Egypt’s judiciary handed down convictions in the case of a Hezbollah cell that it uncovered, reports surfaced that an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps cell had also been broken up in Kuwait.
This type of Iranian action, while hardly new, is a harbinger of what’s to come once Tehran, which is seeking hegemony over the Middle East and senses an American retreat from the region, crosses the nuclear threshold. It also highlights the precariousness of any containment policy against Iran and its regional proxies.
The Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas first broke the story almost two weeks ago, and Kuwaiti and Saudi officials have since confirmed the existence of the cell. While officials have remained publicly tight-lipped about the specifics of the story, and an official order has been handed down forbidding the publication of any further information, several of the details in the newspaper reports are of interest.
The members of the cell apparently included two stateless citizens (known as al-bidoun), a Lebanese citizen who acted as the cell’s liaison with the Iranians, as well as several military officers. One report in Al-Qabas, quoting informed sources, claimed the spy network extended to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – which was roundly denied by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef Bin Abdul Aziz. The Kuwaitis, however, are demanding an overhaul of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) security agreement (which Kuwait had previously refrained from signing) in light of “new challenges,” likely meaning the threat of Iranian security breaches.
Kuwait has had something of a history with Iran and Hezbollah. In the 1980s, Kuwait suffered attacks and two infamous airliner hijackings at the hands of Hezbollah (in cooperation with the Iraqi Al-Daawa Party) and Imad Mugniyah, the man who would head the party’s external operations network until his assassination in 2008.
After Mugniyah’s assassination, a commemoration rally was held for him in Kuwait, praising his legacy and absolving him of any wrongdoing against the state. Shia parliamentarians involved in the rally were expelled from their parliamentary bloc and placed in custody on suspicion of belonging to the Kuwaiti Hezbollah. The Kuwaiti authorities deported foreigners who had participated in the rally, which reportedly included Bahrainis, Lebanese and Iranians.
The episode led to an intimidation campaign against Kuwait in Lebanon. Its embassy in Beirut came under bomb threat (followed by a telephone call from a Hezbollah official assuring the diplomats that they would be safe!). This led to a Kuwaiti government travel advisory warning its nationals to avoid Lebanon. And just to make sure the Kuwaitis showed respect to Mugniyah, a massive portrait of him was placed on the embassy’s wall by Hezbollah supporters.
While it’s unclear whether the Kuwaiti cell indeed extended to Bahrain and the UAE, Bahrain has also been subject to subversive activities in recent years. On the eve of the Gaza war of 2008-2009, the Bahraini authorities announced the arrest of a group of Shia militants who had received training in Syria, accusing them of planning terrorist attacks during Bahrain’s national day celebrations.
At around that time, on December 19, 2008, a massive rally was held in Manama at the call of Hezbollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah. The aim was to pressure Arab governments into helping end Israel’s blockade of Gaza. A few days later, the Gaza war started.
As for the UAE, it followed Kuwait’s lead by deporting foreigners, especially Lebanese Shia. Starting in summer 2009, scores of Shia were suddenly expelled. A representative of those expelled linked the deportations to being “part of a community that supports the Resistance.” What prompted these expulsions remains unclear. However, given the role of Hezbollah’s networks in Iran’s regional activities, the decision was not particularly surprising.
All this shows how vulnerable Iran’s Arab neighbors are to Iranian manipulation, not least when it comes to their sectarian make-up.
While its conventional military power is limited, Iran has engaged in such manipulation through the IRGC’s Al-Quds Force, amplifying its sway through its surrogates and through arms smuggling. The potential interplay between a nuclear Iran and its regional alliances raises serious doubts about the effectiveness of a containment strategy directed against Iran – which is, nevertheless, fast emerging as a consensus strategy in Washington. Especially unconvincing is the notion that the United States can place the burden of its containment efforts on the shaky scaffolding of the Gulf Arab states.
Iran’s objective is to replace the US as the primary power in the Middle East, and to reshape the region’s security architecture. Tehran has been pushing the GCC countries to sign a new, collective security treaty with Iran, which has presented itself as the new regional security guarantor, therefore, implicitly, the acknowledged regional hegemony. Iran has been making it clear to its neighbors that the presence of American forces on their territory is a “source of instability” that must end. If Iran goes nuclear, it will have even more means to persuade these states of its displeasure.
