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Boston artist Steve Mills - realistic painting
Showing posts with label MIDDLE EAST. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MIDDLE EAST. Show all posts
Friday, March 24, 2017
Muslim countries’ hypocrisy rebuked at UN Human Rights Council
Video: “Where are your Jews?” Muslim countries’ hypocrisy rebuked at UN Human Rights Council
https://youtu.be/35eEljsSQfc
These countries exiled nearly a million Jews in 1948, and now they are posturing about Israel’s supposed “apartheid” policies, when Arab Muslims in Israel serve in the Knesset. The hypocrisy is astounding, and generally never noted. Bravo to Hillel Neuer for calling out these self-righteous hypocrites.
“UN Watch Fires Back at Countries Accusing Israel of Abuses, ‘Where are your Jews?,’” by Jack Heretik, Washington Free Beacon, March 24, 2017 11:16 am
UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer shot back at countries accusing Israel of apartheid and violence against Palestinians, asking them where the Jewish populations in their countries have gone.
During a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council on Monday, several Middle Eastern countries took turns bashing Israel, saying that it has imposed apartheid and violence against Palestinians. A Palestinian representative was joined by Qatar, Sudan, Syria, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in criticizing Israel.
Neuer was then recognized to respond to the accusations from the representatives, as well as those from a UN report.
“Everything we just heard, from the world’s worst abusers of human rights, of women’s rights, of freedom of religion, of the press, of assembly, of speech, is absolutely false and indeed Orwellian,” Neuer said….
“Israel’s 1.5 million Arabs, whatever challenges they face, enjoy full rights to vote and to be elected in the Knesset, they work as doctors and lawyers, they serve on the Supreme Court,” Neuer said….
“How many Jews live in your countries? How many Jews lived in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco?” Neuer pointed out. “Once upon a time, the Middle East was full of Jews.”
Neuer went through a list of those countries asking, “Where are your Jews?” after stating how many Jews used to live there.
“Where is the apartheid, Mr. President?” Neuer asked.
“Why are we meeting today on an agenda item singling out only one state, the Jewish state, for targeting? Where is the apartheid, Mr. President?” Neuer said.
For a substantial amount of time following Neuer’s remarks, the council was silent.
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/03/video-where-are-your-jews-muslim-countries-hypocrisy-rebuked-at-un-human-rights-council
=================
Monday, July 7, 2014
Why Obama Ignored Iraq
- FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com -
Why Obama Ignored Iraq
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On July 7, 2014
ISIS marching through Iraq has smashed the media’s taboo against criticizing Obama’s foreign policy. Substantive discussions are taking place about why his foreign policy is such a miserable failure.
And they mostly miss the point.
Liberal journalists still proceed from the fallacy that there was a foreign policy debate between neo-conservative interventionists and liberal non-interventionists. These are a series of digested Bush era talking points that have no relationship to reality since Bush’s foreign policy on Iraq carried over from Bill Clinton. It’s why Hillary gets so uncomfortable when she has to discuss her vote on Iraq.
The liberals weren’t non-interventionists who insisted on multilateralism and UN approval before acting. Obama, like virtually every other Democrat, disproved that myth as fast as he could. Nor were they even opponents of the Iraq War until opposing the war became politically convenient.
Obama however isn’t on this map at all. It’s not that he is an opponent of intervention. The Libyans can tell you that. It’s that his reasons for intervening fall completely outside the grid of national interests.
The anti-war activist as pacifist is largely a myth. There are a few anti-war activists who oppose all wars, but mostly they just oppose America. Obama, who got his foot up the political ladder by flirting with the anti-war movement, falls into that category. Obama isn’t opposed to wars. He’s opposed to America.
Obama is an ideological interventionist, not a nationalist interventionist. And despite his multilateralist rhetoric, he isn’t your usual globalist either. Instead he uses national and international power as platforms for pursuing ideological goals without any regard to national or international interests.
That is true of both his foreign and domestic policy.
Obama’s foreign policy is issue oriented, just like his domestic policy is. There is no national agenda, only a leftist agenda. America is just a power platform for pursuing policy goals.
Domestically, Obama does not care about fixing the economy. The economy is a vehicle for pursuing social justice, environmental justice and all the many unjust justices of the left. It has no innate value. Likewise national security and power have no value except as tools for promoting leftist policies.
Obama thinks of the ideological issue first. Then he packages it as a national interest for popular consumption. It’s a Wilsonian approach that is not only far more extreme than the policies of most White House occupants have been, but also more detached.
Wilson couldn’t understand that American power couldn’t exist without a national interest. Obama and his staffers see America as just another transnational institution that they happen to be running, not all that different than a corporation, non-profit or UN body. They don’t see it as a country, but a series of policymaking offices that reach across the country and the world.
It’s a globalized mode of thinking that is common among Eurocrats, but has never been represented in the Oval Office before.
Obama doesn’t just oppose America. He disregards it as an outmoded institution. When confronted with the border crisis or the rise of ISIS, he doesn’t see them in terms of American interests or even world interests, but in the narrow terms of leftist ideology.
He will use national and international institutions to promote LGBT rights or Green Energy. He won’t however get involved in actively using them for national security unless he absolutely has to in order to protect his own political power.
To a transnational mindset, institutions exist to promote issues. America is only of value to the extent that it can promote the left’s agenda. To the extent that it doesn’t, America is dead weight.
Once Bush was out, Iraq ceased to matter because it was no longer a packaged issue. It couldn’t be broken down into a simplistic Blame Bush policy agenda. And so Obama stopped paying attention.
Now Iraq is getting in the way of the things that he really cares about, such as illegal alien amnesty, dismantling Israel and transsexual bathrooms, because these are ideologically meaningful issues to him. And like every other obstacle, whether it was the national debt or the VA scandal, he pretends to take them seriously until a sufficient amount of time passes and he can dismiss them as “phony scandals”.
Obama didn’t just ignore Iraq because he wanted to avoid any connections to a war that he had helped make unpopular. He ignored Iraq because it had nothing to offer his ideology. If Iraq had a secular dictator, he might have been interested. If Islamists were fighting to take over from that dictator, there would have been planes and diplomats flying over Baghdad before you could shout, “Allah Akbar.”
It’s why he backed the Islamist overthrow of Arab governments, but not the popular protests against Islamist governments in Iran or Turkey.
But Iraq was a battle between Sunni and Shiite Islamists, backed by the Saudis and Iran. Even the left has trouble picking a side between two anti-American Islamic factions who are divided over theological issues, instead of practical things like dialectical materialism and the discourse of othering. In a pinch they pick the Iranian side as being more anti-American, but the prospect of American intervention on the same side as the Shiites confuses them even further and they have to go lie down in a dark room.
When there is no clear ideological guide, Obama takes meetings with generals, tunes them out, plays with his phone and delays doing something for as long as possible. That was the pattern in Afghanistan and Syria. Ideologues can’t function without an ideological orientation. When the ideological value of a problem is unclear, Obama either freezes up, like a robot whose manual was misplaced, or ignores it.
Obama’s only approach to Iraq came from Bush era opposition. Without Bush to push against, he had no idea what if anything should be done about Iraq. He still doesn’t. Instead he resorts to the antiquated attacks on Bush because it’s the last time that Iraq made any sense to him. It was the last time that the left had successfully packaged Iraq into a simple scenario in which there was only one right choice.
Ideologues are not big on independent thinking. When everything is politicized, they lose the ability to see the things that can’t be neatly assigned to one side or another. America is being run by a blinkered ideologue who ignores issues that fall outside his ideological spectrum.
Those problems that he doesn’t cause directly and intentionally through his ideology, he causes indirectly and unintentionally by being unable to operate outside his ideology except in an emergency. Like the difference between the pilot who flies a plane deliberately into a mountain and the one who accidentally flies it into a mountain, there is a gap in motivation, but not in outcome.
History will not record why Obama screwed everything up. It will only record that he did it.
And they mostly miss the point.
Liberal journalists still proceed from the fallacy that there was a foreign policy debate between neo-conservative interventionists and liberal non-interventionists. These are a series of digested Bush era talking points that have no relationship to reality since Bush’s foreign policy on Iraq carried over from Bill Clinton. It’s why Hillary gets so uncomfortable when she has to discuss her vote on Iraq.
The liberals weren’t non-interventionists who insisted on multilateralism and UN approval before acting. Obama, like virtually every other Democrat, disproved that myth as fast as he could. Nor were they even opponents of the Iraq War until opposing the war became politically convenient.
Obama however isn’t on this map at all. It’s not that he is an opponent of intervention. The Libyans can tell you that. It’s that his reasons for intervening fall completely outside the grid of national interests.
The anti-war activist as pacifist is largely a myth. There are a few anti-war activists who oppose all wars, but mostly they just oppose America. Obama, who got his foot up the political ladder by flirting with the anti-war movement, falls into that category. Obama isn’t opposed to wars. He’s opposed to America.
Obama is an ideological interventionist, not a nationalist interventionist. And despite his multilateralist rhetoric, he isn’t your usual globalist either. Instead he uses national and international power as platforms for pursuing ideological goals without any regard to national or international interests.
That is true of both his foreign and domestic policy.
Obama’s foreign policy is issue oriented, just like his domestic policy is. There is no national agenda, only a leftist agenda. America is just a power platform for pursuing policy goals.
Domestically, Obama does not care about fixing the economy. The economy is a vehicle for pursuing social justice, environmental justice and all the many unjust justices of the left. It has no innate value. Likewise national security and power have no value except as tools for promoting leftist policies.
Obama thinks of the ideological issue first. Then he packages it as a national interest for popular consumption. It’s a Wilsonian approach that is not only far more extreme than the policies of most White House occupants have been, but also more detached.
