Obama's test: Bringing order to the national security policy process
By Gordon Adams
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist| 26 January 2009
During the Bush administration, funding for the Defense Department, State Department, and Department of Homeland Security more or less doubled. But in all three cases, the goal of the budget increases wasn't to create functioning, efficient, and effective bureaucracies. Instead, it was to push a political agenda--at the cost of effective management. As a result, all three departments emerge from the last eight years less focused, less disciplined, and less effective.
Beyond the substantive need to change U.S. foreign and national security policy, the challenge the Obama administration now faces is how to restore focus, discipline, and balance to the institutions that shape and implement these policies. To do so, the new administration will need to focus diplomacy and foreign assistance on long-term strategic goals, rebalance the toolkit of statecraft, and bring coherence to a widely dispersed set of institutions.
There will be many ways to measure the new administration's progress on these fronts. For instance, at State and USAID, I'll be watching for the following:
* Will the administration--and namely Secretary of State Hillary Clinton--create an institutionalized capability for strategic and budgetary planning, building on the Office of the Director of Foreign Assistance that was established in 2006? Or will State continue to default to a culture that resists planning, reacts to events as they happen, and disperse the nascent planning capabilities now in place?
* Will the administration bring order and consolidation to the many civilian institutions of U.S. foreign policy across the government--from State to USAID to the Treasury Department to the Department of Agriculture and beyond? Or will it allow agencies to remain dispersed without developing a State or White House capacity to bring them together?
* Will the administration continue the Bush practice of seeking too little funding for foreign policy areas such as food aid and humanitarian relief, only to ask later for supplemental funds that ride on the back of Defense's "emergency" war funding request?
* Will the administration build a capacity based at USAID to conduct civilian operations overseas in contingency and fragile-state situations, rather than try to duplicate existing operational capabilities?
* Will the administration transform the foreign service so it brings in a new type of recruit who receives training throughout his or her career, is assigned across offices and agencies to learn the skills today's diplomats must have, and is rewarded with top diplomatic appointments? And will the administration make a concerted effort to increase the number of U.S. foreign-service officers?
* Will the administration revitalize and staff our public diplomacy, creating a more focused, autonomous capability to take Washington's message overseas?
* Will the administration build a strong development and foreign assistance capability within USAID and integrate development and long-term investment into the core missions of U.S. statecraft at the heart of State itself?
* Will the administration give State the authority it needs over U.S. security and foreign assistance, which State can plan in cooperation with Defense, but can also integrate into broader U.S. foreign policy and national security goals? Or will it continue to give Defense the responsibility for our overseas engagement, narrowing its strategic purpose, muddying the military mission, and putting a uniform face on overseas U.S. operations?
Ensuring that Defense and the military are properly balanced by strong, agile civilian institutions is a major priority. Therefore, reform must also take place at Defense. There, I'll be watching for the following changes:
* Will the administration bring order and discipline to the Defense budget process? Or will it continue to allow Defense to march toward a trillion dollar annual budget without setting priorities or making hard choices? (A side note: If the administration caves in on future budget plans laid out by the military, the defense budget would increase by another $70 billion or more in fiscal year 2010 and $450 billion over the next six years.)
* Will the administration link future defense budgets to plans that make clear choices about the role of military force in overall U.S. national security policy? Or will it buy every kind of force and piece of hardware that the services want for their endlessly expanding portfolio of missions?
* Will the administration halt Defense's eight-year tradition of loading up emergency funding requests for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with spending for non-war needs such as additional hardware and force restructuring? Or will "supplementals" continue to be used as piggy banks to fund defense programs undisciplined by the regular budget process?
* Will the administration ensure that Defense's new portfolio of authorities over security assistance and foreign assistance established during the Bush years are properly transitioned to State, retaining only those programs that are core to military missions? Or will it continue to expand Defense's missions into more nation-building, economic development, and public diplomacy?
* Will the administration make tough choices about future military hardware and weapons programs, canceling those that no longer fit with the core military missions of the twenty-first century?
As for Homeland Security, which suffers from internal chaos, a lack of strategic direction, and doesn't have responsibility for a fair part of overall U.S. investment in, ahem, homeland security, I'll be watching for the following:
* Will the administration create a true, high-level strategic planning and budgeting process? Or will the component parts of the department continue to plan their own priorities and budgets, to be stapled together at the top with no overarching strategic focus?
* Will the administration broaden the department's strategic focus from a myopic concern with terrorism to disaster prevention and resilient response? Or will fear of a terrorist attack, however unlikely, continue to provide the mechanism for organizing and selling the department's budget?
Most seriously, the capacity of the White House to strategically plan and oversee the operations of the executive branch has seriously eroded since 2000. It needs to be not only restored, but given a more focused mission of strategic planning and interagency oversight and integrated with budgetary planning. With this in mind, I'll be watching for the following at the White House:
* Will the administration transform the National Security Council (NSC) into an institution that has primary responsibility for shaping the president's national security strategy and policy priorities? Or will it leave policy definition and priority setting to disparate agencies without central coordination?
* Will the administration allow the NSC to institute and execute a formal national strategy review that sets priorities and, working with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), leads to a guidance for agencies with regard to their responsibilities to execute those strategic priorities? Or will there be, as in the past, no real strategic direction or program and budget guidance from NSC and OMB to the agencies?
* In setting priorities, will the administration use the NSC strategically to focus on key problems such as failed states, energy independence, climate change, and the direction of development and foreign assistance policy?
* Will the administration task the NSC, along with OMB, to institutionalize processes for meshing planning and operations between agencies? Or will NSC's interagency process continue to be a mere collection point for what agencies are doing, with little coordination or priority setting?
Rebalancing, strengthening, and focusing the tools of U.S. statecraft may seem secondary to getting policy right in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan--to say nothing of counterterrorism operations and nonproliferation policy. But in the end, none of these policies can be pursued effectively without a clear, effective, and agile set of institutions and processes. The experience of the past eight years is ample demonstration of the need for reform. Now, I'll be watching to see if the Obama administration can successfully direct a positive turnaround.
Copyright © 2008 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. All Rights Reserved.
Source URL (retrieved on 01/27/2009 - 03:26): http://www.thebulletin.org/node/5535
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Bad Times: Worse Times in Store? Anthony T. Sullivan
MIDDLE EAST POLICY COUNCIL
1/29/09
Bad Times: Worse Times in Store?
Anthony T. Sullivan
Tanks, truces, talks and terror litter the unforgiving ground of the Middle East. Much of the detritus scattered by the war in Gaza is likely to be left in place, only to be reshuffled by the next storm. The long range forecast for the Levant remains grim, with the next tempest already predictable and expected later this year.
Hamas remains deeply entrenched in the Gaza Strip, and still enjoys substantial popular support, even though some of that support may stem more from fear of retribution by Hamas enforcers against dissenters. However, Arab sources confirm that Israel did succeed in delivering a huge blow to Hamas' military arm during the recent conflict. Although Hamas succeeded in continuing to fire missiles into Israel throughout the 22-day war, including 19 on the final day, it failed to inflict any major damage on Israeli ground forces operating in the Strip. Worse for Hamas, Israel demonstrated that it had learned from its defeat in Lebanon in 2006 how to fight both Hizbullah and Hamas. Hamas imitated Hizbullah's tactics of three years ago and the results were disastrous. Arab informants report that Hamas fighters attempted to operate through a maze of underground tunnels, emerging occasionally to fire off salvos of missiles, but Israel largely ignored the rocket launches and concentrated on slaughtering Hamas fighters underground using bunker-busting bombs. Certainly, it is now clear that Hamas stands largely alone in the Arab world. Once again, the Arab street did not rise, and Hamas received no meaningful support from any Arab government. At least in the short term, Israel may well have succeeded in changing the correlation of forces between the Jordan and the sea. The longer term, however, is an entirely different matter.
On the eve of the conflict, Hamas brutally foiled an attempted coup by the Palestinian Authority. As Hamas went underground, a group of some 50 Fatah operatives attempted to proclaim a new, pro PA government in the Gaza Strip. They totally misjudged how much active support Fatah had, or at least could deliver, in Gaza, although most observers do think that Fatah retains the allegiance of about one third of the Strip's population. In the event, Hamas immediately seized the PA operatives and summarily executed them all. Immediately after the coup's failure, Mahmud Abbas, Chairman of the PA, called for Hamas and all other Palestinian factions to meet and find a way to reorganize intra-Palestinian relationships on a cooperative basis. Hamas immediately rejected this initiative, viewing it as a second coup attempt in other garb.
Hamas paid a large military price at the very beginning of the war. The initial Israeli air raids targeted a graduating cadre of Hamas' Executive Force, made up of new members of its elite police department, all assembled in one place for a much postponed graduation ceremony. In an instant, some 300 Palestinians were killed and over a thousand wounded. Hamas is said to have received oblique "assurances" from Egypt that Israel would remain quiet were Hamas to proceed with the graduation ceremony. Why Hamas chose to believe the Egyptian assurances remains a mystery. Israel, not surprisingly, viewed the assembly as a strategic opportunity, and struck hard. This miscalculation by Hamas was perhaps even more spectacular than the one by Fatah, since Hamas was fully aware that Cairo detests it as an outgrowth of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and a potential threat to domestic stability in Egypt.
At the start of the war, Hizbullah sources report, Hamas had some 150 Hizbullah military advisors and 300 Hizbullah-trained Palestinian refugees from Lebanon in Gaza City working with it. Furthermore, there were at least a few Iranian missile experts in Gaza, helping Hamas to assemble the rockets and to improve their accuracy and range. Teheran apparently succeeded in extricating these technicians during the last days of the fighting, fearing that they might be captured by the Israelis.
During the war, Hamas put on display its Hizbullah-supplied 122 mm. BM-21 rockets and larger, Iranian-made 240 mm. Fajr-3 missiles. The latter have a range of some 30 miles and early in the conflict succeeded in striking Beersheba and other relatively distant targets. Hamas is reported to have had some 40 al-Fajr missiles at the outbreak of the war. These projectiles arrived in Gaza from Syria, after being off-loaded from Syrian ships in Egypt and smuggled into the Gaza Strip. Corrupt or sympathetic Egyptian security officers, paid off by Iran, have long been facilitating Hamas' resupply. Bedouins in the Egyptian Sinai, especially the Gawarmas, have been playing a significant role in this trade. Hamas pays the Bedouins in cash, light arms, and drugs, which the Bedouins sell in the Egyptian black market. Discussions about hermetically sealing Hamas tunnels on the Rafah frontier ring somewhat hollow, given this history.
Hamas is well aware of Egypt's tacit collusion in its resupply of food as well as arms, even though the Egypt-Gaza frontier remains closed. In fact, during the war a split developed within Hamas as to whether or not the organization should use the issue of closure of the Egyptian border as a pressure point on Cairo to make Egypt more supportive of Hamas' terms for ending the conflict. In particular, Hamas leader Mahmud al-Zahar clashed with his colleagues, arguing that Egypt should not be politically bludgeoned over the frontier closure because Cairo has long turned a blind eye to the flow of food, medicine, fuel and arms through the hundreds of tunnels that have riddled the border area.
Perhaps more significantly, a split occurred between the Hamas leadership in Gaza and in Damascus. The "realists" in Gaza, including Ismail Haniyyah and Mahmud al-Zahar who both desperately wanted an end to hostilities, found themselves pitted against the adamancy and defiance of Khalid Mishal in Damascus. Both Gazans are now said to be disaffected with Mishal and indeed with Iran with which Mishal has now linked his political future. Mishal is said to be expecting the "demise" of the Hamas leadership in Gaza. Into this void Mishal is reportedly planning to insert himself. Indeed, some now say that Mishal may well emerge as the future Palestinian leader, who will in his own person subsume and transcend what once was Hamas. Mishal is said to be planning to work with a "new Iran that will open up to the United States."
Elsewhere, storm clouds are again gathering over Lebanon. Now, it does seem that 2009 may well see a reprise of the Israeli-Hizbullah war of 2006.
A highly reliable military source in the Middle East reports that in late 2008 Israel officially designated Hizbullah as a "strategic enemy," and decided to "remove Hizbullah as a military movement during the first year of the Obama administration." This decision is said to be unrelated to anything that Israel might or might not do in connection with the Iranian nuclear program. Moreover, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is said to have told French President Nicolas Sarkozy during his visit to Tel Aviv during the Gaza war that although Israel was fighting Hamas today it would be fighting Hizbullah in Lebanon tomorrow. Furthermore, France reportedly has informed the Lebanese government of what specific targets Israel will hit inside Lebanon during the new Israeli-Hizbullah war. Having labeled Lebanon an "Iranian post on the Mediterranean," Israel will reportedly destroy Lebanese infrastructure in its entirety (airports, harbors, warehouses, power and water plants, bridges, and highways), plus the Lebanese presidential palace, the headquarters of the prime minister, the residence of the speaker of the house, the parliament building, the banking area, and all Lebanese army bases. In other words, Israel will wage war during 2009 on all of Lebanon rather than just on Hizbullah. The sort of campaign that Israel conducted in the Gaza Strip will be expanded and imposed on all parts of its northern neighbor. As justification for any new campaign in Lebanon, Israel is likely to adduce the presence of Hizbullah military personnel in Gaza as evidence of the regional threat that Hizbullah now supposedly poses.
As for Hizbullah, Israel is apparently planning to destroy all of its missile systems and to pursue it as far as the northern Biqaa Valley. With Hizbullah shattered and Lebanon supposedly having "agreed to exit the Iranian alliance," the U.S. is said to be prepared to request the Arab Gulf States to pay the cost of the country's reconstruction. The expected tab: $20 billion.
Possible confirmation of this entire scenario is suggested by reports of CentCom Commander David Petraeus' visit to Beirut in early last December. During his brief stopover, General Petraeus is said to have "hinted" to Lebanese army commander Jean Qahwaji that Hizbullah's armament would "not be an issue" within a year after then President-elect Barack Obama moved into the White House. General Petraeus has also been quoted as stating that during the first year of President Obama's term the Middle East will "witness extremely significant developments." There would seem to be much food for thought here.
Hizbullah is well aware of these darkening skies. It is cognizant of Hamas' fate in Gaza, and is determined to do all in its power to deprive Israel of any pretext to launch a new war in Lebanon. Indeed, authoritative sources within the organization state that Hizbullah has decided not to attack Israel again. Rather, Hizbullah's increasing military arsenal is now focused exclusively on the Lebanese army, and its political focus is on matters largely Lebanese. As has been extensively discussed in previous issues of the Levant Monitor, the Lebanese army is and will remain Hizbullah's public enemy number one. Despite much discussion, any meaningful collaboration by Hizbullah with the Lebanese army to create a national front against Israel is most unlikely.
Hizbullah now fears that in any future war Israel will attempt to permanently alter the demography of south Lebanon. Israel is believed likely to try to clear the entire region of its population and make it a no go area in the future, possibly by sowing the entire area with a new harvest of cluster bombs. Any such scenario would be a disaster for Hizbullah, and indeed for all of Lebanon. But at the same time, and depending on exactly how any such war were to begin, it might undermine at least some of the support for Hizbullah among Lebanese Shiites. In any event, Hizbullah is now fully persuaded, according to a source within the organization, that any new war with Israel would produce not a "Divine victory," as in 2006, but rather a "Satanic tragedy."
Iran appears to agree with this assessment. During the Gaza war Teheran sent Ali Larijani, Shura Council Head, and Sa'id Jalili, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, to Damascus and Beirut to make sure that Hizbullah did not open a new front against Israel. Jalili met with Hizbullah head Hasan Nasrallah and Ahmad Jibril, commander of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. Jalili wanted to make certain that Hizbullah and the PFLP-GC worked together to prevent any of the numerous Sunni Jihadists in Lebanon from provoking a wider conflict by firing missiles into northern Israel. Although a handful of missiles were fired from the Naqoura area toward Haifa, Israel barely responded and the danger of any immediate, wider conflict blew over. Iran made it abundantly clear to Hizbullah and the PFLP-GC that it would not authorize any party to get involved in the Gaza war from Lebanese territory. All this was not a difficult sell, since it was at least very much Hizbullah's own inclination.
Teheran's involvement in Lebanon contrasted sharply with its earlier advice to Hamas not to renew the truce with Israel. The purpose of this Janus-faced policy, Lebanese sources suggest, has been to persuade the United States that Iran is an indispensable regional actor, capable of provoking major problems if it chooses but at the same time able and willing to act as a stabilizing force far beyond its own frontiers. Teheran does seem to be open to a new beginning with the Obama administration, but only if its geostrategic interests are recognized and accommodated.
Any such accommodation will be difficult for the United States to accomplish. Most obviously, the Saudis are dead set against any warming of U.S.-Iranian relations. Worse, German intelligence recently uncovered a nascent Iranian intelligence operation featuring Lebanese Shiites recruited by Teheran to infiltrate and destabilize the heavily Shiite eastern province of Saudi Arabia. The plan was to organize these operatives into sleeper cells before unleashing them to assassinate or otherwise target Saudi officials. Teheran anticipated that the consequent campaign of Saudi repression against the Saudi Shiite community as a whole would destabilize the Kingdom. To help matters along, Iran is said to have planned an intensive anti-Saudi media campaign, fueled by massive demonstrations in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Bahrein. This is not the sort of activity to foster any alteration of current American policy.
Lebanese sources report that cracking this one operation does not mean the collapse of Iranian plans to sabotage Saudi Arabia. All evidence suggests that Iranian intelligence has recruited many Shiites from Lebanon, Bahrain and Iraq who for some time have been successfully slipping into Saudi Arabia. This surely is facilitated by the fact that the current atmosphere in the Arab world is strongly anti-Saudi. There is widespread public condemnation of the Kingdom, especially for its silence concerning the war in Gaza. Of course, this provides an ideal context for Iranian intelligence to work.
Clearly, an immediate and vigorous new approach by the Obama administration to longstanding Middle East problems is needed today more than ever.
1/29/09
Bad Times: Worse Times in Store?
Anthony T. Sullivan
Tanks, truces, talks and terror litter the unforgiving ground of the Middle East. Much of the detritus scattered by the war in Gaza is likely to be left in place, only to be reshuffled by the next storm. The long range forecast for the Levant remains grim, with the next tempest already predictable and expected later this year.
Hamas remains deeply entrenched in the Gaza Strip, and still enjoys substantial popular support, even though some of that support may stem more from fear of retribution by Hamas enforcers against dissenters. However, Arab sources confirm that Israel did succeed in delivering a huge blow to Hamas' military arm during the recent conflict. Although Hamas succeeded in continuing to fire missiles into Israel throughout the 22-day war, including 19 on the final day, it failed to inflict any major damage on Israeli ground forces operating in the Strip. Worse for Hamas, Israel demonstrated that it had learned from its defeat in Lebanon in 2006 how to fight both Hizbullah and Hamas. Hamas imitated Hizbullah's tactics of three years ago and the results were disastrous. Arab informants report that Hamas fighters attempted to operate through a maze of underground tunnels, emerging occasionally to fire off salvos of missiles, but Israel largely ignored the rocket launches and concentrated on slaughtering Hamas fighters underground using bunker-busting bombs. Certainly, it is now clear that Hamas stands largely alone in the Arab world. Once again, the Arab street did not rise, and Hamas received no meaningful support from any Arab government. At least in the short term, Israel may well have succeeded in changing the correlation of forces between the Jordan and the sea. The longer term, however, is an entirely different matter.
On the eve of the conflict, Hamas brutally foiled an attempted coup by the Palestinian Authority. As Hamas went underground, a group of some 50 Fatah operatives attempted to proclaim a new, pro PA government in the Gaza Strip. They totally misjudged how much active support Fatah had, or at least could deliver, in Gaza, although most observers do think that Fatah retains the allegiance of about one third of the Strip's population. In the event, Hamas immediately seized the PA operatives and summarily executed them all. Immediately after the coup's failure, Mahmud Abbas, Chairman of the PA, called for Hamas and all other Palestinian factions to meet and find a way to reorganize intra-Palestinian relationships on a cooperative basis. Hamas immediately rejected this initiative, viewing it as a second coup attempt in other garb.
Hamas paid a large military price at the very beginning of the war. The initial Israeli air raids targeted a graduating cadre of Hamas' Executive Force, made up of new members of its elite police department, all assembled in one place for a much postponed graduation ceremony. In an instant, some 300 Palestinians were killed and over a thousand wounded. Hamas is said to have received oblique "assurances" from Egypt that Israel would remain quiet were Hamas to proceed with the graduation ceremony. Why Hamas chose to believe the Egyptian assurances remains a mystery. Israel, not surprisingly, viewed the assembly as a strategic opportunity, and struck hard. This miscalculation by Hamas was perhaps even more spectacular than the one by Fatah, since Hamas was fully aware that Cairo detests it as an outgrowth of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and a potential threat to domestic stability in Egypt.
At the start of the war, Hizbullah sources report, Hamas had some 150 Hizbullah military advisors and 300 Hizbullah-trained Palestinian refugees from Lebanon in Gaza City working with it. Furthermore, there were at least a few Iranian missile experts in Gaza, helping Hamas to assemble the rockets and to improve their accuracy and range. Teheran apparently succeeded in extricating these technicians during the last days of the fighting, fearing that they might be captured by the Israelis.
During the war, Hamas put on display its Hizbullah-supplied 122 mm. BM-21 rockets and larger, Iranian-made 240 mm. Fajr-3 missiles. The latter have a range of some 30 miles and early in the conflict succeeded in striking Beersheba and other relatively distant targets. Hamas is reported to have had some 40 al-Fajr missiles at the outbreak of the war. These projectiles arrived in Gaza from Syria, after being off-loaded from Syrian ships in Egypt and smuggled into the Gaza Strip. Corrupt or sympathetic Egyptian security officers, paid off by Iran, have long been facilitating Hamas' resupply. Bedouins in the Egyptian Sinai, especially the Gawarmas, have been playing a significant role in this trade. Hamas pays the Bedouins in cash, light arms, and drugs, which the Bedouins sell in the Egyptian black market. Discussions about hermetically sealing Hamas tunnels on the Rafah frontier ring somewhat hollow, given this history.
Hamas is well aware of Egypt's tacit collusion in its resupply of food as well as arms, even though the Egypt-Gaza frontier remains closed. In fact, during the war a split developed within Hamas as to whether or not the organization should use the issue of closure of the Egyptian border as a pressure point on Cairo to make Egypt more supportive of Hamas' terms for ending the conflict. In particular, Hamas leader Mahmud al-Zahar clashed with his colleagues, arguing that Egypt should not be politically bludgeoned over the frontier closure because Cairo has long turned a blind eye to the flow of food, medicine, fuel and arms through the hundreds of tunnels that have riddled the border area.
Perhaps more significantly, a split occurred between the Hamas leadership in Gaza and in Damascus. The "realists" in Gaza, including Ismail Haniyyah and Mahmud al-Zahar who both desperately wanted an end to hostilities, found themselves pitted against the adamancy and defiance of Khalid Mishal in Damascus. Both Gazans are now said to be disaffected with Mishal and indeed with Iran with which Mishal has now linked his political future. Mishal is said to be expecting the "demise" of the Hamas leadership in Gaza. Into this void Mishal is reportedly planning to insert himself. Indeed, some now say that Mishal may well emerge as the future Palestinian leader, who will in his own person subsume and transcend what once was Hamas. Mishal is said to be planning to work with a "new Iran that will open up to the United States."
Elsewhere, storm clouds are again gathering over Lebanon. Now, it does seem that 2009 may well see a reprise of the Israeli-Hizbullah war of 2006.
A highly reliable military source in the Middle East reports that in late 2008 Israel officially designated Hizbullah as a "strategic enemy," and decided to "remove Hizbullah as a military movement during the first year of the Obama administration." This decision is said to be unrelated to anything that Israel might or might not do in connection with the Iranian nuclear program. Moreover, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is said to have told French President Nicolas Sarkozy during his visit to Tel Aviv during the Gaza war that although Israel was fighting Hamas today it would be fighting Hizbullah in Lebanon tomorrow. Furthermore, France reportedly has informed the Lebanese government of what specific targets Israel will hit inside Lebanon during the new Israeli-Hizbullah war. Having labeled Lebanon an "Iranian post on the Mediterranean," Israel will reportedly destroy Lebanese infrastructure in its entirety (airports, harbors, warehouses, power and water plants, bridges, and highways), plus the Lebanese presidential palace, the headquarters of the prime minister, the residence of the speaker of the house, the parliament building, the banking area, and all Lebanese army bases. In other words, Israel will wage war during 2009 on all of Lebanon rather than just on Hizbullah. The sort of campaign that Israel conducted in the Gaza Strip will be expanded and imposed on all parts of its northern neighbor. As justification for any new campaign in Lebanon, Israel is likely to adduce the presence of Hizbullah military personnel in Gaza as evidence of the regional threat that Hizbullah now supposedly poses.
As for Hizbullah, Israel is apparently planning to destroy all of its missile systems and to pursue it as far as the northern Biqaa Valley. With Hizbullah shattered and Lebanon supposedly having "agreed to exit the Iranian alliance," the U.S. is said to be prepared to request the Arab Gulf States to pay the cost of the country's reconstruction. The expected tab: $20 billion.
Possible confirmation of this entire scenario is suggested by reports of CentCom Commander David Petraeus' visit to Beirut in early last December. During his brief stopover, General Petraeus is said to have "hinted" to Lebanese army commander Jean Qahwaji that Hizbullah's armament would "not be an issue" within a year after then President-elect Barack Obama moved into the White House. General Petraeus has also been quoted as stating that during the first year of President Obama's term the Middle East will "witness extremely significant developments." There would seem to be much food for thought here.
Hizbullah is well aware of these darkening skies. It is cognizant of Hamas' fate in Gaza, and is determined to do all in its power to deprive Israel of any pretext to launch a new war in Lebanon. Indeed, authoritative sources within the organization state that Hizbullah has decided not to attack Israel again. Rather, Hizbullah's increasing military arsenal is now focused exclusively on the Lebanese army, and its political focus is on matters largely Lebanese. As has been extensively discussed in previous issues of the Levant Monitor, the Lebanese army is and will remain Hizbullah's public enemy number one. Despite much discussion, any meaningful collaboration by Hizbullah with the Lebanese army to create a national front against Israel is most unlikely.
Hizbullah now fears that in any future war Israel will attempt to permanently alter the demography of south Lebanon. Israel is believed likely to try to clear the entire region of its population and make it a no go area in the future, possibly by sowing the entire area with a new harvest of cluster bombs. Any such scenario would be a disaster for Hizbullah, and indeed for all of Lebanon. But at the same time, and depending on exactly how any such war were to begin, it might undermine at least some of the support for Hizbullah among Lebanese Shiites. In any event, Hizbullah is now fully persuaded, according to a source within the organization, that any new war with Israel would produce not a "Divine victory," as in 2006, but rather a "Satanic tragedy."
Iran appears to agree with this assessment. During the Gaza war Teheran sent Ali Larijani, Shura Council Head, and Sa'id Jalili, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, to Damascus and Beirut to make sure that Hizbullah did not open a new front against Israel. Jalili met with Hizbullah head Hasan Nasrallah and Ahmad Jibril, commander of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. Jalili wanted to make certain that Hizbullah and the PFLP-GC worked together to prevent any of the numerous Sunni Jihadists in Lebanon from provoking a wider conflict by firing missiles into northern Israel. Although a handful of missiles were fired from the Naqoura area toward Haifa, Israel barely responded and the danger of any immediate, wider conflict blew over. Iran made it abundantly clear to Hizbullah and the PFLP-GC that it would not authorize any party to get involved in the Gaza war from Lebanese territory. All this was not a difficult sell, since it was at least very much Hizbullah's own inclination.
Teheran's involvement in Lebanon contrasted sharply with its earlier advice to Hamas not to renew the truce with Israel. The purpose of this Janus-faced policy, Lebanese sources suggest, has been to persuade the United States that Iran is an indispensable regional actor, capable of provoking major problems if it chooses but at the same time able and willing to act as a stabilizing force far beyond its own frontiers. Teheran does seem to be open to a new beginning with the Obama administration, but only if its geostrategic interests are recognized and accommodated.
Any such accommodation will be difficult for the United States to accomplish. Most obviously, the Saudis are dead set against any warming of U.S.-Iranian relations. Worse, German intelligence recently uncovered a nascent Iranian intelligence operation featuring Lebanese Shiites recruited by Teheran to infiltrate and destabilize the heavily Shiite eastern province of Saudi Arabia. The plan was to organize these operatives into sleeper cells before unleashing them to assassinate or otherwise target Saudi officials. Teheran anticipated that the consequent campaign of Saudi repression against the Saudi Shiite community as a whole would destabilize the Kingdom. To help matters along, Iran is said to have planned an intensive anti-Saudi media campaign, fueled by massive demonstrations in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Bahrein. This is not the sort of activity to foster any alteration of current American policy.
Lebanese sources report that cracking this one operation does not mean the collapse of Iranian plans to sabotage Saudi Arabia. All evidence suggests that Iranian intelligence has recruited many Shiites from Lebanon, Bahrain and Iraq who for some time have been successfully slipping into Saudi Arabia. This surely is facilitated by the fact that the current atmosphere in the Arab world is strongly anti-Saudi. There is widespread public condemnation of the Kingdom, especially for its silence concerning the war in Gaza. Of course, this provides an ideal context for Iranian intelligence to work.
Clearly, an immediate and vigorous new approach by the Obama administration to longstanding Middle East problems is needed today more than ever.
The Devastation of Gaza: From Factories to Ice Cream By Tim McGirk
Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009
The Devastation of Gaza: From Factories to Ice Cream
By Tim McGirk / Gaza City Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009
Damaged buildings on the Gaza Strip
Damaged buildings on the Gaza Strip
Abid Katib / Getty
Yaser Alwadeya wanders past a field strewn with the remnants of gaily painted ice cream carts, which were shredded by a blizzard of shrapnel. He enters the blackened innards of the Al Ameer factory, which once manufactured Gaza's tastiest ice cream and popsicles. Shaking his head, he says, "I can't figure out why the Israelis thought that Hamas had anything to do with ice cream."
The ice cream plant, which had been owned by Alwadeya's family for 55 years, was far from the only factory destroyed in Israel's 22-day assault on the Palestinian enclave. All along Gaza's factory row — which produced everything from biscuits to cement to wooden furniture — hardly a single building remains standing. It's as if a tsunami of fire had roared through Gaza's industrial district, leaving in its wake a tide of twisted metal and smashed buildings. (See pictures of Gaza digging out.)
Israeli war planners had vowed to destroy the "infrastructure of terror" in Gaza, but many Gazans — even those opposed to Hamas — believe the operation was directed against general infrastructure. It certainly demolished much of Gaza's economy and civil society.
The Israeli military targeted tunnels, arms caches, police stations and the hideouts of several Hamas military commanders. But Israeli attacks also destroyed more than 230 factories, according to the Palestinian Industries Federation. Nearly 50 schools and 23 mosques were damaged as well as scores of government buildings, including the Presidential Compound and the Assembly building, which Gazans saw as the symbolic foundation for an eventual Palestinian state.
"The Israelis want to keep us poor and ignorant," says Amar Hamad, chairman of the Palestinian Industries Federation. "Businessmen were the last layer of society who believed that prosperity would bring peace with Israel. Now they don't believe that."
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) says it chose its targets carefully, to minimize destruction to surrounding property and human lives. And the IDF accuses Hamas of putting ordinary Gazans in harm's way by firing rockets at Israel from within crowded neighborhoods. But several businessmen interviewed by TIME insist that no militants were taking refugee inside the factories bombed by Israel. "They're targeting factories to make us dependent on the Israeli economy," claims Hamad.
Gazans are also baffled as to why Israeli planes rocketed the American International School, an institution that served the sons and daughters of wealthy Palestinians and which, until recently, flew the U.S. flag. "Our students learned American geography and history," says Sharhabe el Alzaeem, a trustee. "We sent kids to Harvard and Yale." Asked if militants might have been using the grounds to fire rockets, Alzaeem retorted, "We had high walls and good security. Our guard asked if he could bring his family to stay with him because the school was safer than his neighborhood. Would he be sending for his family if there were militants running around inside the school?" The caretaker was killed when an Israeli aircraft fired several rockets at the facility, regarded as Gaza's finest school.
In addition, Gaza's housing stock took a hammering in the hostilities. Initial estimates of the Public Works Ministry point to more than 2,100 houses destroyed and another 45,000 left in need of major repairs. A key sewage plant, whose construction with international funding had the backing of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, was also hit, causing nearly $200 million in damages. Maintenance experts say a crumbling wall around a sewage lake is now in danger of spilling tons of fetid waste into the streets and alleys of northern Gaza.
Total reconstruction costs for Gaza as a result of the three-week offensive are estimated by the United Nations to be more than $1.5 billion — but the channeling of reconstruction aid into the territory is a contentious political issue. Israel and some international donors are reluctant to send funds through Hamas, which governs Gaza, for fear of "legitimizing" the Islamists, as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says. One Hamas spokesman told TIME that the group's primary concern was rebuilding Gaza from the rubble. "We want to rebuild houses, not our military capacity," he said. But other Hamas commanders said they would continue bringing weapons into Gaza to enable their "resistance" against Israel.
With the conflict unresolved, Israel is pressing for a continuation of the 18-month economic siege imposed on the 1.5 million people of Gaza by Israel, the U.S. and certain European and Arab allies. But John Ging, head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, warned of the danger of keeping the crossings into Gaza closed for political reasons. "This isn't about keeping the people of Gaza alive on a drip of medicine and subsistence aid. That allows extremism to ferment in Gaza," he says. Indeed, with few factories left, there are no jobs, no ice cream and plenty of new recruits for Hamas.
See pictures of life under Hamas in Gaza.
The Devastation of Gaza: From Factories to Ice Cream
By Tim McGirk / Gaza City Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009
Damaged buildings on the Gaza Strip
Damaged buildings on the Gaza Strip
Abid Katib / Getty
Yaser Alwadeya wanders past a field strewn with the remnants of gaily painted ice cream carts, which were shredded by a blizzard of shrapnel. He enters the blackened innards of the Al Ameer factory, which once manufactured Gaza's tastiest ice cream and popsicles. Shaking his head, he says, "I can't figure out why the Israelis thought that Hamas had anything to do with ice cream."
The ice cream plant, which had been owned by Alwadeya's family for 55 years, was far from the only factory destroyed in Israel's 22-day assault on the Palestinian enclave. All along Gaza's factory row — which produced everything from biscuits to cement to wooden furniture — hardly a single building remains standing. It's as if a tsunami of fire had roared through Gaza's industrial district, leaving in its wake a tide of twisted metal and smashed buildings. (See pictures of Gaza digging out.)
Israeli war planners had vowed to destroy the "infrastructure of terror" in Gaza, but many Gazans — even those opposed to Hamas — believe the operation was directed against general infrastructure. It certainly demolished much of Gaza's economy and civil society.
The Israeli military targeted tunnels, arms caches, police stations and the hideouts of several Hamas military commanders. But Israeli attacks also destroyed more than 230 factories, according to the Palestinian Industries Federation. Nearly 50 schools and 23 mosques were damaged as well as scores of government buildings, including the Presidential Compound and the Assembly building, which Gazans saw as the symbolic foundation for an eventual Palestinian state.
"The Israelis want to keep us poor and ignorant," says Amar Hamad, chairman of the Palestinian Industries Federation. "Businessmen were the last layer of society who believed that prosperity would bring peace with Israel. Now they don't believe that."
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) says it chose its targets carefully, to minimize destruction to surrounding property and human lives. And the IDF accuses Hamas of putting ordinary Gazans in harm's way by firing rockets at Israel from within crowded neighborhoods. But several businessmen interviewed by TIME insist that no militants were taking refugee inside the factories bombed by Israel. "They're targeting factories to make us dependent on the Israeli economy," claims Hamad.
Gazans are also baffled as to why Israeli planes rocketed the American International School, an institution that served the sons and daughters of wealthy Palestinians and which, until recently, flew the U.S. flag. "Our students learned American geography and history," says Sharhabe el Alzaeem, a trustee. "We sent kids to Harvard and Yale." Asked if militants might have been using the grounds to fire rockets, Alzaeem retorted, "We had high walls and good security. Our guard asked if he could bring his family to stay with him because the school was safer than his neighborhood. Would he be sending for his family if there were militants running around inside the school?" The caretaker was killed when an Israeli aircraft fired several rockets at the facility, regarded as Gaza's finest school.