The Iranian cell in Kuwait was reportedly monitoring, among other things, American movements and military bases in the country. While many might read such behavior as preparing retaliatory action in the event of a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, there is an alternative interpretation: a nuclear-armed Iran, through cells active in the weak Gulf Arab states, will seek to pressure those countries to terminate American basing rights on their soil and agree to new security arrangements that enhance Tehran’s regional influence.
Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
These Sanctions Are Neither 'Crippling' Nor 'Biting.' They Are Feeble And Flaccid, Truly Obama's Sanctions
Marty Peretz
http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-spine/75045/these-sanctions-are-neither-crippling-nor-biting-they-are-feeble-and-flaccid-trIt used to be that the president sent out Ms. Clinton to do the retreat on Iran, and she's been doing it for about 17 months. Pathetically, actually, and with some embarrassment on her face. Now it's Susan Rice's turn. It's only fair. For our U.N. ambassador actually believes that the processes of the organization are more important than the results. So it was given to Ms. Rice to explain and explain away why the sanctions agreed upon by the five permanent members of the Council plus Germany omitted any efforts "that would stop the flow of oil out of Iranian ports, or gasoline into the country."
This last quote comes from an absolutely clarifying New York Times news article by David E. Sanger and Mark Landler.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/world/19sanctions.htmlBasically it says that nothing will happen. This is, as the dispatch says, "the fourth round of sanctions against Iran." But there is only one truly fresh provision.
"The newest element of the sanctions would require countries to inspect ships or aircraft headed into or out of Iran if there are suspicions that banned materials are aboard. But as in the case of North Korea, there is no authorization to board these ships forcibly at sea, a step officials from many countries warned could start a firefight, and perhaps touch off a larger confrontation."
This is an ideal Ricean solution. You state a goal but provide no means at all to achieve it.
Still, the formalities of United Nations diplomacy were always cosseted for fear that otherwise the big powers might resort to force. Which they sometimes did. But now the Brazilians, who have a seat on the Security Council, and the Turks, about whom I posted in the wee hours of the morning and who have become very reckless, have set themselves against the habits of international diplomacy and challenged the Big Five who have not really challenged them.
This will only encourage Tehran to be more and more truculent in its nuclear pursuits. This faces the United States and the West with the option of force. Or Israel with the imperative of force.
Major Powers Have Deal on Sanctions for Iran
By David E. Sanger and Mark Landler
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/world/19sanctions.htmlThe Obama administration announced an agreement on Tuesday with other major powers, including Russia and China, to impose a fourth set of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, setting the stage for an intense tug of war with Tehran as it tries to avoid passage of the penalties by the full United Nations Security Council.
The announcement came just a day after Iranian leaders announced their own tentative deal, with Turkey and Brazil, to turn over about half of Iran’s stockpile of nuclear fuel for a year, part of a frantic effort to blunt the American-led campaign for harsher sanctions.
“This announcement is as convincing an answer to the efforts undertaken in Tehran over the last few days as any we could provide,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, describing the agreement as a “strong draft.”
But even if the Security Council adopts the new sanctions, it is unclear whether the provisions — including a mandate to inspect Iranian ships suspected of entering international ports with nuclear-related technology or weapons — would inflict enough pain to force Iran to halt its uranium enrichment and cooperate with international inspectors. None of the previous three sets of sanctions passed by the Council during the Bush administration succeeded in their goal: forcing Iran to end its enrichment of uranium and to answer the many questions posed by international inspectors related to their suspicions about Iranian research into nuclear weapons.
Some of the toughest proposals were barely even discussed as the United States sought support from China, which is a major trading partner with Iran and has been the most resistant to new sanctions. Along with the Russians, the Chinese blocked any measure that would stop the flow of oil from Iranian ports or gasoline into the country. President Obama himself had raised the possibility of such sanctions during the 2008 campaign.