Wilson couldn’t understand that American power couldn’t exist without a national interest. Obama and his staffers see America as just another transnational institution that they happen to be running, not all that different than a corporation, non-profit or UN body. They don’t see it as a country, but a series of policymaking offices that reach across the country and the world.
It’s a globalized mode of thinking that is common among Eurocrats, but has never been represented in the Oval Office before.
Obama doesn’t just oppose America. He disregards it as an outmoded institution. When confronted with the border crisis or the rise of ISIS, he doesn’t see them in terms of American interests or even world interests, but in the narrow terms of leftist ideology.
He will use national and international institutions to promote LGBT rights or Green Energy. He won’t however get involved in actively using them for national security unless he absolutely has to in order to protect his own political power.
To a transnational mindset, institutions exist to promote issues. America is only of value to the extent that it can promote the left’s agenda. To the extent that it doesn’t, America is dead weight.
Once Bush was out, Iraq ceased to matter because it was no longer a packaged issue. It couldn’t be broken down into a simplistic Blame Bush policy agenda. And so Obama stopped paying attention.
Now Iraq is getting in the way of the things that he really cares about, such as illegal alien amnesty, dismantling Israel and transsexual bathrooms, because these are ideologically meaningful issues to him. And like every other obstacle, whether it was the national debt or the VA scandal, he pretends to take them seriously until a sufficient amount of time passes and he can dismiss them as “phony scandals”.
Obama didn’t just ignore Iraq because he wanted to avoid any connections to a war that he had helped make unpopular. He ignored Iraq because it had nothing to offer his ideology. If Iraq had a secular dictator, he might have been interested. If Islamists were fighting to take over from that dictator, there would have been planes and diplomats flying over Baghdad before you could shout, “Allah Akbar.”
It’s why he backed the Islamist overthrow of Arab governments, but not the popular protests against Islamist governments in Iran or Turkey.
But Iraq was a battle between Sunni and Shiite Islamists, backed by the Saudis and Iran. Even the left has trouble picking a side between two anti-American Islamic factions who are divided over theological issues, instead of practical things like dialectical materialism and the discourse of othering. In a pinch they pick the Iranian side as being more anti-American, but the prospect of American intervention on the same side as the Shiites confuses them even further and they have to go lie down in a dark room.
When there is no clear ideological guide, Obama takes meetings with generals, tunes them out, plays with his phone and delays doing something for as long as possible. That was the pattern in Afghanistan and Syria. Ideologues can’t function without an ideological orientation. When the ideological value of a problem is unclear, Obama either freezes up, like a robot whose manual was misplaced, or ignores it.
Obama’s only approach to Iraq came from Bush era opposition. Without Bush to push against, he had no idea what if anything should be done about Iraq. He still doesn’t. Instead he resorts to the antiquated attacks on Bush because it’s the last time that Iraq made any sense to him. It was the last time that the left had successfully packaged Iraq into a simple scenario in which there was only one right choice.
Ideologues are not big on independent thinking. When everything is politicized, they lose the ability to see the things that can’t be neatly assigned to one side or another. America is being run by a blinkered ideologue who ignores issues that fall outside his ideological spectrum.
Those problems that he doesn’t cause directly and intentionally through his ideology, he causes indirectly and unintentionally by being unable to operate outside his ideology except in an emergency. Like the difference between the pilot who flies a plane deliberately into a mountain and the one who accidentally flies it into a mountain, there is a gap in motivation, but not in outcome.
History will not record why Obama screwed everything up. It will only record that he did it.
Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://www.frontpagemag.com
Obama’s Secret Directive Supporting Global Islamism
- FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com -
Obama’s Secret Directive Supporting Global Islamism
Posted By Raymond Ibrahim On July 4, 2014
A recent Gulf News report sheds some light on how and why the United States helped bring the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies to power, followed by all the subsequent chaos and atrocities in the Mideast region.
Large portions of the report follow with my commentary interspersed for added context:
The most significant example of this is how the Obama administration threw Hosni Mubarak—a U.S. ally for three decades—under the bus in order to support the Islamists, most specifically the Muslim Brotherhood. And we saw how that ended—with another revolution, hailed as the largest revolution in human history, with the average Egyptian accusing Obama of being a terrorist supporter.
To be sure, after the ousting of the Brotherhood in Egypt, several Brotherhood members made, sometimes not so veiled, threats to the Obama administration if it turned its back on them, including top ranking Brotherhood member, Khairat al-Shatter’s son.
Large portions of the report follow with my commentary interspersed for added context:
Dubai: For the past decade, two successive US administrations have maintained close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and Libya, to name just the most prominent cases.And we have certainly witnessed this shift. Chaos and the Islamic ascendancy in the Middle East and North Africa never flourished as under the Obama administration—and precisely because the administration shifted from supporting stability under secular-minded autocrats.
The Obama administration conducted an assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2010 and 2011, beginning even before the events known as the “Arab Spring” erupted in Tunisia and in Egypt. The President personally issued Presidential Study Directive 11 (PSD-11) in 2010, ordering an assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood and other “political Islamist” movements, including the ruling AKP in Turkey, ultimately concluding that the United States should shift from its longstanding policy of supporting “stability” in the Middle East and North Africa (that is, support for “stable regimes” even if they were authoritarian), to a policy of backing “moderate” Islamic political movements (italics added for emphasis throughout).
The most significant example of this is how the Obama administration threw Hosni Mubarak—a U.S. ally for three decades—under the bus in order to support the Islamists, most specifically the Muslim Brotherhood. And we saw how that ended—with another revolution, hailed as the largest revolution in human history, with the average Egyptian accusing Obama of being a terrorist supporter.
To this day, PSD-11 remains classified, in part because it reveals an embarrassingly naïve and uninformed view of trends in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region.“Embarrassingly naïve and uninformed view” is synonymous with the “orthodox and mainstream view pushed forth by Mideast studies professors and academics,” especially those with political influence, such as the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies of Georgetown University, in Washington D.C. Such programs, which I’m only too well acquainted with, begin with false—that is, “embarrassingly naïve and uninformed”—premises, namely: that the source of all the region’s woes are (formerly) U.S.-propped autocrats (reality is that dictators don’t create such societies but rather are the natural outcome of Islamic societies and are the ones most prone to keeping law and order—compare Iraq under Saddam and Iraq now, as a “democracy,” with “ISIS” proclaiming a caliphate). Mideast academics have also long spearheaded the idea that there are “moderate” Islamists and “radical” Islamists, and that the U.S. should work with the former (in reality they are all radical—to be an Islamist is to be radical—the only difference is that the “moderate” Islamists don’t wear their radicalism on their sleeves, even as they work toward the same goals that the more open “radicals” work for, namely, a Sharia-enforcing caliphate).
The revelations were made by Al Hewar centre in Washington, DC, which obtained the documents in question.This too is significant. As Daniel Greenfield writes: “Al-Hewar, which actually got hold of the documents, is linked to the International Institute of Islamic Thought… which is a Muslim Brotherhood front group. Figures in the Muslim Brotherhood had threatened to leak understandings with Obama Inc. This is the next best thing. It warns Obama that if he tries to forget about them, they can prove that the relationship was official policy.”
To be sure, after the ousting of the Brotherhood in Egypt, several Brotherhood members made, sometimes not so veiled, threats to the Obama administration if it turned its back on them, including top ranking Brotherhood member, Khairat al-Shatter’s son.
Through an ongoing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, thousands of pages of documentation of the US State Department’s dealings with the Muslim Brotherhood are in the process of being declassified and released to the public.If and when these thousands of pages are released, they should be combed through, as no doubt answers to many of the Obama administration’s hitherto inexplicable policies in the Middle East will be found—to wit:
US State Department documents obtained under the FOIA confirm that the Obama administration maintained frequent contact and ties with the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood. At one point, in April 2012, US officials arranged for the public relations director of the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammad Gaair, to come to Washington to speak at a conference on “Islamists in Power” hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Indeed, despite the administration’s later insistence that it did not favor the Islamists over other parties, anecdotes implying otherwise were constantly on display. In Egypt alone, U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson, due to her close ties not just to President Morsi, but the Muslim Brotherhood in general, became such a hated figure in the months before last year’s anti-Brotherhood revolution.
A State Department Cable classified “Confidential” report says the following: “Benghazi Meeting With Libyan Muslim Brotherhood: On April 2 [2012] Mission Benghazi met with a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood steering committee, who will speak at the April 5 Carnegie Endowment ‘Islamist in Power’ conference in Washington, D.C. He described the Muslim Brotherhood’s decision to form a political party as both an opportunity and an obligation in post-revolution Libya after years of operating underground.These documents on the Obama administration’s connections with the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya are especially disturbing in the context of earlier revelations made in Arabic media, including that the Brotherhood’s Libyan wing was very much involved in the 9/11 Benghazi U.S. consulate attack.
Another State Department paper marked “Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU)” contained talking points for Deputy Secretary of State William Burns’ scheduled July 14, 2012 meeting with Mohammad Sawan, the Muslim Brotherhood leader who was also head of the Brotherhood’s Justice and Construction Party. The document is heavily redacted, but nevertheless provides clear indication of Washington’s sympathies for the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood as a major political force in the post-Gaddafi Libya. The talking points recommended that Secretary Burns tell Sawan that the US government entities “share your party’s concerns in ensuring that a comprehensive transitional justice process is undertaken to address past violations so that they do not spark new discontent.”“To address past violations so that they do not spark new discontent” is another way of stating another popular position among Mideast professors, namely that whenever Islamists engage in violence or terrorism, that is proof positive that they have a legitimate grievance, hence the US must “appease” lest it “spark new discontent” (perhaps the true backdrop of Benghazi).