In addition, Gaza's housing stock took a hammering in the hostilities. Initial estimates of the Public Works Ministry point to more than 2,100 houses destroyed and another 45,000 left in need of major repairs. A key sewage plant, whose construction with international funding had the backing of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, was also hit, causing nearly $200 million in damages. Maintenance experts say a crumbling wall around a sewage lake is now in danger of spilling tons of fetid waste into the streets and alleys of northern Gaza.
Total reconstruction costs for Gaza as a result of the three-week offensive are estimated by the United Nations to be more than $1.5 billion — but the channeling of reconstruction aid into the territory is a contentious political issue. Israel and some international donors are reluctant to send funds through Hamas, which governs Gaza, for fear of "legitimizing" the Islamists, as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says. One Hamas spokesman told TIME that the group's primary concern was rebuilding Gaza from the rubble. "We want to rebuild houses, not our military capacity," he said. But other Hamas commanders said they would continue bringing weapons into Gaza to enable their "resistance" against Israel.
With the conflict unresolved, Israel is pressing for a continuation of the 18-month economic siege imposed on the 1.5 million people of Gaza by Israel, the U.S. and certain European and Arab allies. But John Ging, head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, warned of the danger of keeping the crossings into Gaza closed for political reasons. "This isn't about keeping the people of Gaza alive on a drip of medicine and subsistence aid. That allows extremism to ferment in Gaza," he says. Indeed, with few factories left, there are no jobs, no ice cream and plenty of new recruits for Hamas.
See pictures of life under Hamas in Gaza.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Obama May Face 'Rebuff' from Europe on Military Step-Up in Afghanistan
Obama May Face 'Rebuff' from Europe on Military Step-Up in Afghanistan
Interviewee:
Robert E. Hunter, Senior Adviser, RAND Corporation
Interviewer:
Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor, CFR.org
January 22, 2009
Robert HunterRobert E. Hunter, U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) during the Clinton administration, says despite U.S. calls for a stepped-up military role by European NATO members in Afghanistan, he thinks there will only be a "token response." He pointed to opinion surveys showing "there's not a single European country that wants to see more of its troops go to Afghanistan." The issue will be raised early by the Obama administration, Hunter says, "and if the United States pushes too hard on asking for new forces, it will lead to a rebuff, and at the beginning of an administration you don't want to be rebuffed."
President Barack Obama is expected to ask the Europeans very soon to increase their involvement in Afghanistan as part of a stepped-up military effort. What's the mood in Europe these days on helping out in Afghanistan?
Well, first, one has to understand that this issue is coming at us pretty quickly. Not only is there the NATO summit on April 2-4, the sixtieth anniversary summit, part in Strasbourg, France, and part in Kehl, Germany, but there is the annual Munich conference on security policy, which is on February to 6 to 8.
What will happen in Munich?
It used to be that during the Cold War, the U.S. secretary of defense would show up with his NATO counterparts and he would give them their marching orders for the next year. Now of course it's post-Cold War, but traditionally the secretary of defense shows up and makes a major speech. This is the moment, in my judgment, in which the United States has to lay out clearly its planning for Afghanistan and its expectations for the Europeans. Now, to get back to your question, there remain several countries that do share America's concern about what is happening in Afghanistan and of course of equal moment also in nearby Pakistan. The ones who've committed troops include Canada, Britain, the Netherlands, France, and some other countries like Estonia. And every NATO country, of course, has troops there.
Germany has a lot of troops, but they're not doing much, right?
They have about five thousand in the northern part of the country, and in fact Chancellor Angela Merkel has authorization to increase that by up to 1,500 from the current Bundestag [parliament]. That authorization is good until this autumn, but German troops are under what are called NATO "caveats," namely what troops are allowed to do and in particular what they aren't allowed to do and when they aren't allowed to do it. The Germans are heavily caveated. If there were troops fighting in the south and east who got in deep trouble, they could come to the rescue, but not in ordinary times.
President Obama has already said that he would increase the U.S. force commitment by about thirty thousand troops, which would be close to a doubling of the U.S. forces if you add those which are both with Operation Enduring Freedom, which was the original invasion force, and is under Central Command, and also the International Security Assistance Force [ISAF], the NATO-led operation, which is, ironically, under the European Command, insofar as Americans are involved in it. But at the same time, he has made clear, at least prior to being elected and prior to becoming president, that he would ask the Europeans for more help. In fact, in his speech in Berlin last summer, in front of the Victory Column, Sen. Obama said the only thing he would ask of the Europeans was more support in conflicts such as Afghanistan.
What will be the response?
Bottom line: There will be some token response to an appeal from the U.S. administration. But it will only be a token response. According to the polling data, there's not a single European country that wants to see more of its troops go to Afghanistan. In many of them, it is a question of how long they will continue to be involved. I rather suspect if the United States pushes too hard on asking for new forces, it will lead to a rebuff, and at the beginning of an administration you don't want to be rebuffed.
Even though there's all this goodwill for Obama?
Well, clearly there's extraordinarily goodwill for the new president, not just because he's different from the previous president, and also not just because he symbolizes what America has come to-farther than any European country, incidentally-in having someone who is not a traditional-looking member of the society leading it. There's also great hope because of the things Obama has said and the things he has stood for. He is seen as somebody who has the genuine capacity to lead in ways that Europeans find congenial.
Having said that, for these individual countries, asking them to do things their parliaments and people won't do, especially early on, is, I'm afraid, a nonstarter. It may well be later on that once the new administration does indeed forge a new partnership with allies, Obama can make a serious case for why Afghanistan is important, and then something might be possible, but I fear that unless the United States thinks very clearly about what it wants from the Europeans, we could have the administration start off in Europe with a negative.
What should we be asking for?
We do have to ask the Europeans to do more militarily. And in terms of getting numbers of people there and types of equipment, that can be even within the current caveats that do exist. Part of it is getting the right kind of equipment, particularly helicopters, into the country. But what I would do is focus on the total, corporate picture of what has to be done in Afghanistan and also in the tribal areas of Pakistan. As candidate Obama said over and over again, and General James L. Jones, Jr., the new national security adviser, has said, you have to see this in terms of what is now being called "smart power," something [Secretary of State nominee] Hillary Clinton focused on very much in her confirmation hearing. The military in Afghanistan can be the shield, the protector, but the sword, the real activity, has to be in three big areas: governance--much better governance on the part of the government in Kabul; reconstruction; and development. And that's going to be expensive. We and others have done some things on this but the result has been woefully inadequate so far.
Here's what I'd ask of the Europeans: "If you're not going to send the troops that are needed for the shield function, we collectively need a much greater European effort on governance, reconstruction, and development." In the compact on Afghanistan that was signed several years ago, where the United States took the lead effort in terms of many of the military parts, three European countries took responsibility for things happening in the country: the British on poppy eradication; the Germans on building up the national police; and the Italians on judicial reform. Admittedly, each of these countries were supposed to have help, but all three of these efforts have failed and failed abysmally. This is something that we have the right to expect the Europeans to do more about. After all, nobody mandated that NATO go to Afghanistan; each of these countries did it of their own free will. Similarly, I believe, it is time for the Europeans to appoint somebody of genuine stature to coordinate aid and development efforts. Last year, Lord Paddy Ashdown, who was the high commissioner in Bosnia, was appointed, and he was sent out to Afghanistan. He was not acceptable to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for a variety of reasons, but they didn't appoint anyone else.
Now, the United Nations does have a representative there, a Norwegian diplomat, Ambassador Kai Eide, who was ambassador to NATO and is a very able person, but he's too junior. Unless they send somebody really of stature, like Tony Blair, you're not going to get the Europeans to respond.
"It may well be later on that once the new administration does indeed forge a new partnership with allies, Obama can make a serious case for why Afghanistan is important … but I fear that unless the United States thinks very clearly about what it wants from the Europeans, we could have the administration start off in Europe with a negative."
I get the sense from European and American newspapers that there's a general negative view of President Karzai these days, that his administration is corrupt, and he's inept. Yet he's running for reelection this spring.
There's no doubt that there is not a lot of confidence in Karzai. There are even supposedly members of his own family who are on the take when it comes to poppy production and the like. Recognizing, however, that Afghanistan is an amazingly complicated place, that competent central government has been the gross exception rather than the rule in that country, to say that somebody other than Karzai could do a better job is putting the wish ahead of what the facts are likely to be. My judgment is that you can try to nurture the government to have better governance, but there have to be a lot of resources. This is an expensive proposition, but it is a lot cheaper than spending blood in place of treasure. And no one has been sufficiently serious about it. The U.S. government actually has been more serious than others. This, of course, begins to beg the questions: one, the relative importance of Pakistan, and then also whether we need a new strategy.
Talk a bit about Pakistan policy.
My judgment is that it's not that we gave $10 billion, and it mostly went to the military, but that we didn't give $100 billion. We collectively also have to get very serious about economic efforts within Pakistan in general, and that's going to cost a lot. One idea I have is that we should be asking the oil-producing states of the Persian Gulf to be putting up major amounts of money both for Afghanistan and for Pakistan. The equation is fairly simple. Our oil money goes to these countries. Some of that money should go to Afghanistan and Pakistan, especially because the oil-producing states of the southern littorals, the UAE [United Arab Emirates] and around to Saudi Arabia, expect us to take care of their security. Well, let them start to do what we need. And I'm talking about $10, $20, $30 billion
Don't the Saudis contribute to Afghanistan?
Not much. The UAE sends about 350 special forces, but that's not what you need; you need their money for reconstruction and development.
There's been this recurring thought that perhaps there should be a negotiated deal getting the Taliban into the Afghan government.
One thing that is very much in play now, which has been advanced more by the British government, I believe, than anyone else is whether one should start trying to separate out, to the extent you can, deep concerns with al-Qaeda, the terrorists who have a global agenda, from the Taliban, which has political aspirations to an extent in the tribal areas of Pakistan and certainly in Afghanistan. As odious as the Taliban are, you have to remember that the United States played a very strong role in putting the Taliban into power in Afghanistan in the first place, and then had to sit by and watch this abysmal human rights record that they had. The British are already advancing the idea that maybe the Taliban could be allowed to have a significant role in governance, at least in part of Afghanistan. The Karzai government is already exploring the idea of trying to deal with what one might call "economic" Taliban, people who did it for the money.
Most European states didn't contribute to Afghanistan because they really cared, but for other reasons: One, they weren't prepared to do Iraq. Two, they didn't want to get crossed wires with the United States. Third, they want to be sure, given how much we care about it, that if there's another problem in Europe, they don't want the United States to turn a blind eye or turn its back on them because they didn't help in Afghanistan.
This is not seen in Europe as an allied effort; it's seen as an American effort that they're supporting, and that's a bad place to be. I wouldn't be at all surprised if in the next few months we see a real rethinking about the strategic importance of keeping the Taliban at arm's length as opposed to stepping up the fight against terrorism per se, and al-Qaeda in general, and also buttressing the Pakistani government to try to increase its crackdown in tribal areas.
Interviewee:
Robert E. Hunter, Senior Adviser, RAND Corporation
Interviewer:
Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor, CFR.org
January 22, 2009
Robert HunterRobert E. Hunter, U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) during the Clinton administration, says despite U.S. calls for a stepped-up military role by European NATO members in Afghanistan, he thinks there will only be a "token response." He pointed to opinion surveys showing "there's not a single European country that wants to see more of its troops go to Afghanistan." The issue will be raised early by the Obama administration, Hunter says, "and if the United States pushes too hard on asking for new forces, it will lead to a rebuff, and at the beginning of an administration you don't want to be rebuffed."
President Barack Obama is expected to ask the Europeans very soon to increase their involvement in Afghanistan as part of a stepped-up military effort. What's the mood in Europe these days on helping out in Afghanistan?
Well, first, one has to understand that this issue is coming at us pretty quickly. Not only is there the NATO summit on April 2-4, the sixtieth anniversary summit, part in Strasbourg, France, and part in Kehl, Germany, but there is the annual Munich conference on security policy, which is on February to 6 to 8.
What will happen in Munich?
It used to be that during the Cold War, the U.S. secretary of defense would show up with his NATO counterparts and he would give them their marching orders for the next year. Now of course it's post-Cold War, but traditionally the secretary of defense shows up and makes a major speech. This is the moment, in my judgment, in which the United States has to lay out clearly its planning for Afghanistan and its expectations for the Europeans. Now, to get back to your question, there remain several countries that do share America's concern about what is happening in Afghanistan and of course of equal moment also in nearby Pakistan. The ones who've committed troops include Canada, Britain, the Netherlands, France, and some other countries like Estonia. And every NATO country, of course, has troops there.
Germany has a lot of troops, but they're not doing much, right?
They have about five thousand in the northern part of the country, and in fact Chancellor Angela Merkel has authorization to increase that by up to 1,500 from the current Bundestag [parliament]. That authorization is good until this autumn, but German troops are under what are called NATO "caveats," namely what troops are allowed to do and in particular what they aren't allowed to do and when they aren't allowed to do it. The Germans are heavily caveated. If there were troops fighting in the south and east who got in deep trouble, they could come to the rescue, but not in ordinary times.
President Obama has already said that he would increase the U.S. force commitment by about thirty thousand troops, which would be close to a doubling of the U.S. forces if you add those which are both with Operation Enduring Freedom, which was the original invasion force, and is under Central Command, and also the International Security Assistance Force [ISAF], the NATO-led operation, which is, ironically, under the European Command, insofar as Americans are involved in it. But at the same time, he has made clear, at least prior to being elected and prior to becoming president, that he would ask the Europeans for more help. In fact, in his speech in Berlin last summer, in front of the Victory Column, Sen. Obama said the only thing he would ask of the Europeans was more support in conflicts such as Afghanistan.
What will be the response?
Bottom line: There will be some token response to an appeal from the U.S. administration. But it will only be a token response. According to the polling data, there's not a single European country that wants to see more of its troops go to Afghanistan. In many of them, it is a question of how long they will continue to be involved. I rather suspect if the United States pushes too hard on asking for new forces, it will lead to a rebuff, and at the beginning of an administration you don't want to be rebuffed.
Even though there's all this goodwill for Obama?
Well, clearly there's extraordinarily goodwill for the new president, not just because he's different from the previous president, and also not just because he symbolizes what America has come to-farther than any European country, incidentally-in having someone who is not a traditional-looking member of the society leading it. There's also great hope because of the things Obama has said and the things he has stood for. He is seen as somebody who has the genuine capacity to lead in ways that Europeans find congenial.
Having said that, for these individual countries, asking them to do things their parliaments and people won't do, especially early on, is, I'm afraid, a nonstarter. It may well be later on that once the new administration does indeed forge a new partnership with allies, Obama can make a serious case for why Afghanistan is important, and then something might be possible, but I fear that unless the United States thinks very clearly about what it wants from the Europeans, we could have the administration start off in Europe with a negative.
What should we be asking for?
We do have to ask the Europeans to do more militarily. And in terms of getting numbers of people there and types of equipment, that can be even within the current caveats that do exist. Part of it is getting the right kind of equipment, particularly helicopters, into the country. But what I would do is focus on the total, corporate picture of what has to be done in Afghanistan and also in the tribal areas of Pakistan. As candidate Obama said over and over again, and General James L. Jones, Jr., the new national security adviser, has said, you have to see this in terms of what is now being called "smart power," something [Secretary of State nominee] Hillary Clinton focused on very much in her confirmation hearing. The military in Afghanistan can be the shield, the protector, but the sword, the real activity, has to be in three big areas: governance--much better governance on the part of the government in Kabul; reconstruction; and development. And that's going to be expensive. We and others have done some things on this but the result has been woefully inadequate so far.
Here's what I'd ask of the Europeans: "If you're not going to send the troops that are needed for the shield function, we collectively need a much greater European effort on governance, reconstruction, and development." In the compact on Afghanistan that was signed several years ago, where the United States took the lead effort in terms of many of the military parts, three European countries took responsibility for things happening in the country: the British on poppy eradication; the Germans on building up the national police; and the Italians on judicial reform. Admittedly, each of these countries were supposed to have help, but all three of these efforts have failed and failed abysmally. This is something that we have the right to expect the Europeans to do more about. After all, nobody mandated that NATO go to Afghanistan; each of these countries did it of their own free will. Similarly, I believe, it is time for the Europeans to appoint somebody of genuine stature to coordinate aid and development efforts. Last year, Lord Paddy Ashdown, who was the high commissioner in Bosnia, was appointed, and he was sent out to Afghanistan. He was not acceptable to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for a variety of reasons, but they didn't appoint anyone else.
Now, the United Nations does have a representative there, a Norwegian diplomat, Ambassador Kai Eide, who was ambassador to NATO and is a very able person, but he's too junior. Unless they send somebody really of stature, like Tony Blair, you're not going to get the Europeans to respond.
"It may well be later on that once the new administration does indeed forge a new partnership with allies, Obama can make a serious case for why Afghanistan is important … but I fear that unless the United States thinks very clearly about what it wants from the Europeans, we could have the administration start off in Europe with a negative."
I get the sense from European and American newspapers that there's a general negative view of President Karzai these days, that his administration is corrupt, and he's inept. Yet he's running for reelection this spring.
There's no doubt that there is not a lot of confidence in Karzai. There are even supposedly members of his own family who are on the take when it comes to poppy production and the like. Recognizing, however, that Afghanistan is an amazingly complicated place, that competent central government has been the gross exception rather than the rule in that country, to say that somebody other than Karzai could do a better job is putting the wish ahead of what the facts are likely to be. My judgment is that you can try to nurture the government to have better governance, but there have to be a lot of resources. This is an expensive proposition, but it is a lot cheaper than spending blood in place of treasure. And no one has been sufficiently serious about it. The U.S. government actually has been more serious than others. This, of course, begins to beg the questions: one, the relative importance of Pakistan, and then also whether we need a new strategy.
Talk a bit about Pakistan policy.
My judgment is that it's not that we gave $10 billion, and it mostly went to the military, but that we didn't give $100 billion. We collectively also have to get very serious about economic efforts within Pakistan in general, and that's going to cost a lot. One idea I have is that we should be asking the oil-producing states of the Persian Gulf to be putting up major amounts of money both for Afghanistan and for Pakistan. The equation is fairly simple. Our oil money goes to these countries. Some of that money should go to Afghanistan and Pakistan, especially because the oil-producing states of the southern littorals, the UAE [United Arab Emirates] and around to Saudi Arabia, expect us to take care of their security. Well, let them start to do what we need. And I'm talking about $10, $20, $30 billion
Don't the Saudis contribute to Afghanistan?
Not much. The UAE sends about 350 special forces, but that's not what you need; you need their money for reconstruction and development.
There's been this recurring thought that perhaps there should be a negotiated deal getting the Taliban into the Afghan government.
One thing that is very much in play now, which has been advanced more by the British government, I believe, than anyone else is whether one should start trying to separate out, to the extent you can, deep concerns with al-Qaeda, the terrorists who have a global agenda, from the Taliban, which has political aspirations to an extent in the tribal areas of Pakistan and certainly in Afghanistan. As odious as the Taliban are, you have to remember that the United States played a very strong role in putting the Taliban into power in Afghanistan in the first place, and then had to sit by and watch this abysmal human rights record that they had. The British are already advancing the idea that maybe the Taliban could be allowed to have a significant role in governance, at least in part of Afghanistan. The Karzai government is already exploring the idea of trying to deal with what one might call "economic" Taliban, people who did it for the money.
Most European states didn't contribute to Afghanistan because they really cared, but for other reasons: One, they weren't prepared to do Iraq. Two, they didn't want to get crossed wires with the United States. Third, they want to be sure, given how much we care about it, that if there's another problem in Europe, they don't want the United States to turn a blind eye or turn its back on them because they didn't help in Afghanistan.
This is not seen in Europe as an allied effort; it's seen as an American effort that they're supporting, and that's a bad place to be. I wouldn't be at all surprised if in the next few months we see a real rethinking about the strategic importance of keeping the Taliban at arm's length as opposed to stepping up the fight against terrorism per se, and al-Qaeda in general, and also buttressing the Pakistani government to try to increase its crackdown in tribal areas.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Strategic Divergence: The War Against the Taliban and the War Against Al Qaeda Stratfor: January 26, 2009
Strategic Divergence: The War Against the Taliban and the War Against Al Qaeda
Stratfor: January 26, 2009
By George Friedman
Washington's attention is now zeroing in on Afghanistan. There is talk of doubling U.S. forces there, and preparations are being made for another supply line into Afghanistan — this one running through the former Soviet Union — as an alternative or a supplement to the current Pakistani route. To free up more resources for Afghanistan, the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq probably will be accelerated. And there is discussion about whether the Karzai government serves the purposes of the war in Afghanistan. In short, U.S. President Barack Obama's campaign promise to focus on Afghanistan seems to be taking shape.
We have discussed many aspects of the Afghan war in the past; it is now time to focus on the central issue. What are the strategic goals of the United States in Afghanistan? What resources will be devoted to this mission? What are the intentions and capabilities of the Taliban and others fighting the United States and its NATO allies? Most important, what is the relationship between the war against the Taliban and the war against al Qaeda? If the United States encounters difficulties in the war against the Taliban, will it still be able to contain not only al Qaeda but other terrorist groups? Does the United States need to succeed against the Taliban to be successful against transnational Islamist terrorists? And assuming that U.S. forces are built up in Afghanistan and that the supply problem through Pakistan is solved, are the defeat of Taliban and the disruption of al Qaeda likely?
Al Qaeda and U.S. Goals Post-9/11
The overarching goal of the United States since Sept. 11, 2001, has been to prevent further attacks by al Qaeda in the United States. Washington has used two means toward this end. One was defensive, aimed at increasing the difficulty of al Qaeda operatives to penetrate and operate within the United States. The second was to attack and destroy al Qaeda prime, the group around Osama bin Laden that organized and executed 9/11 and other attacks in Europe. It is this group — not other groups that call themselves al Qaeda but only are able to operate in the countries where they were formed — that was the target of the United States, because this was the group that had demonstrated the ability to launch intercontinental strikes.
Al Qaeda prime had its main headquarters in Afghanistan. It was not an Afghan group, but one drawn from multiple Islamic countries. It was in alliance with an Afghan group, the Taliban. The Taliban had won a civil war in Afghanistan, creating a coalition of support among tribes that had given the group control, direct or indirect, over most of the country. It is important to remember that al Qaeda was separate from the Taliban; the former was a multinational force, while the Taliban were an internal Afghan political power.
The United States has two strategic goals in Afghanistan. The first is to destroy the remnants of al Qaeda prime — the central command of al Qaeda — in Afghanistan. The second is to use Afghanistan as a base for destroying al Qaeda in Pakistan and to prevent the return of al Qaeda to Afghanistan.
To achieve these goals, Washington has sought to make Afghanistan inhospitable to al Qaeda. The United States forced the Taliban from Afghanistan's main cities and into the countryside, and established a new, anti-Taliban government in Kabul under President Hamid Karzai. Washington intended to deny al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan by unseating the Taliban government, creating a new pro-American government and then using Afghanistan as a base against al Qaeda in Pakistan.
The United States succeeded in forcing the Taliban from power in the sense that in giving up the cities, the Taliban lost formal control of the country. To be more precise, early in the U.S. attack in 2001, the Taliban realized that the massed defense of Afghan cities was impossible in the face of American air power. The ability of U.S. B-52s to devastate any concentration of forces meant that the Taliban could not defend the cities, but had to withdraw, disperse and reform its units for combat on more favorable terms.
At this point, we must separate the fates of al Qaeda and the Taliban. During the Taliban retreat, al Qaeda had to retreat as well. Since the United States lacked sufficient force to destroy al Qaeda at Tora Bora, al Qaeda was able to retreat into northwestern Pakistan. There, it enjoys the advantages of terrain, superior tactical intelligence and support networks.
Even so, in nearly eight years of war, U.S. intelligence and special operations forces have maintained pressure on al Qaeda in Pakistan. The United States has imposed attrition on al Qaeda, disrupting its command, control and communications and isolating it. In the process, the United States used one of al Qaeda's operational principles against it. To avoid penetration by hostile intelligence services, al Qaeda has not recruited new cadres for its primary unit. This makes it very difficult to develop intelligence on al Qaeda, but it also makes it impossible for al Qaeda to replace its losses. Thus, in a long war of attrition, every loss imposed on al Qaeda has been irreplaceable, and over time, al Qaeda prime declined dramatically in effectiveness — meaning it has been years since it has carried out an effective operation.
The situation was very different with the Taliban. The Taliban, it is essential to recall, won the Afghan civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal despite Russian and Iranian support for its opponents. That means the Taliban have a great deal of support and a strong infrastructure, and, above all, they are resilient. After the group withdrew from Afghanistan's cities and lost formal power post-9/11, it still retained a great deal of informal influence — if not control — over large regions of Afghanistan and in areas across the border in Pakistan. Over the years since the U.S. invasion, the Taliban have regrouped, rearmed and increased their operations in Afghanistan. And the conflict with the Taliban has now become a conventional guerrilla war.
The Taliban and the Guerrilla Warfare Challenge
The Taliban have forged relationships among many Afghan (and Pakistani) tribes. These tribes have been alienated by Karzai and the Americans, and far more important, they do not perceive the Americans and Karzai as potential winners in the Afghan conflict. They recall the Russian and British defeats. The tribes have long memories, and they know that foreigners don't stay very long. Betting on the United States and Karzai — when the United States has sent only 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, and is struggling with the idea of sending another 30,000 troops — does not strike them as prudent. The United States is behaving like a power not planning to win; and, in any event, they would not be much impressed if the Americans were planning to win.
The tribes therefore do not want to get on the wrong side of the Taliban. That means they aid and shelter Taliban forces, and provide them intelligence on enemy movement and intentions. With its base camps and supply lines running from Pakistan, the Taliban are thus in a position to recruit, train and arm an increasingly large force.
The Taliban have the classic advantage of guerrillas operating in known terrain with a network of supporters: superior intelligence. They know where the Americans are, what the Americans are doing and when the Americans are going to strike. The Taliban declines combat on unfavorable terms and strikes when the Americans are weakest. The Americans, on the other hand, have the classic problem of counterinsurgency: They enjoy superior force and firepower, and can defeat anyone they can locate and pin down, but they lack intelligence. As much as technical intelligence from unmanned aerial vehicles and satellites is useful, human intelligence is the only effective long-term solution to defeating an insurgency. In this, the Taliban have the advantage: They have been there longer, they are in more places and they are not going anywhere.
There is no conceivable force the United States can deploy to pacify Afghanistan. A possible alternative is moving into Pakistan to cut the supply lines and destroy the Taliban's base camps. The problem is that if the Americans lack the troops to successfully operate in Afghanistan, it is even less likely they have the troops to operate in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States could use the Korean War example, taking responsibility for cutting the Taliban off from supplies and reinforcements from Pakistan, but that assumes that the Afghan government has an effective force motivated to engage and defeat the Taliban. The Afghan government doesn't.
The obvious American solution — or at least the best available solution — is to retreat to strategic Afghan points and cities and protect the Karzai regime. The problem here is that in Afghanistan, holding the cities doesn't give the key to the country; rather, holding the countryside gives the key to the cities. Moreover, a purely defensive posture opens the United States up to the Dien Bien Phu/Khe Sanh counterstrategy, in which guerrillas shift to positional warfare, isolate a base and try to overrun in it.
A purely defensive posture could create a stalemate, but nothing more. That stalemate could create the foundations for political negotiations, but if there is no threat to the enemy, the enemy has little reason to negotiate. Therefore, there must be strikes against Taliban concentrations. The problem is that the Taliban know that concentration is suicide, and so they work to deny the Americans valuable targets. The United States can exhaust itself attacking minor targets based on poor intelligence. It won't get anywhere.
U.S. Strategy in Light of al Qaeda's Diminution
From the beginning, the Karzai government has failed to take control of the countryside. Therefore, al Qaeda has had the option to redeploy into Afghanistan if it chose. It didn't because it is risk-averse. That may seem like a strange thing to say about a group that flies planes into buildings, but what it means is that the group's members are relatively few, so al Qaeda cannot risk operational failures. It thus keeps its powder dry and stays in hiding.
This then frames the U.S. strategic question. The United States has no intrinsic interest in the nature of the Afghan government. The United States is interested in making certain the Taliban do not provide sanctuary to al Qaeda prime. But it is not clear that al Qaeda prime is operational anymore. Some members remain, putting out videos now and then and trying to appear fearsome, but it would seem that U.S. operations have crippled al Qaeda.
So if the primary reason for fighting the Taliban is to keep al Qaeda prime from having a base of operations in Afghanistan, that reason might be moot now as al Qaeda appears to be wrecked. This is not to say that another Islamist terrorist group could not arise and develop the sophisticated methods and training of al Qaeda prime. But such a group could deploy many places, and in any case, obtaining the needed skills in moving money, holding covert meetings and the like is much harder than it looks — and with many intelligence services, including those in the Islamic world, on the lookout for this, recruitment would be hard.
It is therefore no longer clear that resisting the Taliban is essential for blocking al Qaeda: al Qaeda may simply no longer be there. (At this point, the burden of proof is on those who think al Qaeda remains operational.)
Two things emerge from this. First, the search for al Qaeda and other Islamist groups is an intelligence matter best left to the covert capabilities of U.S. intelligence and Special Operations Command. Defeating al Qaeda does not require tens of thousands of troops — it requires excellent intelligence and a special operations capability. That is true whether al Qaeda is in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Intelligence, covert forces and airstrikes are what is needed in this fight, and of the three, intelligence is the key.
Second, the current strategy in Afghanistan cannot secure Afghanistan, nor does it materially contribute to shutting down al Qaeda. Trying to hold some cities and strategic points with the number of troops currently under consideration is not an effective strategy to this end; the United States is already ceding large areas of Afghanistan to the Taliban that could serve as sanctuary for al Qaeda. Protecting the Karzai government and key cities is therefore not significantly contributing to the al Qaeda-suppression strategy.
In sum, the United States does not control enough of Afghanistan to deny al Qaeda sanctuary, can't control the border with Pakistan and lacks effective intelligence and troops for defeating the Taliban.
Logic argues, therefore, for the creation of a political process for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan coupled with a recommitment to intelligence operations against al Qaeda. Ultimately, the United States must protect itself from radical Islamists, but cannot create a united, pro-American Afghanistan. That would not happen even if the United States sent 500,000 troops there, which it doesn't have anyway.
A Tale of Two Surges
The U.S. strategy now appears to involve trying a surge, or sending in more troops and negotiating with the Taliban, mirroring the strategy used in Iraq. But the problem with that strategy is that the Taliban don't seem inclined to make concessions to the United States. The Taliban don't think the United States can win, and they know the United States won't stay. The Petraeus strategy is to inflict enough pain on the Taliban to cause them to rethink their position, which worked in Iraq. But it did not work in Vietnam. So long as the Taliban have resources flowing and can survive American attacks, they will calculate that they can outlast the Americans. This has been Afghan strategy for centuries, and it worked against the British and Russians.
If it works against the Americans, too, splitting the al Qaeda strategy from the Taliban strategy will be the inevitable outcome for the United States. In that case, the CIA will become the critical war fighter in the theater, while conventional forces will be withdrawn. It follows that Obama will need to think carefully about his approach to intelligence.
This is not an argument that al Qaeda is no longer a threat, although the threat appears diminished. Nor is it an argument that dealing with terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan is not a priority. Instead, it is an argument that the defeat of the Taliban under rationally anticipated circumstances is unlikely and that a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan will be much more difficult and unlikely than the settlement was in Iraq — but that even so, a robust effort against Islamist terror groups must continue regardless of the outcome of the war with the Taliban.
Therefore, we expect that the United States will separate the two conflicts in response to these realities. This will mean that containing terrorists will not be dependent on defeating or holding out against the Taliban, holding Afghanistan's cities, or preserving the Karzai regime. We expect the United States to surge troops into Afghanistan, but in due course, the counterterrorist portion will diverge from the counter-Taliban portion. The counterterrorist portion will be maintained as an intense covert operation, while the overt operation will wind down over time. The Taliban ruling Afghanistan is not a threat to the United States, so long as intense counterterrorist operations continue there.
The cost of failure in Afghanistan is simply too high and the connection to counterterrorist activities too tenuous for the two strategies to be linked. And since the counterterror war is already distinct from conventional operations in much of Afghanistan and Pakistan, our forecast is not really that radical.
Stratfor: January 26, 2009
By George Friedman
Washington's attention is now zeroing in on Afghanistan. There is talk of doubling U.S. forces there, and preparations are being made for another supply line into Afghanistan — this one running through the former Soviet Union — as an alternative or a supplement to the current Pakistani route. To free up more resources for Afghanistan, the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq probably will be accelerated. And there is discussion about whether the Karzai government serves the purposes of the war in Afghanistan. In short, U.S. President Barack Obama's campaign promise to focus on Afghanistan seems to be taking shape.
We have discussed many aspects of the Afghan war in the past; it is now time to focus on the central issue. What are the strategic goals of the United States in Afghanistan? What resources will be devoted to this mission? What are the intentions and capabilities of the Taliban and others fighting the United States and its NATO allies? Most important, what is the relationship between the war against the Taliban and the war against al Qaeda? If the United States encounters difficulties in the war against the Taliban, will it still be able to contain not only al Qaeda but other terrorist groups? Does the United States need to succeed against the Taliban to be successful against transnational Islamist terrorists? And assuming that U.S. forces are built up in Afghanistan and that the supply problem through Pakistan is solved, are the defeat of Taliban and the disruption of al Qaeda likely?
Al Qaeda and U.S. Goals Post-9/11
The overarching goal of the United States since Sept. 11, 2001, has been to prevent further attacks by al Qaeda in the United States. Washington has used two means toward this end. One was defensive, aimed at increasing the difficulty of al Qaeda operatives to penetrate and operate within the United States. The second was to attack and destroy al Qaeda prime, the group around Osama bin Laden that organized and executed 9/11 and other attacks in Europe. It is this group — not other groups that call themselves al Qaeda but only are able to operate in the countries where they were formed — that was the target of the United States, because this was the group that had demonstrated the ability to launch intercontinental strikes.
Al Qaeda prime had its main headquarters in Afghanistan. It was not an Afghan group, but one drawn from multiple Islamic countries. It was in alliance with an Afghan group, the Taliban. The Taliban had won a civil war in Afghanistan, creating a coalition of support among tribes that had given the group control, direct or indirect, over most of the country. It is important to remember that al Qaeda was separate from the Taliban; the former was a multinational force, while the Taliban were an internal Afghan political power.
The United States has two strategic goals in Afghanistan. The first is to destroy the remnants of al Qaeda prime — the central command of al Qaeda — in Afghanistan. The second is to use Afghanistan as a base for destroying al Qaeda in Pakistan and to prevent the return of al Qaeda to Afghanistan.
To achieve these goals, Washington has sought to make Afghanistan inhospitable to al Qaeda. The United States forced the Taliban from Afghanistan's main cities and into the countryside, and established a new, anti-Taliban government in Kabul under President Hamid Karzai. Washington intended to deny al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan by unseating the Taliban government, creating a new pro-American government and then using Afghanistan as a base against al Qaeda in Pakistan.
The United States succeeded in forcing the Taliban from power in the sense that in giving up the cities, the Taliban lost formal control of the country. To be more precise, early in the U.S. attack in 2001, the Taliban realized that the massed defense of Afghan cities was impossible in the face of American air power. The ability of U.S. B-52s to devastate any concentration of forces meant that the Taliban could not defend the cities, but had to withdraw, disperse and reform its units for combat on more favorable terms.
At this point, we must separate the fates of al Qaeda and the Taliban. During the Taliban retreat, al Qaeda had to retreat as well. Since the United States lacked sufficient force to destroy al Qaeda at Tora Bora, al Qaeda was able to retreat into northwestern Pakistan. There, it enjoys the advantages of terrain, superior tactical intelligence and support networks.