In the end, a deal was reached by the five permanent, veto-wielding members of the Council — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China — plus Germany. They agreed on sanctions against Iranian financial institutions, including those that supported the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Members of the Guard Corps are responsible for overseeing the military aspects of the nuclear program and have assumed commanding roles in the broader Iranian economy.
The newest element of the sanctions would require countries to inspect ships or planes headed into or out of Iran if there were suspicions that banned materials were aboard. But as in the case of sanctions against North Korea, there is no authorization to board ships forcibly at sea, a step officials from many countries warned could touch off a larger confrontation.
Another new element bars all countries from permitting Iran to invest in nuclear enrichment plants, uranium mines and other nuclear-related technology. That appeared to be aimed at halting rumored Iranian ventures with Venezuela and Zimbabwe, or with companies in Europe.
The agreement came months later than the administration had hoped, and after a hectic week of diplomacy, capped by a last-minute phone call by Mrs. Clinton to Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, to confirm whether Moscow was on board, a senior American official said.
The United States believed that it was close to a deal last week, said the official, who did not want to be identified by name while discussing internal negotiations. But it could not resolve the final points with Russia over conventional, nonnuclear arms sales to Iran, and with China over its energy investments there.
The American ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice, said, “We will seek a vote as soon as the conditions are right and Council members have had an opportunity to consider it.” Several officials said that moment would not come until next month, at the earliest.
Even if the proposed sanctions survive without being watered down, administration officials concede that they are unlikely to alter Iran’s behavior, unless they are combined with considerable additional pressure.
The previous three sets of sanctions were simply ignored by many of Iran’s trading partners. “The devil has been in the implementation,” Patrick Clawson, the deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies.
The draft resolution faces resistance from Brazil and Turkey, which have seats on the Council and brokered the deal to transfer some of Iran’s nuclear fuel out of the country. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey sharply criticized the continued push for sanctions by the United States. Mr. Erdogan worked with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil to reach the accord with Iran on Monday.
Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, Brazil’s ambassador to the United Nations, said, “Brazil is not engaging in any discussion about this draft resolution, because we are sure there is a new situation.”
Turkey and Brazil have considerable business dealings with Iran, and are seen as eager to flex their muscles on the international stage. The ambassadors from the five permanent members of the Council, speaking with reporters at the United Nations, said that they respected the compromise that the countries had reached with Iran but that it did not address their core concern: Iran’s continuing efforts to enrich uranium.
Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian ambassador, said that the draft resolution contained “language we can live with, because it is focused adequately on nonproliferation matters.”
Li Baodong, the Chinese envoy, said the resolution should signal to Iran that it needs to cooperate with the United Nations’ atomic energy agency. “The purpose of sanctions is to bring the Iranian side to the negotiating table,” he said, while praising the initiative taken by Brazil and Turkey.
Iran’s announcement that it would ship what is believed to be roughly half of its nuclear fuel to Turkey for further enrichment appeared to be a bid to undercut the American efforts to bring along China and Russia. The offer resembled an accord made with the West last October that fell apart when Iran backtracked.
Iran has said its nuclear program is intended to produce civilian energy, but American and European officials have pointed to work that seems unrelated to simply producing power.
A senior administration official said that one of the most critical sections of the proposed sanctions was modeled on a resolution passed last year against North Korea, after its second nuclear test. That resolution authorized all nations to search cargo ships heading into or out of the country if there were suspicions that weapons or nuclear technology were aboard.
In North Korea’s case, there have already been some modest successes. In one case, North Korea sent one of its ships back to port, rather than risk having it boarded and inspected.
Saving Iraqi Kurdistan
Abe Greenwald
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/saving-iraqi-kurdistan-15441Erbil, Iraq. In the lobby of a certain hotel in the Kurdish city of Erbil, you find the familiar row of wall clocks indicating current time in various metropolitan hubs. Only something breaks your heart a little about the local twist put on this fixture of jet-set urbanity. Between clocks whose faces have been factory-stamped Istanbul or New York or Madrid, you see one displaying local time, and it looks like the others except for a single, small anomaly. The Erbil hasn’t been emblazoned onto the clock face by a manufacturer’s machine. It’s been printed out, in ordinary bold font, onto computer paper; cut down to a word-sized rectangle; and glued over the name of some other magnificent city.