The Burns paper described the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood: “Prior to last year’s revolution, the Muslim Brotherhood was banned for over three decades and its members were fiercely pursued by the Gaddafi regime.In light of all the chaos the Islamists have been responsible for in Libya, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, et al—is it now obvious why Arab autocrats like Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, and currently Bashar Assad have always “banned” and “fiercely pursued” the Brotherhood and its affiliates?
Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://www.frontpagemag.com
URL to article: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/obamas-secret-directive-supporting-global-islamism/
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
The US legacy of Bagram prison
The US legacy of Bagram prison
by Pam Bailey
 |
The father of Hamidullah Khan, who was 14 when he was abducted and handed over to the U.S., relates his story
Abdul was just 20 years old when he drove his father to the medical clinic one day for an exam. He dropped his father off, then left to run a few errands, saying nonchalantly that he would be back by the time the tests were done. But..he never showed up at the clinic. It was as if he had disappeared into thin air. His family agonized over what had happened to the young man, who – as the oldest son -- had worked as a laborer to support his parents and siblings in the wake of his father’s disability. The family fell into debt as a result, and his brother fell ill. It was more than a year later when the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) informed them that Abdul was alive, but in prison, being held indefinitely, without formal charge or trial.October 8, 2012 You're probably thinking the captor is Israel, and the victim is Palestinian, because this narrative sounds oh so familiar. But actually, this incident occurred in Pakistan. And the jailer that kidnapped Abdul Halim Saifullah off the streets of Karachi, then imprisoned him without a word to anyone, access to a lawyer or trial, was the United States. Abdul disappeared in 2005, and it wasn’t until 2007 that his family was finally told where their son was being held – the infamous Bagram prison, the largest detention facility in the world and known as "Afghanistan's Guantanamo." In January of this year, Afghan investigators accused the U.S. Army of abusing detainees at Bagram, including torture. Although the CodePink delegation is in Pakistan to publicize the disastrous effects of U.S. drone attacks in the region of Waziristan, many organizations and individuals who have suffered at the hands of Americans have sought an "audience" with us, hoping that we will take on their cause as well when we return home. One of those organizations is the "Justice Project Pakistan," modeled after and mentored by the UK’s Reprieve. JPP advocates for the most vulnerable of prisoners – primarily those facing the death penalty or who are detained beyond the rule of law in secret prisons. Included among the latter are 37 Pakistanis – one as young as 16, who was seized in circumstances similar to Abdul’s at the age of just 14. Although the U.S. handed Bagram over to the Afghan government in September, the transition did not include prisoners from other countries, such as Pakistan, of which there are 52. (A side note: It also did not include more than 600 Afghans who were detained after the agreement was signed in March; they all remain in U.S. custody.)
Sarah Belal, an Oxford-trained lawyer and director of JPP, interpreted for a group of men whose brothers and sons are being held in Bagram. According to the men, some of the prisoners had been visiting Afghanistan for work or education, but others were in their hometowns in Pakistan. Many Americans do not realize that for years, the United States has been running "search-and-seize" operations in Pakistan as well, detaining these nationals for years without formal charge or trial. The longest has been there since 2002.When Sarah asked the men how long they had waited, thinking their relatives were dead, before learning from the ICRC that they were in Bagram, the answers ranged from six months to as long as two years. "Some have no idea why their son or brother was taken," Sarah said. "Others say their relative was mistaken for someone else, but they haven’t been released. No formal charges are ever filed, except for a label in an Excel sheet given to the Pakistani government, such as 'suspected member of Taliban’ or 'IED (improvised explosive device) manufacturer’." Once they learn of their loved ones’ whereabouts, the families are allowed to see them only by video conference, once every two months. They must travel to Islamabad, a long distance for many who live in more distant regions of Pakistan. When they arrive, poor Internet connections often mean the trip is for naught. When they do talk, or send letters, the prisoners are not permitted to discuss how they were seized or under what conditions they are being held. "We have been told by the few detainees who have been released that when there are first interned in Bagram, the prisoners are exposed to extreme temperatures, and the floors of their cages are covered with two feet of water," Sarah told us. "It is one to two months before the ICRC is allowed to see them, and then they are moved to their 'regular’ quarters." Their lawyers are never allowed direct access. The Pakistani prisoners are held together, in one big cage divided into small cubicles with only one open toilet for all 37. Teenagers are mixed with the adults. Fazal Karim, who was abducted in 2003 when he was traveling cross country for a business trip, was held in solitary confinement for the past five years. In 2011, the Pakistani embassy in Kabul announced that Fazal had been cleared for release. However, today, he is still in Bagram, with no explanation. "The Pakistani government has been no help," the father of 16-year-old Hamidullah Khan told us through Sarah. "We are Pakistani citizens, but we totally on our own, at the mercy of the United States." JPP has filed a petition with the Pakistani government on behalf of 10 of the detainees, including Abdul Halim Saifullah and Hamidullah Khan. In October 2011, a Pakistani justice ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to visit its citizens in Bagram. In February of this year, the High Court in Lahore directed the government of Pakistan to negotiate with the U.S. for the return of the detainees. However, no concrete results have yet been achieved, and on Sept. 25, the JPP proposed a draft memorandum of understanding which would, once signed by the U.S. and Pakistan, order the safe return of Pakistani citizens held in Bagram. The next hearing is scheduled for Oct. 16. Prisoners’ cases are reviewed behind closed doors every six months, and even when they are told they will be released, it can take weeks or longer before it becomes reality. "What is unsettling," Sarah told us, "is that prisoners often come home very fluent in English cuss words – with an American accent." What a legacy we are leaving the world – an encyclopedic knowledge of English profanity, among individuals often so damaged they either can no longer work as productive members of society or are so filled with hate they may still grow into that terrorist label we gave them. |
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Iraqi Jews reject ‘cynical manipulation’ of their history by Israel, Zionists,
Iraqi Jews reject ‘cynical manipulation’ of their history by Israel, Zionists, writer Almog Behar tells EI
Ali Abunimah
 |
Yacoub Youssef, an Iraqi Jew, holds his prayer book in his house in Baghdad’s Tanaouine neighborhood, 19 April 2003. (Awad Awad / AFP/Newscom)
This is how writer, poet and activist Almog Behar described a decision by a group of Jews from Arab and Kurdish backgrounds to speak out forcefully against renewed Israeli government propaganda efforts to counter Palestinian refugee rights by using the claims of Jews who left Arab countries for Israel in the 1950s.September 17, 2012 "It is far from the first instance of tampering with, exploiting, and deleting our history, but it is the straw that broke the camel’s back, and so … we formed the Committee of Baghdadi Jews in Ramat-Gan." Israeli diplomats, Haaretz reported last week, "have been instructed to raise the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries at every relevant forum. This is part of a new international campaign to create parity between the plight of Jewish and Palestinian refugees, Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon announced on Monday." "The way the Israeli establishment uses our history from the 1950s, is not in order to give us our rights back, but in order to get rid of the rights of the Palestinians, and avoiding a peace agreement with them," Behar wrote to The Electronic Intifada. The idea is that Palestinian refugee and property rights are negated by equivalent claims from Jews from Arab countries, thus absolving Israel of having to make any restitution to Palestinians. Jews who left Iraq and some other Arab countries in the 1950s for Israel were deprived of their property and citizenship. The Israeli government does "not represent us"But in an extraordinary statement posted on Facebook last week, the newly-formed Committee of Baghdadi Jews in Ramat-Gan, of which Behar is a founding member, hit back:We are seeking to demand compensation for our lost property and assets from the Iraqi government - NOT from the Palestinian Authority - and we will not agree with the option that compensation for our property be offset by compensation for the lost property of others (meaning, Palestinian refugees) or that said compensation be transferred to bodies that do not represent us (meaning, the Israeli government).The statement went on to demand an investigation of Israel’s complicity in the departure of Iraqi Jews from their homeland including in terrorist acts against Jews: We demand the establishment of an investigative committee to examine: Zionist role in flight of Jews from IraqThe role of Israel and Zionist undercover agents in helping precipitate the departure of Jews from Iraq has long been suspected.Naiem Giladi, an Iraqi Jew who joined the Zionist underground as a young man in Iraq and later came to regret his role in fostering the departure of some 125,000 Jews from Iraq, wrote that, "Zionist propagandists still maintain that the bombs in Iraq were set off by anti-Jewish Iraqis who wanted Jews out of their country." But "the terrible truth," Giladi said, "is that the grenades that killed and maimed Iraqi Jews and damaged their property were thrown by Zionist Jews." Giladi, who was born Naeim Khalaschi, gave his account in an article published by Americans for Middle East Understanding in 1998 which summarizes his book, Ben Gurion’s Scandals: How the Haganah and the Mossad eliminated Jews. After being sentenced to death in Iraq for his Zionist activities, Giladi fled to Israel. Because his native language was Arabic, Giladi was assigned to assist the Israeli military occupation authorities expel Palestinians from their homes in al-Majdal ("Ashkelon") by pressuring them to sign documents stating they were leaving to Gaza willingly: I was there and heard their grief. "Our hearts are in pain when we look at the orange trees that we planted with our own hands. Please let us go, let us give water to those trees. God will not be pleased with us if we leave His trees untended." I asked the Military Governor to give them relief, but he said, "No, we want them to leave."Giladi, who died in 2010, served in the Israeli army from 1967-70, but then became active in the anti-Zionist Black Panther movement of Mizrahi Jews, and eventually abandoned Israeli citizenship and moved to the United States. He gave this hour-long interview in 1994. Jews of Arab and Kurdish origin reclaim their historyI asked Behar by email to provide more background on the formation of the Committee of Baghdadi Jews in Ramat-Gan. Behar said he shared my questions with members of the committee and compiled and translated their answers.Can you tell me more about the Ramat Gan Committee of Baghdadi Jews? When was it founded? Who does it involve? The committee was founded because of the Deputy Foreign Minster’s refugee campaign, but it will deal with other issues. We decided to establish the Committee of Baghdadi Jews in Ramat-Gan following the attempt by the Deputy Foreign Minister and the Government of Israel to take advantage of our history in their cynical political manipulation.How widespread are the sentiments which the statement expresses? We believe that those sentiments are very widespread among Iraqi Jews – of course more among the older generation, that is less affected by Israeli propaganda, and remembers more the Iraqi past – and knows that our property in Iraq is something between us and Iraq, and not between us and the Palestinians, and remembers also that most of Palestinian property from 1948 was taken by the Ashkenazim and the state, and not by Jews of the Arab world.Were you aware of the account of Naeim Giladi? We didn’t know Naeim Giladi’s work, but of course what happened in Iraq in the 1950s is an open wound for us, and we wish an investigation about the connections between Nuri as-Said and Ben-Gurion.You can find out more about the Committee of Baghdadi Jews in Ramat-Gan on its Facebook page. Source |
Monday, April 16, 2012
Palestine's application for U.N. membership
December 2011, Pages 17-18
United Nations Report
United Nations Report: Washington Impaling Itself on the Horns of a Diplomatic Dilemma
By Ian Williams
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (l) formally submits papers for admission to the U.N. as a member state to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during the U.N. General Assembly’s meeting in New York City, Sept. 23, 2011. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
In the twisted chains of events in the Middle East, one set of links is clear. Almost 500 Palestinian prisoners—and Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit—released on Oct. 12, with a second group of 555 Palestinian prisoners to be released later, owe their freedom to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' determination to push the U.N. membership issue. Binyamin Netanyahu could have freed Shalit any time on these same terms—but the Palestinian statehood issue, for psychopathological reasons we have discussed earlier in these columns, rattles the Israeli prime minister and his supporters so much that he was prepared to give Hamas a boost against Fatah with the release.