Even so, in nearly eight years of war, U.S. intelligence and special operations forces have maintained pressure on al Qaeda in Pakistan. The United States has imposed attrition on al Qaeda, disrupting its command, control and communications and isolating it. In the process, the United States used one of al Qaeda's operational principles against it. To avoid penetration by hostile intelligence services, al Qaeda has not recruited new cadres for its primary unit. This makes it very difficult to develop intelligence on al Qaeda, but it also makes it impossible for al Qaeda to replace its losses. Thus, in a long war of attrition, every loss imposed on al Qaeda has been irreplaceable, and over time, al Qaeda prime declined dramatically in effectiveness — meaning it has been years since it has carried out an effective operation.
The situation was very different with the Taliban. The Taliban, it is essential to recall, won the Afghan civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal despite Russian and Iranian support for its opponents. That means the Taliban have a great deal of support and a strong infrastructure, and, above all, they are resilient. After the group withdrew from Afghanistan's cities and lost formal power post-9/11, it still retained a great deal of informal influence — if not control — over large regions of Afghanistan and in areas across the border in Pakistan. Over the years since the U.S. invasion, the Taliban have regrouped, rearmed and increased their operations in Afghanistan. And the conflict with the Taliban has now become a conventional guerrilla war.
The Taliban and the Guerrilla Warfare Challenge
The Taliban have forged relationships among many Afghan (and Pakistani) tribes. These tribes have been alienated by Karzai and the Americans, and far more important, they do not perceive the Americans and Karzai as potential winners in the Afghan conflict. They recall the Russian and British defeats. The tribes have long memories, and they know that foreigners don't stay very long. Betting on the United States and Karzai — when the United States has sent only 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, and is struggling with the idea of sending another 30,000 troops — does not strike them as prudent. The United States is behaving like a power not planning to win; and, in any event, they would not be much impressed if the Americans were planning to win.
The tribes therefore do not want to get on the wrong side of the Taliban. That means they aid and shelter Taliban forces, and provide them intelligence on enemy movement and intentions. With its base camps and supply lines running from Pakistan, the Taliban are thus in a position to recruit, train and arm an increasingly large force.
The Taliban have the classic advantage of guerrillas operating in known terrain with a network of supporters: superior intelligence. They know where the Americans are, what the Americans are doing and when the Americans are going to strike. The Taliban declines combat on unfavorable terms and strikes when the Americans are weakest. The Americans, on the other hand, have the classic problem of counterinsurgency: They enjoy superior force and firepower, and can defeat anyone they can locate and pin down, but they lack intelligence. As much as technical intelligence from unmanned aerial vehicles and satellites is useful, human intelligence is the only effective long-term solution to defeating an insurgency. In this, the Taliban have the advantage: They have been there longer, they are in more places and they are not going anywhere.
There is no conceivable force the United States can deploy to pacify Afghanistan. A possible alternative is moving into Pakistan to cut the supply lines and destroy the Taliban's base camps. The problem is that if the Americans lack the troops to successfully operate in Afghanistan, it is even less likely they have the troops to operate in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States could use the Korean War example, taking responsibility for cutting the Taliban off from supplies and reinforcements from Pakistan, but that assumes that the Afghan government has an effective force motivated to engage and defeat the Taliban. The Afghan government doesn't.
The obvious American solution — or at least the best available solution — is to retreat to strategic Afghan points and cities and protect the Karzai regime. The problem here is that in Afghanistan, holding the cities doesn't give the key to the country; rather, holding the countryside gives the key to the cities. Moreover, a purely defensive posture opens the United States up to the Dien Bien Phu/Khe Sanh counterstrategy, in which guerrillas shift to positional warfare, isolate a base and try to overrun in it.
A purely defensive posture could create a stalemate, but nothing more. That stalemate could create the foundations for political negotiations, but if there is no threat to the enemy, the enemy has little reason to negotiate. Therefore, there must be strikes against Taliban concentrations. The problem is that the Taliban know that concentration is suicide, and so they work to deny the Americans valuable targets. The United States can exhaust itself attacking minor targets based on poor intelligence. It won't get anywhere.
U.S. Strategy in Light of al Qaeda's Diminution
From the beginning, the Karzai government has failed to take control of the countryside. Therefore, al Qaeda has had the option to redeploy into Afghanistan if it chose. It didn't because it is risk-averse. That may seem like a strange thing to say about a group that flies planes into buildings, but what it means is that the group's members are relatively few, so al Qaeda cannot risk operational failures. It thus keeps its powder dry and stays in hiding.
This then frames the U.S. strategic question. The United States has no intrinsic interest in the nature of the Afghan government. The United States is interested in making certain the Taliban do not provide sanctuary to al Qaeda prime. But it is not clear that al Qaeda prime is operational anymore. Some members remain, putting out videos now and then and trying to appear fearsome, but it would seem that U.S. operations have crippled al Qaeda.
So if the primary reason for fighting the Taliban is to keep al Qaeda prime from having a base of operations in Afghanistan, that reason might be moot now as al Qaeda appears to be wrecked. This is not to say that another Islamist terrorist group could not arise and develop the sophisticated methods and training of al Qaeda prime. But such a group could deploy many places, and in any case, obtaining the needed skills in moving money, holding covert meetings and the like is much harder than it looks — and with many intelligence services, including those in the Islamic world, on the lookout for this, recruitment would be hard.
It is therefore no longer clear that resisting the Taliban is essential for blocking al Qaeda: al Qaeda may simply no longer be there. (At this point, the burden of proof is on those who think al Qaeda remains operational.)
Two things emerge from this. First, the search for al Qaeda and other Islamist groups is an intelligence matter best left to the covert capabilities of U.S. intelligence and Special Operations Command. Defeating al Qaeda does not require tens of thousands of troops — it requires excellent intelligence and a special operations capability. That is true whether al Qaeda is in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Intelligence, covert forces and airstrikes are what is needed in this fight, and of the three, intelligence is the key.
Second, the current strategy in Afghanistan cannot secure Afghanistan, nor does it materially contribute to shutting down al Qaeda. Trying to hold some cities and strategic points with the number of troops currently under consideration is not an effective strategy to this end; the United States is already ceding large areas of Afghanistan to the Taliban that could serve as sanctuary for al Qaeda. Protecting the Karzai government and key cities is therefore not significantly contributing to the al Qaeda-suppression strategy.
In sum, the United States does not control enough of Afghanistan to deny al Qaeda sanctuary, can't control the border with Pakistan and lacks effective intelligence and troops for defeating the Taliban.
Logic argues, therefore, for the creation of a political process for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan coupled with a recommitment to intelligence operations against al Qaeda. Ultimately, the United States must protect itself from radical Islamists, but cannot create a united, pro-American Afghanistan. That would not happen even if the United States sent 500,000 troops there, which it doesn't have anyway.
A Tale of Two Surges
The U.S. strategy now appears to involve trying a surge, or sending in more troops and negotiating with the Taliban, mirroring the strategy used in Iraq. But the problem with that strategy is that the Taliban don't seem inclined to make concessions to the United States. The Taliban don't think the United States can win, and they know the United States won't stay. The Petraeus strategy is to inflict enough pain on the Taliban to cause them to rethink their position, which worked in Iraq. But it did not work in Vietnam. So long as the Taliban have resources flowing and can survive American attacks, they will calculate that they can outlast the Americans. This has been Afghan strategy for centuries, and it worked against the British and Russians.
If it works against the Americans, too, splitting the al Qaeda strategy from the Taliban strategy will be the inevitable outcome for the United States. In that case, the CIA will become the critical war fighter in the theater, while conventional forces will be withdrawn. It follows that Obama will need to think carefully about his approach to intelligence.
This is not an argument that al Qaeda is no longer a threat, although the threat appears diminished. Nor is it an argument that dealing with terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan is not a priority. Instead, it is an argument that the defeat of the Taliban under rationally anticipated circumstances is unlikely and that a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan will be much more difficult and unlikely than the settlement was in Iraq — but that even so, a robust effort against Islamist terror groups must continue regardless of the outcome of the war with the Taliban.
Therefore, we expect that the United States will separate the two conflicts in response to these realities. This will mean that containing terrorists will not be dependent on defeating or holding out against the Taliban, holding Afghanistan's cities, or preserving the Karzai regime. We expect the United States to surge troops into Afghanistan, but in due course, the counterterrorist portion will diverge from the counter-Taliban portion. The counterterrorist portion will be maintained as an intense covert operation, while the overt operation will wind down over time. The Taliban ruling Afghanistan is not a threat to the United States, so long as intense counterterrorist operations continue there.
The cost of failure in Afghanistan is simply too high and the connection to counterterrorist activities too tenuous for the two strategies to be linked. And since the counterterror war is already distinct from conventional operations in much of Afghanistan and Pakistan, our forecast is not really that radical.
Monday, January 26, 2009
For Which It Stands: Saudi Arabia Analysis: Obama spoke to "the Muslim world," but he has much work to restore faith in U.S. Middle East policy Car
GLOBAL POST
1/22/09
For Which It Stands: Saudi Arabia
Analysis: Obama spoke to "the Muslim world," but he has much work to restore faith in U.S. Middle East policy
Caryle Murphy
RIYADH — A Saudi friend recently asked me a difficult question.
Norah Al Hassawi was lamenting the horrible televised scenes of bloodshed and human misery in Gaza that have made her, and the rest of the Arab world, deeply depressed and angry in recent weeks.
"Americans are educated people," said Al Hassawi, an educator. "They can talk. What happened there? How come they can't see?"
What do I tell her? How do I explain why Americans have shown little interest in the death and destruction that their country's closest Middle Eastern ally, Israel, has inflicted on Gaza?
Shall I tell her that Americans are busy people? They are incurious about the rest of the world? They're bored by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? They are convinced by the argument that Israel's campaign was an act of self-defense against Hamas rockets? They're influenced by the Israeli lobby? Misinformed by the media?
At a loss for words, I did not reply to Al Hassawi. But newly sworn-in U.S. President Barack Obama seemed to be speaking to people like her in his Inaugural speech on Tuesday.
"To the Muslim world," he said "we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect."
The next day, Obama signaled that the Middle East would be on his front burner when he called three Arab leaders, as well as Israel's prime minister, to say hello from the Oval Office. And one of his first executive orders was to close the Guantanamo detention camp within a year.
Despite these goodwill gestures, the Obama administration faces a daunting task to convince a skeptical and angry Arab world that it is sincere about change in their part of the world.
After decades of disappointment in U.S. presidents, ordinary people are deeply cynical about such promises. If he wants to win their hearts and minds — the most crucial antidote to terrorism — Obama will have to address the most obvious, and important, political reality on the ground.
"People in the Arab and Islamic world care about one thing," said Ahmad Al Farraj, a political scientist in Riyadh. "And that is whether the United States is going to be fair when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
As anyone who's lived in the Middle East will tell you, people of this region are always saying they love Americans but hate U.S. foreign policy, regarded as unconditionally supportive of Israel at Arabs' expense. Washington's support for authoritarian Arab governments, and its lack of consistency in promoting democracy and human rights, are also major grievances among many Arabs. The outcome is a deep cynicism in this part of the world when America trumpets its ideals, even with oratory as eloquent and inspiring as the new president's.
Turki al Sudairy, president of the government-appointed Human Rights Commission, put it this way: "We love the American people. But when you look at how the policies are directed, we see something else, which has nothing to do with simple Americans' view of human rights."
For ordinary Americans, this willingness to separate them as individuals from their government's foreign policies is a fortunate bifurcation.
Unfortunately, it is one that Osama bin Laden and others of his ilk reject. The Al Qaeda master has argued that civilians living in Western democracies are legitimate targets for terrorist attacks precisely because they elect their governments and support them with their taxes. Thus, he contends, they are responsible for their governments' policies.
It's a very dangerous idea, and one that so far is not widely accepted in the Arab world.
In the post-Gaza climate of anger with U.S. foreign policy, it is hard to believe that just a little over 50 years ago, the United States was beloved in the Middle East. That was the case when President Dwight Eisenhower forced Britain and Israel to reverse their invasion of Egypt.
Since then, the U.S. has gone steadily downhill in Arab esteem. For more than two decades, for example, it has tolerated the building of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank in what is widely seen as a violation of international law.
These settlements, the road network connecting them, and the huge wall now separating the West Bank from Israel, have made a geographically viable Palestinian state nearly impossible.
The U.S.-led invasion and continuing presence in Iraq, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, and Washington's failure to demand a halt to Israel's 2006 air war against Hezbollah in Lebanon all deepened Arab disillusionment with the United States, sending its prestige and moral authority plummeting to historic lows in this region.
There is a palpable sentiment in the Arab world that America must return to practicing the universal ideals that it says it stands for, not just for America's sake, but for everyone else's sake too. If America doesn't live up to those ideals, this line of reasoning goes, then why should others bother with them?
This helps explain why Middle Eastern eyes are now on "Abu Hussein."
That's how some young Saudis refer to Obama, who doesn't really qualify for this Arabic-style nickname — "Father of Hussein" — because he has no son. Hussein is a male name meaning "handsome."
But it's an indication of the sense of ownership that some young Arabs felt about Obama that they gave him this endearment, using his middle name. His Kenyan heritage, brown skin, Muslim father, and Arabic middle name all suggested to them that he might be more sympathetic to Arab views than past U.S. presidents.
But in the still smoldering rubble of Gaza, those expectations are now on hold.
And sober voices warn that U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is so embedded in the U.S. political system, particularly the U.S. Congress, that it won't change no matter who occupies the White House.
As a result, ambivalence seems to be trouncing hope right now.
"When I see him I think this man looks honest...that if he says he will do something, he will do it," Al Hassawi said of Obama.
"But on the other hand, it's not up to him. Yes, he is the president of America, but he's not running America alone. There is the Congress. There is the people…So I'm not very optimistic...because he's just a part of the whole picture. I know that it takes a very brave man to change things, and I'm not sure if Obama will be this brave man or not."
1/22/09
For Which It Stands: Saudi Arabia
Analysis: Obama spoke to "the Muslim world," but he has much work to restore faith in U.S. Middle East policy
Caryle Murphy
RIYADH — A Saudi friend recently asked me a difficult question.
Norah Al Hassawi was lamenting the horrible televised scenes of bloodshed and human misery in Gaza that have made her, and the rest of the Arab world, deeply depressed and angry in recent weeks.
"Americans are educated people," said Al Hassawi, an educator. "They can talk. What happened there? How come they can't see?"
What do I tell her? How do I explain why Americans have shown little interest in the death and destruction that their country's closest Middle Eastern ally, Israel, has inflicted on Gaza?
Shall I tell her that Americans are busy people? They are incurious about the rest of the world? They're bored by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? They are convinced by the argument that Israel's campaign was an act of self-defense against Hamas rockets? They're influenced by the Israeli lobby? Misinformed by the media?
At a loss for words, I did not reply to Al Hassawi. But newly sworn-in U.S. President Barack Obama seemed to be speaking to people like her in his Inaugural speech on Tuesday.
"To the Muslim world," he said "we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect."
The next day, Obama signaled that the Middle East would be on his front burner when he called three Arab leaders, as well as Israel's prime minister, to say hello from the Oval Office. And one of his first executive orders was to close the Guantanamo detention camp within a year.
Despite these goodwill gestures, the Obama administration faces a daunting task to convince a skeptical and angry Arab world that it is sincere about change in their part of the world.
After decades of disappointment in U.S. presidents, ordinary people are deeply cynical about such promises. If he wants to win their hearts and minds — the most crucial antidote to terrorism — Obama will have to address the most obvious, and important, political reality on the ground.
"People in the Arab and Islamic world care about one thing," said Ahmad Al Farraj, a political scientist in Riyadh. "And that is whether the United States is going to be fair when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
As anyone who's lived in the Middle East will tell you, people of this region are always saying they love Americans but hate U.S. foreign policy, regarded as unconditionally supportive of Israel at Arabs' expense. Washington's support for authoritarian Arab governments, and its lack of consistency in promoting democracy and human rights, are also major grievances among many Arabs. The outcome is a deep cynicism in this part of the world when America trumpets its ideals, even with oratory as eloquent and inspiring as the new president's.
Turki al Sudairy, president of the government-appointed Human Rights Commission, put it this way: "We love the American people. But when you look at how the policies are directed, we see something else, which has nothing to do with simple Americans' view of human rights."
For ordinary Americans, this willingness to separate them as individuals from their government's foreign policies is a fortunate bifurcation.
Unfortunately, it is one that Osama bin Laden and others of his ilk reject. The Al Qaeda master has argued that civilians living in Western democracies are legitimate targets for terrorist attacks precisely because they elect their governments and support them with their taxes. Thus, he contends, they are responsible for their governments' policies.
It's a very dangerous idea, and one that so far is not widely accepted in the Arab world.
In the post-Gaza climate of anger with U.S. foreign policy, it is hard to believe that just a little over 50 years ago, the United States was beloved in the Middle East. That was the case when President Dwight Eisenhower forced Britain and Israel to reverse their invasion of Egypt.
Since then, the U.S. has gone steadily downhill in Arab esteem. For more than two decades, for example, it has tolerated the building of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank in what is widely seen as a violation of international law.
These settlements, the road network connecting them, and the huge wall now separating the West Bank from Israel, have made a geographically viable Palestinian state nearly impossible.
The U.S.-led invasion and continuing presence in Iraq, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, and Washington's failure to demand a halt to Israel's 2006 air war against Hezbollah in Lebanon all deepened Arab disillusionment with the United States, sending its prestige and moral authority plummeting to historic lows in this region.
There is a palpable sentiment in the Arab world that America must return to practicing the universal ideals that it says it stands for, not just for America's sake, but for everyone else's sake too. If America doesn't live up to those ideals, this line of reasoning goes, then why should others bother with them?
This helps explain why Middle Eastern eyes are now on "Abu Hussein."
That's how some young Saudis refer to Obama, who doesn't really qualify for this Arabic-style nickname — "Father of Hussein" — because he has no son. Hussein is a male name meaning "handsome."
But it's an indication of the sense of ownership that some young Arabs felt about Obama that they gave him this endearment, using his middle name. His Kenyan heritage, brown skin, Muslim father, and Arabic middle name all suggested to them that he might be more sympathetic to Arab views than past U.S. presidents.
But in the still smoldering rubble of Gaza, those expectations are now on hold.
And sober voices warn that U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is so embedded in the U.S. political system, particularly the U.S. Congress, that it won't change no matter who occupies the White House.
As a result, ambivalence seems to be trouncing hope right now.
"When I see him I think this man looks honest...that if he says he will do something, he will do it," Al Hassawi said of Obama.
"But on the other hand, it's not up to him. Yes, he is the president of America, but he's not running America alone. There is the Congress. There is the people…So I'm not very optimistic...because he's just a part of the whole picture. I know that it takes a very brave man to change things, and I'm not sure if Obama will be this brave man or not."
The Afghan Trap by Nikolas K. Gvosdev
The Afghan Trap
by Nikolas K. Gvosdev
The National Interest Online
http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=20722
01.26.2009
One of the things President Obama is discovering and will discover over the next several weeks is the gap between policy conception and policy implementation. As former–Deputy National Security Advisor Robert Blackwill observed on these pages four years ago, "In policymaking, the White House can say what it wishes conceptually, but this must be translated into specific policies. Implementation is the orphan of public policy inquiry."
Obama has outlined an ambitious agenda for Afghanistan. The problem, however, is that no problem exists in isolation. Let's just take two complications on Afghanistan.
We want to encourage economic growth and development in the country. On Thursday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and India's Minister for External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee officially opened a new highway that links the Afghan town of Delaram in the southwestern province of Nimroz with the Iranian border town of Zaranj—which in turn connects to the port of Chabahar. India plans to use this new communications link to trade with Afghanistan (and with central Asia beyond). It is also a boon to the Afghan economy. It is a definite plus for any strategy of stabilizing Afghanistan—but it comes at a cost: India's actions weaken U.S. efforts to economically isolate Iran and pressure it over its nuclear program and support for terrorism. Conversely, any American action to shut this port and road link down would have adverse economic consequences for Afghanistan and complicate efforts to win away the local population from extremist elements.
We also want to deploy additional military forces into the country. Yet, the principal supply route for U.S. and NATO forces via Pakistan remains vulnerable to attack and disruption. On the same day as Karzai and Mukherjee were dedicating the new Delaram-Zaranj highway (which the United States is not in any position to use as an alternate route), Russia's ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, put the outlines of a deal on the table: if NATO restores full contacts with Russia severed after the fall 2008 Caucasus war, Russia would facilitate the "full transport" of NATO's nonmilitary cargoes across Russian territory to central Asia and thence into Afghanistan. The more sensitive issue of allowing the transit of military equipment might also be on the table. Yet is this a step the new administration could take—especially after Russia's recent spats with Georgia and Ukraine?
The trap the new president must avoid is assuming that Iran or Russia will accommodate the United States on Afghanistan because our experts assure him that "it is in their interests too"—because creating a situation in that country that Tehran or Moscow can live with is not equated with making the United States successful.
One would think that based on what he has said about the importance of Afghanistan, the calculus of improving the odds of success would lead him and his team to ignore Afghanistan's use of Iran as its outlet to the world (and India's own support of that project) and to restore the NATO-Russia relationship not as any reward to Moscow but because it serves U.S. strategic interests to have a new secure transport route into Afghanistan. But it is just as easy for the first to become a roadblock and the second to be stalled because they conflict with other policy objectives vis-à-vis Iran and Russia.
So we shall soon see how President Obama sets foreign-policy priorities and how they are conveyed through the apparatus.
Nikolas K. Gvosdev, a senior editor at The National Interest, is a professor of national-security studies at the U.S. Naval War College. The views expressed in this essay are entirely his own.
by Nikolas K. Gvosdev
The National Interest Online
http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=20722
01.26.2009
One of the things President Obama is discovering and will discover over the next several weeks is the gap between policy conception and policy implementation. As former–Deputy National Security Advisor Robert Blackwill observed on these pages four years ago, "In policymaking, the White House can say what it wishes conceptually, but this must be translated into specific policies. Implementation is the orphan of public policy inquiry."
Obama has outlined an ambitious agenda for Afghanistan. The problem, however, is that no problem exists in isolation. Let's just take two complications on Afghanistan.
We want to encourage economic growth and development in the country. On Thursday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and India's Minister for External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee officially opened a new highway that links the Afghan town of Delaram in the southwestern province of Nimroz with the Iranian border town of Zaranj—which in turn connects to the port of Chabahar. India plans to use this new communications link to trade with Afghanistan (and with central Asia beyond). It is also a boon to the Afghan economy. It is a definite plus for any strategy of stabilizing Afghanistan—but it comes at a cost: India's actions weaken U.S. efforts to economically isolate Iran and pressure it over its nuclear program and support for terrorism. Conversely, any American action to shut this port and road link down would have adverse economic consequences for Afghanistan and complicate efforts to win away the local population from extremist elements.
We also want to deploy additional military forces into the country. Yet, the principal supply route for U.S. and NATO forces via Pakistan remains vulnerable to attack and disruption. On the same day as Karzai and Mukherjee were dedicating the new Delaram-Zaranj highway (which the United States is not in any position to use as an alternate route), Russia's ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, put the outlines of a deal on the table: if NATO restores full contacts with Russia severed after the fall 2008 Caucasus war, Russia would facilitate the "full transport" of NATO's nonmilitary cargoes across Russian territory to central Asia and thence into Afghanistan. The more sensitive issue of allowing the transit of military equipment might also be on the table. Yet is this a step the new administration could take—especially after Russia's recent spats with Georgia and Ukraine?
The trap the new president must avoid is assuming that Iran or Russia will accommodate the United States on Afghanistan because our experts assure him that "it is in their interests too"—because creating a situation in that country that Tehran or Moscow can live with is not equated with making the United States successful.
One would think that based on what he has said about the importance of Afghanistan, the calculus of improving the odds of success would lead him and his team to ignore Afghanistan's use of Iran as its outlet to the world (and India's own support of that project) and to restore the NATO-Russia relationship not as any reward to Moscow but because it serves U.S. strategic interests to have a new secure transport route into Afghanistan. But it is just as easy for the first to become a roadblock and the second to be stalled because they conflict with other policy objectives vis-à-vis Iran and Russia.
So we shall soon see how President Obama sets foreign-policy priorities and how they are conveyed through the apparatus.
Nikolas K. Gvosdev, a senior editor at The National Interest, is a professor of national-security studies at the U.S. Naval War College. The views expressed in this essay are entirely his own.
On The Wrong Side by Uri Avnery
Uri Avnery
24.1.09
On The Wrong Side
.
OF ALL the beautiful phrases in Barack Obama's inauguration speech, these are the words that stuck in my mind: "You are on the wrong side of history."
.
He was talking about the tyrannical regimes of the world. But we, too, should ponder these words.
In the last few days I have heard a lot of declarations from Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Olmert. And every time, these eight words came back to haunt me: "You are on the wrong side of history!"
.
Obama was speaking as a man of the 21st century. Our leaders speak the language of the 19th century. They resemble the dinosaurs which once terrorized their neighborhood and were quite unaware of the fact that their time had already passed.
DURING THE rousing celebrations, again and again the multicolored patchwork of the new president's family was mentioned.
.
All the preceding 43 presidents were white Protestants, except John Kennedy, who was a white Catholic. 38 of them were the descendants of immigrants from the British isles. Of the other five, three were of Dutch ancestry (Theodor and Franklin D. Roosevelt , as well as Martin van Buren) and two of German descent (Herbert Hoover and Dwight Eisenhower.)
.
The face of Obama's family is quite different. The extended family includes whites and the descendents of black slaves, Africans from Kenya, Indonesians, Chinese from Canada, Christians, Muslims and even one Jew (a converted African-American). The two first names of the president himself, Barack Hussein, are Arabic.
.
This is the face of the new American nation – a mixture of races, religions, countries of origin and skin-colors, an open and diverse society, all of whose members are supposed to be equal and to identify themselves with the "founding fathers". The American Barack Hussein Obama, whose father was born in a Kenyan village, can speak with pride of "George Washington, the father of our nation", of the "American Revolution" (the war of independence against the British), and hold up the example of "our ancestors", who include both the white pioneers and the black slaves who "endured the lash of the whip". That is the perception of a modern nation, multi-cultural and multi-racial: a person joins it by acquiring citizenship, and from this moment on is the heir to all its history.
.
Israel is the product of the narrow nationalism of the 19th century, a nationalism that was closed and exclusive, based on race and ethnic origin, blood and earth. Israel is a "Jewish State", and a Jew is a person born Jewish or converted according to Jewish religious law (Halakha). Like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, it is a state whose mental world is to a large extent conditioned by religion, race and ethnic origin.
.
When Ehud Barak speaks about the future, he speaks the language of past centuries, in terms of brute force and brutal threats, with armies providing the solution to all problems. That was also the language of George W. Bush who last week slinked out of Washington, a language that already sounds to the Western ear like an echo from the distant past.
.
The words of the new president are ringing in the air: "Our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please." The key words were "humility and restraint".
.
Our leaders are now boasting about their part in the Gaza War, in which unbridled military force was unleashed intentionally against a civilian population, men, women and children, with the declared aim of "creating deterrence". In the era that began last Tuesday, such expressions can only arouse shudders.
BETWEEN Israel and the United States a gap has opened this week, a narrow gap, almost invisible – but it may widen into an abyss.
.
The first signs are small. In his inaugural speech, Obama proclaimed that "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and nonbelievers." Since when? Since when do the Muslims precede the Jews? What has happened to the "Judeo-Christian Heritage"? (A completely false term to start with, since Judaism is much closer to Islam than to Christianity. For example: neither Judaism nor Islam supports the separation of religion and state.)
.
The very next morning, Obama phoned a number of Middle East leaders. He decided to make a quite unique gesture: placing the first call to Mahmoud Abbas, and only the next to Olmert. The Israeli media could not stomach that. Haaretz, for example, consciously falsified the record by writing - not once but twice in the same issue - that Obama had called "Olmert, Abbas, Mubarak and King Abdallah" (in that order).
.
Instead of the group of American Jews who had been in charge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during both the Clinton and Bush administrations, Obama, on his very first day in office, appointed an Arab-American, George Mitchell, whose mother had come to America from Lebanon at age 18, and who himself, orphaned from his Irish father, was brought up in a Maronite Christian Lebanese family.
.
These are not good tidings for the Israeli leaders. For the last 42 years, they have pursued a policy of expansion, occupation and settlements in close cooperation with Washington. They have relied on unlimited American support, from the massive supply of money and arms to the use of the veto in the Security Council. This support was essential to their policy. This support may now be reaching its limits.
It will happen, of course, gradually. The pro-Israel lobby in Washington will continue to put the fear of God into Congress. A huge ship like the United States can change course only very slowly, in a gentle curve. But the turn-around started already on the first day of the Obama administration.
.
This could not have happened, if America itself had not changed. That is not a political change alone. It is a change in the world-view, in mental outlook, in values. A certain American myth, which is very similar to the Zionist myth, has been replaced by another American myth. Not by accident did Obama devote to this so large a part of his speech (in which, by the way, there was not a single word about the extermination of the Native Americans).
.
The Gaza War, during which tens of millions of Americans saw the horrible carnage in the Strip (even if rigorous self-censorship cut out all but a tiny part), has hastened the process of drifting apart. Israel, the brave little sister, the loyal ally in Bush's "War on Terror", has turned into the violent Israel, the mad monster, which has no compassion for women and children, the wounded and the sick. And when winds like these are blowing, the Lobby loses height.
.
The leaders of official Israel do not notice it. They do not feel, as Obama put it in another context, that "the ground has shifted beneath them". They think that this is no more than a temporary political problem that can be set right with the help of the Lobby and the servile members of Congress.
.
Our leaders are still intoxicated with war and drunk with violence. They have re-phrased the famous saying of the Prussian general, Carl von Clausewitz into: "War is but a continuation of an election campaign by other means." They compete with each other with vainglorious swagger for their share of the "credit". Tzipi Livni, who cannot compete with the men for the crown of warlord, tries to outdo them in toughness, in bellicosity, in hard-heartedness.
.
The most brutal is Ehud Barak. Once I called him a "peace criminal", because he brought about the failure of the 2000 Camp David conference and shattered the Israeli peace camp. Now I must call him a "war criminal", as the person who planned the Gaza War knowing that it would murder masses of civilians.
.
In his own eyes, and in the eyes of a large section of the public, this is a military operation which deserves all praise. His advisors also thought that it would bring him success in the elections. The Labor party, which had been the largest party in the Knesset for decades, had shrunk in the polls to 12, even 9 seats out of 120. With the help of the Gaza atrocity it has now gone up to 16 or so. That's not a landslide, and there's no guarantee that it will not sink again.
.
What was Barak's mistake? Very simply: every war helps the Right. War, by its very nature, arouses in the population the most primitive emotions – hate and fear, fear and hate. These are the emotions on which the Right has been riding for centuries. Even when it's the "Left" that starts a war, it's still the Right that profits from it. In a state of war, the population prefers an honest-to-goodness Rightist to a phony Leftist.
.
This is happening to Barak for the second time. When, in 2000, he spread the mantra "I have turned every stone on the way to peace, / I have made the Palestinians unprecedented offers, / They have rejected everything, / There is no one to talk with" - he succeeded not only in blowing the Left to smithereens, but also in paving the way for the ascent of Ariel Sharon in the 2001 elections. Now he is paving the way for Binyamin Netanyahu (hoping, quite openly, to become his minister of defense).
.
And not only for him. The real victor of the war is a man who had no part in it at all: Avigdor Liberman. His party, which in any normal country would be called fascist, is steadily rising in the polls. Why? Liberman looks and sounds like an Israeli Mussolini, he is an unbridled Arab-hater, a man of the most brutal force. Compared to him, even Netanyahu looks like a softie. A large part of the young generation, nurtured on years of occupation, killing and destruction, after two atrocious wars, considers him a worthy leader.
.
WHILE THE US has made a giant jump to the left, Israel is about to jump even further to the right.
Anyone who saw the millions milling around Washington on inauguration day knows that Obama was not speaking only for himself. He was expressing the aspirations of his people, the Zeitgeist.
.
Between the mental world of Obama and the mental world of Liberman and Netanyahu there is no bridge. Between Obama and Barak and Livni, too, there yawns an abyss. Post-election Israel may find itself on a collision course with post-election America.
.
Where are the American Jews? The overwhelming majority of them voted for Obama. They will be between the hammer and the anvil – between their government and their natural adherence to Israel. It is reasonable to assume that this will exert pressure from below on the "leaders" of American Jewry, who have incidentally never been elected by anyone, and on organizations like AIPAC. The sturdy stick, on which Israeli leaders are used to lean in times of trouble, may prove to be a broken reed.
.
Europe, too, is not untouched by the new winds. True, at the end of the war we saw the leaders of Europe – Sarkozy, Merkel, Browne and Zapatero – sitting like schoolchildren behind a desk in class, respectfully listening to the most loathsome arrogant posturing from Ehud Olmert, reciting his text after him. They seemed to approve the atrocities of the war, speaking of the Qassams and forgetting about the occupation, the blockade and the settlements. Probably they will not hang this picture on their office walls.
.
But during this war masses of Europeans poured into the streets to demonstrate against the horrible events. The same masses saluted Obama on the day of his inauguration.
.
This is the new world. Perhaps our leaders are now dreaming of the slogan: "Stop the world, I want to get off!" But there is no other world.
.
YES, WE ARE NOW on the wrong side of history.
.
Fortunately, there is also another Israel. It is not in the limelight, and its voice is heard only by those who listen out for it. This is a sane, rational Israel, with its face to the future, to progress and peace. In these coming elections, its voice will barely be heard, because all the old parties are standing with their two feet squarely in the world of yesterday.
.
But what has happened in the United States will have a profound influence on what happens in Israel. The huge majority of Israelis know that we cannot exist without close ties with the US. Obama is now the leader of the world, and we live in this world. When he promises to work "aggressively" for peace between us and the Palestinians, that is a marching order for us.
.
We want to be on the right side of history. That will take months or years, but I am sure that we shall get there. The time to start is now.
24.1.09
On The Wrong Side
.
OF ALL the beautiful phrases in Barack Obama's inauguration speech, these are the words that stuck in my mind: "You are on the wrong side of history."
.
He was talking about the tyrannical regimes of the world. But we, too, should ponder these words.
In the last few days I have heard a lot of declarations from Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Olmert. And every time, these eight words came back to haunt me: "You are on the wrong side of history!"
.
Obama was speaking as a man of the 21st century. Our leaders speak the language of the 19th century. They resemble the dinosaurs which once terrorized their neighborhood and were quite unaware of the fact that their time had already passed.
DURING THE rousing celebrations, again and again the multicolored patchwork of the new president's family was mentioned.
.
All the preceding 43 presidents were white Protestants, except John Kennedy, who was a white Catholic. 38 of them were the descendants of immigrants from the British isles. Of the other five, three were of Dutch ancestry (Theodor and Franklin D. Roosevelt , as well as Martin van Buren) and two of German descent (Herbert Hoover and Dwight Eisenhower.)
.
The face of Obama's family is quite different. The extended family includes whites and the descendents of black slaves, Africans from Kenya, Indonesians, Chinese from Canada, Christians, Muslims and even one Jew (a converted African-American). The two first names of the president himself, Barack Hussein, are Arabic.
.
This is the face of the new American nation – a mixture of races, religions, countries of origin and skin-colors, an open and diverse society, all of whose members are supposed to be equal and to identify themselves with the "founding fathers". The American Barack Hussein Obama, whose father was born in a Kenyan village, can speak with pride of "George Washington, the father of our nation", of the "American Revolution" (the war of independence against the British), and hold up the example of "our ancestors", who include both the white pioneers and the black slaves who "endured the lash of the whip". That is the perception of a modern nation, multi-cultural and multi-racial: a person joins it by acquiring citizenship, and from this moment on is the heir to all its history.
.
Israel is the product of the narrow nationalism of the 19th century, a nationalism that was closed and exclusive, based on race and ethnic origin, blood and earth. Israel is a "Jewish State", and a Jew is a person born Jewish or converted according to Jewish religious law (Halakha). Like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, it is a state whose mental world is to a large extent conditioned by religion, race and ethnic origin.
.
When Ehud Barak speaks about the future, he speaks the language of past centuries, in terms of brute force and brutal threats, with armies providing the solution to all problems. That was also the language of George W. Bush who last week slinked out of Washington, a language that already sounds to the Western ear like an echo from the distant past.
.
The words of the new president are ringing in the air: "Our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please." The key words were "humility and restraint".
.