The Kurds of the area known as the Kurdish Regional Government want to secure a free, democratic, and thriving Kurdistan. They are on their way to pulling it off. Personal safety here (where I am a guest of the KRG) is a given, so that most of the time, you forget you’re in Iraq. Parts of Erbil resemble Miami, Florida. There are rows of manicured palm trees, bustling retail strips, car dealerships, and everywhere the organized rubble of construction.
Other parts look more like the average Westerner’s conception of a Middle Eastern country: flat, dusty, and monochrome. In any case, the accomplishments go beyond the realm of the commercial or the aesthetic. The KRG is a free land. If you are an Iraqi Kurd, you don’t have to do what your leader orders. In fact, your leader does not order you to do anything. Nor do you have to do as your cleric says. In this corner of “the Muslim world,” liquor flows freely, journalists quote Tocqueville in conversation, and praise for Israel is easy to come by.
Praise for America is ubiquitous. The Kurdish foreign minister told my group matter-of-factly, “It was your men and women, in uniform who shed blood, who overthrew Saddam.” I heard a group of smart Kurdish students cite chapter and verse on American exceptionalism.
The Kurdish nation is bound to America like few others. Kurdish hopes for autonomy -- after a history of being the victims of ethnic cleansing and mass slaughter -- first became a precarious reality when George H.W. Bush instituted the northern no-fly zone over Iraq in 1991, three years after Saddam Hussein’s Anfal campaign wiped out up to 100,000 Kurds with chemical weapons. With American protection in place, the Kurds began building infrastructure and honing their political vision. When George W. Bush toppled Saddam’s regime in 2003, the Kurds, who make up about 20 percent of the Iraqi population, began building what they promote as “the other Iraq” in earnest.
Kurdish identity is largely built on the Kurds’ long and heroic struggle for survival. KRG President, Massoud Barzani, is a national hero. So, too, was his late father, Mustafa Barzani, who preceded him as leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Both were Peshmerga warriors from a proud tribe who spent their lives fighting for Kurdish self-determination. An uncompromising career enemy of Saddam Hussein, President Barzani is as much a symbol of Kurdish pride as he is leader.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is also a Kurdish icon. Talabani, like Barzani, comes from a prominent tribe and was also Peshmerga. In the 1970s, his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) split off from, and fought against, the KDP. But the PUK now peacefully constitutes the other half of Kurdish party politics. The KRG and PUK share influence, and images of Barzani and Talabani are simply found everywhere in the region.
Kurdistan is bursting with everything the liberation of Iraq was intended to set free: pluralism, democracy, opportunity, and goodwill toward the U.S. But political realities in Iraq and America are bringing the first post-success phase of a free Iraq to an end. The future hangs on a few critical upcoming decisions in Baghdad, Kurdistan, and Washington.
The official outcome of Iraq’s March 7 elections is still on hold. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is showing the tell-tale signs of a Middle East strongman. After his State of Law Party lost out to the largely secular Al Iraqiya coalition, he’s pulled underhanded tricks to hang on to power. Maliki first used retroactive de-Baathification of candidates to dismiss the competition and narrow his lead. Now he is stalling for time and, worse, has reached out to secure a bloc with Iranian-backed Sadrists. This new Shiite coalition is now four votes short of forming a government. The Sadrists, if unchecked, could become the equivalent of Hezbollah in Iraq. Aside from the cascade of tragedy this would visit on Iraq, it would solidify Iran’s uncontested regional hegemony.
The Kurds are being courted by both Al-Iraqiya and Maliki’s Shiite coalition. The former is a mixed bag, but on the whole, far closer to the Kurds’ centrist point of view. What’s more, they don’t pose the naked threat to stability that the Shiites do. Al-Iraqiya would seem like an obvious Kurdish choice.
But survival isn’t always a straightforward affair. The Kurds are now looking into the long-term future and wondering what will come of siding against the Shia, who make up a powerful countrywide majority. Saddam had brutalized and killed the Shia en masse, but since his toppling, they’ve steadily lost their empathy for the Kurds. One of Maliki’s increasingly frequent displays of power found him sending tanks to hem in the Kurds in the disputed city of Khanaqin. The American response was nonexistent.