Those of us who savor fine hypocrisies will also relish the irony of long negotiations resulting in a political boost for a movement with which Israel says the rest of the world should have no contact. One almost looks forward to the arrest, indictment and trial of Israeli leaders on their next visit to the U.S., where people are serving long sentences for much less substantial contact and support for Hamas related organizations!
However, back to the main issue, Palestine's application for U.N. membership is now languishing in a Security Council subcommittee, few of whose members seem eager to bring the issue to a head. No matter what the Obama administration does now, it is cruising for a diplomatic bruising. While U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice is not as pugnacious as her predecessor John Bolton, or indeed James Baker, in rounding up votes in the U.N., the Obama administration has been trying hard—despite Washington's weakened clout—to persuade vulnerable states that it is in their best interests not to vote yes in the Security Council. If the resolution accepting Palestinian membership does not garner nine positive votes, then—in the spirit of the toddler who hides behind the drapes and can't understand that everyone can see his feet sticking out—the U.S. hopes to escape the contumely it richly merits for vetoing a resolution fulfilling the wishes expressed by the president just a year earlier.
Twenty years ago, the U.S. scarcely felt the need to justify what it wanted. Now, over-extended militarily, wobbling financially, its carrots are stringy and its stick detumescent, so it has to explain why Russia is being unreasonable in blocking the membership of Kosovo, recognized by about half of the U.N., while a White House-threatened veto of membership for Palestine, recognized by more than two-thirds of U.N. members, is statesmanship of a high order.
Indeed, inquiring minds might well compare the Russian and Chinese vetoes against action in Syria to prevent repression, with those by the U.S. against any resolution that even mildly criticizes Israel for documented repression in the occupied territories—as listed by the State Department's own annual reports on human rights and religious freedom!
And more Israel Lobby-induced mayhem was heading down the turnpike toward Washington, with UNESCO's scheduled late fall vote on its board's recommendation for Palestine's full membership status in the agency's general council. Forty of the 58 board members backed a Palestinian draft resolution proposing membership, with the U.S. among four voting against, and 14 abstentions—countries which do not really oppose it but don't want to upset the U.S.
The Vatican Precedent
This has a double significance. Firstly, the Vatican's convoluted route to acceptance as a non-member observer state at the U.N. began with it being "smuggled" into membership of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) by the devotee who headed the organization at the time. After all, the Vatican had its own stamps—a nice little earner—and its own radio station, which got it into the International Telecommunications (then Telegraph) Union. It was never allowed to join the League of Nations, nor for many decades would Washington countenance U.N. membership—but the Vatican had a long-term strategy, as one would expect, on how a postage stamp state with a population of a few hundred celibates could get more recognition.
The U.N. invited members of the specialized agencies to participate, but not vote, in the General Assembly and, nudged along, gave such entities, which included Switzerland for half a century, a vote in conferences.
Echoing the issue of whether President Abbas represents the PLO, Palestine, or the Palestinian Authority, it is the Vatican City which is a member of the two U.N. agencies. Half a century ago, however, it switched the name of its U.N. observer mission to the Holy See—then separated the Holy See as the Catholic Church from the Holy See as the entity holding sovereignty over the Vatican City!
In a little noticed move in 2004, the General Assembly upgraded the Vatican's status from an entity—Palestine's current designation—to a non-member state. The U.S., which opposes such status for the several million Palestinians, did not object.
So, under existing rules, membership in UNESCO would take Palestinian participation out of the special case situation it currently occupies as a result of 20 years of diplomatic war by attrition, and bring it under general rules that the U.S. and Israel would have no chance of overturning.
Renewed Assaults on the U.N.
But there is, of course, more. After some years of the puzzling sound of silence regarding the U.N., some of the Republican right and their Democratic allies whose hearts beat as one with the Likudnik pacemaker have been building up for a renewed assault on the U.N. and all its works. They have passed legislation that would require the U.S. to pull its funding—and membership—from any body that gives "full membership as a state to any organization or group that does not have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood." The legislation is of course weaselly worded to mean Palestine—but not the Vatican—while interestingly leaving Taiwan in limbo.
That would present an interesting quandary for Hillary Clinton, who, visiting UNESCO headquarters in Paris this year, declared, "I am proud to be the first secretary of state from the United States ever to come to UNESCO, and I come because I believe strongly in your mission." That dilemma could be resolved immediately, of course, if the president and the State Department determined that in fact Palestine does have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood. After all, Kosovo, under U.S. sponsorship, has joined the World Bank and IMF—which should, if U.N. membership were the determinant, have the U.S. pulling out and defunding those organizations as well. Looking at the damage they have done worldwide, that might not be such a bad idea—but in any case, no one has brought it up hitherto.
The diplomatic dilemma on the horns of which the administration is impaling itself becomes more barbed with each passing denial of reality.
By U.N. custom, once one agency has accepted a member, all other U.N. agencies also accord it full rights, as the Vatican demonstrates. Since the World Bank and IMF are quantum U.N. agencies—in and out at the same time, depending on what suits them—Kosovo cannot yet lever membership there into other U.N. agencies. UNESCO membership, however, like the UPU, opens the doors to all the others.
So the U.S. can either pull out of all the U.N. agencies this administration holds dear—including the U.N. itself—if the General Assembly accepts the Holy See way to Palestinian participation, or it can accept Palestine as a state under international law. Washington could, of course, suggest that the case be referred to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague for an advisory opinion. That, however, would then imply accepting other ICJ judgements, such as the one against the U.S. mining of Nicaragua's harbors—and on Israel's occupation wall.
A Hard-Hitting Report
The latter, of course, is long overdue. On Sept. 16, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon submitted the report requested by the General Assembly on Israeli settlement activities. Citing instance after instance of violent discriminatory behavior, the hard-hitting report "seeks to underscore the discriminatory nature of the Israeli policy and practice of promoting settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. While illegal settlement expansion continues to take place in the West Bank, restrictions on Palestinian construction and the demolition of Palestinian homes have been on the rise. The report also addresses settlers' violent acts against Palestinians and their properties during the reporting period and the discriminatory treatment of Israeli settlers and Palestinians in law enforcement. The involvement of Israel Defense Forces in acts of violence, either through their participation or inaction to prevent the acts, is discussed as a growing concern."
But perhaps most timely for those expressing shock and horror at the Palestinians undertaking due process to secure the rights as a state that most nations grant them is the report's conclusion: "The General Assembly and the international community should more actively seek the implementation of their decisions, resolutions and recommendations, as well as those of the Security Council, the International Court of Justice and the United Nations human rights mechanisms, including treaty bodies and special procedure mandate holders, in relation to the situation of human rights and international humanitarian law in the occupied Palestinian territory."
It puts in perspective the U.S. threat to defund all Palestinian activities in retaliation for the statehood bid—as, indeed, does the promise to increase aid to the state that is defying not only the U.N., but U.S. pleas, and continuing to build settlements.
Ian Williams is a free-lance journalist based at the United Nations and has a blog at <www.deadlinepundit.blogspot.com>.
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Throughout the summer many Israeli politicians seemed to be in a state of near hysteria over the possibility that the Palestinians would seek to gain recognition of a state through the U.N. It is unclear why this was considered such a threat to Israel, except that it might hinder Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's apparent strategy of pretending to want to negotiate while relentlessly expanding Israeli colonies in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
On cue, AIPAC and other far-right Jewish-American groups and individuals began whipping Congress to forcefully respond with anti-Palestinian measures, including cutting off aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA). It was no surprise that Israel's bought-and-paid-for members of Congress were eager to take up the cry. No fewer than 10 senators and 35 House members spoke out in one forum or another denouncing the Palestinians and praising Israel. As reported in the Washington Report's September/October issue, under AIPAC pressure Congress passed non-binding resolutions—S.Res. 185 in the Senate and H.Res. 268 in the House—threatening, among other things, to cut off aid to the Palestinians if they persist in their statehood efforts. In July, House foreign aid appropriations subcommittee chair Kay Granger (R-TX) and ranking Democrat Nita Lowey (D-NY) wrote to PA President Mahmoud Abbas making the same threat, and on Sept. 15, 58 House Democrats, led by Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), wrote to 40 European heads of state urging them to "stand with the United States" in opposing "unilateral" action by the PA at the U.N. On Sept. 20, just before President Barack Obama's speech to the U.N., 14 senators wrote to him urging that he use his speech to restate strong U.S. support for Israel, which is just what he did.