Our leaders are now boasting about their part in the Gaza War, in which unbridled military force was unleashed intentionally against a civilian population, men, women and children, with the declared aim of "creating deterrence". In the era that began last Tuesday, such expressions can only arouse shudders.
BETWEEN Israel and the United States a gap has opened this week, a narrow gap, almost invisible – but it may widen into an abyss.
.
The first signs are small. In his inaugural speech, Obama proclaimed that "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and nonbelievers." Since when? Since when do the Muslims precede the Jews? What has happened to the "Judeo-Christian Heritage"? (A completely false term to start with, since Judaism is much closer to Islam than to Christianity. For example: neither Judaism nor Islam supports the separation of religion and state.)
.
The very next morning, Obama phoned a number of Middle East leaders. He decided to make a quite unique gesture: placing the first call to Mahmoud Abbas, and only the next to Olmert. The Israeli media could not stomach that. Haaretz, for example, consciously falsified the record by writing - not once but twice in the same issue - that Obama had called "Olmert, Abbas, Mubarak and King Abdallah" (in that order).
.
Instead of the group of American Jews who had been in charge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during both the Clinton and Bush administrations, Obama, on his very first day in office, appointed an Arab-American, George Mitchell, whose mother had come to America from Lebanon at age 18, and who himself, orphaned from his Irish father, was brought up in a Maronite Christian Lebanese family.
.
These are not good tidings for the Israeli leaders. For the last 42 years, they have pursued a policy of expansion, occupation and settlements in close cooperation with Washington. They have relied on unlimited American support, from the massive supply of money and arms to the use of the veto in the Security Council. This support was essential to their policy. This support may now be reaching its limits.
It will happen, of course, gradually. The pro-Israel lobby in Washington will continue to put the fear of God into Congress. A huge ship like the United States can change course only very slowly, in a gentle curve. But the turn-around started already on the first day of the Obama administration.
.
This could not have happened, if America itself had not changed. That is not a political change alone. It is a change in the world-view, in mental outlook, in values. A certain American myth, which is very similar to the Zionist myth, has been replaced by another American myth. Not by accident did Obama devote to this so large a part of his speech (in which, by the way, there was not a single word about the extermination of the Native Americans).
.
The Gaza War, during which tens of millions of Americans saw the horrible carnage in the Strip (even if rigorous self-censorship cut out all but a tiny part), has hastened the process of drifting apart. Israel, the brave little sister, the loyal ally in Bush's "War on Terror", has turned into the violent Israel, the mad monster, which has no compassion for women and children, the wounded and the sick. And when winds like these are blowing, the Lobby loses height.
.
The leaders of official Israel do not notice it. They do not feel, as Obama put it in another context, that "the ground has shifted beneath them". They think that this is no more than a temporary political problem that can be set right with the help of the Lobby and the servile members of Congress.
.
Our leaders are still intoxicated with war and drunk with violence. They have re-phrased the famous saying of the Prussian general, Carl von Clausewitz into: "War is but a continuation of an election campaign by other means." They compete with each other with vainglorious swagger for their share of the "credit". Tzipi Livni, who cannot compete with the men for the crown of warlord, tries to outdo them in toughness, in bellicosity, in hard-heartedness.
.
The most brutal is Ehud Barak. Once I called him a "peace criminal", because he brought about the failure of the 2000 Camp David conference and shattered the Israeli peace camp. Now I must call him a "war criminal", as the person who planned the Gaza War knowing that it would murder masses of civilians.
.
In his own eyes, and in the eyes of a large section of the public, this is a military operation which deserves all praise. His advisors also thought that it would bring him success in the elections. The Labor party, which had been the largest party in the Knesset for decades, had shrunk in the polls to 12, even 9 seats out of 120. With the help of the Gaza atrocity it has now gone up to 16 or so. That's not a landslide, and there's no guarantee that it will not sink again.
.
What was Barak's mistake? Very simply: every war helps the Right. War, by its very nature, arouses in the population the most primitive emotions – hate and fear, fear and hate. These are the emotions on which the Right has been riding for centuries. Even when it's the "Left" that starts a war, it's still the Right that profits from it. In a state of war, the population prefers an honest-to-goodness Rightist to a phony Leftist.
.
This is happening to Barak for the second time. When, in 2000, he spread the mantra "I have turned every stone on the way to peace, / I have made the Palestinians unprecedented offers, / They have rejected everything, / There is no one to talk with" - he succeeded not only in blowing the Left to smithereens, but also in paving the way for the ascent of Ariel Sharon in the 2001 elections. Now he is paving the way for Binyamin Netanyahu (hoping, quite openly, to become his minister of defense).
.
And not only for him. The real victor of the war is a man who had no part in it at all: Avigdor Liberman. His party, which in any normal country would be called fascist, is steadily rising in the polls. Why? Liberman looks and sounds like an Israeli Mussolini, he is an unbridled Arab-hater, a man of the most brutal force. Compared to him, even Netanyahu looks like a softie. A large part of the young generation, nurtured on years of occupation, killing and destruction, after two atrocious wars, considers him a worthy leader.
.
WHILE THE US has made a giant jump to the left, Israel is about to jump even further to the right.
Anyone who saw the millions milling around Washington on inauguration day knows that Obama was not speaking only for himself. He was expressing the aspirations of his people, the Zeitgeist.
.
Between the mental world of Obama and the mental world of Liberman and Netanyahu there is no bridge. Between Obama and Barak and Livni, too, there yawns an abyss. Post-election Israel may find itself on a collision course with post-election America.
.
Where are the American Jews? The overwhelming majority of them voted for Obama. They will be between the hammer and the anvil – between their government and their natural adherence to Israel. It is reasonable to assume that this will exert pressure from below on the "leaders" of American Jewry, who have incidentally never been elected by anyone, and on organizations like AIPAC. The sturdy stick, on which Israeli leaders are used to lean in times of trouble, may prove to be a broken reed.
.
Europe, too, is not untouched by the new winds. True, at the end of the war we saw the leaders of Europe – Sarkozy, Merkel, Browne and Zapatero – sitting like schoolchildren behind a desk in class, respectfully listening to the most loathsome arrogant posturing from Ehud Olmert, reciting his text after him. They seemed to approve the atrocities of the war, speaking of the Qassams and forgetting about the occupation, the blockade and the settlements. Probably they will not hang this picture on their office walls.
.
But during this war masses of Europeans poured into the streets to demonstrate against the horrible events. The same masses saluted Obama on the day of his inauguration.
.
This is the new world. Perhaps our leaders are now dreaming of the slogan: "Stop the world, I want to get off!" But there is no other world.
.
YES, WE ARE NOW on the wrong side of history.
.
Fortunately, there is also another Israel. It is not in the limelight, and its voice is heard only by those who listen out for it. This is a sane, rational Israel, with its face to the future, to progress and peace. In these coming elections, its voice will barely be heard, because all the old parties are standing with their two feet squarely in the world of yesterday.
.
But what has happened in the United States will have a profound influence on what happens in Israel. The huge majority of Israelis know that we cannot exist without close ties with the US. Obama is now the leader of the world, and we live in this world. When he promises to work "aggressively" for peace between us and the Palestinians, that is a marching order for us.
.
We want to be on the right side of history. That will take months or years, but I am sure that we shall get there. The time to start is now.
Anti-Arab sentiment swells among youth in aftermath of Gaza war
Anti-Arab sentiment swells among youth in aftermath of Gaza war
PATRICK MARTIN
From Monday's Globe and Mail, Toronto
January 26, 2009
JERUSALEM — When the leader of Israel's religious-Zionist Meimad Party recently addressed a meeting of 800 high-school students in a Tel Aviv suburb, his words on the virtue of Israeli democracy for all its citizens were drowned out by student chants of "Death to the Arabs."
Not since the days of the now-illegal Kach party, and Baruch Goldstein killing 29 Muslims at prayer in Hebron in 1994, has Rabbi Michael Melchior heard such anti-Arab sentiment.
But that sentiment is swelling, and the controversial former cabinet minister Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beitenu party are riding the wave. They have emerged as the biggest political winners from the recent war on Gaza. Their unequivocal anti-Arab policies have never been more popular.
It was Mr. Lieberman who led the recent campaign to have Israel's two Arab political parties banned from next month's Knesset election. He argued that their public criticism of Israel's assault on Hamas in Gaza constituted a disloyalty to the country as a Jewish and Zionist state.
Mr. Lieberman has long argued that all Arab Israelis should be made to swear an oath of loyalty to the country and, if they don't, they should lose their citizenship.
The country's highest court ruled in favour of the Arab parties, but not before the Knesset's central elections committee voted in favour of the ban. Even representatives of the mainstream Likud, Kadima and Labour parties cast ballots supporting the ban.
"The court has effectively given the Arab parties a licence to kill the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state," Mr. Lieberman said, adding that his party would not give up the fight.
Besides loyalty oaths, his party wants to exchange Arab communities in Israel for Israeli settlements in the West Bank; it says that giving up any land in exchange for peace with Arab neighbours is "fundamentally flawed" and should not be pursued; and it argues that Jordan should be where Palestinians seek to create a state.
Public opinion surveys indicate that a growing number of Israelis support this approach; Yisrael Beitenu is poised to win 16 seats in the Feb. 10 vote (it currently has 11), as many seats as Labour might win.
More importantly, the party could be a coalition partner in an expected Likud government - something that would put Mr. Lieberman in a good position to promote his agenda.
"Yisrael Beitenu's rise, with its racist agenda, is a very dangerous trend in Israeli society," said Mohammad Darawshe, an Arab from the Israeli town of Nazereth who is co-director of the Abraham Fund, an organization that promotes co-operation among Israeli Arabs and Jews.
The anti-Arab trend is particularly strong among the young generation, Mr. Darawshe said. "In a poll conducted in May, more than 60 per cent of Jewish high-school kids say they want to control the political participation of Arabs in Israel; they're not ready to live in the same apartment building as Arab citizens; they don't like to hear the sound of Arabic language; and so on," he said. This racism "has to be taken seriously and dealt with seriously," Mr. Darawshe said, "as must separatism in the Arab community." A growing number of Israeli Arabs want to opt out of Israeli society, including boycotting elections, he said.
"Unfortunately, [the two trends] have common agendas; they feed off each other."
Even Foreign Minister and Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni shocked many by saying that if people don't like what the government is doing "they can leave."
Overall, Israel's Arab population, while sympathetic to the plight of Gazans, is not particularly radicalized, certainly not as it was in the early days of the 2000-2004 Palestinian uprising. Yet, as Mr. Darawshe says, anti-Arab sentiment in the country has never been greater. The Lieberman party "ultimately seeks a direct clash with the Arab citizens in Israel" he said. And he worries that "there's no serious effort to stop it."
The 100 people at the Yisrael Beitenu rally for English-speaking voters Thursday night in Jerusalem certainly don't want to stop it. "It's the clarity of it that's so appealing," said Yona Triestman, a thirtysomething who works helping new immigrants settle in Israel. And the message certainly is straightforward. At the end of the night, Uzi Landau, a former Likud cabinet minister now running for Yisrael Beitenu, leaned forward and wagged his index finger at the audience. "There's just one thing you have to remember about our platform," he said, "just one thing to tell your friends: 'No loyalty, no citizenship.' "
PATRICK MARTIN
From Monday's Globe and Mail, Toronto
January 26, 2009
JERUSALEM — When the leader of Israel's religious-Zionist Meimad Party recently addressed a meeting of 800 high-school students in a Tel Aviv suburb, his words on the virtue of Israeli democracy for all its citizens were drowned out by student chants of "Death to the Arabs."
Not since the days of the now-illegal Kach party, and Baruch Goldstein killing 29 Muslims at prayer in Hebron in 1994, has Rabbi Michael Melchior heard such anti-Arab sentiment.
But that sentiment is swelling, and the controversial former cabinet minister Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beitenu party are riding the wave. They have emerged as the biggest political winners from the recent war on Gaza. Their unequivocal anti-Arab policies have never been more popular.
It was Mr. Lieberman who led the recent campaign to have Israel's two Arab political parties banned from next month's Knesset election. He argued that their public criticism of Israel's assault on Hamas in Gaza constituted a disloyalty to the country as a Jewish and Zionist state.
Mr. Lieberman has long argued that all Arab Israelis should be made to swear an oath of loyalty to the country and, if they don't, they should lose their citizenship.
The country's highest court ruled in favour of the Arab parties, but not before the Knesset's central elections committee voted in favour of the ban. Even representatives of the mainstream Likud, Kadima and Labour parties cast ballots supporting the ban.
"The court has effectively given the Arab parties a licence to kill the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state," Mr. Lieberman said, adding that his party would not give up the fight.
Besides loyalty oaths, his party wants to exchange Arab communities in Israel for Israeli settlements in the West Bank; it says that giving up any land in exchange for peace with Arab neighbours is "fundamentally flawed" and should not be pursued; and it argues that Jordan should be where Palestinians seek to create a state.
Public opinion surveys indicate that a growing number of Israelis support this approach; Yisrael Beitenu is poised to win 16 seats in the Feb. 10 vote (it currently has 11), as many seats as Labour might win.
More importantly, the party could be a coalition partner in an expected Likud government - something that would put Mr. Lieberman in a good position to promote his agenda.
"Yisrael Beitenu's rise, with its racist agenda, is a very dangerous trend in Israeli society," said Mohammad Darawshe, an Arab from the Israeli town of Nazereth who is co-director of the Abraham Fund, an organization that promotes co-operation among Israeli Arabs and Jews.
The anti-Arab trend is particularly strong among the young generation, Mr. Darawshe said. "In a poll conducted in May, more than 60 per cent of Jewish high-school kids say they want to control the political participation of Arabs in Israel; they're not ready to live in the same apartment building as Arab citizens; they don't like to hear the sound of Arabic language; and so on," he said. This racism "has to be taken seriously and dealt with seriously," Mr. Darawshe said, "as must separatism in the Arab community." A growing number of Israeli Arabs want to opt out of Israeli society, including boycotting elections, he said.
"Unfortunately, [the two trends] have common agendas; they feed off each other."
Even Foreign Minister and Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni shocked many by saying that if people don't like what the government is doing "they can leave."
Overall, Israel's Arab population, while sympathetic to the plight of Gazans, is not particularly radicalized, certainly not as it was in the early days of the 2000-2004 Palestinian uprising. Yet, as Mr. Darawshe says, anti-Arab sentiment in the country has never been greater. The Lieberman party "ultimately seeks a direct clash with the Arab citizens in Israel" he said. And he worries that "there's no serious effort to stop it."
The 100 people at the Yisrael Beitenu rally for English-speaking voters Thursday night in Jerusalem certainly don't want to stop it. "It's the clarity of it that's so appealing," said Yona Triestman, a thirtysomething who works helping new immigrants settle in Israel. And the message certainly is straightforward. At the end of the night, Uzi Landau, a former Likud cabinet minister now running for Yisrael Beitenu, leaned forward and wagged his index finger at the audience. "There's just one thing you have to remember about our platform," he said, "just one thing to tell your friends: 'No loyalty, no citizenship.' "
Martyrs vs. Traitors myth gains currency in Gaza war's wake by Hussein Ibish
Martyrs vs. Traitors myth gains currency in Gaza war's wake
Hussein Ibish
The Chicago Tribune (Opinion)
January 25, 2009 - 12:00am
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-perspec0125gazajan25,0,4432524.story
The conflict in Gaza has the potential of becoming a transformative political event in the Middle East that allows Islamists to capture the Arab political imagination for at least a generation. Along with familiar appeals to religious and cultural "authenticity," and dubious claims regarding good governance and democracy, Islamists are beginning to consolidate an exclusive claim to the most powerful Arab political symbols: Palestine and nationalism.
Few observers in the West evince a full understanding of the unprecedented cultural and political impact of Israel's attack on Gaza. The extraordinarily high civilian death toll and perceived helplessness of the victims, combined with atrocities such as the reported massacres at a UN school, and Israel's apparent use of phosphorus munitions in densely populated areas, paint the most enraging images Arab television audiences have witnessed.
Although Arab public opinion has been aroused by several other conflicts in recent decades, until now no hegemonic narrative has given coherent shape and political focus to this anger. During the Gaza war, we seem to have been witnessing the consolidation in most Arab media and political discourse of a coherent narrative that contains a prescription and a diagnosis: the Martyrs versus the Traitors.
In this mythology, the present Arab world is defined by a conflict between "the Martyrs," led by the Islamist movement and its allies, and "the Traitors," which include most if not all Arab governments, especially the Palestinian Authority, but also the governments in Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The public, especially when it becomes swept up in violent conflict, is counted among the ranks of the Martyrs, but Islamist parties and militias are its vanguard.
Even if many in the West perceive Hamas to be fundamentally at fault in the conflict, questions of responsibility for initiating the fighting in the Arab political conversation have become an affront to the dead and injured. Every outrage simply adds further anger, a powerful form of political capital, to the Islamist account. They serve to identify ordinary people, and their basic interests, with the Islamist movement and underscore the righteous victimization of the Martyrs as a category.
What gives this narrative its unique appeal and danger is its obvious programmatic corollary: The Martyrs must defeat the Traitors, for the nationalistic cause in general, and for Palestine in particular. The Palestinian issue could become a decisive factor in internal power struggles within states throughout the Arab world, and prove the decisive legitimating factor in the frustrated efforts by Islamist groups in the Sunni Arab world to capture or inherit state power.
This narrative has been developing in Arab political discourse for many years and is based on long-standing resentments, but perceptions regarding the war in Gaza—skillfully managed from the outset by those pushing the Martyrs versus the Traitors mythology—could be sufficient to establish it as the defining Arab political narrative for the foreseeable future. Islamists are increasingly garnering support not only from the devout Muslim constituency, but also to an unprecedented degree from Arab nationalists in general, including many self-described secularists, leftists and Christians.
Whether this narrative becomes hegemonic will not be decided by the outcome of the war. It will instead rest upon the contrast between what is offered by Hamas' commitment to confrontation until victory versus the Palestinian Authority's policy of seeking a negotiated agreement with Israel.
Even death and devastation in Gaza, but in the guise of religiously and culturally authentic resistance, will be more appealing than stagnation, failure and apparent surrender in the West Bank. Avoiding this means not only moving immediately to improve the quality of life in the West Bank, but also securing a settlement freeze that constitutes significant political victories for those who wish to talk rather than fight.
The most significant battle will be waged in the upcoming 12 to 18 months, when Palestinians and other Arabs will be carefully drawing the contrast between the two approaches, especially with regard to nationalist goals.
If the Palestinian cause is permanently lost to the Islamist movement, theocratic reactionaries across the region could finally acquire the broad political legitimacy and nationalist credentials that might well enable them to begin to seriously threaten existing governments.
The United States and Israel must now choose which Palestinians, and indeed what kind of Arab world, they want to deal with: one in which forces of moderation have a fighting chance to rebuild political legitimacy and credibility, or one in which the political imagination is completely dominated by the myth of the Martyrs versus Traitors.
Hussein Ibish
The Chicago Tribune (Opinion)
January 25, 2009 - 12:00am
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-perspec0125gazajan25,0,4432524.story
The conflict in Gaza has the potential of becoming a transformative political event in the Middle East that allows Islamists to capture the Arab political imagination for at least a generation. Along with familiar appeals to religious and cultural "authenticity," and dubious claims regarding good governance and democracy, Islamists are beginning to consolidate an exclusive claim to the most powerful Arab political symbols: Palestine and nationalism.
Few observers in the West evince a full understanding of the unprecedented cultural and political impact of Israel's attack on Gaza. The extraordinarily high civilian death toll and perceived helplessness of the victims, combined with atrocities such as the reported massacres at a UN school, and Israel's apparent use of phosphorus munitions in densely populated areas, paint the most enraging images Arab television audiences have witnessed.
Although Arab public opinion has been aroused by several other conflicts in recent decades, until now no hegemonic narrative has given coherent shape and political focus to this anger. During the Gaza war, we seem to have been witnessing the consolidation in most Arab media and political discourse of a coherent narrative that contains a prescription and a diagnosis: the Martyrs versus the Traitors.
In this mythology, the present Arab world is defined by a conflict between "the Martyrs," led by the Islamist movement and its allies, and "the Traitors," which include most if not all Arab governments, especially the Palestinian Authority, but also the governments in Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The public, especially when it becomes swept up in violent conflict, is counted among the ranks of the Martyrs, but Islamist parties and militias are its vanguard.
Even if many in the West perceive Hamas to be fundamentally at fault in the conflict, questions of responsibility for initiating the fighting in the Arab political conversation have become an affront to the dead and injured. Every outrage simply adds further anger, a powerful form of political capital, to the Islamist account. They serve to identify ordinary people, and their basic interests, with the Islamist movement and underscore the righteous victimization of the Martyrs as a category.
What gives this narrative its unique appeal and danger is its obvious programmatic corollary: The Martyrs must defeat the Traitors, for the nationalistic cause in general, and for Palestine in particular. The Palestinian issue could become a decisive factor in internal power struggles within states throughout the Arab world, and prove the decisive legitimating factor in the frustrated efforts by Islamist groups in the Sunni Arab world to capture or inherit state power.
This narrative has been developing in Arab political discourse for many years and is based on long-standing resentments, but perceptions regarding the war in Gaza—skillfully managed from the outset by those pushing the Martyrs versus the Traitors mythology—could be sufficient to establish it as the defining Arab political narrative for the foreseeable future. Islamists are increasingly garnering support not only from the devout Muslim constituency, but also to an unprecedented degree from Arab nationalists in general, including many self-described secularists, leftists and Christians.
Whether this narrative becomes hegemonic will not be decided by the outcome of the war. It will instead rest upon the contrast between what is offered by Hamas' commitment to confrontation until victory versus the Palestinian Authority's policy of seeking a negotiated agreement with Israel.
Even death and devastation in Gaza, but in the guise of religiously and culturally authentic resistance, will be more appealing than stagnation, failure and apparent surrender in the West Bank. Avoiding this means not only moving immediately to improve the quality of life in the West Bank, but also securing a settlement freeze that constitutes significant political victories for those who wish to talk rather than fight.
The most significant battle will be waged in the upcoming 12 to 18 months, when Palestinians and other Arabs will be carefully drawing the contrast between the two approaches, especially with regard to nationalist goals.
If the Palestinian cause is permanently lost to the Islamist movement, theocratic reactionaries across the region could finally acquire the broad political legitimacy and nationalist credentials that might well enable them to begin to seriously threaten existing governments.
The United States and Israel must now choose which Palestinians, and indeed what kind of Arab world, they want to deal with: one in which forces of moderation have a fighting chance to rebuild political legitimacy and credibility, or one in which the political imagination is completely dominated by the myth of the Martyrs versus Traitors.
Questions for Secretary Gates: Part II
Questions for Secretary Gates: Part II
The Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Tuesday, January 27 on the f "challenges facing the Defense Department." Unavoidable questions that Gates will face will involve, not any problem - let alone reform - but instead the notion that spending more on the defense budget will help stimulate the economy. Heavily populated with habitual porkers, the committee is sure to witness Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) to seek more F-22s for Georgia, Susan Collins (R - ME) to look to fortify shipbuilding for Maine, and several others as well. Chambliss' F-22 and Collins' DDG-1000 do not help our defenses; they degrade them. The same counter-intuitive logic is true of economic stimulus. Spending more on complexities like the F-22 and DDG-1000 will not provide the economic stimulus sought. In fact, cutting, not expanding, the defense budget can result in real stimulus - but only if Congress does it right. A new commentary in the January 28 Janes' Defense Weekly provides my explanation.
The commentary can be found at Janes' website at http://www.janes.com/news/defence/business/jdw/jdw090123_2_n.shtml, and it can be found at CDI's website at http://www.cdi.org/pdfs/JDWUSeconomydefense.pdf
It is also below.
Individuals interested in the contention that systems like the F-22 and the DDG-1000 degrade, not improve, our defenses may be interested to review portions of a new anthology, "America's Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress." Individual chapters and other materials can be found at http://www.cdi.org/program/issue/index.cfm?ProgramID=37&issueid=246
Commentary in Janes' follows:
Assist US Economy by Cutting Defence Budget
Janes' Defense Weekly
January 28, 2009
by Winslow T. Wheeler
As the economic news darkens in the United States, the ideas for stimulating new jobs get worse. A sure-fire way to advance deeper into recession is now being spread around: spend even more on the Department of Defense (DoD). Doing that will not generate new jobs effectively and it will perpetuate serious problems in the Pentagon. The newly inaugurated President Barack Obama would be well advised to go in precisely the opposite direction.
Harvard economist Professor Martin Feldstein has advocated in the Wall Street Journal (‘Defense Spending Would Be Great Stimulus’, 24 December 2008) the addition of USD30 billion or so to the Pentagon’s budget for the purpose of generating 300,000 new jobs. It is my assertion, however, that pushing the DoD as a jobs engine is a mistake.
With its huge overhead costs, glacial payout rates and ultra-high costs of materials, I believe the Pentagon can generate jobs by spending but neither as many nor as soon as is suggested.
A classic foible is Feldstein’s recommendation to surge the economy with “additional funding [that] would allow the [US] Air Force [USAF] to increase the production of fighter planes”. The USAF has two fighter aircraft in production: the F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). The F-22 has reached the end of approved production (with 183 units) but the air force would love at least 60 more. However, even if Congress appropriated today the USD11 billion needed for them, the work would not start until 2010: too late for the stimulus everyone agrees is needed now.
Feldstein thinks it can be otherwise. He is probably thinking of the Second World War model where production lines cranked out thousands of aircraft each month: as fast as the government could stuff money, materials and workers into the
assembly line.
The problem is that there is no such assembly line for the F-22. Although they are fabricated in a large facility where aircraft production hummed in bygone eras, F-22s are today hand-built, pre-Henry Ford style. Go to Lockheed Martin’s plant; you will find no detectable movement of aircraft out the door. Instead you will see virtually stationary aircraft and workers applying parts in a manner more evocative of hand-crafting. This ‘production rate’ generates one F-22 every 18 days or so.
The current rate for the F-35, now at the start of production, is even slower, although the USAF would like to get its rate up to a whopping 10 to 15 aircraft per month.
Why do we not just speed things up?
We can’t. The specialised materials that the F-22 requires must be purchased a year or two ahead of time and, with advance contracting and all the other regulations that exist today, the Pentagon’s bureaucracy is functionally incapable of
speeding production up anytime soon, if ever.
In fact, adding more F-22 production money will not increase the production rate or the total number of jobs involved. It will simply extend the current F-22 production rate of 20 aircraft per year into the future. Existing jobs will be saved but no new jobs will be created.
Note also that the USD11 billion that 60 more F-22s would gobble up is more than a third of the USD30 billion that Feldstein wants to give to the DoD. How he would create 300,000 new jobs with the rest of the money is a mystery. More F-22 spending would be a money surge for Lockheed Martin but not a jobs engine for the nation.
Even if one could speed up production of the other fighter, the JSF, it would be stupid to do so. The F-35 is just beginning the testing phase and it has been having some major problems, requiring design changes. That discovery process is far from over. The aircraft should be put into full production after, not before, all the needed modifications are identified.
Over-anxious to push things along much too quickly to permit a ‘fly before you buy’ strategy, the USAF has already scheduled the production of around 500 F-35s before testing is complete. Going even more quickly would make a bad
acquisition plan even worse.
Even other economists are sceptical about Feldstein’s numbers. An October 2007 paper from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst found that each USD1 billion spent on defence would generate 8,555 jobs, not the 10,000 calculated by Feldstein. Given the problems with the F-22 just discussed and the lack of jobs I believe it will generate, even this lower estimate sounds extremely optimistic.
More importantly, the same amount of money spent elsewhere would generate more jobs, often better ones, and it would do it faster. For example, according to the above study, USD1 billion in spending for mass transit would generate 19,795 jobs (131 per cent more than for the DoD) and in education would generate 17,687 jobs (107 per cent more) – and the hiring could start in early 2009.
In fact, if employment is the aim, it makes more sense to cut defence spending and use the money in programmes that do it better. As for the defence budget, less money offers the opportunity for reform – just what the doctor ordered. Despite high levels of spending, the combat formations of the services are smaller than at any point since 1946. Major equipment is, on average, older, and, according to key measurables, our forces are less ready to fight. The F-22 and F-35 programmes typify the broken system that fostered this decline. Real reform would do much more for national security than giving the Pentagon more money to spend poorly.
Winslow T Wheeler is the Director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information in Washington, DC. He is the editor of a new anthology: ‘America’s Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress’.
_____________________________
Winslow T. Wheeler
Director
Straus Military Reform Project
Center for Defense Information
301 791-2397
CDI | 1779 Massachusetts Ave, NW | Washington, DC 20036 | US
Unsubscribe from future marketing messages from CDI
Email marketing delivered by Bronto
The Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Tuesday, January 27 on the f "challenges facing the Defense Department." Unavoidable questions that Gates will face will involve, not any problem - let alone reform - but instead the notion that spending more on the defense budget will help stimulate the economy. Heavily populated with habitual porkers, the committee is sure to witness Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) to seek more F-22s for Georgia, Susan Collins (R - ME) to look to fortify shipbuilding for Maine, and several others as well. Chambliss' F-22 and Collins' DDG-1000 do not help our defenses; they degrade them. The same counter-intuitive logic is true of economic stimulus. Spending more on complexities like the F-22 and DDG-1000 will not provide the economic stimulus sought. In fact, cutting, not expanding, the defense budget can result in real stimulus - but only if Congress does it right. A new commentary in the January 28 Janes' Defense Weekly provides my explanation.
The commentary can be found at Janes' website at http://www.janes.com/news/defence/business/jdw/jdw090123_2_n.shtml, and it can be found at CDI's website at http://www.cdi.org/pdfs/JDWUSeconomydefense.pdf
It is also below.
Individuals interested in the contention that systems like the F-22 and the DDG-1000 degrade, not improve, our defenses may be interested to review portions of a new anthology, "America's Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress." Individual chapters and other materials can be found at http://www.cdi.org/program/issue/index.cfm?ProgramID=37&issueid=246
Commentary in Janes' follows:
Assist US Economy by Cutting Defence Budget
Janes' Defense Weekly
January 28, 2009
by Winslow T. Wheeler
As the economic news darkens in the United States, the ideas for stimulating new jobs get worse. A sure-fire way to advance deeper into recession is now being spread around: spend even more on the Department of Defense (DoD). Doing that will not generate new jobs effectively and it will perpetuate serious problems in the Pentagon. The newly inaugurated President Barack Obama would be well advised to go in precisely the opposite direction.
Harvard economist Professor Martin Feldstein has advocated in the Wall Street Journal (‘Defense Spending Would Be Great Stimulus’, 24 December 2008) the addition of USD30 billion or so to the Pentagon’s budget for the purpose of generating 300,000 new jobs. It is my assertion, however, that pushing the DoD as a jobs engine is a mistake.
With its huge overhead costs, glacial payout rates and ultra-high costs of materials, I believe the Pentagon can generate jobs by spending but neither as many nor as soon as is suggested.
A classic foible is Feldstein’s recommendation to surge the economy with “additional funding [that] would allow the [US] Air Force [USAF] to increase the production of fighter planes”. The USAF has two fighter aircraft in production: the F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). The F-22 has reached the end of approved production (with 183 units) but the air force would love at least 60 more. However, even if Congress appropriated today the USD11 billion needed for them, the work would not start until 2010: too late for the stimulus everyone agrees is needed now.
Feldstein thinks it can be otherwise. He is probably thinking of the Second World War model where production lines cranked out thousands of aircraft each month: as fast as the government could stuff money, materials and workers into the
assembly line.
The problem is that there is no such assembly line for the F-22. Although they are fabricated in a large facility where aircraft production hummed in bygone eras, F-22s are today hand-built, pre-Henry Ford style. Go to Lockheed Martin’s plant; you will find no detectable movement of aircraft out the door. Instead you will see virtually stationary aircraft and workers applying parts in a manner more evocative of hand-crafting. This ‘production rate’ generates one F-22 every 18 days or so.
The current rate for the F-35, now at the start of production, is even slower, although the USAF would like to get its rate up to a whopping 10 to 15 aircraft per month.
Why do we not just speed things up?
We can’t. The specialised materials that the F-22 requires must be purchased a year or two ahead of time and, with advance contracting and all the other regulations that exist today, the Pentagon’s bureaucracy is functionally incapable of
speeding production up anytime soon, if ever.
In fact, adding more F-22 production money will not increase the production rate or the total number of jobs involved. It will simply extend the current F-22 production rate of 20 aircraft per year into the future. Existing jobs will be saved but no new jobs will be created.
Note also that the USD11 billion that 60 more F-22s would gobble up is more than a third of the USD30 billion that Feldstein wants to give to the DoD. How he would create 300,000 new jobs with the rest of the money is a mystery. More F-22 spending would be a money surge for Lockheed Martin but not a jobs engine for the nation.
Even if one could speed up production of the other fighter, the JSF, it would be stupid to do so. The F-35 is just beginning the testing phase and it has been having some major problems, requiring design changes. That discovery process is far from over. The aircraft should be put into full production after, not before, all the needed modifications are identified.
Over-anxious to push things along much too quickly to permit a ‘fly before you buy’ strategy, the USAF has already scheduled the production of around 500 F-35s before testing is complete. Going even more quickly would make a bad
acquisition plan even worse.
Even other economists are sceptical about Feldstein’s numbers. An October 2007 paper from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst found that each USD1 billion spent on defence would generate 8,555 jobs, not the 10,000 calculated by Feldstein. Given the problems with the F-22 just discussed and the lack of jobs I believe it will generate, even this lower estimate sounds extremely optimistic.
More importantly, the same amount of money spent elsewhere would generate more jobs, often better ones, and it would do it faster. For example, according to the above study, USD1 billion in spending for mass transit would generate 19,795 jobs (131 per cent more than for the DoD) and in education would generate 17,687 jobs (107 per cent more) – and the hiring could start in early 2009.
In fact, if employment is the aim, it makes more sense to cut defence spending and use the money in programmes that do it better. As for the defence budget, less money offers the opportunity for reform – just what the doctor ordered. Despite high levels of spending, the combat formations of the services are smaller than at any point since 1946. Major equipment is, on average, older, and, according to key measurables, our forces are less ready to fight. The F-22 and F-35 programmes typify the broken system that fostered this decline. Real reform would do much more for national security than giving the Pentagon more money to spend poorly.
Winslow T Wheeler is the Director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information in Washington, DC. He is the editor of a new anthology: ‘America’s Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress’.
_____________________________
Winslow T. Wheeler
Director
Straus Military Reform Project
Center for Defense Information
301 791-2397
CDI | 1779 Massachusetts Ave, NW | Washington, DC 20036 | US
Unsubscribe from future marketing messages from CDI
Email marketing delivered by Bronto
Questions for Secretary Gates: Part I
Questions for Secretary Gates : Part I
Tuesday, January 27, the Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on the question of "the challenges facing the Defense Department." Many questions are sure to be prefaced with statements asserting US armed forces as "the best in the world, if not in history." Such statements are little more than political fluff and steadfastly ignore the deterioration we have been experiencing. A more meaningful question is, how can we reverse the trends that over both Republican and Democratic administrations have made our forces smaller, older, and - most importantly - less effective at increasing cost?
Retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. John Sayen explains the historic trends and lays down the fundamentals for an answer in a commentary, "The Next Shoe to Drop: As Our Economy Slides, Will Our Military Follow?" This piece appeared in the January 26 Defense News. It can be found at www.defensenews.com and below.
Sayen's commentary summarizes his introductory chapter to the new anthology, "America's Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress." His, and the other chapters, can be found at http://www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?documentID=4422.
His commentary in Defense News follows:
Defense News
January 26, 2009
The Next Shoe To Drop
As Our Economy Slides, Will Our Military Follow?
By JOHN SAYEN
We seem to be living in an age where so much that we thought certain and permanent crumbles into dust be fore our eyes. Our once robust economy founders while our once cherished personal liberties fade away.
Less apparent has been the ongoing decay and corruption that could lead to a crisis for our nation’s armed forces.
Many of us view our military as the one sound institution we have left. The press and, of course, the military’s own leaders call it the best in the world. It claims to dominate the full spectrum of conflict from disaster relief to all out war while remaining apolitical and under constitutionally prescribed civilian control.