That brings us to Washington. Kurdish leaders are not enraged but rather baffled by America’s eagerness to wash its hands of the hard-won Iraq victory. As a senior PDK official explained it, Iraqi politics is a soccer match in which all Iraq’s meddling neighbors, from Turkey to Iran, are fielding teams. “Who’s the only one with no team?” he asked. “America.”
The Obama administration is anxious to make good on its promise to end the war. This has meant not only the scheduled pullout of all U.S. fighting forces by the end of 2011 but also Washington’s growing detachment from all matters Iraqi. The administration has mostly steered clear of the current parliamentary crisis. But if a power-infected Maliki soon rules Iraq with a Shia coalition containing Sadrists, the country could start to unravel. The U.S. must help shape the decisions coming out of Baghdad. This means exercising our unique leverage in Iraq.
Whether or not American officials are able to coax the formation of a moderate central government, the Kurds must be protected. As it stands, at the end of 2011, the U.S. will leave a slew of heavy weaponry to central Iraq, including tanks and F-16s. The Kurds will be left with their lightly armed Peshmerga. An American base of 5,000-10,000 soldiers in Kurdistan would ensure that those American weapons aren’t turned on America’s most loyal friends. This would entail the most minimal risk of American casualties and help see Iraq safely through its next phase of federal democracy.
The Kurds desperately want the base, but at the moment the chances seem slim. While the U.S. has built an enormous embassy here, there is not even an American consul where Kurds can apply for U.S. visas. In the meantime, Kurdistan hangs its hopes on a constitutional referendum that would de-Arabize contested Kurdish areas.
There are still problems in Kurdistan. A democratic dynasty is still a dynasty. And the protection of traditional dynasties can turn ugly. Recently, a young journalist named Zardasht Osman was kidnapped and found dead after writing an inflammatory column referring to President Barzani’s daughter. But Kurdistan’s once calcified two-family political system is already giving way to a more legitimate pluralism. It is a feature of successful democracies that they are self-correcting. The upcoming generation of Kurds doesn’t remember life under Saddam and does not behold Barzani and Talabani with the traditional sense of awe. A new opposition party has sprung up and gained traction, particularly among the young. The long-standing Kurdish folk identity built on opposition to Saddam and the bravery of the Peshmerga must be supplanted by a new infectious idea of Kurdish statehood.
Nor is the KDP trying to choke off the torrent of change. To the contrary, reform is well underway. The Kurdish government has just instituted an astounding $100 million annual scholarship program, which will send around 2,500 Kurdish students to Western universities every year. Kurdish universities are on a comprehensive fast-track to Western accreditation and have enacted short-term quotas for women to correct for the gross region-wide imbalance in the student population. Government ministries are cracking down on the long-standing problem of tribal cronyism.
In discussing the achievements of the Iraq war, those of us who support the Iraqi liberation have developed a journalistic tic whereby we must attach the disclaimers fragile and reversible to every positive development. This is probably wise, but in the effort to shed the “triumphalist” label, we’ve neglected to emphasize something else about achievements in Iraq. They are precious. Nowhere is this more achingly obvious than in Iraqi Kurdistan. There is a population of 4 million overwhelmingly Muslim, pro-American, pro-democracy political and cultural reformers in an oil-rich, strategically critical location in the Middle East. Somehow, the current U.S. administration sees no significant U.S. interest in this treasure, won with the blood of the American soldier. For a White House and a State Department that tout engagement as a panacea, the neglect to engage Baghdad leadership and keep the Iraqi experiment on a positive course is egregious.
The clock in the hotel lobby ticks down to the end of 2011. Under the present policy, our abandonment of the Kurds will be celebrated in America as a campaign promise made good. The Kurds know that that moment will be celebrated in other, less democratic precincts as well.
Taliban Planning Attacks In Washington
J. J. Green
http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=25&sid=1960305Shortly after the arrest of Faisal Shahzad aboard an Emirates Airline flight to Dubai on May 3, authorities learned that the Times Square bombing was not his only plot.