Legislatively, the previously described measures supporting Israel's Likud-led government's intransigence made no progress. However, three new measures were introduced. On Sept. 8, Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) joined by 42 of his Republican colleagues, introduced H.Res. 394 "supporting Israel's right to annex Judea and Samaria in the event that the Palestinian Authority continues to press for unilateral recognition" of statehood at the U.N. And on Sept. 12 Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), with three co-sponsors, introduced H.R. 2893 "to prohibit Foreign Military Financing program assistance to countries that vote in the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state in the absence of a negotiated border agreement" between Israel and the PA. In the Senate, Orrin Hatch (R-UT), with 18 Republican co-sponsors, on Sept. 21 introduced S. 1595 prohibiting funding for the U.N. if the Security Council or UNGA grants Palestine a change in status in the absence of a comprehensive peace agreement.
Then, on Oct. 1, Agence France Presse reported that a coalition of Israel-backing Democrats and conservative Republicans in both the House and Senate were blocking about $200 million of aid to the Palestinians "until the Palestinian statehood issue is sorted out." However, on Oct. 3 Reuters quoted State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland as saying the administration is in "intensive" discussions with key members to unblock the money.
And Congress' most reliable Israel-firster, House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), held a Sept. 14 hearing on "Re-examining Aid to the Palestinians," packed with pro-Israel witnesses. Ros-Lehtinen's opening statement was predictably harsh, saying that Washington not only should cut off aid to the Palestinians, but should withhold funding to any U.N. entity that granted membership, or any upgraded status, to the PA.
Ros-Lehtinen was probably disappointed in some of her witnesses' statements, especially those of neocons Eliot Abrams of the Council on Foreign Relations and David Makovsky of the AIPAC-created Washington Institute of Near East Policy. Both said that cutting off Palestinian aid could be harmful to Israel by, among other things, ending U.S.-Palestinian security cooperation and possibly causing the collapse of the PA. Indeed, the Israeli government may have begun to realize that continuing aid to the Palestinians is indeed in Israel's interest. Reuters on Sept. 16 reported that Israel on Sept. 18 would submit a report to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee coordinating assistance to the Palestinians urging the international community to continue aid to the Palestinians.
During August a record 81 House members—26 Democrats led by Minority Whip Hoyer and 55 Republicans led by Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), visited Israel courtesy of the "American Israel Education Foundation" (AIEF), a sham AIPAC spin-off. The Capitol Hill publication Roll Call estimated that the cost to the AIEF could total more than $1 million. Roll Call also pointed out that the AIEF and AIPAC share the same address, employees and board members, and the AIEF's executive director and its other employees all receive their salaries from AIPAC. (See this issue's postcard insert.)
In 2007 Congress passed a law banning lobbying groups from paying for House members to take long trips. However, the law included a provision exempting non-profit groups. Roll Call quoted the watchdog group Public Citizen's Craig Holman as saying "I call it the 'AIPAC loophole.'"
While the anti-Palestinian measures described in previous issues have made no progress, H.R. 2457, the "Palestinian Accountability Act," introduced in July by Walsh, has gained six co-sponsors, and now has 39, all Republicans. Its stated purpose is "to restrict funds for the Palestinian Authority." Unless certain unlikely conditions are met, it would prohibit U.S. government documents from referring to areas controlled by the PA as Palestine; would prohibit U.S. funds to the PA; would prohibit U.S. funds to the U.N. or any U.N. entity if it declares or recognizes statehood for the Palestinian territories, and would bar U.S. funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which aids Palestinian refugees, unless it meets the same conditions imposed on the Palestinians.
The AIPAC-promoted, previously described H.R. 1006, introduced in March by Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), continues to make slow progress. It would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, cut off some State Department funding unless the U.S. Embassy in Israel is established in Jerusalem no later than Jan. 1, 2013, and remove the presidential waiver authority included in the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995. It has gained eight co-sponsors and now has 51, including Burton.
Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) introduced two measures opposing the Arab boycott of Israel. In May he introduced, with three co-sponsors, H.R. 2004, whose primary focus is to prohibit or control technology transfer to any country supporting acts of terrorism. However, it also includes a provision directing the president to issue regulations prohibiting any U.S. citizen from taking any actions supporting "any foreign-imposed or -fostered boycott against a country that is friendly to the U.S." Then, on July 19 he introduced H.R. 2589, whose only provisions are "to prohibit certain activities in support of the Arab League boycott of Israel."
Ros-Lehtinen, with 112 Republican co-sponsors, on Aug. 30 introduced H.R. 2829, her long-awaited "U.N. Transparency, Accountability, and Reform" bill. To say it is extreme would be an understatement. It is clear that Ros-Lehtinen's objective is to make U.S. funding of the U.N. conditional on its treatment of Israel and the Palestinians. Among the bill's many harsh measures are those that would "withhold U.S. contributions from any U.N. agency or program that upgrades the status of the PLO Palestinian observer mission;" withhold funding for UNRWA; call for the U.S. to lead a high-level U.N. effort for "the revocation and repudiation of the Goldstone Report;" shift U.S. contributions to the U.N. to a voluntary basis; and halt new U.S. contributions to U.N. peacekeeping missions until reforms are implemented.
"Even before I was a Democrat, I was a Zionist" Berman, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said it would "eviscerate" the U.N. and called it radical, ill-advised and probably dead on arrival. Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations Esther Brimmer said the bill's measures were "backward" and would seriously undermine America's role as a world leader. U.N. Foundation vice-president Peter Yeo said that not only was the bill unwise and would undermine the U.S. position at the U.N., but that it also has no chance of becoming law.
It is not clear why Ros-Lehtinen continues to introduce such extreme measures as this bill and the Foreign Affairs Authorization bill, described in the September/October issue, that have no chance of being enacted. Perhaps it is part of a broader, Republican 2012-election strategy to compel Democrats to oppose them so as to somehow paint them as being "soft" on Israel. Or perhaps she wants to beat her 2010 record as second-highest House recipient of pro-Israel PAC contributions ($45,000, for a career total of $208,740).
The two comprehensive Iran sanctions bills being pushed by AIPAC continue to gain co-sponsors. H.R. 1905, introduced in May by Ros-Lehtinen, titled the "Iran Threat Reduction Act of 2011," has gained 91 co-sponsors and now has 298, including Ros-Lehtinen. S. 1048, introduced in May by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) "to expand sanctions with respect to the Islamic Republic of Iran, North Korea, and Syria," has gained 22 co-sponsors and now has 75, including Menendez. However, neither bill has been brought to the floor of the House or Senate.
On Aug. 9, 92 senators, led by Sens. Mark Kirk (R-IL)—who received more pro-Israel PAC contributions ($115,304) than any 2010 candidate—and Charles Schumer (D-NY), wrote to Obama urging him to impose sanctions on Iran's Central Bank to help thwart Iran's nuclear programs.
On Aug. 2 Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and two co-sponsors introduced S. 1496, "to prohibit the delegation by the U.S. of inspection, certification, and related services to a foreign classification society that provides comparable services to Iran, North Korea, North Sudan, or Syria."
H.R. 2105, introduced by Ros-Lehtinen in June to expand sanctions on "foreign persons who transfer to Iran, North Korea, and Syria certain goods, services or technology," has gained two co-sponsors and now has five, including Ros-Lehtinen.
H.R. 2106, also introduced by Ros-Lehtinen in June, has gained 33 co-sponsors and now has 35, including Ros-Lehtinen. It would "strengthen sanctions against the government of Syria, enhance multilateral commitment to address the government of Syria's threatening policies, and establish a program to support a transition to a democratic government in Syria." It would also restrict Obama's authority to waive sanctions on Syria. And H.Res. 296, introduced in June by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) has gained two co-sponsors and now has 34, including Lamborn.
On Aug. 9 Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), with 10 co-sponsors, introduced S. 1472. It would direct the president to impose a wide range of sanctions aimed at Syria's petroleum sector, including sanctions against a person who invests at least $20 million that contributes to Syria's ability to develop petroleum resources; sells goods or services to Syria that could facilitate Syria's domestic production of refined petroleum products; or purchases Syrian-developed petroleum resources.
On Aug. 3, 68 senators signed a letter to Obama urging him to impose tougher sanctions on Syria, including stringent sanctions on Syria's banking sector and a ban on U.S. businesses operating or investing in Syria.
Most of the previously described measures concerning Afghanistan have received no further support. However, H.R. 1735, the "Afghanistan Exit and Accountability" bill introduced in May by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) has gained two co-sponsors and now has 75, including McGovern. It would require the president to submit to Congress "a plan with a timeframe and completion date for the accelerated transition of U.S. military and security operations in Afghanistan to the government of Afghanistan" within 60 days. On Oct. 5 Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), with one co-sponsor, introduced H.Res. 423 urging the U.S. to "empower and recognize Afghanistan's ethnic diversity through free local and provincial elections and replace the present failed centralized system of government with a federal political structure."
Regarding Pakistan, H.R. 1790, introduced May 5 by Rohrabacher, which would prohibit assistance to Pakistan, still has no co-sponsors. Similarly, H.R. 3013, introduced Sept. 22 by Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), which also would prohibit aid to Pakistan, also has no co-sponsors. On Oct. 6 Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) introduced H.R. 3115 "to prohibit non-security assistance to Pakistan."