Yet its constitutional controls are eroding. Although Congress retains authority over the military budget, it has, since 1950, all but formally abrogated its power to declare war. This has left the president, as commander in chief of the armed forces, with de facto power to take us to war on his own. Most presidents have exercised this power with results that have ranged from disappointing to calamitous.
The press has credited the winding down of our war in Iraq to a modest reinforcement of our troops, called the surge. In reality, it took a Sunni-Shia civil war, Iranian intervention and some hefty bribes to persuade enough Iraqis to break off their hitherto successful insurgency against us.
While we have benefited from reduced casualties and relative calm, our real reward has been little more than the right to with draw gracefully from a country from which we had once hoped to dominate the Middle East. In Afghanistan, where our situation continues its steady deterioration, a rather less dignified retreat may be in our future.
After our short-lived success in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, both the military and the press declared that we had finally put the Vietnam War behind us. But have we? Today we fight enemies that don’t even have armies, don’t control defined territories or have recognizable economies. They lack modern heavy weapons, night-vision gear, armor and much else that we consider essential. Yet even after years of costly effort, we have failed to subdue or even to weaken most of them.
What has gone wrong? If our armed forces are not the “greatest in history,” they are certainly the most expensive. Our military budget nearly equals those of all the other nations of the world combined. Though we spend more today than we ever have since 1945, our forces are actually shrinking: Since 1986, our armed services have lost nearly half their force structure.
Worse, this shrinking force must rely on old and deteriorating equipment that our military procurement system cannot replace at affordable cost.
We have also neglected the training and selection of our military leaders. This was a consequence of our “tradition” of only mobilizing for war at the last minute and relying on doctrine that reduces warfare to the engineering problem of overwhelming the enemy with superior resources. Instead of leaders, we train technicians who could put “steel on target,” without necessarily understanding why or how or even if it would help.
Since World War II, this style of warfare has won us tactical successes, but not wars. Worse, our imploding economy coupled with skyrocketing procurement costs could make it impossible for us to continue it, forcing us to fight from scarcity rather than abundance. Even now, our enemies can negate much of our firepower by denying us targets, and letting us hurt ourselves by hitting civilians instead. Our very strength is a weakness because, when we don’t win, it makes us look foolish. When we have successes, we look like bullies and create sympathy for our enemies.
So what can we do about all this? Here are some directions in which real reform may lie.
■ Realize that we have a problem. Drum-and-trumpet hoopla about how great our military is has led us to exaggerate its real capabilities and to give it missions it cannot really perform.
■ Fix the finances. The Defense Department has spent literally trillions of dollars it can’t account for. It has not been able to pass an audit in decades. If we can’t even balance our books, how can we hope to control the ruinous expense of our style of warfare?
Financial exhaustion triggered by a war in Afghanistan brought down the mighty Soviet Union just 20 years ago. Could this be our fate as well?
■ Re-evaluate the military’s governing authority. Should the president exercise anything like sole control over the military?
Should he even control it in peacetime? During our first 120 years, most of the military consisted of militia that the state governors controlled. A decision to go to war had to be based on a national consensus involving both Congress and the states.
That requirement preserved both our liberties and our security at a far lower cost.
■ The toughest and most important direction is to find new leaders, both military and civilian, who are competent, informed and uncommitted to the status quo. What we have now is mainly technicians, politicians and bureaucrats, all dominated by special interests. Leadership reform is a subject that could easily consume a shelf of books, but the books and articles by retired U.S. Army Maj. Don Vandergriff will do for a start. Our military will never be better than its leaders.
The next administration has promised us change. Will there be any for the military?
John Sayen is a retired U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel. He is the author of the introduction, “The Overburden of America’s Outdated Defenses,” to a new anthology, “America’s Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress.”
**************
From Wall Street to Main Street and everywhere in between, stay up-to-date with the latest news. (http://aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000023)
_____________________________
Winslow T. Wheeler
Director
Straus Military Reform Project
Center for Defense Information
301 791-2397
CDI | 1779 Massachusetts Ave, NW | Washington, DC 20036 | US
Unsubscribe from future marketing messages from CDI
Email marketing delivered by Bronto
Tuesday, January 27, the Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on the question of "the challenges facing the Defense Department." Many questions are sure to be prefaced with statements asserting US armed forces as "the best in the world, if not in history." Such statements are little more than political fluff and steadfastly ignore the deterioration we have been experiencing. A more meaningful question is, how can we reverse the trends that over both Republican and Democratic administrations have made our forces smaller, older, and - most importantly - less effective at increasing cost?
Retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. John Sayen explains the historic trends and lays down the fundamentals for an answer in a commentary, "The Next Shoe to Drop: As Our Economy Slides, Will Our Military Follow?" This piece appeared in the January 26 Defense News. It can be found at www.defensenews.com and below.
Sayen's commentary summarizes his introductory chapter to the new anthology, "America's Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress." His, and the other chapters, can be found at http://www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?documentID=4422.
His commentary in Defense News follows:
Defense News
January 26, 2009
The Next Shoe To Drop
As Our Economy Slides, Will Our Military Follow?
By JOHN SAYEN
We seem to be living in an age where so much that we thought certain and permanent crumbles into dust be fore our eyes. Our once robust economy founders while our once cherished personal liberties fade away.
Less apparent has been the ongoing decay and corruption that could lead to a crisis for our nation’s armed forces.
Many of us view our military as the one sound institution we have left. The press and, of course, the military’s own leaders call it the best in the world. It claims to dominate the full spectrum of conflict from disaster relief to all out war while remaining apolitical and under constitutionally prescribed civilian control.
Yet its constitutional controls are eroding. Although Congress retains authority over the military budget, it has, since 1950, all but formally abrogated its power to declare war. This has left the president, as commander in chief of the armed forces, with de facto power to take us to war on his own. Most presidents have exercised this power with results that have ranged from disappointing to calamitous.
The press has credited the winding down of our war in Iraq to a modest reinforcement of our troops, called the surge. In reality, it took a Sunni-Shia civil war, Iranian intervention and some hefty bribes to persuade enough Iraqis to break off their hitherto successful insurgency against us.
While we have benefited from reduced casualties and relative calm, our real reward has been little more than the right to with draw gracefully from a country from which we had once hoped to dominate the Middle East. In Afghanistan, where our situation continues its steady deterioration, a rather less dignified retreat may be in our future.
After our short-lived success in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, both the military and the press declared that we had finally put the Vietnam War behind us. But have we? Today we fight enemies that don’t even have armies, don’t control defined territories or have recognizable economies. They lack modern heavy weapons, night-vision gear, armor and much else that we consider essential. Yet even after years of costly effort, we have failed to subdue or even to weaken most of them.
What has gone wrong? If our armed forces are not the “greatest in history,” they are certainly the most expensive. Our military budget nearly equals those of all the other nations of the world combined. Though we spend more today than we ever have since 1945, our forces are actually shrinking: Since 1986, our armed services have lost nearly half their force structure.
Worse, this shrinking force must rely on old and deteriorating equipment that our military procurement system cannot replace at affordable cost.
We have also neglected the training and selection of our military leaders. This was a consequence of our “tradition” of only mobilizing for war at the last minute and relying on doctrine that reduces warfare to the engineering problem of overwhelming the enemy with superior resources. Instead of leaders, we train technicians who could put “steel on target,” without necessarily understanding why or how or even if it would help.
Since World War II, this style of warfare has won us tactical successes, but not wars. Worse, our imploding economy coupled with skyrocketing procurement costs could make it impossible for us to continue it, forcing us to fight from scarcity rather than abundance. Even now, our enemies can negate much of our firepower by denying us targets, and letting us hurt ourselves by hitting civilians instead. Our very strength is a weakness because, when we don’t win, it makes us look foolish. When we have successes, we look like bullies and create sympathy for our enemies.
So what can we do about all this? Here are some directions in which real reform may lie.
■ Realize that we have a problem. Drum-and-trumpet hoopla about how great our military is has led us to exaggerate its real capabilities and to give it missions it cannot really perform.
■ Fix the finances. The Defense Department has spent literally trillions of dollars it can’t account for. It has not been able to pass an audit in decades. If we can’t even balance our books, how can we hope to control the ruinous expense of our style of warfare?
Financial exhaustion triggered by a war in Afghanistan brought down the mighty Soviet Union just 20 years ago. Could this be our fate as well?
■ Re-evaluate the military’s governing authority. Should the president exercise anything like sole control over the military?
Should he even control it in peacetime? During our first 120 years, most of the military consisted of militia that the state governors controlled. A decision to go to war had to be based on a national consensus involving both Congress and the states.
That requirement preserved both our liberties and our security at a far lower cost.
■ The toughest and most important direction is to find new leaders, both military and civilian, who are competent, informed and uncommitted to the status quo. What we have now is mainly technicians, politicians and bureaucrats, all dominated by special interests. Leadership reform is a subject that could easily consume a shelf of books, but the books and articles by retired U.S. Army Maj. Don Vandergriff will do for a start. Our military will never be better than its leaders.
The next administration has promised us change. Will there be any for the military?
John Sayen is a retired U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel. He is the author of the introduction, “The Overburden of America’s Outdated Defenses,” to a new anthology, “America’s Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress.”
**************
From Wall Street to Main Street and everywhere in between, stay up-to-date with the latest news. (http://aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000023)
_____________________________
Winslow T. Wheeler
Director
Straus Military Reform Project
Center for Defense Information
301 791-2397
CDI | 1779 Massachusetts Ave, NW | Washington, DC 20036 | US
Unsubscribe from future marketing messages from CDI
Email marketing delivered by Bronto
Friday, January 23, 2009
Bin Laden: Gaza is one of the many fronts of "World Jihad" By Walid Phares
Bin Laden: Gaza is one of the many fronts of "World Jihad"
By Walid Phares
Bin Laden.jpg
To Usama Bin Laden, the confrontation in Gaza is not a local national issue but it is part of what he coins as world Jihad against the Kuffars (infidels), or more precisely the “Crusader-Zionist enemy.” This stark ideological reminder came through a new audio message by the leader of al Qaeda at a time Israeli forces and Hamas’Jihadists were still fighting in the enclave. The Bin Laden address was titled “Call to Jihad to stop the aggression against Gaza” and was addressed to the “Umma” (Islamic Nation). The following is my analysis of this latest tape.
Read More »
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2009/01/bin_laden_gaza_is_one_of_the_m.php
By Walid Phares
Bin Laden.jpg
To Usama Bin Laden, the confrontation in Gaza is not a local national issue but it is part of what he coins as world Jihad against the Kuffars (infidels), or more precisely the “Crusader-Zionist enemy.” This stark ideological reminder came through a new audio message by the leader of al Qaeda at a time Israeli forces and Hamas’Jihadists were still fighting in the enclave. The Bin Laden address was titled “Call to Jihad to stop the aggression against Gaza” and was addressed to the “Umma” (Islamic Nation). The following is my analysis of this latest tape.
Read More »
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2009/01/bin_laden_gaza_is_one_of_the_m.php
U.S. Must Back Down on Iranian Uranium Enrichment by Gary Leupp
U.S. Must Back Down on Iranian Uranium Enrichment
by Gary Leupp / January 22nd, 2009 (5)
There’s really only one solution. Only one way for Obama to get himself out of the box his predecessor Bush, Dick Cheney and the neocons have put him in. He has to affirm Iran’s inalienable right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium.
Somewhere along the road American public opinion, which history shows can be easily persuaded of things that just aren’t true, has bought several highly questionable propositions:
1. Iran has a nuclear weapons program.
2. Iran’s nuclear program can have only one purpose, the production of nuclear weapons.
3. The Iranian leadership wishes to, and has threatened to, wipe Israel off …
(Full article …)
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2009/01/us-must-back-down-on-iranian-uranium-enrichment/
by Gary Leupp / January 22nd, 2009 (5)
There’s really only one solution. Only one way for Obama to get himself out of the box his predecessor Bush, Dick Cheney and the neocons have put him in. He has to affirm Iran’s inalienable right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium.
Somewhere along the road American public opinion, which history shows can be easily persuaded of things that just aren’t true, has bought several highly questionable propositions:
1. Iran has a nuclear weapons program.
2. Iran’s nuclear program can have only one purpose, the production of nuclear weapons.
3. The Iranian leadership wishes to, and has threatened to, wipe Israel off …
(Full article …)
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2009/01/us-must-back-down-on-iranian-uranium-enrichment/
Saudi patience is running out By Turki al-Faisal
FINANCIAL TIMES Comment
Saudi patience is running out
By Turki al-Faisal
Published: January 22 2009 20:15 | Last updated: January 22 2009 20:15
In my decades as a public servant, I have strongly promoted the Arab-Israeli
peace process. During recent months, I argued that the peace plan proposed
by Saudi Arabia could be implemented under an Obama administration if the
Israelis and Palestinians both accepted difficult compromises. I told my
audiences this was worth the energies of the incoming administration for, as the late
Indian diplomat Vijaya Lakshmi Nehru Pandit said: "The more we sweat in
peace, the less we bleed in war."
But after Israel launched its bloody attack on Gaza, these pleas for
optimism and co-operation now seem a distant memory. In the past weeks, not only
have the Israeli Defence Forces murdered more than 1,000 Palestinians, but they
have come close to killing the prospect of peace itself. Unless the new US
administration takes forceful steps to prevent any further suffering and
slaughter of Palestinians, the peace process, the US-Saudi relationship and the
stability of the region are at risk.
Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, told the UN Security
Council that if there was no just settlement, "we will turn our backs on you".
King Abdullah spoke for the entire Arab and Muslim world when he said at the
Arab summit in Kuwait that although the Arab peace initiative was on the table,
it would not remain there for long. Much of the world shares these
sentiments and any Arab government that negotiated with the Israelis today would be
rightly condemned by its citizens. Two of the four Arab countries that have
formal ties to Israel – Qatar and Mauritania – have suspended all relations and
Jordan has recalled its ambassador.
America is not innocent in this calamity. Not only has the Bush
administration left a sickening legacy in the region – from the death of hundreds of
thousands of Iraqis to the humiliation and torture at Abu Ghraib – but it has
also, through an arrogant attitude about the butchery in Gaza, contributed to
the slaughter of innocents. If the US wants to continue playing a leadership
role in the Middle East and keep its strategic alliances intact – especially
its "special relationship" with Saudi Arabia – it will have to drastically
revise its policies vis a vis Israel and Palestine.
The incoming US administration will be inheriting a "basket full of snakes"
in the region, but there are things that can be done to help calm them down.
First, President Barack Obama must address the disaster in Gaza and its
causes. Inevitably, he will condemn Hamas's firing of rockets at Israel.
When he does that, he should also condemn Israel's atrocities against the
Palestinians and support a UN resolution to that effect; forcefully condemn the
Israeli actions that led to this conflict, from settlement building in the
West Bank to the blockade of Gaza and the targeted killings and arbitrary
arrests of Palestinians; declare America's intention to work for a Middle East
free of weapons of mass destruction, with a security umbrella for countries that
sign up and sanctions for those that do not; call for an immediate
withdrawal of Israeli forces from Shab'ah Farms in Lebanon; encourage Israeli-Syrian
negotiations for peace; and support a UN resolution guaranteeing Iraq's
territorial integrity.
Mr Obama should strongly promote the Abdullah peace initiative, which calls
on Israel to pursue the course laid out in various international resolutions
and laws: to withdraw completely from the lands occupied in 1967, including
East Jerusalem, returning to the lines of June 4 1967; to accept a mutually
agreed just solution to the refugee problem according to the General Assembly
resolution 194; and to recognise the independent state of Palestine with East
Jerusalem as its capital. In return, there would be an end to hostilities
between Israel and all the Arab countries, and Israel would get full diplomatic
and normal relations.
Last week, President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran wrote a letter to King
Abdullah, explicitly recognising Saudi Arabia as the leader of the Arab and
Muslim worlds and calling on him to take a more confrontational role over "this
obvious atrocity and killing of your own children" in Gaza. The communiqué is
significant because the de facto recognition of the kingdom's primacy from one
of its most ardent foes reveals the extent that the war has united an entire
region, both Shia and Sunni. Further, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad's call for Saudi
Arabia to lead a jihad against Israel would, if pursued, create unprecedented
chaos and bloodshed in the region.
So far, the kingdom has resisted these calls, but every day this restraint
becomes more difficult to maintain. When Israel deliberately kills
Palestinians, appropriates their lands, destroys their homes, uproots their farms and
imposes an inhuman blockade on them; and as the world laments once again the
suffering of the Palestinians, people of conscience from every corner of the
world are clamouring for action. Eventually, the kingdom will not be able to
prevent its citizens from joining the worldwide revolt against Israel. Today,
every Saudi is a Gazan, and we remember well the words of our late King Faisal:
"I hope you will forgive my outpouring of emotions, but when I think that
our Holy Mosque in Jerusalem is being invaded and desecrated, I ask God that if
I am unable to undertake Holy Jihad, then I should not live a moment more."
Let us all pray that Mr Obama possesses the foresight, fairness, and resolve
to rein in the murderous Israeli regime and open a new chapter in this most
intractable of conflicts.
Prince Turki is chairman, King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic
Studies, Riyadh. He has been director of Saudi intelligence, ambassador to the UK
and Ireland and ambassador to the US
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Saudi patience is running out
By Turki al-Faisal
Published: January 22 2009 20:15 | Last updated: January 22 2009 20:15
In my decades as a public servant, I have strongly promoted the Arab-Israeli
peace process. During recent months, I argued that the peace plan proposed
by Saudi Arabia could be implemented under an Obama administration if the
Israelis and Palestinians both accepted difficult compromises. I told my
audiences this was worth the energies of the incoming administration for, as the late
Indian diplomat Vijaya Lakshmi Nehru Pandit said: "The more we sweat in
peace, the less we bleed in war."
But after Israel launched its bloody attack on Gaza, these pleas for
optimism and co-operation now seem a distant memory. In the past weeks, not only
have the Israeli Defence Forces murdered more than 1,000 Palestinians, but they
have come close to killing the prospect of peace itself. Unless the new US
administration takes forceful steps to prevent any further suffering and
slaughter of Palestinians, the peace process, the US-Saudi relationship and the
stability of the region are at risk.
Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, told the UN Security
Council that if there was no just settlement, "we will turn our backs on you".
King Abdullah spoke for the entire Arab and Muslim world when he said at the
Arab summit in Kuwait that although the Arab peace initiative was on the table,
it would not remain there for long. Much of the world shares these
sentiments and any Arab government that negotiated with the Israelis today would be
rightly condemned by its citizens. Two of the four Arab countries that have
formal ties to Israel – Qatar and Mauritania – have suspended all relations and
Jordan has recalled its ambassador.
America is not innocent in this calamity. Not only has the Bush
administration left a sickening legacy in the region – from the death of hundreds of
thousands of Iraqis to the humiliation and torture at Abu Ghraib – but it has
also, through an arrogant attitude about the butchery in Gaza, contributed to
the slaughter of innocents. If the US wants to continue playing a leadership
role in the Middle East and keep its strategic alliances intact – especially
its "special relationship" with Saudi Arabia – it will have to drastically
revise its policies vis a vis Israel and Palestine.
The incoming US administration will be inheriting a "basket full of snakes"
in the region, but there are things that can be done to help calm them down.
First, President Barack Obama must address the disaster in Gaza and its
causes. Inevitably, he will condemn Hamas's firing of rockets at Israel.
When he does that, he should also condemn Israel's atrocities against the
Palestinians and support a UN resolution to that effect; forcefully condemn the
Israeli actions that led to this conflict, from settlement building in the
West Bank to the blockade of Gaza and the targeted killings and arbitrary
arrests of Palestinians; declare America's intention to work for a Middle East
free of weapons of mass destruction, with a security umbrella for countries that
sign up and sanctions for those that do not; call for an immediate
withdrawal of Israeli forces from Shab'ah Farms in Lebanon; encourage Israeli-Syrian
negotiations for peace; and support a UN resolution guaranteeing Iraq's
territorial integrity.
Mr Obama should strongly promote the Abdullah peace initiative, which calls
on Israel to pursue the course laid out in various international resolutions
and laws: to withdraw completely from the lands occupied in 1967, including
East Jerusalem, returning to the lines of June 4 1967; to accept a mutually
agreed just solution to the refugee problem according to the General Assembly
resolution 194; and to recognise the independent state of Palestine with East
Jerusalem as its capital. In return, there would be an end to hostilities
between Israel and all the Arab countries, and Israel would get full diplomatic
and normal relations.
Last week, President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran wrote a letter to King
Abdullah, explicitly recognising Saudi Arabia as the leader of the Arab and
Muslim worlds and calling on him to take a more confrontational role over "this
obvious atrocity and killing of your own children" in Gaza. The communiqué is
significant because the de facto recognition of the kingdom's primacy from one
of its most ardent foes reveals the extent that the war has united an entire
region, both Shia and Sunni. Further, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad's call for Saudi
Arabia to lead a jihad against Israel would, if pursued, create unprecedented
chaos and bloodshed in the region.
So far, the kingdom has resisted these calls, but every day this restraint
becomes more difficult to maintain. When Israel deliberately kills
Palestinians, appropriates their lands, destroys their homes, uproots their farms and
imposes an inhuman blockade on them; and as the world laments once again the
suffering of the Palestinians, people of conscience from every corner of the
world are clamouring for action. Eventually, the kingdom will not be able to
prevent its citizens from joining the worldwide revolt against Israel. Today,
every Saudi is a Gazan, and we remember well the words of our late King Faisal:
"I hope you will forgive my outpouring of emotions, but when I think that
our Holy Mosque in Jerusalem is being invaded and desecrated, I ask God that if
I am unable to undertake Holy Jihad, then I should not live a moment more."
Let us all pray that Mr Obama possesses the foresight, fairness, and resolve
to rein in the murderous Israeli regime and open a new chapter in this most
intractable of conflicts.
Prince Turki is chairman, King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic
Studies, Riyadh. He has been director of Saudi intelligence, ambassador to the UK
and Ireland and ambassador to the US
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Heading for the Fourth Nuclear Age
Heading for the Fourth Nuclear Age
Ariel E. Levite, Proliferation Paper
In a new Proliferation Paper published by the Institut Français des Relations Internationales' (Ifri) Security Studies Center, Ariel E. Levite examines the evolution of the global nuclear order since the advent of nuclear weapons in 1945 to present by breaking down the sixty-plus years of nuclear history into three analytically distinct "ages," each lasting roughly twenty years. By doing so, Levite traces back the roots of the current nuclear predicament to some early seeds of trouble which have gradually grown more profound.
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=22655&prog=zgp&proj=znpp
Ariel E. Levite, Proliferation Paper
In a new Proliferation Paper published by the Institut Français des Relations Internationales' (Ifri) Security Studies Center, Ariel E. Levite examines the evolution of the global nuclear order since the advent of nuclear weapons in 1945 to present by breaking down the sixty-plus years of nuclear history into three analytically distinct "ages," each lasting roughly twenty years. By doing so, Levite traces back the roots of the current nuclear predicament to some early seeds of trouble which have gradually grown more profound.
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=22655&prog=zgp&proj=znpp
Despite Historic Pact, U.S. Firms Are Hampered in Setting Up Reactors in India
Despite Historic Pact, U.S. Firms Are Hampered in Setting Up Reactors in India
Rama Lakshmi, The Washington PostIt took three years of diplomatic wrangling to get a controversial agreement signed late last year to allow India to participate in global civilian nuclear trade, but U.S. business executives now say there are more hurdles to overcome before they can start setting up reactors and selling fuel to India.
Editor's Note: This article correctly highlights some of the challenges that U.S. firms face in selling nuclear-related material, equipment and technology to India, but errs in a few ways. For example, GE and Westinghouse are unlikely to be chafing at the bit to sell reactors before India passes a nuclear liability law since that law should protect them from bankruptcy in the event of an accident. Second, although India has a uranium shortage, U.S. firms are not positioned, now or in the future, to help relieve that problem. India will likely purchase uranium from the big suppliers – Canada or Kazakhstan. Until light water reactors are built, India will have no need for foreign conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication services because most of its reactors are indigenous heavy-water-moderated reactors that use natural uranium. The only American light water reactors – at Tarapur – have been recently resupplied with fuel by Russia. India may choose to hold up nuclear contracts until the U.S. Congress approves subsequent arrangements detailing consent rights to reprocess, but the urgency of its uranium shortage is not leverage over that process. In general, Russian and French nuclear vendors hold advantages over U.S. vendors in domestic and foreign sales because they are subsidized by their governments. The article should have noted that the U.S.-India Business Council covers a lot of other kinds of commerce, including defense sales, and it would be interesting to see if progress in other areas were being held up by lack of progress in nuclear commerce.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/20/AR2009012004049.html
Rama Lakshmi, The Washington PostIt took three years of diplomatic wrangling to get a controversial agreement signed late last year to allow India to participate in global civilian nuclear trade, but U.S. business executives now say there are more hurdles to overcome before they can start setting up reactors and selling fuel to India.
Editor's Note: This article correctly highlights some of the challenges that U.S. firms face in selling nuclear-related material, equipment and technology to India, but errs in a few ways. For example, GE and Westinghouse are unlikely to be chafing at the bit to sell reactors before India passes a nuclear liability law since that law should protect them from bankruptcy in the event of an accident. Second, although India has a uranium shortage, U.S. firms are not positioned, now or in the future, to help relieve that problem. India will likely purchase uranium from the big suppliers – Canada or Kazakhstan. Until light water reactors are built, India will have no need for foreign conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication services because most of its reactors are indigenous heavy-water-moderated reactors that use natural uranium. The only American light water reactors – at Tarapur – have been recently resupplied with fuel by Russia. India may choose to hold up nuclear contracts until the U.S. Congress approves subsequent arrangements detailing consent rights to reprocess, but the urgency of its uranium shortage is not leverage over that process. In general, Russian and French nuclear vendors hold advantages over U.S. vendors in domestic and foreign sales because they are subsidized by their governments. The article should have noted that the U.S.-India Business Council covers a lot of other kinds of commerce, including defense sales, and it would be interesting to see if progress in other areas were being held up by lack of progress in nuclear commerce.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/20/AR2009012004049.html
Reassessing the Role of Nuclear Weapons
Reassessing the Role of Nuclear Weapons
Daryl G. Kimball, Arms Control Today
Beginning Jan. 20, U.S. nuclear weapons policy can and must change. The U.S.-Soviet standoff that gave rise to tens of thousands of nuclear weapons is over, but the policies developed to justify their possession and potential use remain largely the same.
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_01-02/Focus
Daryl G. Kimball, Arms Control Today
Beginning Jan. 20, U.S. nuclear weapons policy can and must change. The U.S.-Soviet standoff that gave rise to tens of thousands of nuclear weapons is over, but the policies developed to justify their possession and potential use remain largely the same.
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_01-02/Focus
A Vital Nuclear Step Towards the World After Oil
A Vital Nuclear Step Towards the World After Oil
Charles Ferguson, The NationalThe UAE and the United States opened a new chapter in cooperation last week by signing a nuclear energy agreement. As long as the US Congress does not object, the deal will be enacted, placing the UAE on the road to becoming the first Arab nation with nuclear power plants.
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090118/OPINION/336753545&SearchID=73342880035478
Charles Ferguson, The NationalThe UAE and the United States opened a new chapter in cooperation last week by signing a nuclear energy agreement. As long as the US Congress does not object, the deal will be enacted, placing the UAE on the road to becoming the first Arab nation with nuclear power plants.
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090118/OPINION/336753545&SearchID=73342880035478
North Korea Says It Has 'Weaponized' Plutonium
North Korea Says It Has 'Weaponized' Plutonium
Choe Sang-Hun, The New York Times
The North Korean military declared an "all-out confrontational posture" against South Korea on Saturday as an American scholar said North Korean officials told him they had "weaponized" enough plutonium for roughly four or five nuclear bombs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/world/asia/18korea.html?_r=1
Choe Sang-Hun, The New York Times
The North Korean military declared an "all-out confrontational posture" against South Korea on Saturday as an American scholar said North Korean officials told him they had "weaponized" enough plutonium for roughly four or five nuclear bombs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/world/asia/18korea.html?_r=1
Gaza war ended in utter failure for Israel By Gideon Levy
w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
Last update - 04:19 22/01/2009
Gideon Levy / Gaza war ended in utter failure for Israel
By Gideon Levy
On the morrow of the return of the last Israeli soldier from Gaza, we can determine with certainty that they had all gone out there in vain. This war ended in utter failure for Israel.
This goes beyond the profound moral failure, which is a grave matter in itself, but pertains to its inability to reach its stated goals. In other words, the grief is not complemented by failure. We have gained nothing in this war save hundreds of graves, some of them very small, thousands of maimed people, much destruction and the besmirching of Israel's image.
What seemed like a predestined loss to only a handful of people at the onset of the war will gradually emerge as such to many others, once the victorious trumpeting subsides.
The initial objective of the war was to put an end to the firing of Qassam rockets. This did not cease until the war's last day. It was only achieved after a cease-fire had already been arranged. Defense officials estimate that Hamas still has 1,000 rockets.
The war's second objective, the prevention of smuggling, was not met either. The head of the Shin Bet security service has estimated that smuggling will be renewed within two months.
Most of the smuggling that is going on is meant to provide food for a population under siege, and not to obtain weapons. But even if we accept the scare campaign concerning the smuggling with its exaggerations, this war has served to prove that only poor quality, rudimentary weapons passed through the smuggling tunnels connecting the Gaza Strip to Egypt.
Israel's ability to achieve its third objective is also dubious. Deterrence, my foot. The deterrence we supposedly achieved in the Second Lebanon War has not had the slightest effect on Hamas, and the one supposedly achieved now isn't working any better: The sporadic firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip has continued over the past few days.
The fourth objective, which remained undeclared, was not met either. The IDF has not restored its capability. It couldn't have, not in a quasi-war against a miserable and poorly-equipped organization relying on makeshift weapons, whose combatants barely put up a fight.
The heroic descriptions and victory poems written abut the "military triumph" will not serve to change reality. The pilots were flying on training missions and the ground forces were engaged in exercises that involved joining up and firing weapons.
The describing of the operation as a "military achievement" by the various generals and analysts who offered their take on the operation is plain ridiculous.
We have not weakened Hamas. The vast majority of its combatants were not harmed and popular support for the organization has in fact increased. Their war has intensified the ethos of resistance and determined endurance. A country which has nursed an entire generation on the ethos of a few versus should know to appreciate that by now. There was no doubt as to who was David and who was Goliath in this war.
The population in Gaza, which has sustained such a severe blow, will not become more moderate now. On the contrary, the national sentiment will now turn more than before against the party which inflicted that blow - the State of Israel. Just as public opinion leans to the right in Israel after each attack against us, so it will in Gaza following the mega-attack that we carried out against them.
If anyone was weakened because of this war, it was Fatah, whose fleeing from Gaza and its abandonment have now been given special significance. The succession of failures in this war needs to include, of course, the failure of the siege policy. For a while, we have already come to realize that is ineffective. The world boycotted, Israel besieged and Hamas ruled (and is still ruling).
But this war's balance, as far as Israel is concerned, does not end with the absence of any achievement. It has placed a heavy toll on us, which will continue to burden us for some time. When it comes to assessing Israel's international situation, we must not allow ourselves to be fooled by the support parade by Europe's leaders, who came in for a photo-op with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Israel's actions have dealt a serious blow to public support for the state. While this does not always translate itself into an immediate diplomatic situation, the shockwaves will arrive one day. The whole world saw the images. They shocked every human being who saw them, even if they left most Israelis cold.
The conclusion is that Israel is a violent and dangerous country, devoid of all restraints and blatantly ignoring the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, while not giving a hoot about international law. The investigations are on their way.
Graver still is the damage this will visit upon our moral spine. It will come from difficult questions about what the IDF did in Gaza, which will occur despite the blurring effect of recruited media.
So what was achieved, after all? As a war waged to satisfy considerations of internal politics, the operation has succeeded beyond all expectations. Likud Chair Benjamin Netanyahu is getting stronger in the polls. And why? Because we could not get enough of the war.
Last update - 04:19 22/01/2009
Gideon Levy / Gaza war ended in utter failure for Israel
By Gideon Levy
On the morrow of the return of the last Israeli soldier from Gaza, we can determine with certainty that they had all gone out there in vain. This war ended in utter failure for Israel.
This goes beyond the profound moral failure, which is a grave matter in itself, but pertains to its inability to reach its stated goals. In other words, the grief is not complemented by failure. We have gained nothing in this war save hundreds of graves, some of them very small, thousands of maimed people, much destruction and the besmirching of Israel's image.
What seemed like a predestined loss to only a handful of people at the onset of the war will gradually emerge as such to many others, once the victorious trumpeting subsides.
The initial objective of the war was to put an end to the firing of Qassam rockets. This did not cease until the war's last day. It was only achieved after a cease-fire had already been arranged. Defense officials estimate that Hamas still has 1,000 rockets.
The war's second objective, the prevention of smuggling, was not met either. The head of the Shin Bet security service has estimated that smuggling will be renewed within two months.
Most of the smuggling that is going on is meant to provide food for a population under siege, and not to obtain weapons. But even if we accept the scare campaign concerning the smuggling with its exaggerations, this war has served to prove that only poor quality, rudimentary weapons passed through the smuggling tunnels connecting the Gaza Strip to Egypt.
Israel's ability to achieve its third objective is also dubious. Deterrence, my foot. The deterrence we supposedly achieved in the Second Lebanon War has not had the slightest effect on Hamas, and the one supposedly achieved now isn't working any better: The sporadic firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip has continued over the past few days.
The fourth objective, which remained undeclared, was not met either. The IDF has not restored its capability. It couldn't have, not in a quasi-war against a miserable and poorly-equipped organization relying on makeshift weapons, whose combatants barely put up a fight.
The heroic descriptions and victory poems written abut the "military triumph" will not serve to change reality. The pilots were flying on training missions and the ground forces were engaged in exercises that involved joining up and firing weapons.
The describing of the operation as a "military achievement" by the various generals and analysts who offered their take on the operation is plain ridiculous.
We have not weakened Hamas. The vast majority of its combatants were not harmed and popular support for the organization has in fact increased. Their war has intensified the ethos of resistance and determined endurance. A country which has nursed an entire generation on the ethos of a few versus should know to appreciate that by now. There was no doubt as to who was David and who was Goliath in this war.
The population in Gaza, which has sustained such a severe blow, will not become more moderate now. On the contrary, the national sentiment will now turn more than before against the party which inflicted that blow - the State of Israel. Just as public opinion leans to the right in Israel after each attack against us, so it will in Gaza following the mega-attack that we carried out against them.
If anyone was weakened because of this war, it was Fatah, whose fleeing from Gaza and its abandonment have now been given special significance. The succession of failures in this war needs to include, of course, the failure of the siege policy. For a while, we have already come to realize that is ineffective. The world boycotted, Israel besieged and Hamas ruled (and is still ruling).
But this war's balance, as far as Israel is concerned, does not end with the absence of any achievement. It has placed a heavy toll on us, which will continue to burden us for some time. When it comes to assessing Israel's international situation, we must not allow ourselves to be fooled by the support parade by Europe's leaders, who came in for a photo-op with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Israel's actions have dealt a serious blow to public support for the state. While this does not always translate itself into an immediate diplomatic situation, the shockwaves will arrive one day. The whole world saw the images. They shocked every human being who saw them, even if they left most Israelis cold.
The conclusion is that Israel is a violent and dangerous country, devoid of all restraints and blatantly ignoring the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, while not giving a hoot about international law. The investigations are on their way.
Graver still is the damage this will visit upon our moral spine. It will come from difficult questions about what the IDF did in Gaza, which will occur despite the blurring effect of recruited media.
So what was achieved, after all? As a war waged to satisfy considerations of internal politics, the operation has succeeded beyond all expectations. Likud Chair Benjamin Netanyahu is getting stronger in the polls. And why? Because we could not get enough of the war.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
How Bin Laden Bankrupted America: The Five Ways
How Bin Laden Bankrupted America:
The Five Ways
To: Friends and Contacts
Re: My latest article at http://antiwar.com/utley/
Below is an excerpt from my most recent article at www.antiwar.com, “How Bin Laden Bankrupted America: The Five Ways”:
For a man who spent years living in caves, Osama bin Laden sure knows his Sun Tzu and the basics of jujitsu. Sun Tzu's famous dictum was "know yourself" and "know your enemy." Jujitsu is based upon using your enemy's strength against him, e.g., like Jack in "Jack and the Beanstalk," who used the giant's own size and anger to get him to crash from his own weight. Bin Laden understood that the way to beat America was to turn its power back upon itself. His early stated aim was to bankrupt America. He knew his own weaknesses, and he profoundly understood America's, how its pride and fears could trigger irrational, self-destructive reactions.