"There is a strong belief in the U.S counter-terrorism community that we will see additional attacks unfold in primarily New York City and Washington, D.C., in the next five- to six-month timeframe," says Fred Burton, vice president of intelligence at Stratfor Global Intelligence.
U.S. law enforcement officials would not comment on the investigation or intelligence that suggests as many as a half dozen plots may have been in the works.
WNYW-TV in New York reported that Shahzad told interrogators he wanted to attack Rockefeller Plaza, Grand Central Terminal, the World Financial Center and the Connecticut headquarters of defense contractor Sikorsky -- if the Times Square attack worked.
As for D.C., Burton says there have been no specific targets identified.
"Although I certainly lean toward public transportation, like subways and other large areas that would be open to the public, such as heavily transited tourist areas."
Some counter-terrorism professionals suggest the Times Square event ushered in a new understanding of the Pakistani Taliban's capabilities.
"If they did it once, they will do it again," says Offer Baruch, a former member of Israel's Shin Bet.
"The Taliban doesn't need to come and say this is what we want to do. They've already proved they have the capability. The guy [Shahzad] was here. It doesn't matter how immature it [his plot] was. They already have a cell here on American soil."
Baruch says he believes U.S. authorities have not commented publicly on the threat to Washington and other places to maintain an advantage over the terrorists.
Sources in Washington also indicated there is significant pressure on the counter-terrorism and security elements of the Obama administration to maintain tight control of what the public is told about the investigation.
"I think they have some kind of intelligence information that something is going to happen, and they are in the process of investigating it," Baruch says.
"The authorities want to buy some time to continue to investigate and collect evidence and put their hands on the suspect before they announce it."
The Justice Department suspects Shahzad operated under the command and control of the Pakistani Taliban. Shahzad appeared in court for the first time Tuesday.
Shahzad faces five charges. Two charges -- attempted use of weapons of mass destruction and attempted acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries -- carry the potential of life in prison, if he's convicted.
"We know that they [Pakistani Taliban] helped facilitate it," says Attorney Eric H. Holder. "We know that they probably helped finance it."
But Rahimullah Yusufzai, who is well-connected to the Taliban and the last-known journalist to interview al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, believes their capabilities are being exaggerated.
"They don't really have money to give the person [potential terrorist]. They can't make a plan for the person to attack targets in the U.S. They can't send explosives from here. I don't think the Taliban even knows where Times Square is. I don't think they know how to use a credit card or how to book an airline ticket. These things they can't do."
Yusufzai, who lives near Pakistan's troubled tribal region, sees no proof they could do it.
"I think there has been no evidence yet that the Pakistani Taliban has been able to strike outside Pakistan and Afghanistan. Their main area of operation is Pakistan. They can strike anywhere in Pakistan and they have been helping the Afghan Taliban."
Additionally, referencing the Fort Hood shooting in November 2009, he says the organization has lied about its exploits.
"Last year, [Taliban Leader] Baitullah Meshud, before he was killed in a U.S. missile strike, said that there was some incident in the U.S. in which a Muslim American fired at people and killed 14. Meshud claimed responsibility for that incident, which was not true."
Regardless of who allegedly supported the plotting and planning of the Times Square attempt, former State Department Counter-terrorism Agent Dennis Pluchinsky, who now lectures at George Mason University, warns there are two types of terrorism evolving in the U.S.: leaderless terrorism and command-and-control terrorism.
"If you're talking about the December 2009 attack over Detroit or the recent attack in Times Square, these are examples of what we call command-and-control terrorism."
Pluchinsky says command-and-control terrorism means the operatives "were under the command and control of a larger parent terrorist organization."
Pluchinsky says leaderless terrorism, which is on the rise in the U.S., usually involves ill-trained terrorists operating on their own.
"If you look at this from a counter-terrorism perspective, that bomb should have worked on that aircraft going into Detroit," Burton says.
"That bomb should have worked at Times Square. The bomb-makers will go back to the drawing board and eventually get it right."
Baruch says he expects more plots.
"The Taliban, al-Qaida [and] any affiliate radical Islamic organization would love to make some points in the war against the west. The biggest reward they can gain is conducting some kind of attack on American soil."