With the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq more or less on schedule, most members seemed satisfied with occasional hearings to get status reports. However, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), with 43 co-sponsors, on Aug. 1 introduced another Iraq withdrawal measure, H.R 2757. It would "prohibit the use of funds to maintain U.S. Armed Forces and military contractors in Iraq after Dec. 31, 2011." Similarly, regarding Libya, with the fall of the Qaddafi regime the previously described Libya-related measures have languished. One new one, H.J.Res. 74, was introduced July 26 by Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), with three co-sponsors. It would authorize the limited use of U.S. Armed Forces in support of the NATO mission in Libya, but require the president to consult frequently with Congress regarding U.S. efforts in Libya.
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December 2011, Pages 30-31
Congress Watch
Congress Echoes Israel's Near Hysteria Over Palestinians' U.N. Bid
By Shirl McArthur
Throughout the summer many Israeli politicians seemed to be in a state of near hysteria over the possibility that the Palestinians would seek to gain recognition of a state through the U.N. It is unclear why this was considered such a threat to Israel, except that it might hinder Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's apparent strategy of pretending to want to negotiate while relentlessly expanding Israeli colonies in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
On cue, AIPAC and other far-right Jewish-American groups and individuals began whipping Congress to forcefully respond with anti-Palestinian measures, including cutting off aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA). It was no surprise that Israel's bought-and-paid-for members of Congress were eager to take up the cry. No fewer than 10 senators and 35 House members spoke out in one forum or another denouncing the Palestinians and praising Israel. As reported in the Washington Report's September/October issue, under AIPAC pressure Congress passed non-binding resolutions—S.Res. 185 in the Senate and H.Res. 268 in the House—threatening, among other things, to cut off aid to the Palestinians if they persist in their statehood efforts. In July, House foreign aid appropriations subcommittee chair Kay Granger (R-TX) and ranking Democrat Nita Lowey (D-NY) wrote to PA President Mahmoud Abbas making the same threat, and on Sept. 15, 58 House Democrats, led by Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), wrote to 40 European heads of state urging them to "stand with the United States" in opposing "unilateral" action by the PA at the U.N. On Sept. 20, just before President Barack Obama's speech to the U.N., 14 senators wrote to him urging that he use his speech to restate strong U.S. support for Israel, which is just what he did.
Legislatively, the previously described measures supporting Israel's Likud-led government's intransigence made no progress. However, three new measures were introduced. On Sept. 8, Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) joined by 42 of his Republican colleagues, introduced H.Res. 394 "supporting Israel's right to annex Judea and Samaria in the event that the Palestinian Authority continues to press for unilateral recognition" of statehood at the U.N. And on Sept. 12 Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), with three co-sponsors, introduced H.R. 2893 "to prohibit Foreign Military Financing program assistance to countries that vote in the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state in the absence of a negotiated border agreement" between Israel and the PA. In the Senate, Orrin Hatch (R-UT), with 18 Republican co-sponsors, on Sept. 21 introduced S. 1595 prohibiting funding for the U.N. if the Security Council or UNGA grants Palestine a change in status in the absence of a comprehensive peace agreement.
Israel's bought-and-paid-for members of Congress were eager to take up the cry.
Then, on Oct. 1, Agence France Presse reported that a coalition of Israel-backing Democrats and conservative Republicans in both the House and Senate were blocking about $200 million of aid to the Palestinians "until the Palestinian statehood issue is sorted out." However, on Oct. 3 Reuters quoted State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland as saying the administration is in "intensive" discussions with key members to unblock the money.
And Congress' most reliable Israel-firster, House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), held a Sept. 14 hearing on "Re-examining Aid to the Palestinians," packed with pro-Israel witnesses. Ros-Lehtinen's opening statement was predictably harsh, saying that Washington not only should cut off aid to the Palestinians, but should withhold funding to any U.N. entity that granted membership, or any upgraded status, to the PA.
But Israel May Be Having Second Thoughts
Ros-Lehtinen was probably disappointed in some of her witnesses' statements, especially those of neocons Eliot Abrams of the Council on Foreign Relations and David Makovsky of the AIPAC-created Washington Institute of Near East Policy. Both said that cutting off Palestinian aid could be harmful to Israel by, among other things, ending U.S.-Palestinian security cooperation and possibly causing the collapse of the PA. Indeed, the Israeli government may have begun to realize that continuing aid to the Palestinians is indeed in Israel's interest. Reuters on Sept. 16 reported that Israel on Sept. 18 would submit a report to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee coordinating assistance to the Palestinians urging the international community to continue aid to the Palestinians.
Record 81 House Members on AIPAC-Sponsored Boondoggle to Israel
During August a record 81 House members—26 Democrats led by Minority Whip Hoyer and 55 Republicans led by Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), visited Israel courtesy of the "American Israel Education Foundation" (AIEF), a sham AIPAC spin-off. The Capitol Hill publication Roll Call estimated that the cost to the AIEF could total more than $1 million. Roll Call also pointed out that the AIEF and AIPAC share the same address, employees and board members, and the AIEF's executive director and its other employees all receive their salaries from AIPAC. (See this issue's postcard insert.)
In 2007 Congress passed a law banning lobbying groups from paying for House members to take long trips. However, the law included a provision exempting non-profit groups. Roll Call quoted the watchdog group Public Citizen's Craig Holman as saying "I call it the 'AIPAC loophole.'"
"Palestinian Accountability" Bill Makes Some Progress
While the anti-Palestinian measures described in previous issues have made no progress, H.R. 2457, the "Palestinian Accountability Act," introduced in July by Walsh, has gained six co-sponsors, and now has 39, all Republicans. Its stated purpose is "to restrict funds for the Palestinian Authority." Unless certain unlikely conditions are met, it would prohibit U.S. government documents from referring to areas controlled by the PA as Palestine; would prohibit U.S. funds to the PA; would prohibit U.S. funds to the U.N. or any U.N. entity if it declares or recognizes statehood for the Palestinian territories, and would bar U.S. funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which aids Palestinian refugees, unless it meets the same conditions imposed on the Palestinians.
Jerusalem Embassy, Anti-Boycott Bills
The AIPAC-promoted, previously described H.R. 1006, introduced in March by Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), continues to make slow progress. It would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, cut off some State Department funding unless the U.S. Embassy in Israel is established in Jerusalem no later than Jan. 1, 2013, and remove the presidential waiver authority included in the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995. It has gained eight co-sponsors and now has 51, including Burton.
Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) introduced two measures opposing the Arab boycott of Israel. In May he introduced, with three co-sponsors, H.R. 2004, whose primary focus is to prohibit or control technology transfer to any country supporting acts of terrorism. However, it also includes a provision directing the president to issue regulations prohibiting any U.S. citizen from taking any actions supporting "any foreign-imposed or -fostered boycott against a country that is friendly to the U.S." Then, on July 19 he introduced H.R. 2589, whose only provisions are "to prohibit certain activities in support of the Arab League boycott of Israel."
U.N. Reform Bill Finally Introduced
Ros-Lehtinen, with 112 Republican co-sponsors, on Aug. 30 introduced H.R. 2829, her long-awaited "U.N. Transparency, Accountability, and Reform" bill. To say it is extreme would be an understatement. It is clear that Ros-Lehtinen's objective is to make U.S. funding of the U.N. conditional on its treatment of Israel and the Palestinians. Among the bill's many harsh measures are those that would "withhold U.S. contributions from any U.N. agency or program that upgrades the status of the PLO Palestinian observer mission;" withhold funding for UNRWA; call for the U.S. to lead a high-level U.N. effort for "the revocation and repudiation of the Goldstone Report;" shift U.S. contributions to the U.N. to a voluntary basis; and halt new U.S. contributions to U.N. peacekeeping missions until reforms are implemented.
"Even before I was a Democrat, I was a Zionist" Berman, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said it would "eviscerate" the U.N. and called it radical, ill-advised and probably dead on arrival. Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations Esther Brimmer said the bill's measures were "backward" and would seriously undermine America's role as a world leader. U.N. Foundation vice-president Peter Yeo said that not only was the bill unwise and would undermine the U.S. position at the U.N., but that it also has no chance of becoming law.
It is not clear why Ros-Lehtinen continues to introduce such extreme measures as this bill and the Foreign Affairs Authorization bill, described in the September/October issue, that have no chance of being enacted. Perhaps it is part of a broader, Republican 2012-election strategy to compel Democrats to oppose them so as to somehow paint them as being "soft" on Israel. Or perhaps she wants to beat her 2010 record as second-highest House recipient of pro-Israel PAC contributions ($45,000, for a career total of $208,740).
Iran, Syria Sanctions Bills Continue to Gain Support
The two comprehensive Iran sanctions bills being pushed by AIPAC continue to gain co-sponsors. H.R. 1905, introduced in May by Ros-Lehtinen, titled the "Iran Threat Reduction Act of 2011," has gained 91 co-sponsors and now has 298, including Ros-Lehtinen. S. 1048, introduced in May by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) "to expand sanctions with respect to the Islamic Republic of Iran, North Korea, and Syria," has gained 22 co-sponsors and now has 75, including Menendez. However, neither bill has been brought to the floor of the House or Senate.
On Aug. 9, 92 senators, led by Sens. Mark Kirk (R-IL)—who received more pro-Israel PAC contributions ($115,304) than any 2010 candidate—and Charles Schumer (D-NY), wrote to Obama urging him to impose sanctions on Iran's Central Bank to help thwart Iran's nuclear programs.
On Aug. 2 Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and two co-sponsors introduced S. 1496, "to prohibit the delegation by the U.S. of inspection, certification, and related services to a foreign classification society that provides comparable services to Iran, North Korea, North Sudan, or Syria."
H.R. 2105, introduced by Ros-Lehtinen in June to expand sanctions on "foreign persons who transfer to Iran, North Korea, and Syria certain goods, services or technology," has gained two co-sponsors and now has five, including Ros-Lehtinen.