The genius of bin Laden's pinprick attacks, costing a few hundred thousand dollars, has left America reeling with two unending multi-trillion-dollar wars it doesn't know how to get out of. He knew that his own strength was mainly in his appeal to the minds of men, particularly to the lost dignity of Muslims trampled under the heel of their own dictators, Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and America's military. Getting rid of the "far" enemy was the way to take on the "near" ones. [Read entire article at http://antiwar.com/utley/.]
The Five Ways
To: Friends and Contacts
Re: My latest article at http://antiwar.com/utley/
Below is an excerpt from my most recent article at www.antiwar.com, “How Bin Laden Bankrupted America: The Five Ways”:
For a man who spent years living in caves, Osama bin Laden sure knows his Sun Tzu and the basics of jujitsu. Sun Tzu's famous dictum was "know yourself" and "know your enemy." Jujitsu is based upon using your enemy's strength against him, e.g., like Jack in "Jack and the Beanstalk," who used the giant's own size and anger to get him to crash from his own weight. Bin Laden understood that the way to beat America was to turn its power back upon itself. His early stated aim was to bankrupt America. He knew his own weaknesses, and he profoundly understood America's, how its pride and fears could trigger irrational, self-destructive reactions.
The genius of bin Laden's pinprick attacks, costing a few hundred thousand dollars, has left America reeling with two unending multi-trillion-dollar wars it doesn't know how to get out of. He knew that his own strength was mainly in his appeal to the minds of men, particularly to the lost dignity of Muslims trampled under the heel of their own dictators, Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and America's military. Getting rid of the "far" enemy was the way to take on the "near" ones. [Read entire article at http://antiwar.com/utley/.]
President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address
January 20, 2009
Text
Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address
Following is the prepared text of President-elect Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address, as provided by the Presidential Inaugural Committee:
My fellow citizens:
I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.
So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.
That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.
Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.
On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.
We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or se ttling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.
For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.
For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.
For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sanh.
Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.
This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin a gain the work of remaking America.
For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.
Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.
What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.
Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a=2 0future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.
Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.
We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort - even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.
For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have taste d the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.
To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.
To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.
As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have s omething to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment - a moment that will define a generation - it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.
For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.
Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.
This is the price and the promise of citizenship.
This is the source of our confidence - the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.
This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.
So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:
"Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."
America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope an d virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/polit...agewanted=print
Text
Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address
Following is the prepared text of President-elect Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address, as provided by the Presidential Inaugural Committee:
My fellow citizens:
I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.
So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.
That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.
Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.
On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.
We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or se ttling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.
For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.
For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.
For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sanh.
Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.
This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin a gain the work of remaking America.
For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.
Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.
What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.
Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a=2 0future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.
Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.
We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort - even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.
For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have taste d the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.
To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.
To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.
As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have s omething to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment - a moment that will define a generation - it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.
For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.
Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.
This is the price and the promise of citizenship.
This is the source of our confidence - the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.
This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.
So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:
"Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."
America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope an d virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/polit...agewanted=print
Poll shows EU voters resistant on Afghan war By James Blitz in London
FT.com logo
Poll shows EU voters resistant on Afghan war
By James Blitz in London
Published: January 20 2009
Any attempt by Barack Obama to get European Union members of Nato to send more troops to Afghanistan will be strongly rebuffed by EU voters, according to a new opinion poll for the Financial Times.
As Mr Obama prepares to be sworn in as US president today, a Harris poll for the FT shows that clear majorities in the UK, France, Italy and Germany believe their governments must not send more forces to Afghanistan, irrespective of demands that the new American head of state might make.
The opinion poll shows that Mr Obama continues to enjoy high approval ratings in these four EU states. At least three-quarters of people in each of the countries surveyed, which also included Spain, believe the new president will have "a positive impact on the course of international events".
While the poll underscores the considerable respect Mr Obama enjoys in these countries, it also reveals the resistance he will face if, as strongly expected, he calls on Europe to do more in the fight against the Taliban.
Some 60 per cent of German respondents to the survey said they would not wish Berlin to send more troops to Afghanistan under any circumstances. Even in the UK, the second largest contributor to Nato's mission in Afghanistan, some 57 per cent of respondents rejected calls for any more British troops to be sent.
In both France and Italy, some 53 per cent of people said their countries should not send troops. Only in Spain is there a majority willing to consider sending additional troops.
The opinion poll, which was conducted online among a total of 6,299 adults between January 8 and January 15, reveals that voters in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain believe the international financial crisis must be at the top of the list of issues for Mr Obama.
A clear majority of respondents in four of the five European countries surveyed - Spain being the exception - said they had no concerns at all that Mr Obama's relative lack of experience would hinder an economic recovery in the US or Europe.
The poll also reveals that voters would like to see the new president reaching out to Iran, amid fears in many western states that Tehran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons. At least two-thirds of adults in all five European countries, as well as the US, agreed that Mr Obama "should personally meet leading figures in the Iranian government".
Some 45 per cent of US respondents said that Mr Obama should continue to place the fight against international terrorism at the top of his list of priorities. However, in the UK, only 24 per cent of respondents said fighting international terrorism should be top of Mr Obama's priorities, while in Germany the figure was as low as 13 per cent.
Analysis of the results: www.ft.com/obama
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Poll shows EU voters resistant on Afghan war
By James Blitz in London
Published: January 20 2009
Any attempt by Barack Obama to get European Union members of Nato to send more troops to Afghanistan will be strongly rebuffed by EU voters, according to a new opinion poll for the Financial Times.
As Mr Obama prepares to be sworn in as US president today, a Harris poll for the FT shows that clear majorities in the UK, France, Italy and Germany believe their governments must not send more forces to Afghanistan, irrespective of demands that the new American head of state might make.
The opinion poll shows that Mr Obama continues to enjoy high approval ratings in these four EU states. At least three-quarters of people in each of the countries surveyed, which also included Spain, believe the new president will have "a positive impact on the course of international events".
While the poll underscores the considerable respect Mr Obama enjoys in these countries, it also reveals the resistance he will face if, as strongly expected, he calls on Europe to do more in the fight against the Taliban.
Some 60 per cent of German respondents to the survey said they would not wish Berlin to send more troops to Afghanistan under any circumstances. Even in the UK, the second largest contributor to Nato's mission in Afghanistan, some 57 per cent of respondents rejected calls for any more British troops to be sent.
In both France and Italy, some 53 per cent of people said their countries should not send troops. Only in Spain is there a majority willing to consider sending additional troops.
The opinion poll, which was conducted online among a total of 6,299 adults between January 8 and January 15, reveals that voters in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain believe the international financial crisis must be at the top of the list of issues for Mr Obama.
A clear majority of respondents in four of the five European countries surveyed - Spain being the exception - said they had no concerns at all that Mr Obama's relative lack of experience would hinder an economic recovery in the US or Europe.
The poll also reveals that voters would like to see the new president reaching out to Iran, amid fears in many western states that Tehran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons. At least two-thirds of adults in all five European countries, as well as the US, agreed that Mr Obama "should personally meet leading figures in the Iranian government".
Some 45 per cent of US respondents said that Mr Obama should continue to place the fight against international terrorism at the top of his list of priorities. However, in the UK, only 24 per cent of respondents said fighting international terrorism should be top of Mr Obama's priorities, while in Germany the figure was as low as 13 per cent.
Analysis of the results: www.ft.com/obama
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Ban tells Israel to open Gaza borders By Anna Fifield in Gaza City
FT.com logo
Ban tells Israel to open Gaza borders
By Anna Fifield in Gaza City
Published: January 20 2009
The United Nations secretary-general called on Israel on Tuesday to reopen the borders with the Gaza Strip immediately to allow the free movement of Palestinian people and goods.
Ban Ki-moon said he was promoting the idea of a third party – perhaps the European Union or Turkey – to police the border crossing to ensure that weapons could not be smuggled to Hamas.
"I hope that all the parties can agree on the border situation, to prevent any smuggling of illegal arms and weapons into Gaza," Mr Ban told the Financial Times after visiting damaged areas and a bombed UN food storage centre in Gaza City.
Stopping Hamas from re-arming, after a three-week conflict aimed at wiping out the militant group's ability to attack Israel, is the top priority of the Jewish state.
"In the absence of Palestinians manning the crossing, then the idea of having a European or Turkish presence [on the border] has to be discussed," said Mr Ban, who was promoting the idea among political leaders in Israel, the Palestinian territories and the other countries. "I think this should happen."
Mr Ban also said Israel should "fully open" the borders to the Gaza Strip as soon as possible – Hamas's key demand – to allow normal transport to flow.
Standing in front of the still burning warehouse, Mr Ban said he was "appalled" by the destruction in Gaza and again called for a full investigation into the conflict, which claimed the lives of 1,300 Palestinians and injured more than 5,000.
He said he would call world leaders, including Barack Obama, the US president, to encourage new political will for progress.
Israel had said it would withdraw its tanks before Mr Obama's inauguration, and when the FT visited the Erez Crossing on the northern border with Israel on Tuesday afternoon, there was no sign of any Israeli military activity on the Gaza side of the border.
But in spite of Mr Ban's calls, the crossings remained closed.
Mohammad Sadiq, a teacher from Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, said: "The Israelis bombed homes, schools, mosques. The problem is that now there are no materials to rebuild anything. The Israelis will not allow anything to come in."
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and a Palestinian economic development council have estimated that $1.9bn in damage had been caused by the three-week incursion.
More than 4,100 homes, about 1,500 factories and workshops, 20 mosques and 31 security compounds were destroyed in the attacks, according to the estimate, leaving about 50,000 people homeless.
Half a million people are without running water, and electricity supplies are intermittent.
Arab governments have pledged at least $1.25bn (€940m, £850m) for reconstruction in Gaza, and European leaders have also promised aid, but Palestinians say they cannot use the money to rebuild as long as the borders remain sealed.
Faysal Shawa, the owner of a construction company and head of the Palestinian Businessmen's Association, said: "The most important thing is for the borders to be opened. Of course we need a lot of money to rebuild but we can get money. We need the borders to be opened not just for cement and steel but completely."
Israel said this week that it would consider allowing traffic through the border on a case by case basis, indicating its intention to decide what gets through to Gaza in spite of the international pledges to help rebuild.
"Anything less than opening the borders will make the disaster even worse," Mr Shawa said. "People have no homes so we need immediate action to rehouse them."
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Ban tells Israel to open Gaza borders
By Anna Fifield in Gaza City
Published: January 20 2009
The United Nations secretary-general called on Israel on Tuesday to reopen the borders with the Gaza Strip immediately to allow the free movement of Palestinian people and goods.
Ban Ki-moon said he was promoting the idea of a third party – perhaps the European Union or Turkey – to police the border crossing to ensure that weapons could not be smuggled to Hamas.
"I hope that all the parties can agree on the border situation, to prevent any smuggling of illegal arms and weapons into Gaza," Mr Ban told the Financial Times after visiting damaged areas and a bombed UN food storage centre in Gaza City.
Stopping Hamas from re-arming, after a three-week conflict aimed at wiping out the militant group's ability to attack Israel, is the top priority of the Jewish state.
"In the absence of Palestinians manning the crossing, then the idea of having a European or Turkish presence [on the border] has to be discussed," said Mr Ban, who was promoting the idea among political leaders in Israel, the Palestinian territories and the other countries. "I think this should happen."
Mr Ban also said Israel should "fully open" the borders to the Gaza Strip as soon as possible – Hamas's key demand – to allow normal transport to flow.
Standing in front of the still burning warehouse, Mr Ban said he was "appalled" by the destruction in Gaza and again called for a full investigation into the conflict, which claimed the lives of 1,300 Palestinians and injured more than 5,000.
He said he would call world leaders, including Barack Obama, the US president, to encourage new political will for progress.
Israel had said it would withdraw its tanks before Mr Obama's inauguration, and when the FT visited the Erez Crossing on the northern border with Israel on Tuesday afternoon, there was no sign of any Israeli military activity on the Gaza side of the border.
But in spite of Mr Ban's calls, the crossings remained closed.
Mohammad Sadiq, a teacher from Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, said: "The Israelis bombed homes, schools, mosques. The problem is that now there are no materials to rebuild anything. The Israelis will not allow anything to come in."
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and a Palestinian economic development council have estimated that $1.9bn in damage had been caused by the three-week incursion.
More than 4,100 homes, about 1,500 factories and workshops, 20 mosques and 31 security compounds were destroyed in the attacks, according to the estimate, leaving about 50,000 people homeless.
Half a million people are without running water, and electricity supplies are intermittent.
Arab governments have pledged at least $1.25bn (€940m, £850m) for reconstruction in Gaza, and European leaders have also promised aid, but Palestinians say they cannot use the money to rebuild as long as the borders remain sealed.
Faysal Shawa, the owner of a construction company and head of the Palestinian Businessmen's Association, said: "The most important thing is for the borders to be opened. Of course we need a lot of money to rebuild but we can get money. We need the borders to be opened not just for cement and steel but completely."
Israel said this week that it would consider allowing traffic through the border on a case by case basis, indicating its intention to decide what gets through to Gaza in spite of the international pledges to help rebuild.
"Anything less than opening the borders will make the disaster even worse," Mr Shawa said. "People have no homes so we need immediate action to rehouse them."
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Will all Palestinian factions honor Hamas's cease-fire? Hamas may not be able to prevent other factions from attacking Israel, analysts say. Shane B
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
1/21/09
Will all Palestinian factions honor Hamas's cease-fire?
Hamas may not be able to prevent other factions from attacking Israel, analysts say.
Shane Bauer
Damascus, Syria - The rockets fired by Palestinian militants into southern Israel throughout the 22-day war in Gaza and in the weeks leading up to the devastating Israeli operation have stopped. The cease-fire declared by Hamas is holding.
But while the Hamas movement and its weapons caches were Israel's primary target throughout the offensive, numerous militant groups fought alongside Hamas against Israeli soldiers, including a splinter faction of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of the Fatah Party, according to a senior Fatah official in Damascus.
The question now is whether these groups, who are often at odds with Hamas over how to carry out Palestinian resistance, will adhere to Hamas's decision to hold its fire or continue to shoot rockets into southern Israel and perhaps spark another round of fighting.
On Sunday, the deputy of Hamas's political bureau, Musa Abu Marzuq, appeared on Syrian television, speaking not in the name of Hamas, but "in the name of Palestinian resistance factions" to declare a one-week cease-fire and insist that all Israeli troops leave within that time period and open all border crossings.
But some Middle East analysts say Hamas might not be able to hold together an alliance of such disparate and mutually hostile groups. One faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), has already dissented.
Maher Taher, PFLP's representative in Damascus, where much of the Palestinian leadership structure is based, declined to comment on their decision, but in an interview with Al Jazeera, he insisted "The Israeli attack is continuing."
"The PFLP is fighting on the ground against this barbaric invasion by Israel," he said in the interview last week, before the cease-fire. "This is a battle involving all of the Palestinian people."
Last week, several other Palestinian factions in Damascus issued a statement refusing "any security arrangements that affect the resistance and its legitimate right to struggle against the occupation." The coalition was composed of representatives of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, Al Saiqa, the Popular Struggle Front, the Revolutionary Communist Party, Palestinian Liberation organization, Fatah's "Intifada" faction, and a number of other Palestinian factions.
They categorically refused the presence of international forces in Gaza, a proposition put forth in part by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas. They said that any peace initiatives must include the immediate secession of Israeli attacks, the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, an end to the economic blockade, and an opening of all of Gaza's crossings, including the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
Some regional observers say there are two probable outcomes, neither of which bode well for Israel. Either factions continue to stand behind Hamas, bolstering the group's legitimacy in Gaza, or they break away and start launching rockets in violation of cease-fires.
Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) sources say some 750 rockets were shot into Israel (more than 200 of those were claimed by Islamic Jihad) since "Operation Cast Lead" began on Dec. 27, killing three civilians. The IDF says it killed hundreds of militants, most of whom were probably members of Hamas, the largest group in Gaza, but that number undoubtedly includes members of other militias.
Leaders of the secular Fatah Party that controls the PA say the group bears no responsibility for its members in the armed wing fighting in Gaza, according to the group's representative in Damascus, Sameer Rifai. He says that a faction of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has been acting without the consent of the leadership, but adds that they were engaged in a "legitimate form of defense."
"The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are a part of the Palestinian people in Gaza," he says. "They are defending their homes, their lives, and themselves. They are people fighting an occupation."
1/21/09
Will all Palestinian factions honor Hamas's cease-fire?
Hamas may not be able to prevent other factions from attacking Israel, analysts say.
Shane Bauer
Damascus, Syria - The rockets fired by Palestinian militants into southern Israel throughout the 22-day war in Gaza and in the weeks leading up to the devastating Israeli operation have stopped. The cease-fire declared by Hamas is holding.
But while the Hamas movement and its weapons caches were Israel's primary target throughout the offensive, numerous militant groups fought alongside Hamas against Israeli soldiers, including a splinter faction of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of the Fatah Party, according to a senior Fatah official in Damascus.
The question now is whether these groups, who are often at odds with Hamas over how to carry out Palestinian resistance, will adhere to Hamas's decision to hold its fire or continue to shoot rockets into southern Israel and perhaps spark another round of fighting.
On Sunday, the deputy of Hamas's political bureau, Musa Abu Marzuq, appeared on Syrian television, speaking not in the name of Hamas, but "in the name of Palestinian resistance factions" to declare a one-week cease-fire and insist that all Israeli troops leave within that time period and open all border crossings.
But some Middle East analysts say Hamas might not be able to hold together an alliance of such disparate and mutually hostile groups. One faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), has already dissented.
Maher Taher, PFLP's representative in Damascus, where much of the Palestinian leadership structure is based, declined to comment on their decision, but in an interview with Al Jazeera, he insisted "The Israeli attack is continuing."
"The PFLP is fighting on the ground against this barbaric invasion by Israel," he said in the interview last week, before the cease-fire. "This is a battle involving all of the Palestinian people."
Last week, several other Palestinian factions in Damascus issued a statement refusing "any security arrangements that affect the resistance and its legitimate right to struggle against the occupation." The coalition was composed of representatives of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, Al Saiqa, the Popular Struggle Front, the Revolutionary Communist Party, Palestinian Liberation organization, Fatah's "Intifada" faction, and a number of other Palestinian factions.
They categorically refused the presence of international forces in Gaza, a proposition put forth in part by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas. They said that any peace initiatives must include the immediate secession of Israeli attacks, the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, an end to the economic blockade, and an opening of all of Gaza's crossings, including the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
Some regional observers say there are two probable outcomes, neither of which bode well for Israel. Either factions continue to stand behind Hamas, bolstering the group's legitimacy in Gaza, or they break away and start launching rockets in violation of cease-fires.
Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) sources say some 750 rockets were shot into Israel (more than 200 of those were claimed by Islamic Jihad) since "Operation Cast Lead" began on Dec. 27, killing three civilians. The IDF says it killed hundreds of militants, most of whom were probably members of Hamas, the largest group in Gaza, but that number undoubtedly includes members of other militias.
Leaders of the secular Fatah Party that controls the PA say the group bears no responsibility for its members in the armed wing fighting in Gaza, according to the group's representative in Damascus, Sameer Rifai. He says that a faction of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has been acting without the consent of the leadership, but adds that they were engaged in a "legitimate form of defense."
"The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are a part of the Palestinian people in Gaza," he says. "They are defending their homes, their lives, and themselves. They are people fighting an occupation."
LRB contributors react to events in Gaza Tariq Ali
London Review of Books
* 15 January 2009
LRB contributors react to events in Gaza
Tariq Ali
A few weeks before the assault on Gaza, the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army published a levelheaded document on 'Hamas and Israel', which argued that 'Israel's stance towards the democratically-elected Palestinian government headed by Hamas in 2006, and towards Palestinian national coherence – legal, territorial, political and economic – has been a major obstacle to substantive peacemaking.' Whatever their reservations about the organisation, the authors of the paper detected signs that Hamas was considering a shift of position even before the blockade:
It is frequently stated that Israel or the United States cannot 'meet' with Hamas (although meeting is not illegal; materially aiding terrorism is, if proven) because the latter will not 'recognise Israel'. In contrast, the PLO has 'recognised' Israel's right to exist and agreed in principle to bargain for significantly less land than the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip, and it is not clear that Israel has ever agreed to accept a Palestinian state. The recognition of Israel did not bring an end to violence, as wings of various factions of the PLO did fight Israelis, especially at the height of the Second (al- Aqsa) Intifada. Recognition of Israel by Hamas, in the way that it is described in the Western media, cannot serve as a formula for peace. Hamas moderates have, however, signaled that it implicitly recognises Israel, and that even a tahdiya (calming, minor truce) or a hudna, a longer-term truce, obviously implies recognition. Khalid Mish'al states: 'We are realists,' and there is 'an entity called Israel,' but 'realism does not mean that you have to recognise the legitimacy of the occupation.'
The war on Gaza has killed the two-state solution by making it clear to Palestinians that the only acceptable Palestine would have fewer rights than the Bantustans created by apartheid South Africa. The only acceptable alternative is a single state for Jews and Palestinians with equal rights for all. Certainly it seems utopian at the moment with the two Palestinian parties in Israel – Balad and the United Arab List – both barred from contesting the February elections. Avigdor Lieberman, the chairman of Yisrael Beitenu, has breathed a sigh of satisfaction: 'Now that it has been decided that the Balad terrorist organisation will not be able to run, the first battle is over.' But even victory has its drawbacks. After the Six-Day War in 1967, Isaac Deutscher warned his one-time friend Ben Gurion: 'The Germans have summed up their own experience in the bitter phrase "Mann kann sich totseigen!" — you can triumph yourself to death. This is what the Israelis have been doing. They have bitten off much more than they can swallow.'
Five hundred courageous Israelis have sent a letter to Western embassies calling for sanctions and other measures to be applied against their country, echoing the 2005 call by numerous Palestinian organisations for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) on the South African model. This will not happen overnight but it is the only non-violent way to help the struggle for freedom and equality in Israel-Palestine.
Tariq Ali's latest book is The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power.
Alastair Crooke
'We have to ask the West a question: when the Israelis bombed the house of Sheikh Nizar Rayan, a Hamas leader, killing him, his wives, his nine children, and killing 19 others who happened to live in adjoining houses – because they saw him as a target – was this terrorism? If the West's answer is that this was not terrorism, it was self-defence – then we must think to adopt this definition too.'
This was said to me by a leading Islamist in Beirut a few days ago. He was making a point, but behind his rhetorical question plainly lies the deeper issue of what the Gaza violence will signify for mainstream Islamists in the future.
Take Egypt. Mubarak has made no secret of his wish to see Israel teach Hamas a 'lesson'. Hamas are sure that his officials urged Israel to proceed, assuring Amos Yadlin, Israel's Head of Military Intelligence, at a meeting in Cairo that Hamas would collapse within three days of the Israeli onslaught.
Islamists in Egypt and other pro-Western 'moderate' alliance states such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan have noted Israel's wanton disregard for the deaths of civilians in its desire to crush Hamas. They have seen the barely concealed pleasure of the regimes that run those states. The message is clear: the struggle for the future of this region is going to be uncompromising and bloody.
For all Islamists, the events in Gaza will be definitive: they will tell the story of a heroic stand in the name of justice against overwhelming odds. This archetype was already in place on the day of Ashura – which fell this year on 7 January — when Shi'ites everywhere commemorate the martyrdom of Hussein, the Prophet's grandson, killed by an overwhelming military force at Kerbala. The speeches given by Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah's secretary general, were avidly followed; the ceremony of Ashura drove home the message of martyrdom and sacrifice.
Islamists are likely to conclude from Gaza that Arab regimes backed by the US and some European states will go to any lengths in their struggle against Islamism. Many Sunni Muslims will turn to the salafi-jihadists, al-Qaida included, who warned Hamas and others about the kind of punishment being visited on them now. Mainstream movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hizbullah will find it hard to resist the radical trend. The middle ground is eroding fast.
At one level Gaza will be seen as a repeat of Algeria. At another, it will speak to wider struggles in the Arab world, where elites favoured by the West soldier on with no real legitimacy, while the weight of support for change builds up. The overhang may persist for a while yet, but a small event could trip the avalanche.
Alastair Crooke is co-director of Conflicts Forum and has been an EU mediator with Hamas and other Islamist movements. Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution will come out next month.
Yitzhak Laor
We've been here before. It's a ritual. Every two or three years, our military mounts another bloody expedition. The enemy is always smaller, weaker; our military is always larger, technologically more sophisticated, prepared for full-scale war against a full-scale army. But Iran is too scary, and even the relatively small Hizbullah gave us a hard time. That leaves the Palestinians.
Israel is engaged in a long war of annihilation against Palestinian society. The objective is to destroy the Palestinian nation and drive it back into pre-modern groupings based on the tribe, the clan and the enclave. This is the last phase of the Zionist colonial mission, culminating in inaccessible townships, camps, villages, districts, all of them to be walled or fenced off, and patrolled by a powerful army which, in the absence of a proper military objective, is really an over-equipped police force, with F16s, Apaches, tanks, artillery, commando units and hi-tech surveillance at its disposal.
The extent of the cruelty, the lack of shame and the refusal of self-restraint are striking, both in anthropological terms and historically. The worldwide Jewish support for this vandal offensive makes one wonder if this isn't the moment Zionism is taking over the Jewish people.
But the real issue is that since 1991, and even more since the Oslo agreements in 1993, Israel has played on the idea that it really is trading land for peace, while the truth is very different. Israel has not given up the territories, but cantonised and blockaded them. The new strategy is to confine the Palestinians: they do not belong in our space, they are to remain out of sight, packed into their townships and camps, or swelling our prisons. This project now has the support of most of the Israeli press and academics.
We are the masters. We work and travel. They can make their living by policing their own people. We drive on the highways. They must live across the hills. The hills are ours. So are the fences. We control the roads, and the checkpoints and the borders. We control their electricity, their water, their milk, their oil, their wheat and their gasoline. If they protest peacefully we fire tear gas at them. If they throw stones, we fire bullets. If they launch a rocket, we destroy a house and its inhabitants. If they launch a missile, we destroy families, neighbourhoods, streets, towns.
Israel doesn't want a Palestinian state alongside it. It is willing to prove this with hundreds of dead and thousands of disabled, in a single 'operation'. The message is always the same: leave or remain in subjugation, under our military dictatorship. We are a democracy. We have decided democratically that you will live like dogs.
On 27 December just before the bombs started falling on Gaza, the Zionist parties, from Meretz to Yisrael Betenu, were unanimously in favour of the attack. As usual – it's the ritual again – differences emerged only over the dispatch of blankets and medication to Gaza. Our most fervent pro-war columnist, Ari Shavit, has suggested that Israel should go on with the assault and build a hospital for the victims. The enemy is wounded, bleeding, dying, desperate for help. Nobody is coming unless Obama moves – yes, we are all waiting for Godot. Maybe this time he shows up.
Yitzhak Laor lives in Tel Aviv. He is the editor of Mita'am.
John Mearsheimer
The Gaza war is not going to change relations between Israel and the Palestinians in any meaningful way. Instead, the conflict is likely to get worse in the years ahead. Israel will build more settlements and roads in the West Bank and the Palestinians will remain locked up in a handful of impoverished enclaves in Gaza and the West Bank. The two-state solution is probably dead.
'Greater Israel' will be an apartheid state. Ehud Olmert has sounded a warning note on this score, but he has done nothing to stop the settlements and by starting the Gaza war he doomed what little hope there was for creating a viable Palestinian state.
The Palestinians will continue to resist the occupation, and Hamas will still be able to strike Israel with rockets and mortars, whose range and effectiveness are likely to improve. Palestinians will increasingly make the case that Greater Israel should become a democratic binational state in which Palestinians and Jews enjoy equal political rights. They know that they will eventually outnumber the Jews, which would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state. This proposal is already gaining ground among Israel's Palestinian citizens, striking fear into the hearts of many Israelis, who see them as a dangerous fifth column. This fear accounts in part for the recent Israeli decision to ban the major Arab political parties from participating in next month's parliamentary elections.
There is no reason to think that Israel's Jewish citizens would accept a binational state, and it's safe to assume that Israel's supporters in the Diaspora would have no interest in it. Apartheid is not a solution either, because it is repugnant and because the Palestinians will continue to resist, forcing Israel to escalate the repressive policies that have already cost it significant blood and treasure, encouraged political corruption, and badly tarnished its global image.
Israel may try to avoid the apartheid problem by expelling or 'transferring' the Palestinians. A substantial number of Israeli Jews – 40 per cent or more – think that the government should 'encourage' their fellow Palestinian citizens to leave. Indeed, Tzipi Livni recently said that if there is a two-state solution, she expects the Palestinians inside Israel to move to the new Palestinian state.
Why would American and European leaders intervene? The Bush administration, after all, backed Israel's creation of a major humanitarian crisis in Gaza, first with a devastating blockade and then with a brutal war. European leaders reacted to this collective punishment, which violates international law, not to mention basic decency, by upgrading Israel's relationship with the European Union.
Many in the West expect Barack Obama to ride into town and fix the situation. Don't bet on it. As his campaign showed, Obama is no match for the Israel lobby. His silence during the Gaza war speaks volumes about how tough he is likely to be with the Israelis. His chief Middle East adviser is likely to be Dennis Ross, whose deep attachment to Israel helped squander opportunities for peace during the Clinton administration.
In a recent op-ed about the Gaza war, Benny Morris said that 'it would not be surprising if more powerful explosions were to follow.' I rarely agree with Morris these days, but I think he has it right in this case. Even bigger trouble is in the offing for Israel – and above all for the Palestinians.
John Mearsheimer is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and co-author of The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.
ISSN 0260-9592 Copyright © LRB Ltd., 1997-2009
* 15 January 2009
LRB contributors react to events in Gaza
Tariq Ali
A few weeks before the assault on Gaza, the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army published a levelheaded document on 'Hamas and Israel', which argued that 'Israel's stance towards the democratically-elected Palestinian government headed by Hamas in 2006, and towards Palestinian national coherence – legal, territorial, political and economic – has been a major obstacle to substantive peacemaking.' Whatever their reservations about the organisation, the authors of the paper detected signs that Hamas was considering a shift of position even before the blockade:
It is frequently stated that Israel or the United States cannot 'meet' with Hamas (although meeting is not illegal; materially aiding terrorism is, if proven) because the latter will not 'recognise Israel'. In contrast, the PLO has 'recognised' Israel's right to exist and agreed in principle to bargain for significantly less land than the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip, and it is not clear that Israel has ever agreed to accept a Palestinian state. The recognition of Israel did not bring an end to violence, as wings of various factions of the PLO did fight Israelis, especially at the height of the Second (al- Aqsa) Intifada. Recognition of Israel by Hamas, in the way that it is described in the Western media, cannot serve as a formula for peace. Hamas moderates have, however, signaled that it implicitly recognises Israel, and that even a tahdiya (calming, minor truce) or a hudna, a longer-term truce, obviously implies recognition. Khalid Mish'al states: 'We are realists,' and there is 'an entity called Israel,' but 'realism does not mean that you have to recognise the legitimacy of the occupation.'
The war on Gaza has killed the two-state solution by making it clear to Palestinians that the only acceptable Palestine would have fewer rights than the Bantustans created by apartheid South Africa. The only acceptable alternative is a single state for Jews and Palestinians with equal rights for all. Certainly it seems utopian at the moment with the two Palestinian parties in Israel – Balad and the United Arab List – both barred from contesting the February elections. Avigdor Lieberman, the chairman of Yisrael Beitenu, has breathed a sigh of satisfaction: 'Now that it has been decided that the Balad terrorist organisation will not be able to run, the first battle is over.' But even victory has its drawbacks. After the Six-Day War in 1967, Isaac Deutscher warned his one-time friend Ben Gurion: 'The Germans have summed up their own experience in the bitter phrase "Mann kann sich totseigen!" — you can triumph yourself to death. This is what the Israelis have been doing. They have bitten off much more than they can swallow.'
Five hundred courageous Israelis have sent a letter to Western embassies calling for sanctions and other measures to be applied against their country, echoing the 2005 call by numerous Palestinian organisations for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) on the South African model. This will not happen overnight but it is the only non-violent way to help the struggle for freedom and equality in Israel-Palestine.
Tariq Ali's latest book is The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power.
Alastair Crooke
'We have to ask the West a question: when the Israelis bombed the house of Sheikh Nizar Rayan, a Hamas leader, killing him, his wives, his nine children, and killing 19 others who happened to live in adjoining houses – because they saw him as a target – was this terrorism? If the West's answer is that this was not terrorism, it was self-defence – then we must think to adopt this definition too.'
This was said to me by a leading Islamist in Beirut a few days ago. He was making a point, but behind his rhetorical question plainly lies the deeper issue of what the Gaza violence will signify for mainstream Islamists in the future.
Take Egypt. Mubarak has made no secret of his wish to see Israel teach Hamas a 'lesson'. Hamas are sure that his officials urged Israel to proceed, assuring Amos Yadlin, Israel's Head of Military Intelligence, at a meeting in Cairo that Hamas would collapse within three days of the Israeli onslaught.
Islamists in Egypt and other pro-Western 'moderate' alliance states such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan have noted Israel's wanton disregard for the deaths of civilians in its desire to crush Hamas. They have seen the barely concealed pleasure of the regimes that run those states. The message is clear: the struggle for the future of this region is going to be uncompromising and bloody.
For all Islamists, the events in Gaza will be definitive: they will tell the story of a heroic stand in the name of justice against overwhelming odds. This archetype was already in place on the day of Ashura – which fell this year on 7 January — when Shi'ites everywhere commemorate the martyrdom of Hussein, the Prophet's grandson, killed by an overwhelming military force at Kerbala. The speeches given by Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah's secretary general, were avidly followed; the ceremony of Ashura drove home the message of martyrdom and sacrifice.
Islamists are likely to conclude from Gaza that Arab regimes backed by the US and some European states will go to any lengths in their struggle against Islamism. Many Sunni Muslims will turn to the salafi-jihadists, al-Qaida included, who warned Hamas and others about the kind of punishment being visited on them now. Mainstream movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hizbullah will find it hard to resist the radical trend. The middle ground is eroding fast.
At one level Gaza will be seen as a repeat of Algeria. At another, it will speak to wider struggles in the Arab world, where elites favoured by the West soldier on with no real legitimacy, while the weight of support for change builds up. The overhang may persist for a while yet, but a small event could trip the avalanche.
Alastair Crooke is co-director of Conflicts Forum and has been an EU mediator with Hamas and other Islamist movements. Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution will come out next month.
Yitzhak Laor
We've been here before. It's a ritual. Every two or three years, our military mounts another bloody expedition. The enemy is always smaller, weaker; our military is always larger, technologically more sophisticated, prepared for full-scale war against a full-scale army. But Iran is too scary, and even the relatively small Hizbullah gave us a hard time. That leaves the Palestinians.
Israel is engaged in a long war of annihilation against Palestinian society. The objective is to destroy the Palestinian nation and drive it back into pre-modern groupings based on the tribe, the clan and the enclave. This is the last phase of the Zionist colonial mission, culminating in inaccessible townships, camps, villages, districts, all of them to be walled or fenced off, and patrolled by a powerful army which, in the absence of a proper military objective, is really an over-equipped police force, with F16s, Apaches, tanks, artillery, commando units and hi-tech surveillance at its disposal.
The extent of the cruelty, the lack of shame and the refusal of self-restraint are striking, both in anthropological terms and historically. The worldwide Jewish support for this vandal offensive makes one wonder if this isn't the moment Zionism is taking over the Jewish people.
But the real issue is that since 1991, and even more since the Oslo agreements in 1993, Israel has played on the idea that it really is trading land for peace, while the truth is very different. Israel has not given up the territories, but cantonised and blockaded them. The new strategy is to confine the Palestinians: they do not belong in our space, they are to remain out of sight, packed into their townships and camps, or swelling our prisons. This project now has the support of most of the Israeli press and academics.
We are the masters. We work and travel. They can make their living by policing their own people. We drive on the highways. They must live across the hills. The hills are ours. So are the fences. We control the roads, and the checkpoints and the borders. We control their electricity, their water, their milk, their oil, their wheat and their gasoline. If they protest peacefully we fire tear gas at them. If they throw stones, we fire bullets. If they launch a rocket, we destroy a house and its inhabitants. If they launch a missile, we destroy families, neighbourhoods, streets, towns.
Israel doesn't want a Palestinian state alongside it. It is willing to prove this with hundreds of dead and thousands of disabled, in a single 'operation'. The message is always the same: leave or remain in subjugation, under our military dictatorship. We are a democracy. We have decided democratically that you will live like dogs.
On 27 December just before the bombs started falling on Gaza, the Zionist parties, from Meretz to Yisrael Betenu, were unanimously in favour of the attack. As usual – it's the ritual again – differences emerged only over the dispatch of blankets and medication to Gaza. Our most fervent pro-war columnist, Ari Shavit, has suggested that Israel should go on with the assault and build a hospital for the victims. The enemy is wounded, bleeding, dying, desperate for help. Nobody is coming unless Obama moves – yes, we are all waiting for Godot. Maybe this time he shows up.
Yitzhak Laor lives in Tel Aviv. He is the editor of Mita'am.
John Mearsheimer
The Gaza war is not going to change relations between Israel and the Palestinians in any meaningful way. Instead, the conflict is likely to get worse in the years ahead. Israel will build more settlements and roads in the West Bank and the Palestinians will remain locked up in a handful of impoverished enclaves in Gaza and the West Bank. The two-state solution is probably dead.
'Greater Israel' will be an apartheid state. Ehud Olmert has sounded a warning note on this score, but he has done nothing to stop the settlements and by starting the Gaza war he doomed what little hope there was for creating a viable Palestinian state.
The Palestinians will continue to resist the occupation, and Hamas will still be able to strike Israel with rockets and mortars, whose range and effectiveness are likely to improve. Palestinians will increasingly make the case that Greater Israel should become a democratic binational state in which Palestinians and Jews enjoy equal political rights. They know that they will eventually outnumber the Jews, which would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state. This proposal is already gaining ground among Israel's Palestinian citizens, striking fear into the hearts of many Israelis, who see them as a dangerous fifth column. This fear accounts in part for the recent Israeli decision to ban the major Arab political parties from participating in next month's parliamentary elections.
There is no reason to think that Israel's Jewish citizens would accept a binational state, and it's safe to assume that Israel's supporters in the Diaspora would have no interest in it. Apartheid is not a solution either, because it is repugnant and because the Palestinians will continue to resist, forcing Israel to escalate the repressive policies that have already cost it significant blood and treasure, encouraged political corruption, and badly tarnished its global image.
Israel may try to avoid the apartheid problem by expelling or 'transferring' the Palestinians. A substantial number of Israeli Jews – 40 per cent or more – think that the government should 'encourage' their fellow Palestinian citizens to leave. Indeed, Tzipi Livni recently said that if there is a two-state solution, she expects the Palestinians inside Israel to move to the new Palestinian state.
Why would American and European leaders intervene? The Bush administration, after all, backed Israel's creation of a major humanitarian crisis in Gaza, first with a devastating blockade and then with a brutal war. European leaders reacted to this collective punishment, which violates international law, not to mention basic decency, by upgrading Israel's relationship with the European Union.
Many in the West expect Barack Obama to ride into town and fix the situation. Don't bet on it. As his campaign showed, Obama is no match for the Israel lobby. His silence during the Gaza war speaks volumes about how tough he is likely to be with the Israelis. His chief Middle East adviser is likely to be Dennis Ross, whose deep attachment to Israel helped squander opportunities for peace during the Clinton administration.
In a recent op-ed about the Gaza war, Benny Morris said that 'it would not be surprising if more powerful explosions were to follow.' I rarely agree with Morris these days, but I think he has it right in this case. Even bigger trouble is in the offing for Israel – and above all for the Palestinians.
John Mearsheimer is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and co-author of The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.
ISSN 0260-9592 Copyright © LRB Ltd., 1997-2009
Obama should tell Israel to face facts By Roula Khalaf
FT.com logo
Obama should tell Israel to face facts
By Roula Khalaf
Published: January 19 2009
For the past year the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas has negotiated with Israel on a peace settlement, knowing full well that nothing would come out of it. Why bother? Palestinian officials insisted a "process" was worth pursuing if only to hand the new American administration something to work with as soon as it takes office.
Barack Obama will be dragged into the Middle East conflict from day one. Unfortunately, before he picks up a peace process, he has to manage the aftermath of a devastating Gaza crisis, where a fragile ceasefire needs urgent American attention, an enraged Middle East urgently needs calm, and America's sinking image needs urgent damage control.
During Israel's 22-day offensive in Gaza, Mr Obama said very little beyond expressing concern about civilian casualties and underlining US commitment to peace. But unless he is planning to adopt a different attitude from the outgoing administration, the Middle East can brace for more bloodshed.
There have been many surreal moments over the past three weeks. One of the strangest was watching Condoleezza Rice on her last day in office as secretary of state signing a deal with Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, and promising US assistance to curb the smuggling of weapons to Hamas in Gaza.
The memorandum of understanding made it easier for Israel to claim that it had met one of the war's main objectives and so wrap up its offensive. But as they stood in Washington congratulating each other, both officials seemed oblivious to the fact that they were making a deal about an illegal trade on someone else's border – Egypt in this case. The next day, an Egyptian official described the memorandum as "fictional".
Which brings us to one of the most important aspects of a new US approach to the region: recognition of reality. Israel may convince its public that Hamas is a thing of the past. Israelis may even buy into the claim of Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, that Hamas is the enemy of Gazans and Israel is their true friend.
But the reality is that however belligerent and unpleasant Hamas's policies may be, its popular support will not evaporate, and the organisation itself will not disappear.
So if the Obama administration wants to help Israel find security, its advice must be to face reality. Luckily for Mr Obama, there is a blueprint that recognises this and which can consolidate the ceasefire: an Egyptian initiative with which Israel played along for a few days then in effect ignored by declaring a unilateral ceasefire instead of one negotiated with Hamas, through Cairo.
Both Israel and Hamas need a way out of this conflict. Israeli leaders are basking in higher approval ratings ahead of the February 10 elections, and they want to maintain the momentum. Hamas, too, will want to avoid another punishing assault on Gaza. And the Syrian regime that backs Hamas is desperate to open a new page with the Obama administration. The US, in short, has plenty of leverage to bring about a compromise.
A ceasefire, however, will not be enough. Palestinian reconciliation, between Hamas and Mr Abbas's Palestinian Authority, which was driven out of Gaza in 2007, is the third element in the Egyptian plan – but the most important. If the US backs reconciliation instead of promoting division, as the Bush administration did, then it also has a chance to restore some legitimacy to the PA.
In spite of Mr Olmert's claims that his offensive has bolstered the PA and in spite of world leaders' embrace of Mr Abbas, he comes out of this war diminished. In Palestinian and Arab minds, those who appear to be resisting Israel's occupation and its military machine – even if they do it badly – gain legitimacy. The PA's legitimacy rests on the peace process, which has gone nowhere. So if and when Gaza has a sustainable ceasefire, the world community, now to be led by Mr Obama, will have to give the PA a fresh reason to exist.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Obama should tell Israel to face facts
By Roula Khalaf
Published: January 19 2009
For the past year the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas has negotiated with Israel on a peace settlement, knowing full well that nothing would come out of it. Why bother? Palestinian officials insisted a "process" was worth pursuing if only to hand the new American administration something to work with as soon as it takes office.
Barack Obama will be dragged into the Middle East conflict from day one. Unfortunately, before he picks up a peace process, he has to manage the aftermath of a devastating Gaza crisis, where a fragile ceasefire needs urgent American attention, an enraged Middle East urgently needs calm, and America's sinking image needs urgent damage control.
During Israel's 22-day offensive in Gaza, Mr Obama said very little beyond expressing concern about civilian casualties and underlining US commitment to peace. But unless he is planning to adopt a different attitude from the outgoing administration, the Middle East can brace for more bloodshed.
There have been many surreal moments over the past three weeks. One of the strangest was watching Condoleezza Rice on her last day in office as secretary of state signing a deal with Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, and promising US assistance to curb the smuggling of weapons to Hamas in Gaza.
The memorandum of understanding made it easier for Israel to claim that it had met one of the war's main objectives and so wrap up its offensive. But as they stood in Washington congratulating each other, both officials seemed oblivious to the fact that they were making a deal about an illegal trade on someone else's border – Egypt in this case. The next day, an Egyptian official described the memorandum as "fictional".
Which brings us to one of the most important aspects of a new US approach to the region: recognition of reality. Israel may convince its public that Hamas is a thing of the past. Israelis may even buy into the claim of Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, that Hamas is the enemy of Gazans and Israel is their true friend.
But the reality is that however belligerent and unpleasant Hamas's policies may be, its popular support will not evaporate, and the organisation itself will not disappear.
So if the Obama administration wants to help Israel find security, its advice must be to face reality. Luckily for Mr Obama, there is a blueprint that recognises this and which can consolidate the ceasefire: an Egyptian initiative with which Israel played along for a few days then in effect ignored by declaring a unilateral ceasefire instead of one negotiated with Hamas, through Cairo.
Both Israel and Hamas need a way out of this conflict. Israeli leaders are basking in higher approval ratings ahead of the February 10 elections, and they want to maintain the momentum. Hamas, too, will want to avoid another punishing assault on Gaza. And the Syrian regime that backs Hamas is desperate to open a new page with the Obama administration. The US, in short, has plenty of leverage to bring about a compromise.
A ceasefire, however, will not be enough. Palestinian reconciliation, between Hamas and Mr Abbas's Palestinian Authority, which was driven out of Gaza in 2007, is the third element in the Egyptian plan – but the most important. If the US backs reconciliation instead of promoting division, as the Bush administration did, then it also has a chance to restore some legitimacy to the PA.
In spite of Mr Olmert's claims that his offensive has bolstered the PA and in spite of world leaders' embrace of Mr Abbas, he comes out of this war diminished. In Palestinian and Arab minds, those who appear to be resisting Israel's occupation and its military machine – even if they do it badly – gain legitimacy. The PA's legitimacy rests on the peace process, which has gone nowhere. So if and when Gaza has a sustainable ceasefire, the world community, now to be led by Mr Obama, will have to give the PA a fresh reason to exist.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Bitter pill after the mourning
Bitter pill after the mourning
Paul McGeough
January 17, 2009
War sets its own hideous pace but there has to be a morning after. If, as anticipated, the smoke and ash start to clear over Gaza in the coming days, the crying by the wounded and bereaved soon will be drowned out by claim and counterclaim over who won the war.
And unless the world has taken leave of its senses, Hamas will have achieved a remarkable breakthrough - a lifting of the internationally backed siege that has made a prison of the Gaza Strip for its 1.5 million people. No doubt there will be conditions that will temper that sense of victory.
Hamas will insist that it fired rockets to the end - 25 lobbed into Israel on Thursday. But it will be a long time before it fires another.
David Horvitz, editor of the Jerusalem Post, observed: "The practical success or failure of Israel's resort to force will be measured in two areas: the degree to which Hamas is deterred from further rocket fire and the extent to which it is prevented from recovering and then expanding its military capacity."
Other yardsticks will also apply. At $US1.4 billion ($2.08 billion), the first estimate of the cost of damage caused by more than 2300 Israeli air strikes alone seems too low. In an interview with The Times in London, an Israeli officer who was in Gaza described the damage as unimaginable: "It doesn't look like we have been there for [just] a few weeks. It looks destroyed, demolished, like we were bombing it for years."
After almost three weeks of being pummelled by one of the world's bigger and technologically superior military machines, Hamas lost only a fraction of its fighters and still holds a big stockpile of rockets and other weapons, Israeli officers concede.
On the battlefield, Hamas seemed to be playing for time and that seemed to be paying off. Most estimates put its fighting force at 15,000-plus and so far Israel estimates it has killed 300 to 400 of them.
As the third week of the conflict ends, Israel is diminished in the eyes of the world. Speaking of the hundreds of dead children in Gaza, a Tel Aviv-based ambassador was quoted as telling Israel: "Your action is brutal … I don't know how to explain these things to myself, never mind to my government."
At the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, a senior official indicated this ambassador was not alone. Acknowledging the overwhelming negativity of dispatches from embassies in Israel even before the onslaught to come - when foreign media finally gets into ravaged Gaza - the official groaned: "You see the reports in the morning and you feel ill."
The serial wrong-headedness by the US, the Europeans and Israel in their collective handling of the Palestinian issue after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington has been breathtaking. The first mistake was to paint the legitimate national claims of the Palestinians into the so-called "war on terror". That error was compounded by the global collective punishment of Palestinians for electing a Hamas government in 2006.
The siege, as described by the Ha'aretz analyst Amira Hass this week, had existed since the early 1990s and was merely refined after Hamas's election victory. "We're all big boys and girls and we know … Israel's goal was to thwart the two-state solution … ," Hass wrote.
It was then that Israel and its international sponsors decided they needed to deal with the nice "moderates" of Fatah rather than Hamas "hardliners" who had been endorsed by Palestinians because of Fatah's decades of failure.
Describing as a "dangerous idea" Israel's belief that it has a right to choose who represents the Palestinians, the Israeli commentator Yossi Alpher warned this week: "Israel has failed whenever it has tried to manipulate the structure of the Arab leadership … Israel removed the PLO from Lebanon and instead got Hezbollah. There is no telling what we'll get in Gaza if we remove Hamas, but the return of Fatah-PLO is improbable."
Speculating on the inevitable key elements of a ceasefire - rocket fire and weapons smuggling cease and border-crossings re-open - Britain's former ambassador to the United Nations, Jeremy Greenstock, lamented the tragedy in these terms: "It underlines the folly of maintaining the fiction that Hamas is beyond the pale and cannot be a partner in talks … when Hamas leaders have already indicated that they could, in the right circumstances, accept a two-state solution."
Undaunted, Israel's Foreign Ministry has already set up a "morning after" taskforce, with a key challenge to keep both Hamas and Iran out of what is expected to be a major international effort to rebuild Gaza, lest either reaps the kind of kudos Hezbollah did in the reconstruction of south Lebanon after an Israeli invasion in 2006.
Notwithstanding that Hamas is the elected government of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel wants Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority "as well as Arab and international entities" to do the work.
But the war seems to have further eroded Abbas's parlous position. West Bank Palestinians who have dared to protest against Israel's campaign in Gaza have been clubbed and beaten by Abbas's security forces and anecdotal reports from across the West Bank indicate a steady rise in support for Hamas. "[Abbas] is one of the main losers in this war," the independent Palestinian analyst Ghassan Khatib observed this week.
One of the deal-breaker issues that will cause some to scratch their heads is the smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Egypt - hundreds of them delivering everyday goods as well as arms for Hamas.
All originate on the Egyptian side of the border, which suggests Israel went to war against Gaza to achieve an outcome that could have been had in the Washington-Jerusalem-Cairo cosy corner, without squandering so much military, political and diplomatic capital.
If Israel was unable to do a deal with Egypt to close the tunnels, it might have asked for more help from Washington, which gives the Cairo regime an annual pay cheque second in largesse only to that paid to Israel. Such a deal was reportedly to be signed in Washington yesterday.
The outcome of the war will be assessed with the passage of time and, for Israel, there will be a dangerous sleeper effect - the impact of the war on the attitudes and thinking of Gazans, especially that half of the population who are teenagers or younger, and their judgment of who is to blame.
"The children of Gaza who survive this war will remember," the Ha'aretz commentator Gideon Levy wrote on Thursday. "A significant majority of the children killed in Gaza did not die because they were used as human shields or because they worked for Hamas.
"They were killed because the [Israeli Defence Forces] bombed, shelled or fired at them, their families or their apartment buildings.
"That is why the blood of Gaza's children is on our hands, not on Hamas's hands and we'll never be able to escape that responsibility. A child who has seen his house destroyed, his brother killed and his father humiliated will not forgive."
Levy's "what next?" theme was taken up by the provocative former Knesset-member Avraham Burg. Writing on Israel's repeated refusal to accept the Palestinians' chosen interlocutors, he wrote: "On the day Gaza becomes a stronghold of al-Qaeda and global radical Islam, we will discover that it was Hamas, the Hamas of today, that was not so awful."
There were signs this week that Israel's political leadership had split. Already being bundled from office on corruption allegations, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, seemed out of touch as he manipulated ministerial meetings to prolong the Gaza war and in his public bragging of how the Israeli tail wagged the Washington dog when it came to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's vote in the UN Security Council.
The Israeli historian Avi Shlaim has a wonderful knack of tracing the arcs of Israel's history to reveal today's reality - all the talk of successive governments about the peace process has been lip service which has conceded nothing on the ground.
Even before the events of this week, when Washington dismissed Olmert as - well, as a liar, and the UN used similar language to dismiss Israel's attempt to blame Hamas for the white phosphorous bombing of the UN's emergency stores of food and medicine in Gaza, Shlaim was in his library, re-evaluating the words of John Troutbeck.
In June 1948, Troutbeck vented to Ernest Bevin, the British foreign secretary of the day, that the US had been responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders".
"I used to think this judgment was too harsh," Shlaim wrote in The Guardian. "But Israel's vicious assault on the people of Gaza and the Bush Administration's complicity, have reopened the question."
Paul McGeough is the Herald's Chief Correspondent.
This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/01/16/1231608986441.html
Paul McGeough
January 17, 2009
War sets its own hideous pace but there has to be a morning after. If, as anticipated, the smoke and ash start to clear over Gaza in the coming days, the crying by the wounded and bereaved soon will be drowned out by claim and counterclaim over who won the war.
And unless the world has taken leave of its senses, Hamas will have achieved a remarkable breakthrough - a lifting of the internationally backed siege that has made a prison of the Gaza Strip for its 1.5 million people. No doubt there will be conditions that will temper that sense of victory.
Hamas will insist that it fired rockets to the end - 25 lobbed into Israel on Thursday. But it will be a long time before it fires another.
David Horvitz, editor of the Jerusalem Post, observed: "The practical success or failure of Israel's resort to force will be measured in two areas: the degree to which Hamas is deterred from further rocket fire and the extent to which it is prevented from recovering and then expanding its military capacity."
Other yardsticks will also apply. At $US1.4 billion ($2.08 billion), the first estimate of the cost of damage caused by more than 2300 Israeli air strikes alone seems too low. In an interview with The Times in London, an Israeli officer who was in Gaza described the damage as unimaginable: "It doesn't look like we have been there for [just] a few weeks. It looks destroyed, demolished, like we were bombing it for years."
After almost three weeks of being pummelled by one of the world's bigger and technologically superior military machines, Hamas lost only a fraction of its fighters and still holds a big stockpile of rockets and other weapons, Israeli officers concede.
On the battlefield, Hamas seemed to be playing for time and that seemed to be paying off. Most estimates put its fighting force at 15,000-plus and so far Israel estimates it has killed 300 to 400 of them.
As the third week of the conflict ends, Israel is diminished in the eyes of the world. Speaking of the hundreds of dead children in Gaza, a Tel Aviv-based ambassador was quoted as telling Israel: "Your action is brutal … I don't know how to explain these things to myself, never mind to my government."
At the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, a senior official indicated this ambassador was not alone. Acknowledging the overwhelming negativity of dispatches from embassies in Israel even before the onslaught to come - when foreign media finally gets into ravaged Gaza - the official groaned: "You see the reports in the morning and you feel ill."
The serial wrong-headedness by the US, the Europeans and Israel in their collective handling of the Palestinian issue after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington has been breathtaking. The first mistake was to paint the legitimate national claims of the Palestinians into the so-called "war on terror". That error was compounded by the global collective punishment of Palestinians for electing a Hamas government in 2006.
The siege, as described by the Ha'aretz analyst Amira Hass this week, had existed since the early 1990s and was merely refined after Hamas's election victory. "We're all big boys and girls and we know … Israel's goal was to thwart the two-state solution … ," Hass wrote.
It was then that Israel and its international sponsors decided they needed to deal with the nice "moderates" of Fatah rather than Hamas "hardliners" who had been endorsed by Palestinians because of Fatah's decades of failure.
Describing as a "dangerous idea" Israel's belief that it has a right to choose who represents the Palestinians, the Israeli commentator Yossi Alpher warned this week: "Israel has failed whenever it has tried to manipulate the structure of the Arab leadership … Israel removed the PLO from Lebanon and instead got Hezbollah. There is no telling what we'll get in Gaza if we remove Hamas, but the return of Fatah-PLO is improbable."
Speculating on the inevitable key elements of a ceasefire - rocket fire and weapons smuggling cease and border-crossings re-open - Britain's former ambassador to the United Nations, Jeremy Greenstock, lamented the tragedy in these terms: "It underlines the folly of maintaining the fiction that Hamas is beyond the pale and cannot be a partner in talks … when Hamas leaders have already indicated that they could, in the right circumstances, accept a two-state solution."
Undaunted, Israel's Foreign Ministry has already set up a "morning after" taskforce, with a key challenge to keep both Hamas and Iran out of what is expected to be a major international effort to rebuild Gaza, lest either reaps the kind of kudos Hezbollah did in the reconstruction of south Lebanon after an Israeli invasion in 2006.
Notwithstanding that Hamas is the elected government of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel wants Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority "as well as Arab and international entities" to do the work.
But the war seems to have further eroded Abbas's parlous position. West Bank Palestinians who have dared to protest against Israel's campaign in Gaza have been clubbed and beaten by Abbas's security forces and anecdotal reports from across the West Bank indicate a steady rise in support for Hamas. "[Abbas] is one of the main losers in this war," the independent Palestinian analyst Ghassan Khatib observed this week.
One of the deal-breaker issues that will cause some to scratch their heads is the smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Egypt - hundreds of them delivering everyday goods as well as arms for Hamas.
All originate on the Egyptian side of the border, which suggests Israel went to war against Gaza to achieve an outcome that could have been had in the Washington-Jerusalem-Cairo cosy corner, without squandering so much military, political and diplomatic capital.
If Israel was unable to do a deal with Egypt to close the tunnels, it might have asked for more help from Washington, which gives the Cairo regime an annual pay cheque second in largesse only to that paid to Israel. Such a deal was reportedly to be signed in Washington yesterday.
The outcome of the war will be assessed with the passage of time and, for Israel, there will be a dangerous sleeper effect - the impact of the war on the attitudes and thinking of Gazans, especially that half of the population who are teenagers or younger, and their judgment of who is to blame.
"The children of Gaza who survive this war will remember," the Ha'aretz commentator Gideon Levy wrote on Thursday. "A significant majority of the children killed in Gaza did not die because they were used as human shields or because they worked for Hamas.
"They were killed because the [Israeli Defence Forces] bombed, shelled or fired at them, their families or their apartment buildings.
"That is why the blood of Gaza's children is on our hands, not on Hamas's hands and we'll never be able to escape that responsibility. A child who has seen his house destroyed, his brother killed and his father humiliated will not forgive."
Levy's "what next?" theme was taken up by the provocative former Knesset-member Avraham Burg. Writing on Israel's repeated refusal to accept the Palestinians' chosen interlocutors, he wrote: "On the day Gaza becomes a stronghold of al-Qaeda and global radical Islam, we will discover that it was Hamas, the Hamas of today, that was not so awful."
There were signs this week that Israel's political leadership had split. Already being bundled from office on corruption allegations, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, seemed out of touch as he manipulated ministerial meetings to prolong the Gaza war and in his public bragging of how the Israeli tail wagged the Washington dog when it came to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's vote in the UN Security Council.
The Israeli historian Avi Shlaim has a wonderful knack of tracing the arcs of Israel's history to reveal today's reality - all the talk of successive governments about the peace process has been lip service which has conceded nothing on the ground.
Even before the events of this week, when Washington dismissed Olmert as - well, as a liar, and the UN used similar language to dismiss Israel's attempt to blame Hamas for the white phosphorous bombing of the UN's emergency stores of food and medicine in Gaza, Shlaim was in his library, re-evaluating the words of John Troutbeck.
In June 1948, Troutbeck vented to Ernest Bevin, the British foreign secretary of the day, that the US had been responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders".
"I used to think this judgment was too harsh," Shlaim wrote in The Guardian. "But Israel's vicious assault on the people of Gaza and the Bush Administration's complicity, have reopened the question."
Paul McGeough is the Herald's Chief Correspondent.
This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/01/16/1231608986441.html
The Impact of Gaza by Rami G. Khouri
The Impact of Gaza
by Rami G. Khouri Released: 19 Jan 2009
BEIRUT -- Just as the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza three years ago triggered a tumultuous series of political developments that brought Palestinians and Israelis to this latest war and political confrontation, the unilateral Israeli ceasefire in Gaza that started early Sunday morning will usher in profound political changes that will transform the regional landscape for years to come.
The historic changes are already underway in three parallel arenas: within Palestinian society, between Palestine and Israel, and between the Middle East and the Western powers.
And all three have been on display this week, with four (!) different Arab summit meetings in four cities (Riyadh, Doha, Sharm esh-Sheikh and Kuwait City) -- where the military battle between Gaza and Israel continues as political battles of regional and global implication.
An ideological struggle started in the 1970s: That was when the pan-Arab nationalism of the 1950s and 60s died, organized Palestinian guerrilla groups challenged Israel and some Arab regimes, and Iranian Islamist-nationalists overthrew the Shah of Iran. The past 30 years in the Middle East has witnessed a tug-of-war between two broad camps of people and movements: those who would anchor their nationalism and development in the indigenous Arab-Islamic, Iranian-Islamic, or Turkish-Islamic identities; and those who would link their fate to the material and military inducements of vassal-like acceptance of American and Israeli interests.
The battle for Gaza captures all these elements simultaneously in a way that has never been so clear before. On the one hand, Israel relies on American, European, and some Arab support as it tries to bludgeon and starve the Palestinians of Gaza into submission, and tries to replace the surging Hamas with the wilted and discredited Palestinian Authority's President Mahmoud Abbas.
On the other hand, half a dozen major Arab, Iranian, and Turkish actors, and a clear and growing majority of regional and world public opinion, support Palestinian rights. This support is sometimes reflected in explicit support for Hamas, but mostly in solidarity with the Palestinian civilians who have stood their ground in the face of Israel's gruesome onslaught.
The unilateral Israeli ceasefire will emphasize and aggravate these trends, and will set the stage for a prolonged political struggle – a struggle that will mirror the dynamics we have witnessed on the battlefield for the past three weeks.
The core issue to watch in the coming weeks and months is the balance between Israel's desire for unilateral control and dominance versus the Palestinians' determination to achieve liberation from the Israeli-American-led siege of Gaza and desire for explicit political legitimacy by formal diplomatic engagement.
The core problem in the short run has been the Israeli desire to make unilateral decisions that affirm its total control of the situation without engaging the rising power of the Hamas movement and allied Palestinian Islamists and nationalists. Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967, colonized it unilaterally, brutalized it unilaterally, pauperized it unilaterally, withdrew unilaterally, laid siege to it unilaterally, and now has attacked it and ceased-fire unilaterally. Every one of Israel's unilateral actions in recent years has failed to achieve its objectives -- and this unilateral ceasefire is also likely to fail.
The lesson that Israel seems too frenzied or stubborn to learn is that resolving the underlying Palestinian-Israeli conflict needs a negotiated agreement between two sides -- and cannot be achieved unilaterally. The historic importance of Hamas rests on its challenging Israel's unilateralist penchant in a manner that previous Palestinian movements -- especially Yasser Arafat's Fateh -- could not or dared not do.
It took advantage of the Israeli withdrawal and siege of Gaza to prepare for a military faceoff. Hamas knew it could not match Israel's superior firepower and technology, but it calculated correctly that it would gain politically by taking its stand -- and a beating -- and still emerging as the most credible Palestinian leadership.
Hamas' willingness to absorb Israel's military overkill and emerge on its feet mirrors Hizbullah's experience in Lebanon in 2006. It must be dealt with, if not today then in a few months down the road, because it represents the sort of legitimacy that few other Arab leaderships can boast. The cost in civilian lives and infrastructure has been high, which means it will be reluctant to go through the war experience again any time soon – again, similar to Hizbullah after it emerged on its feet from 34 days of fighting.
Hamas' most important immediate goal remains relieving the Israeli-American siege of Gaza, which is likely to emerge from the diplomatic discussions to come in the weeks ahead. Israel will have to stop attacking and strangulating Gaza, in return for Hamas holding its fire against southern Israel.
Both sides will say they achieved their key goals -- but Hamas will be the bigger political winner in the wake of the fighting. It will now have to use its greater political capital to operate more subtly in domestic, regional and global forums, where it will enjoy much more credibility, legitimacy and impact.
Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.
Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global
by Rami G. Khouri Released: 19 Jan 2009
BEIRUT -- Just as the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza three years ago triggered a tumultuous series of political developments that brought Palestinians and Israelis to this latest war and political confrontation, the unilateral Israeli ceasefire in Gaza that started early Sunday morning will usher in profound political changes that will transform the regional landscape for years to come.
The historic changes are already underway in three parallel arenas: within Palestinian society, between Palestine and Israel, and between the Middle East and the Western powers.
And all three have been on display this week, with four (!) different Arab summit meetings in four cities (Riyadh, Doha, Sharm esh-Sheikh and Kuwait City) -- where the military battle between Gaza and Israel continues as political battles of regional and global implication.
An ideological struggle started in the 1970s: That was when the pan-Arab nationalism of the 1950s and 60s died, organized Palestinian guerrilla groups challenged Israel and some Arab regimes, and Iranian Islamist-nationalists overthrew the Shah of Iran. The past 30 years in the Middle East has witnessed a tug-of-war between two broad camps of people and movements: those who would anchor their nationalism and development in the indigenous Arab-Islamic, Iranian-Islamic, or Turkish-Islamic identities; and those who would link their fate to the material and military inducements of vassal-like acceptance of American and Israeli interests.
The battle for Gaza captures all these elements simultaneously in a way that has never been so clear before. On the one hand, Israel relies on American, European, and some Arab support as it tries to bludgeon and starve the Palestinians of Gaza into submission, and tries to replace the surging Hamas with the wilted and discredited Palestinian Authority's President Mahmoud Abbas.
On the other hand, half a dozen major Arab, Iranian, and Turkish actors, and a clear and growing majority of regional and world public opinion, support Palestinian rights. This support is sometimes reflected in explicit support for Hamas, but mostly in solidarity with the Palestinian civilians who have stood their ground in the face of Israel's gruesome onslaught.
The unilateral Israeli ceasefire will emphasize and aggravate these trends, and will set the stage for a prolonged political struggle – a struggle that will mirror the dynamics we have witnessed on the battlefield for the past three weeks.
The core issue to watch in the coming weeks and months is the balance between Israel's desire for unilateral control and dominance versus the Palestinians' determination to achieve liberation from the Israeli-American-led siege of Gaza and desire for explicit political legitimacy by formal diplomatic engagement.
The core problem in the short run has been the Israeli desire to make unilateral decisions that affirm its total control of the situation without engaging the rising power of the Hamas movement and allied Palestinian Islamists and nationalists. Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967, colonized it unilaterally, brutalized it unilaterally, pauperized it unilaterally, withdrew unilaterally, laid siege to it unilaterally, and now has attacked it and ceased-fire unilaterally. Every one of Israel's unilateral actions in recent years has failed to achieve its objectives -- and this unilateral ceasefire is also likely to fail.
The lesson that Israel seems too frenzied or stubborn to learn is that resolving the underlying Palestinian-Israeli conflict needs a negotiated agreement between two sides -- and cannot be achieved unilaterally. The historic importance of Hamas rests on its challenging Israel's unilateralist penchant in a manner that previous Palestinian movements -- especially Yasser Arafat's Fateh -- could not or dared not do.
It took advantage of the Israeli withdrawal and siege of Gaza to prepare for a military faceoff. Hamas knew it could not match Israel's superior firepower and technology, but it calculated correctly that it would gain politically by taking its stand -- and a beating -- and still emerging as the most credible Palestinian leadership.
Hamas' willingness to absorb Israel's military overkill and emerge on its feet mirrors Hizbullah's experience in Lebanon in 2006. It must be dealt with, if not today then in a few months down the road, because it represents the sort of legitimacy that few other Arab leaderships can boast. The cost in civilian lives and infrastructure has been high, which means it will be reluctant to go through the war experience again any time soon – again, similar to Hizbullah after it emerged on its feet from 34 days of fighting.
Hamas' most important immediate goal remains relieving the Israeli-American siege of Gaza, which is likely to emerge from the diplomatic discussions to come in the weeks ahead. Israel will have to stop attacking and strangulating Gaza, in return for Hamas holding its fire against southern Israel.
Both sides will say they achieved their key goals -- but Hamas will be the bigger political winner in the wake of the fighting. It will now have to use its greater political capital to operate more subtly in domestic, regional and global forums, where it will enjoy much more credibility, legitimacy and impact.
Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.
Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global
Bodies Unearthed From Rubble As Israel Violates Ceasefire
See the notes on the source at the end of the article.
Bodies Unearthed From Rubble As Israel Violates Ceasefire
Press release, Al Mezan, 18 January 2009
Israel has announced to unilaterally cease fire in the Gaza Strip while leaving its troops in positions they had seized during the so-called Operation Cast Lead. Al Mezan Center's staff visited some of the areas the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) left last night and this morning. It found out that a disaster had struck these areas, which had not been accessible for weeks. The findings provide evidence about the likelihood that the IOF had perpetrated war crimes in these areas. In particular, dozens of civilians' corpses have been found in a bad condition under the rubble of destroyed houses. Moreover, the scene of destruction of neighborhoods suggests that wide-scaled home demolitions were systematically conducted by the IOF.
Al Mezan Center's field workers reported that entire urban blocks have disappeared in the areas of Ezbet Abed-Rabu, al-Salatin, al-Atatra, al-Israa in North Gaza District, and al-Kashif and al-Rayis Hills and the eastern suburbs of Gaza City. As of 2pm, medical teams had found 62 corpses of people under the rubble of houses, or rubble moved by Israeli bulldozers. Among them were eight children and 10 women. It is not known yet whether those were buried under the rubble alive or dead.
According to Al Mezan Center's monitoring, the IOF has breached the unilaterally declared ceasefire. Shooting and shelling from artillery batteries, tanks and naval vessels have occurred in various areas throughout the day. Israeli aircraft also launched raids on open areas. At 10:30am, Israeli troops opened fire at civilians who were trying to reach their homes in Khuzaa village, east of Khan Younis. A man, 22-year-old Mahir Abu Irjila, was killed as a result. The victim and his family had evacuated their house and stayed in a UN shelter.
With these casualties, the number of Palestinians killed by the IOF in the Gaza Strip since the start of Operation Cast Lead on 27 December 2009 has risen to 1,253, including at least 280 children and 95 women. Another 4,009 people were injured, including 860 children and 488 women.
Al Mezan Center has started a campaign to document with detail the implications of the IOF's operations on life and property in the Gaza Strip. It has also started to investigate dozens of cases where the likelihood of the perpetration of war crimes is evident.
Al Mezan Center highlights the necessity of ensuring that the IOF would not return to its disproportionate, indiscriminate military actions in the Gaza Strip. The Center has witnessed the manner in which the IOF carried out its operations, with flagrant disregard to applicable international law and to civilian life. As the Center continues its monitoring and documentation efforts with regard to what has already happened in Gaza, it demands that the international community takes a solid stance concerning the behavior of the IOF: civilians must not be targeted and international law must be observed at all times, especially during armed conflict. Al Mezan remains alarmed by the current fragile conditions which have resulted from unilateral arrangements that might not end the hostilities.
Al Mezan expresses its outrage by the facts it has found in those areas which the IOF had invaded more than two weeks ago. The findings proved that the fears that civilians and civilians property in these areas had been treated in cruel ways. Dozens of corpses have been brought to hospitals with increasing allegations that civilians were killed or left to die as the IOF refrained from making any efforts to aid the wounded or survivors. Al Mezan condemns this practice, which represents a serious violation of international law and norms of armed conflict.