H.R. 2106, also introduced by Ros-Lehtinen in June, has gained 33 co-sponsors and now has 35, including Ros-Lehtinen. It would "strengthen sanctions against the government of Syria, enhance multilateral commitment to address the government of Syria's threatening policies, and establish a program to support a transition to a democratic government in Syria." It would also restrict Obama's authority to waive sanctions on Syria. And H.Res. 296, introduced in June by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) has gained two co-sponsors and now has 34, including Lamborn.
On Aug. 9 Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), with 10 co-sponsors, introduced S. 1472. It would direct the president to impose a wide range of sanctions aimed at Syria's petroleum sector, including sanctions against a person who invests at least $20 million that contributes to Syria's ability to develop petroleum resources; sells goods or services to Syria that could facilitate Syria's domestic production of refined petroleum products; or purchases Syrian-developed petroleum resources.
On Aug. 3, 68 senators signed a letter to Obama urging him to impose tougher sanctions on Syria, including stringent sanctions on Syria's banking sector and a ban on U.S. businesses operating or investing in Syria.
Some Attention Paid to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Even Libya and Iraq
Most of the previously described measures concerning Afghanistan have received no further support. However, H.R. 1735, the "Afghanistan Exit and Accountability" bill introduced in May by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) has gained two co-sponsors and now has 75, including McGovern. It would require the president to submit to Congress "a plan with a timeframe and completion date for the accelerated transition of U.S. military and security operations in Afghanistan to the government of Afghanistan" within 60 days. On Oct. 5 Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), with one co-sponsor, introduced H.Res. 423 urging the U.S. to "empower and recognize Afghanistan's ethnic diversity through free local and provincial elections and replace the present failed centralized system of government with a federal political structure."
Regarding Pakistan, H.R. 1790, introduced May 5 by Rohrabacher, which would prohibit assistance to Pakistan, still has no co-sponsors. Similarly, H.R. 3013, introduced Sept. 22 by Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), which also would prohibit aid to Pakistan, also has no co-sponsors. On Oct. 6 Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) introduced H.R. 3115 "to prohibit non-security assistance to Pakistan."
With the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq more or less on schedule, most members seemed satisfied with occasional hearings to get status reports. However, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), with 43 co-sponsors, on Aug. 1 introduced another Iraq withdrawal measure, H.R 2757. It would "prohibit the use of funds to maintain U.S. Armed Forces and military contractors in Iraq after Dec. 31, 2011." Similarly, regarding Libya, with the fall of the Qaddafi regime the previously described Libya-related measures have languished. One new one, H.J.Res. 74, was introduced July 26 by Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), with three co-sponsors. It would authorize the limited use of U.S. Armed Forces in support of the NATO mission in Libya, but require the president to consult frequently with Congress regarding U.S. efforts in Libya.
Shirl McArthur, a retired U.S. foreign service officer, is a consultant based in the Washington, DC area.
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Book: Divide and Perish: The Geopolitics of the Middle East
Book: Divide and Perish: The Geopolitics of the Middle East
January/February 2012, Page 62
Book Review
Divide and Perish: The Geopolitics of the Middle East
By Curtis F. Jones, AuthorHouse, 2010, paperback, Second Edition, 542 pp. List: $20.49; AET: $16.
Reviewed by Andrew I. Killgore
I have often been asked to name the one book that an interested newcomer to the Middle East should read to acquire some feel for that fascinating/tortured area of the world. But I have never been able to provide a satisfactory answer—until now. Divide and Perish by intelligence analyst/historian/diplomat Curtis F. Jones comes awfully close to being that book. Because it is really written for those who already have some scholarly knowledge of the area, however, Dividewould be too deeply analytical for a beginner. So it still is not the one book.
After a brilliant 30-year career as a U.S. foreign service officer, author Jones spent another 30 years lecturing and writing for the Department of State and the Triangle Institute for Security Studies (consisting of three great North Carolina universities). At the Department he was for several years the director of Intelligence and Research (INR) for the Near (Middle) East and South Asia. (When former Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith was fabricating "intelligence" to get the United States into war with Iraq, he deliberately avoided going through INR—the secretary of state's intelligence service—because it surely would have found his "intelligence" to be false.)
More than 500 pages long, Divide consists of 16 chapters: The Dictates of Geopolitics; The Middle Eastern Geopolity; Demography; Too Much Oil; Not Enough Water; The Curse of Communalism; Frontiers of Conquest; Who Owns Palestine?; Iraq; The Most Difficult State; The Cycle of Empire; Stages of Government; Islamic Fundamentalism; The Rise of Israeli-American Diarchy; The Wraith of Arab Nationalism; Occupation: American Aims Versus Iraqi Reality; and Through a Glass Darkly: A Policy Prescription. Each is closely knit and sweeping in its conclusions.
Since the focus of his book is on the Middle East, not the science of geopolitics, Jones explains, Chapter One's purpose is "To present a summary plausible enough to serve as a conceptual matrix into which Middle East events can be instructively integrated." This formulation suggests that Divide and Perish is complex and intellectually challenging. It is. But if read carefully and thoughtfully, any reader will come away with a profounder knowledge of the region.
Retired foreign service officer Jones learnedly describes the Middle East in Chapter Two with what he calls a "European misnomer" which has even been adopted by the Arabs ("Al-Sharq al-Ausat" in Arabic). It contains four major languages—Arabic, Turkish, Persian and Kurdish—and is separated by five seas: the Mediterranean, Black, Caspian, Arabian and Red. But because it is impermeable enough to admit only the most keenly motivated (Hannibal crossing the Alpine passes into Italy with an army and elephants), but hard enough to be somewhat spared from intrusion, Jones writes, "it has crystalized into political and cultural frontiers."
In Chapter Eight, "Who Owns Palestine?," Jones notes that more than 100 governments have recognized the "figurative" state of Palestine although no such state has ever existed. Israel "owns" Palestine now, but there are several restraints on it, overwhelmingly the demographic. Israel's ambition is to restore the ancient Kingdom of David, but to do so it must win regional acceptance of a Jewish state and assure against an Arab majority in that state.
In the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Israel conquered 80 percent of Palestine but did not take the remaining 20 percent because of Britain's defense treaty with Jordan. The United States required Israel to evacuate the Sinai and Gaza Strip after its 1956 Suez invasion. Nor was Israel allowed to keep its hold on the south bank of Lebanon's Litani River.
Jones terms U.S.-Israeli polices toward the Middle East a diarchy. From Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama, American presidents one after another have acquiesced in Israeli policies—with one exception: Dwight Eisenhower, when he insisted that Israel divest itself of the Sinai and the Gaza Strip in 1957.
To achieve its goals of regional acceptance and a Jewish majority, Israel has practiced what the author calls "desperation measures." But its "acceptance" by Egypt and Jordan is closely tied to generous American subsidies to maintain their validity. And all efforts to persuade Palestinians to emigrate have failed—in 2000 there were 5.26 million Jewish residents to 5.02 million non-Jewish in greater Israel, according to Palestinian-American commentator Ali Abunimah.
In Divide's last chapter, Jones presents his profoundly searching and pessimistic conclusion. Describing the attempted "two-state solution" as "threadbare" and America's commitment to Israel's well-being as visceral, Jones considers inconceivable any American solution that goes against Israel's perceived self-interests.
Instead he sees a viable solution in a unified Palestine which will come about only by infinitesimal degrees. By an ironical fate, he observes, this process was begun by Israel's seizure of the occupied territories in 1967. Only as Israel edges toward greater equality for its citizens and greater opportunity for its stateless Arab subjects in the West Bank will America be able to anticipate the ultimate pacification of the Middle East.
Meanwhile, in Jones' view, the U.S. must suffer for its inability to arrange a settlement. He compares this with the despondancy over the loss of faith by the 19th century poet Matthew Arnold in his magnificent poem "Dover Beach": "Ah love, let us be true to one another for the world/which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams.…And we are here as on a darkling plain swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight where ignorant armies clash by night."
Divide and Perish is a monumental book on the Middle East written by a most distinguished scholar and diplomat.
Andrew I. Killgore, a retired foreign service officer and former U.S. ambassador to Qatar, is publisher of the Washington Report.
The Crisis in Syria - Two Views
March-April 2012, Pages 20-22
Two Views
The Crisis in Syria
The Syrian Crisis and the New Cold War
By Patrick Seale
A Syrian supporter of President Bashar al-Assad wears a Christian rosary, Sunni praying beads and a Shi’i Imam Ali sword around his neck at a Jan. 9 rally in front of a Greek Orthdox church in Damascus in memory of two victims of recent fighting in the country: Saria Hassoun, the son of Syria’s grand mufti, who was killed in October in Homs, and a 10-year-old Christian boy, killed recently in the central flashpoint city as he ventured out to buy cookies. The opposition accused President Assad’s troops of killing the boy, but his mother appeared on official Syrian television to say “armed gangs” were behind the murder. (Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images)
The Syrian crisis is no longer a purely Syrian affair. Its wider dimension was highlighted on Feb. 4, when Russia and China cast their veto at the U.N. Security Council, thereby aborting a Western-backed Arab Resolution, which had called on President Bashar al-Assad to step down. At a stroke, the debate was no longer simply about Syria's internal power struggle. Instead, with their vetoes, Moscow and Beijing were saying that they, too, had interests in the Middle East, which they were determined to protect. The region was no longer an exclusive Western preserve under the hegemony of the United States and its allies.
Russia has decades-old interests in the Middle East, in Syria in particular. As a major customer of Iranian oil, China does not approve of Western sanctions against Tehran. Nor does it take kindly to U.S. attempts to contain its influence in the Asia-Pacific region. There is a hint in the air of a revived Cold War.
The Syrian crisis has, in fact, been a two-stage affair from the very beginning—internal as well as international. On the internal level, the uprising has aimed to topple the regime on the model of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. In this increasingly ugly struggle, both sides—government and opposition—have made serious mistakes. The government's mistake was to use live fire against street protesters who were—at first at least—demonstrating peacefully. The crisis could perhaps have been defused with the implementation of immediate reforms. Instead, mounting casualties have created enormous bitterness among the population, reducing the chance of a negotiated settlement.
The opposition's mistake has been to resort to arms—to become militarized—largely in the form of the Free Syrian Army, a motley force of defectors from the armed services, as well as free-lance fighters and hard-line Islamists. It has been conducting hit-and-run attacks on regime targets and regime loyalists. The exiled opposition leadership is composed of a number of disparate, often squabbling, groupings—of which the best known is the Syrian National Council. Inside the SNC, the Muslim Brotherhood is the best organized and funded element of the opposition. Outlawed since its terrorist campaign in 1977-1982 to overthrow the regime of Hafez al-Assad—an attempt crushed in blood at Hama—it is driven by a thirst for revenge.
No regime, whatever its political coloring, can tolerate an armed uprising without responding with full force. Indeed, the rise of an armed opposition has provided the Syrian regime with the justification it needed to seek to crush it with ever bloodier repression.
Casualties over the last 11 months have been heavy—estimated at some 5,000 to 6,000 members of the opposition, both armed and unarmed, and perhaps 1,500 members of the army and security forces. There is necessarily an element of guesswork in these figures. As in all wars, the manipulation of information has been much in evidence.
Inside Syria, therefore, the situation is today one of increased violence by both sides, of sectarian polarization, and of a dangerous stalemate, slipping each day closer to a full-blown sectarian civil war.
The second level of the contest is being played out in the international arena, where Russia and China, with some support from other emerging powers such as India and Brazil, are challenging America's supremacy in the Middle East. Washington's outrage at the challenge was evident when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton angrily dismissed the Russian and Chinese veto as a "travesty." Escalating the crisis, she called for an international coalition to support the Syrian opposition against what she described as the "brutal regime" in Damascus. She has encouraged the creation of a "Friends of Syria" group, with the apparent aim of channelling funds and weapons to Bashar al-Assad's enemies.
At the heart of the international struggle is a concerted attempt by the United States and its allies to bring down the ruling regimes in both Iran and Syria. Iran's "crime" has been to refuse to submit to American hegemony in the oil-rich Gulf region and to appear to pose a challenge, with its nuclear program, to Israel's regional nuclear monopoly. At the same time, Iran, Syria and Hezbollah—partners for the past three decades—have managed to make a dent in Israel's military supremacy. They have in recent years been the main obstacle to U.S.-Israeli regional dominance.
Israel has for years demonized Iran's nuclear program as an "existential" threat to itself and a danger to the entire world, and has repeatedly threatened to attack it. Its fevered gesticulations have pressured—some might say blackmailed—the United States and the European Union into imposing crippling sanctions on Iran's oil exports and its Central Bank.
The real issue, however, is one of regional dominance. Iran's nuclear program poses no particular danger to Israel. With its large nuclear arsenal, Israel has ample means to deter any would be aggressor. Nor would Iran willingly risk annihilation in a nuclear exchange. However, a nuclear-capable Iran—even if it never actually built a bomb—would limit Israel's freedom of action, notably its freedom to strike its neighbors at will.
Israel is at pains to restore its regional dominance, which has recently been somewhat curtailed. Its invasion of Lebanon in 2006 failed to destroy Hezbollah. Its 2008-9 assault on Gaza failed to destroy Hamas. Worse still from Israel's point of view, the war attracted international opprobrium and damaged Israel's relations with Turkey. The rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has put at risk the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty which, by removing the strongest country from the Arab line-up, guaranteed Israeli dominance for 30 years.
Israel's current strategy has been to get the United States to cripple Iran on its behalf—in much the same way as America's pro-Israeli neocons pushed the United States into war against Iraq, a country which Israel had then considered threatening.
The United States has also suffered grave setbacks in the region: its catastrophic war in Iraq; its unfinished conflict in Afghanistan; the violent hostility it has aroused in the Muslim world, particularly in Pakistan, Yemen and the Horn of Africa. It, too, is striving to retain its pre-eminence over the oil-rich Gulf States. Some Washington hawks may think that the overthrow of the mullahs in Tehran would put the United States and its Israeli ally back on top.
Because of their own apprehension of Iran, the Arab states of the Gulf have allowed themselves to be drawn into the conflict. They seem to fear that Iran may endanger the existing political order by stirring up local Shi'i communities. With Qatar in the lead, they joined the United States and Israel in their assault against Damascus and Tehran. Perhaps belatedly aware that a regional war could be catastrophic for them, there are signs that they are having second thoughts.
At February's Munich Security Conference, Qatar's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Khalid al-Attiyeh, declared that an attack on Iran "is not a solution, and tightening the embargo will make the scenario worse. I believe we should have dialogue." That is the voice of reason.
Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East. His latest book is The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press). Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale. Distributed by Agence Global.
The Syrian Impasse
By Immanuel Wallerstein
Bashar al-Assad has risen to the heights of being one of the least popular men in the world. He is denounced as a tyrant, indeed a very bloody tyrant, by almost everyone. Even those governments that refuse to denounce him seem to be counseling him to curb his repressive ways and to make some sort of political concessions to his internal opponents.
So, how is it that he ignores all this advice and proceeds to continue to use maximum force to continue political control of Syria? Why is there no outside intervention to force his removal from office? To answer these questions, let us start with assessing his strengths. First, he has a reasonably strong army, and up to now, with a few exceptions, the army and other structures of force in the country have stayed loyal to the regime. Secondly, he still seems to command the support of at least half of the population in what is increasingly being described as a civil war.
The key government posts and the officer corps are in the hands of the Alawi, a branch of Shi'i Islam. The Alawi are a minority of the population and certainly fear what would happen to them if the opposition forces, largely Sunni, were to come to power. In addition, the other significant minority forces—the Christians, the Druze, and the Kurds—seem to be equally wary of a Sunni government. Finally, the large merchant bourgeoisie have yet to turn against Assad and the Ba'ath regime.
But is this really enough? If this were all, I doubt that Assad could really hold out much longer. The regime is being squeezed economically. The opposition Free Syrian Army is being fed arms by Iraqi Sunnis and probably Qatar. And the chorus of denunciations in the world press and by politicians of all stripes grows louder by the day.
Yet, I don't think that, a year or two from now, we will find that Assad is gone or the regime basically changed. The reason is that those who are denouncing him the loudest do not really want him to go. Let us take them one by one.
Saudi Arabia: The foreign minister told The New York Times that "violence had to be stopped and the Syrian government not given any more chances." This sounds really strong until you notice that he added that "international intervention had to be ruled out." The fact is that Saudi Arabia wants the credit of opposing Assad but is very afraid of a successor government. It knows that in a post-Assad (probably fairly anarchic) Syria, al-Qaeda would find a base. And the Saudis know that al-Qaeda's number one objective is to overthrow the Saudi regime. Ergo, "no international intervention."
Israel: Yes, the Israelis continue to obsess about Iran. And yes, Ba'athist Syria continues to be an Iran-friendly power. But when all is said and done, Syria has been a relatively quiet Arab neighbor, an island of stability for the Israelis. Yes, the Syrians aid Hezbollah, but Hezbollah, too, has been relatively quiet. Why would the Israelis really want to take the risk of a turbulent post-Ba'athist Syria? Who would then wield power, and might they not have to improve their credentials by expanding jihad against Israel? And wouldn't the fall of Assad lead to upsetting the relative quiet and stability that Lebanon now seems to enjoy, and might this not end up with the further strengthening and renewed radicalism of Hezbollah? Israel has a lot to lose, and not too much to gain if Assad falls.
The United States: The U.S. government talks a good line. But have you noticed how wary it is in practice? The Washington Post headlined an article on Feb. 11, "As carnage builds, U.S. sees 'no good options' on Syria." The story points out that the U.S. government has "no appetite for a military intervention." No appetite, despite the pressure of neocon intellectuals like Charles Krauthammer who is honest enough to admit "it's not just about freedom." It's really, he says, about undoing the regime in Iran.
But isn't that exactly why Obama and his advisers see no good options? They were pressured into the Libyan operation. The U.S. didn't lose many lives, but did they really gain geopolitical advantage as a result? Is the new Libyan regime, if one can say there is a new Libyan regime, something better? Or is this the beginning of a long internal instability, as Iraq has turned out to be?
So, when Russia vetoed the U.N. resolution on Syria, I can imagine a sigh of relief in Washington. The pressure to up the ante and begin a Libyan-style intervention was lifted. Obama was protected against Republican harassment on Syria by the Russian veto. And Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, could shift all blame to the Russians. They were "disgusting," she said, oh so diplomatically.
France: Always nostalgic for their once-dominant role in Syria, Foreign Minister Alain Juppé shouts and denounces. But troops? You've got to be kidding. There's an election coming up, and sending troops would not be at all popular, especially since this would be no piece of cake, as was Libya.
Turkey: Turkey has improved its relations with the Arab world incredibly in the last decade. It's definitely unhappy about the civil war on its borders. It would love to see some kind of political compromise. But Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is quoted as guaranteeing that "Turkey is not providing arms or support to army defectors." Turkey wants essentially to be friends to all sides. And besides, Turkey has its own Kurdish question, and Syria might offer active support, which hitherto it has refrained from doing.
So, who wants to intervene in Syria? Perhaps Qatar. But Qatar, however wealthy it is, is scarcely a major military power. The bottom line is that, however loud the rhetoric and however ugly the civil war, no one really, really wants Assad to go. So, in all probability, he will stay.
Immanuel Wallerstein, senior research scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press). Copyright ©2012 Immanuel Wallerstein. Distributed by Agence Global.
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