Al Mezan Center also calls on the international community to promptly relief aid for the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, particularly those who have lost their breadwinners, parents, homes and assets due to the Israeli attacks. The Center calls on UNRWA [the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees] to continue its efforts to aid the displaced people; thousands of whom have lost their homes as a result of IOF's raids and demolitions. As schooling is expected to be resumed on 23 January, alternative shelters are needed for those who cannot return to their homes.
Al Mezan also asserts the need for urgent international intervention to prevent any IOF attacks against civilians and civilian objects in Gaza in the future, and to investigate the IOF's actions, many of which represent war crimes, in accordance with international law.
Al Mezan Center also renews its calls on the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Times of War, of 1949, to live up to their legal and moral responsibilities upholding their own obligations under Common Article 1, by respecting, and ensuring respect of, the Convention.
Comment: The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights is a nongovernmental organization based in the Jabalia Palestine refugee camp in Gaza. It is funded by Dutch, Swiss and Swedish groups. While right wing groups in Israel consider it a propaganda organ of the Palestinians, Israel's human rights organization, B'Tselem, is supportive. B'Tselem is an Israeli non-governmental organization (NGO). It refers to itself as "The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories". The group was founded on February 3, 1989 by a group of Israeli public figures, including lawyers, academics, journalists, and members of the Knesset.
B'Tselem's stated goals are "to document and educate the Israeli public and policymakers about human rights violations in the Occupied Territories, combat the phenomenon of denial prevalent among the Israeli public, and help create a human rights culture in Israel". B'Tselem is financed by the foreign ministries of the United Kingdom and Norway, as well as foundations based in Europe and North America.
Bodies Unearthed From Rubble As Israel Violates Ceasefire
Press release, Al Mezan, 18 January 2009
Israel has announced to unilaterally cease fire in the Gaza Strip while leaving its troops in positions they had seized during the so-called Operation Cast Lead. Al Mezan Center's staff visited some of the areas the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) left last night and this morning. It found out that a disaster had struck these areas, which had not been accessible for weeks. The findings provide evidence about the likelihood that the IOF had perpetrated war crimes in these areas. In particular, dozens of civilians' corpses have been found in a bad condition under the rubble of destroyed houses. Moreover, the scene of destruction of neighborhoods suggests that wide-scaled home demolitions were systematically conducted by the IOF.
Al Mezan Center's field workers reported that entire urban blocks have disappeared in the areas of Ezbet Abed-Rabu, al-Salatin, al-Atatra, al-Israa in North Gaza District, and al-Kashif and al-Rayis Hills and the eastern suburbs of Gaza City. As of 2pm, medical teams had found 62 corpses of people under the rubble of houses, or rubble moved by Israeli bulldozers. Among them were eight children and 10 women. It is not known yet whether those were buried under the rubble alive or dead.
According to Al Mezan Center's monitoring, the IOF has breached the unilaterally declared ceasefire. Shooting and shelling from artillery batteries, tanks and naval vessels have occurred in various areas throughout the day. Israeli aircraft also launched raids on open areas. At 10:30am, Israeli troops opened fire at civilians who were trying to reach their homes in Khuzaa village, east of Khan Younis. A man, 22-year-old Mahir Abu Irjila, was killed as a result. The victim and his family had evacuated their house and stayed in a UN shelter.
With these casualties, the number of Palestinians killed by the IOF in the Gaza Strip since the start of Operation Cast Lead on 27 December 2009 has risen to 1,253, including at least 280 children and 95 women. Another 4,009 people were injured, including 860 children and 488 women.
Al Mezan Center has started a campaign to document with detail the implications of the IOF's operations on life and property in the Gaza Strip. It has also started to investigate dozens of cases where the likelihood of the perpetration of war crimes is evident.
Al Mezan Center highlights the necessity of ensuring that the IOF would not return to its disproportionate, indiscriminate military actions in the Gaza Strip. The Center has witnessed the manner in which the IOF carried out its operations, with flagrant disregard to applicable international law and to civilian life. As the Center continues its monitoring and documentation efforts with regard to what has already happened in Gaza, it demands that the international community takes a solid stance concerning the behavior of the IOF: civilians must not be targeted and international law must be observed at all times, especially during armed conflict. Al Mezan remains alarmed by the current fragile conditions which have resulted from unilateral arrangements that might not end the hostilities.
Al Mezan expresses its outrage by the facts it has found in those areas which the IOF had invaded more than two weeks ago. The findings proved that the fears that civilians and civilians property in these areas had been treated in cruel ways. Dozens of corpses have been brought to hospitals with increasing allegations that civilians were killed or left to die as the IOF refrained from making any efforts to aid the wounded or survivors. Al Mezan condemns this practice, which represents a serious violation of international law and norms of armed conflict.
Al Mezan Center also calls on the international community to promptly relief aid for the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, particularly those who have lost their breadwinners, parents, homes and assets due to the Israeli attacks. The Center calls on UNRWA [the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees] to continue its efforts to aid the displaced people; thousands of whom have lost their homes as a result of IOF's raids and demolitions. As schooling is expected to be resumed on 23 January, alternative shelters are needed for those who cannot return to their homes.
Al Mezan also asserts the need for urgent international intervention to prevent any IOF attacks against civilians and civilian objects in Gaza in the future, and to investigate the IOF's actions, many of which represent war crimes, in accordance with international law.
Al Mezan Center also renews its calls on the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Times of War, of 1949, to live up to their legal and moral responsibilities upholding their own obligations under Common Article 1, by respecting, and ensuring respect of, the Convention.
Comment: The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights is a nongovernmental organization based in the Jabalia Palestine refugee camp in Gaza. It is funded by Dutch, Swiss and Swedish groups. While right wing groups in Israel consider it a propaganda organ of the Palestinians, Israel's human rights organization, B'Tselem, is supportive. B'Tselem is an Israeli non-governmental organization (NGO). It refers to itself as "The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories". The group was founded on February 3, 1989 by a group of Israeli public figures, including lawyers, academics, journalists, and members of the Knesset.
B'Tselem's stated goals are "to document and educate the Israeli public and policymakers about human rights violations in the Occupied Territories, combat the phenomenon of denial prevalent among the Israeli public, and help create a human rights culture in Israel". B'Tselem is financed by the foreign ministries of the United Kingdom and Norway, as well as foundations based in Europe and North America.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Democracy? Israel Bars Arab Parties from Election By Jonathan Cook, AlterNet
AlterNet
Democracy? Israel Bars Arab Parties from Election
By Jonathan Cook, AlterNet
Posted on January 16, 2009, Printed on January 17, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/120198/
The only three Arab parties represented in the Israeli parliament vowed yesterday to fight a decision by the Central Elections Committee to bar them from running in next month's general election.
In an unprecedented move signaling a further breakdown in Jewish-Arab relations inside Israel, all the main Jewish parties voted on Monday for the blanket disqualification. Several committee members equated the Arab parties' vocal support for the Gazan people with support for terrorism.
The decision follows the arrest of at least 600 Arab demonstrators since the outbreak of the Gaza offensive and the interrogation by the secret police of dozens of Arab community leaders. The three parties -- the National Democratic Assembly, the United Arab List and the Renewal Movement -- have seven legislators out of a total of 120 in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.
The elections committee barred all three from putting up candidates for the Feb 10 election on the grounds that they had violated a 2002 law by refusing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and by supporting a terrorist organization.
Ahmed Tibi, the leader of Renewal, denounced the decision as "a political trial led by a group of fascists and racists who are willing to see the Knesset without Arabs and want to see the country without Arabs".
A petition against the disqualification will be heard by a panel of Supreme Court justices this week.
Hassan Jabareen, the director of the Adalah legal rights group, which represents the Arab parties, noted that the disqualification motion had been introduced by far right-wing parties. Such parties include Yisrael Beiteinu, which campaigns for the country's 1.2 million-strong Arab minority to be stripped of citizenship.
"It is absurd that the committee is backing a motion from racist parties in the Knesset to exclude the Arab parties whose platform is that Israel must be made into a proper democracy treating all its citizens equally."
The elections committee is composed of representatives from all the major parties. Although it has voted for disqualification of Arab candidates before, it is the first time both that the left-wing Labor Party has backed such a motion and that all the Arab parties have been included in the ban.
Mr. Jabareen accused the right-wing parties of exploiting the war atmosphere. Labor's secretary general, Eitan Cabel, called his party's conduct in voting for the disqualification "patriotic".
All the Arab parties have harshly criticized the attack on Gaza. This week Mr. Tibi described Israeli actions as "genocide", while Ibrahim Sarsour, of the United Arab List, said Israel was seeking to "eliminate the Palestinian cause".
In the past, Arab Knesset members have also upset their Jewish colleagues by travelling to neighboring Arab states, defying a change in the law to prevent such visits.
Following the vote on the ban, Avigdor Lieberman, leader of Yisrael Beiteinu, suggested his party had additional goals: "The next battle is making [the National Democratic Assembly] illegal because it is a terrorist organization whose objective is harming the state of Israel."
Mr. Lieberman and other legislators have been hounding the NDA for years, chiefly because it is led by Azmi Bishara, an outspoken proponent of equal rights for Arab citizens. Israeli secret police forced Mr. Bishara into exile two years ago, accusing him of treason after the 2006 Lebanon war.
During the 2003 election, when the committee barred the NDA and Mr. Tibi from running, the decision was overturned by a majority of the Supreme Court. But few of the justices from that hearing are still on the bench.
"There are reasons to be fearful," Mr. Jabareen said. "The Supreme Court is also susceptible to the current war atmosphere and its authority has been greatly eroded over the past year. It has been forced on to the defensive over claims from the Right that its decisions support the Left."
If the ban is upheld, some Arab representation in the Knesset is likely to continue. The joint Arab and Jewish Communist Party is allowed to stand, and the three major Jewish parties include one or two Arab candidates on their lists, though not always in electable positions.
Meanwhile, Israeli police admitted they arrested about 600 people involved in protests against the Gaza offensive, some of them for stone-throwing. Adalah lawyers said more than 200 people, most of them Arab, were still in jail.
"We're talking about mass arrests," said Abeer Baker, adding that Israel was exploiting a 30-day window before an indictment had to be filed to hold suspects without producing evidence.
In addition, the Shin Bet, Israel's secretive domestic security service, has called in dozens of Arab leaders for interrogation. Ameer Makhoul, head of the Ittijah organization, which promotes Arab causes in Israel, was detained last week. He said a security official who interrogated him threatened to jail him over demonstrations he helped to organise in support of Gaza.
"The officer called me a rebel threatening the security of the state during time of war and said he would be happy to transfer me to Gaza," Mr. Makhoul said.
Haaretz, a leftist Israeli daily newspaper, has called the interrogations "intimidation tactics to prevent legitimate protest".
A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.
© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/120198/
Democracy? Israel Bars Arab Parties from Election
By Jonathan Cook, AlterNet
Posted on January 16, 2009, Printed on January 17, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/120198/
The only three Arab parties represented in the Israeli parliament vowed yesterday to fight a decision by the Central Elections Committee to bar them from running in next month's general election.
In an unprecedented move signaling a further breakdown in Jewish-Arab relations inside Israel, all the main Jewish parties voted on Monday for the blanket disqualification. Several committee members equated the Arab parties' vocal support for the Gazan people with support for terrorism.
The decision follows the arrest of at least 600 Arab demonstrators since the outbreak of the Gaza offensive and the interrogation by the secret police of dozens of Arab community leaders. The three parties -- the National Democratic Assembly, the United Arab List and the Renewal Movement -- have seven legislators out of a total of 120 in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.
The elections committee barred all three from putting up candidates for the Feb 10 election on the grounds that they had violated a 2002 law by refusing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and by supporting a terrorist organization.
Ahmed Tibi, the leader of Renewal, denounced the decision as "a political trial led by a group of fascists and racists who are willing to see the Knesset without Arabs and want to see the country without Arabs".
A petition against the disqualification will be heard by a panel of Supreme Court justices this week.
Hassan Jabareen, the director of the Adalah legal rights group, which represents the Arab parties, noted that the disqualification motion had been introduced by far right-wing parties. Such parties include Yisrael Beiteinu, which campaigns for the country's 1.2 million-strong Arab minority to be stripped of citizenship.
"It is absurd that the committee is backing a motion from racist parties in the Knesset to exclude the Arab parties whose platform is that Israel must be made into a proper democracy treating all its citizens equally."
The elections committee is composed of representatives from all the major parties. Although it has voted for disqualification of Arab candidates before, it is the first time both that the left-wing Labor Party has backed such a motion and that all the Arab parties have been included in the ban.
Mr. Jabareen accused the right-wing parties of exploiting the war atmosphere. Labor's secretary general, Eitan Cabel, called his party's conduct in voting for the disqualification "patriotic".
All the Arab parties have harshly criticized the attack on Gaza. This week Mr. Tibi described Israeli actions as "genocide", while Ibrahim Sarsour, of the United Arab List, said Israel was seeking to "eliminate the Palestinian cause".
In the past, Arab Knesset members have also upset their Jewish colleagues by travelling to neighboring Arab states, defying a change in the law to prevent such visits.
Following the vote on the ban, Avigdor Lieberman, leader of Yisrael Beiteinu, suggested his party had additional goals: "The next battle is making [the National Democratic Assembly] illegal because it is a terrorist organization whose objective is harming the state of Israel."
Mr. Lieberman and other legislators have been hounding the NDA for years, chiefly because it is led by Azmi Bishara, an outspoken proponent of equal rights for Arab citizens. Israeli secret police forced Mr. Bishara into exile two years ago, accusing him of treason after the 2006 Lebanon war.
During the 2003 election, when the committee barred the NDA and Mr. Tibi from running, the decision was overturned by a majority of the Supreme Court. But few of the justices from that hearing are still on the bench.
"There are reasons to be fearful," Mr. Jabareen said. "The Supreme Court is also susceptible to the current war atmosphere and its authority has been greatly eroded over the past year. It has been forced on to the defensive over claims from the Right that its decisions support the Left."
If the ban is upheld, some Arab representation in the Knesset is likely to continue. The joint Arab and Jewish Communist Party is allowed to stand, and the three major Jewish parties include one or two Arab candidates on their lists, though not always in electable positions.
Meanwhile, Israeli police admitted they arrested about 600 people involved in protests against the Gaza offensive, some of them for stone-throwing. Adalah lawyers said more than 200 people, most of them Arab, were still in jail.
"We're talking about mass arrests," said Abeer Baker, adding that Israel was exploiting a 30-day window before an indictment had to be filed to hold suspects without producing evidence.
In addition, the Shin Bet, Israel's secretive domestic security service, has called in dozens of Arab leaders for interrogation. Ameer Makhoul, head of the Ittijah organization, which promotes Arab causes in Israel, was detained last week. He said a security official who interrogated him threatened to jail him over demonstrations he helped to organise in support of Gaza.
"The officer called me a rebel threatening the security of the state during time of war and said he would be happy to transfer me to Gaza," Mr. Makhoul said.
Haaretz, a leftist Israeli daily newspaper, has called the interrogations "intimidation tactics to prevent legitimate protest".
A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.
© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/120198/
Freeze Arab Initiative, Israel Ties: Summit
Freeze Arab Initiative, Israel Ties: Summit
IslamOnline.net & News Agencies
The summiteers called for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
The summiteers called for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
DOHA – Arab and Muslim leaders and officials who came together Friday, January 16, in Doha have called for suspending the Arab peace initiative and freezing all Arab ties with Israel over its ongoing onslaught against the Gaza Strip.
"Arab countries should consider suspending the Arab peace initiative with Israel," the summiteers said in a final statement read out by Qatari Premier and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said Qatar.
The 2002 initiative offers Israel normal relations will all Arab counties in return for its full withdrawal from all Arab land and a just solution to the issue of Palestinian refugees.
Since the Arabs first tabled it in the Beirut Arab summit, Israel has never accepted the initiative.
Addressing leaders at the emergency summit, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stressed the Arab initiative was now "dead".
The Doha meeting was attended by 13 of the Arab League's 22 members plus Iranian President Ahmadinejad.
Turkey also took part, with Ankara sending an aide to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Absent were Arab heavyweights Egypt and Saudi Arabia, in addition to several other countries.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also reneged on his earlier decision to attend the summit.
Qatar had proposed hosting a special Arab summit on Gaza, but Egypt and Saudi Arabia said they preferred to discuss Gaza at a planned economic summit in Kuwait on Monday.
Doha failed to secure the quorum of 15 needed for a formal Arab League summit.
Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League, admitted on Friday that the Arab nation's reaction to the war on Gaza was "in a very big chaos".
Freezing Ties
The Doha-hosted summit also called for reviewing ties with Israel over the Gaza onslaught.
"All Arab countries should also freeze all ties, including diplomatic and economic, with Israel," said the statement.
President Assad said Arab countries should cut "all direct and indirect" ties with Israel in protest against its offensive in Gaza.
"Syria has decided that indirect peace negotiations with Israel will be halted," he told delegates.
His comments echoed those of Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal.
Earlier today, Qatar and Mauritania froze ties with Israel over its three-week-old offensive on Gaza.
Sheikh Hamad said Qatar, the only Gulf Arab state with ties to Israel, would ask Israel to close its trade office in Doha and remove its staff until the situation improved.
In Nouakchott, Mauritania said it had frozen political and economic ties with Israel following the recall of its ambassador for consultations last week in protest at the Gaza offensive.
Egypt and Jordan are the only Arab countries which have signed peace treaties with Israel and which have Israeli embassies.
The summiteers called for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
Other demands included the opening of all border crossings, lifting of the blockade, and holding Israel responsible for paying compensation.
The summit also agreed that all Arab countries should form a "sea-bridge" that would enable aid supplies to reach Gaza.
It also called for creating a Gaza rebuilding fund.
The Qatari emir had called for such a fund earlier this week, announcing that his country was donating 250 million dollars for the launch of the fund.
A meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Kuwait drafted a set of resolutions including the creation of a $2 billion fund to rebuild Gaza.
IslamOnline.net & News Agencies
The summiteers called for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
The summiteers called for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
DOHA – Arab and Muslim leaders and officials who came together Friday, January 16, in Doha have called for suspending the Arab peace initiative and freezing all Arab ties with Israel over its ongoing onslaught against the Gaza Strip.
"Arab countries should consider suspending the Arab peace initiative with Israel," the summiteers said in a final statement read out by Qatari Premier and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said Qatar.
The 2002 initiative offers Israel normal relations will all Arab counties in return for its full withdrawal from all Arab land and a just solution to the issue of Palestinian refugees.
Since the Arabs first tabled it in the Beirut Arab summit, Israel has never accepted the initiative.
Addressing leaders at the emergency summit, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stressed the Arab initiative was now "dead".
The Doha meeting was attended by 13 of the Arab League's 22 members plus Iranian President Ahmadinejad.
Turkey also took part, with Ankara sending an aide to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Absent were Arab heavyweights Egypt and Saudi Arabia, in addition to several other countries.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also reneged on his earlier decision to attend the summit.
Qatar had proposed hosting a special Arab summit on Gaza, but Egypt and Saudi Arabia said they preferred to discuss Gaza at a planned economic summit in Kuwait on Monday.
Doha failed to secure the quorum of 15 needed for a formal Arab League summit.
Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League, admitted on Friday that the Arab nation's reaction to the war on Gaza was "in a very big chaos".
Freezing Ties
The Doha-hosted summit also called for reviewing ties with Israel over the Gaza onslaught.
"All Arab countries should also freeze all ties, including diplomatic and economic, with Israel," said the statement.
President Assad said Arab countries should cut "all direct and indirect" ties with Israel in protest against its offensive in Gaza.
"Syria has decided that indirect peace negotiations with Israel will be halted," he told delegates.
His comments echoed those of Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal.
Earlier today, Qatar and Mauritania froze ties with Israel over its three-week-old offensive on Gaza.
Sheikh Hamad said Qatar, the only Gulf Arab state with ties to Israel, would ask Israel to close its trade office in Doha and remove its staff until the situation improved.
In Nouakchott, Mauritania said it had frozen political and economic ties with Israel following the recall of its ambassador for consultations last week in protest at the Gaza offensive.
Egypt and Jordan are the only Arab countries which have signed peace treaties with Israel and which have Israeli embassies.
The summiteers called for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
Other demands included the opening of all border crossings, lifting of the blockade, and holding Israel responsible for paying compensation.
The summit also agreed that all Arab countries should form a "sea-bridge" that would enable aid supplies to reach Gaza.
It also called for creating a Gaza rebuilding fund.
The Qatari emir had called for such a fund earlier this week, announcing that his country was donating 250 million dollars for the launch of the fund.
A meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Kuwait drafted a set of resolutions including the creation of a $2 billion fund to rebuild Gaza.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Enough Outrage Over Gaza? by Scott MacLeod
TIME – MIDDLE EAST BLOG
1/15/09
Enough Outrage Over Gaza?
Scott MacLeod
Is the world reacting with sufficient outrage and urgency to the horrendous humanitarian toll in Gaza? When, in just 20 days, the Palestinian people have lost more than 1,000 dead-- in per capita terms the equivalent of 30,000 American lives, 10 times the number who died on 9/11? That kind of extrapolation, by the way, is a favorite debate tool of former Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. He uses it to drive home how a few hundred Israelis killed in terrorist attacks is a national catastrophe for Israel. Few Palestinians are in doubt that they, too, have unjustly fallen victim to a staggering loss of life.
The U.S., other Western governments, pro-Western Arab regimes and Israeli public opinion have been relatively mute about the moral issues like the proportionality of Israel's attacks and Israel's obligation to protect civilians. By and large, they've been eager to show solidarity with the Israeli government's accepted right of self defense against Hamas's rockets, or to cast Hamas as a radical threat to moderate Arab regimes and regional stability.
Yet, stopping there certainly ignores or blames the victims here—the ordinary, long suffering, people of Gaza. Does the relative silence need ignore the fact that a war against Hamas in the densely populated Strip would inevitably be fought with 1.5 million civilians arrayed from one end of the battlefield to the other and therefore caught squarely in the cross fire? Are we so inured to killing in the Middle East that such a huge death toll can be shrugged off in yet another war whose goals are as ambiguous as they are likely to remain elusive?
Actually, there has been an impressively large number of public protests around the world. As far as public officials are concerned, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has notably rushed to the defense of Gaza's defenseless. By coincidence, he was arriving for meetings in Israel with PM Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Thursday, just after Israeli shellfire struck the Gaza headquarters of the United Nations Works and Relief Agency--which has distributed aid to Palestinians since the birth of the refugee problem in 1948.
UNRWA officials said the attack destroyed all of the agency's food and medicine supplies, daily necessities for more than 1 million people who, currently, are under siege. They strongly disputed Israel's contention that Israel had been responding to attacks by Hamas fighters using UNRWA as a protective shelter. "I conveyed my strong protest and outrage to the defense minister and foreign minister and demanded a full explanation," Ban said after meeting Barak and Livni. For his part, Barak acknowledged that the Israeli attack was a "grave mistake." Olmert defended Israeli forces but said "the consequences are very sad and we apologize for it. I don't think it should have happened and I'm very sorry."
One of the strong statements of support for Gazans came from current UN General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, former Sandinista foreign minister in Nicaragua:
We here in United Nations headquarters have remained too passive for too long as the carnage continues.... Every day, we receive messages from Gaza and from around the world asking, indeed pleading, for the UN to stop the violence, protect civilians and attend to the humanitarian needs. Our business here today is urgent.
During this assault, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed, one-third of them children. More bodies remain buried under the rubble, out of reach of humanitarian workers because the shelling is too intense – the living would be killed trying to reach the dead. If this onslaught in Gaza is indeed a war, it is a war against a helpless, defenseless, imprisoned population.
As easy as it is for many to turn their eyes from the death toll, you can be certain that Gaza will be added as another source of frustration, hurt and anger experienced by Palestinians and Arabs everywhere—adding more fuel to the fire of political extremism, too. President-elect Obama, arguing there's only one president at a time, has been getting a pass for his own relative silence on Gaza so far. But many in the Middle East will be watching closely after the Inauguration next week, to see if Gaza inspired any sense of outrage or urgency in the new "leader of the free world."
1/15/09
Enough Outrage Over Gaza?
Scott MacLeod
Is the world reacting with sufficient outrage and urgency to the horrendous humanitarian toll in Gaza? When, in just 20 days, the Palestinian people have lost more than 1,000 dead-- in per capita terms the equivalent of 30,000 American lives, 10 times the number who died on 9/11? That kind of extrapolation, by the way, is a favorite debate tool of former Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. He uses it to drive home how a few hundred Israelis killed in terrorist attacks is a national catastrophe for Israel. Few Palestinians are in doubt that they, too, have unjustly fallen victim to a staggering loss of life.
The U.S., other Western governments, pro-Western Arab regimes and Israeli public opinion have been relatively mute about the moral issues like the proportionality of Israel's attacks and Israel's obligation to protect civilians. By and large, they've been eager to show solidarity with the Israeli government's accepted right of self defense against Hamas's rockets, or to cast Hamas as a radical threat to moderate Arab regimes and regional stability.
Yet, stopping there certainly ignores or blames the victims here—the ordinary, long suffering, people of Gaza. Does the relative silence need ignore the fact that a war against Hamas in the densely populated Strip would inevitably be fought with 1.5 million civilians arrayed from one end of the battlefield to the other and therefore caught squarely in the cross fire? Are we so inured to killing in the Middle East that such a huge death toll can be shrugged off in yet another war whose goals are as ambiguous as they are likely to remain elusive?
Actually, there has been an impressively large number of public protests around the world. As far as public officials are concerned, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has notably rushed to the defense of Gaza's defenseless. By coincidence, he was arriving for meetings in Israel with PM Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Thursday, just after Israeli shellfire struck the Gaza headquarters of the United Nations Works and Relief Agency--which has distributed aid to Palestinians since the birth of the refugee problem in 1948.
UNRWA officials said the attack destroyed all of the agency's food and medicine supplies, daily necessities for more than 1 million people who, currently, are under siege. They strongly disputed Israel's contention that Israel had been responding to attacks by Hamas fighters using UNRWA as a protective shelter. "I conveyed my strong protest and outrage to the defense minister and foreign minister and demanded a full explanation," Ban said after meeting Barak and Livni. For his part, Barak acknowledged that the Israeli attack was a "grave mistake." Olmert defended Israeli forces but said "the consequences are very sad and we apologize for it. I don't think it should have happened and I'm very sorry."
One of the strong statements of support for Gazans came from current UN General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, former Sandinista foreign minister in Nicaragua:
We here in United Nations headquarters have remained too passive for too long as the carnage continues.... Every day, we receive messages from Gaza and from around the world asking, indeed pleading, for the UN to stop the violence, protect civilians and attend to the humanitarian needs. Our business here today is urgent.
During this assault, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed, one-third of them children. More bodies remain buried under the rubble, out of reach of humanitarian workers because the shelling is too intense – the living would be killed trying to reach the dead. If this onslaught in Gaza is indeed a war, it is a war against a helpless, defenseless, imprisoned population.
As easy as it is for many to turn their eyes from the death toll, you can be certain that Gaza will be added as another source of frustration, hurt and anger experienced by Palestinians and Arabs everywhere—adding more fuel to the fire of political extremism, too. President-elect Obama, arguing there's only one president at a time, has been getting a pass for his own relative silence on Gaza so far. But many in the Middle East will be watching closely after the Inauguration next week, to see if Gaza inspired any sense of outrage or urgency in the new "leader of the free world."
Gaza invasion: Powered by the U.S.
SALON
1/16/09
Gaza invasion: Powered by the U.S.
Taxpayers are spending over $1 billion to send refined fuel to the Israeli military -- at a time when Israel doesn't need it and America does.
Robert Bryce
Israel's current air and ground assault on the Gaza Strip has left about 1,000 Palestinians dead, including 400 women and children. Several thousand people have been wounded and dozens of buildings have been destroyed. An estimated 90,000 Gazans have abandoned their homes. Israel's campaign in Gaza, which began more than two weeks ago, has been denounced by the Red Cross, multiple Arab and European countries, and agencies from the United Nations. Demonstrations in Pakistan and elsewhere have been held to denounce America's support for Israel.
It's well known that the U.S. supplies the Israelis with much of their military hardware. Over the past few decades, the U.S. has provided about $53 billion in military aid to Israel. What's not well known is that since 2004, U.S. taxpayers have paid to supply over 500 million gallons of refined oil products -- worth about $1.1 billion –- to the Israeli military. While a handful of countries get motor fuel from the U.S., they receive only a fraction of the fuel that Israel does -- fuel now being used by Israeli fighter jets, helicopters and tanks to battle Hamas.
According to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, between 2004 and 2007 the U.S. Defense Department gave $818 million worth of fuel to the Israeli military. The total amount was 479 million gallons, the equivalent of about 66 gallons per Israeli citizen. In 2008, an additional $280 million in fuel was given to the Israeli military, again at U.S. taxpayers' expense. The U.S. has even paid the cost of shipping the fuel from U.S. refineries to ports in Israel.
In 2008, the fuel shipped to Israel from U.S. refineries accounted for 2 percent of Israel's $13.3 billion defense budget. Publicly available data shows that about 2 percent of the U.S. Defense Department's budget is also spent on oil. A senior analyst at the Pentagon, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press, says the Israel Defense Force's fuel use is most likely similar to that of the U.S. Defense Department. In other words, the Israeli military is spending about the same percentage of its defense budget on oil as the U.S. is. Therefore it's possible that the U.S. is providing most, or perhaps even all, of the Israeli military's fuel needs.
What's more, Israel does not need the U.S. handout. Its own recently privatized refineries, located at Haifa and Ashdod, could supply all of the fuel needed by the Israeli military. Those same refineries are now producing and selling jet fuel and other refined products on the open market. But rather than purchase lower-cost jet fuel from its own refineries, the Israeli military is using U.S. taxpayer money to buy and ship large quantities of fuel from U.S. refineries.
The Israeli government obtains the fuel through the Defense Department's Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, and pays for the fuel and the shipping with funds granted to it through Foreign Military Financing (FMF), another Defense Department program. (In 2008, Congress earmarked $2.4 billion in FMF money for Israel, and $2.5 billion for 2009.) The dimensions of the FMS fuel program are virtually unknown among America's top experts on Middle East policy. For his part, the Pentagon analyst was surprised to learn that FMS money was even being used to supply fuel to Israel. "That's not the purpose of the program," he says. "FMS was designed to allow U.S. weapons makers to sell their goods to foreign countries. The idea that fuel is being bought under FMS is very, very odd."
The fuel program, in fact, raises a number of pressing questions. The shipments have occurred during times of record-high oil prices, when American consumers have been angered by motor fuel prices that in 2008 exceeded $4 per gallon. Given those high prices, it appears to make little sense for the U.S. government to be promoting policies that reduce the volume of -- and potentially raise the price of -- motor fuel available for sale to U.S. motorists.
The U.S. fuel shipments are part of a sustained policy that has widened the energy gap between Israel and its neighbors. Over the past few years, the Israel Defense Force has cut off fuel supplies and destroyed electricity infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. Those embargoes and attacks on power plants have exacerbated a huge gap in per-capita energy consumption between Israelis and Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. And that sharp disparity helps explain why the Palestinians have never been able to build a viable economy.
Edward S. Walker, former president of the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank, says the fuel supply program is emblematic of U.S. military support for Israel. Walker, who has served as U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Israel, explains that the FMF money allows the Israelis to "do with it what they want. They can buy equipment or fuel. It's their choice, not the government's choice. It's the only program where we give someone a blank check and they can use it any way that they choose."
Given the recent spike in oil prices, which helped send the U.S. and the world economy into a tailspin, and Americans still smarting from paying $4 at the pump, says Walker, "Why are we supplying fuel to Israel when we are paying such high prices?"
Since 1948, oil has been a critically important commodity for both the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli economy. And Israeli leaders have long worried about their energy security. In 1957, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion wrote in his diary, "The only sanctions which could defeat or break us are oil sanctions."
In 1967, Egypt's blockade of the Straits of Tiran precipitated the Six Day War. The Straits, writes Israeli historian Michael Oren in his book on the conflict, "Six Days of War," were "a lifeline for the Jewish state, the conduit to its quiet import of Iranian oil." In 1973, the Yom Kippur War (Arabs call it the Ramadan War) led to the Arab Oil Embargo, an event that still reverberates in the U.S., particularly in the fanciful political rhetoric about the desire for "energy independence."
The U.S.-Israel oil relationship goes back to 1975. In September of that year, Henry Kissinger, who was then secretary of state, struck a deal with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin that led the Israelis to partially withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula. The agreement required Israel to pull out of the Giddi and Mitla passes and relinquish the Sinai oilfields the Israelis had captured during the 1967 war.
In return, Kissinger agreed that America would provide multibillion-dollar economic and military subsidies to Israel. He also agreed that the U.S. would supply Israel with oil in case of any emergency. That agreement was formalized in 1979 about the time of the Camp David peace talks. It says that the U.S. will "make every effort to help Israel secure the necessary means of transport" for the oil that it purchases. The agreement concludes by saying that the U.S. and Israel will "meet annually, or more frequently at the request of either party, to review Israel's continuing oil requirement."
Since 1979, the agreement has been quietly renewed every five years. (The most recent approval of the document was done by the U.S. State Department in November of 2005.) The U.S. does not provide any other country the same insurance.
Nor does any other country get anything close to the volume of fuel that Israel does under FMS. In 2004, more than 140 countries received FMS aid from the U.S. Of that group, only about 13 countries received fuel of any kind through the FMS program and the biggest recipient, after Israel, was Singapore, which got $7.3 million in fuel. That year, Israel received 17 times more FMS fuel than all of the other countries combined.
Why did the U.S. Defense Department begin providing oil to Israel in 1986? And why does the program persist, particularly given that Israel no longer sees its refineries as strategic assets? The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which manages the FMS and FMF programs, referred questions about the program to the Israeli government. The press office of the Israeli Embassy in Washington did not respond to numerous requests about the program.
While the rationale for the oil transfers remains elusive, the facts behind Israel's refinery privatization are freely available. In 2006, the government sold the Ashdod refinery to Israeli tycoon Zadik Bino for about $500 million. And in early 2007, it sold the larger refinery in Haifa to a group led by Israel Corp., the shipping and chemicals conglomerate, for $1.5 billion.
The sale of the refineries marked a major turning point in Israel's attitude toward oil. In its earliest years as an independent nation, Israel's survival was made possible by using crude from the Soviet Union and Venezuela. >From the 1950s to the late 1970s, Iranian crude was the lifeblood of the Zionist state. Later still, the Israelis relied on the Kuwaitis. Today, the Russians are providing much of Israel's crude needs. And the sale of the refineries is indicative of the Israeli government's confidence in its ongoing ability to purchase the oil it needs on the international market.
Nevertheless, the FMS fuel shipments to Israel have continued. The most recent shipments for which records are readily available occurred in July and October 2008.
On July 7, 2008, the spot price for U.S. crude oil hit a near-record of $141. That same day, the San Antonio Business Journal reported that San Antonio-based refiner Valero Energy Corp. had been awarded a contract by the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC) worth $46 million to provide fuel to Israel. Valero has won a number of lucrative contracts from the DESC, the Defense Department agency that handles all of the Pentagon's bulk fuel purchases. On Oct. 9, the Journal reported that Valero had been awarded a $235 million contract under FMS. Bill Day, a spokesman for Valero, says that the company "doesn't talk publicly about its contracts."
Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that U.S. taxpayers are paying the shipping costs to move the fuel from refineries -- many of them on the Texas Gulf Coast -- to Israeli ports at Haifa or Ashkelon. Shipping costs vary but one specific bid called for shipping costs of $.30 per gallon. Officials with the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the arm of the Pentagon that manages programs that "strengthen America's alliances and partnerships," has confirmed that the costs to ship the fuel from U.S. refineries to Israel have been paid for with FMF money designated for Israel by Congress.
The huge FMS fuel shipments are puzzling to the Israelis. Amit Mor, CEO of Eco Energy, an Israeli consulting and investment firm, has worked on energy issues in his home country for about two decades. In a recent e-mail, Mor says that "there is a paradox" in the fuel shipments that Israel gets from the U.S. He said that the privately owned Israeli refineries export jet fuel in "FOB prices," while the defense ministry imports jet fuel in "high CIF prices," with the funds of U.S. military assistance.
FOB, short for "free on board," means that customers must take possession of the fuel at the refinery and then pay for all shipping and related costs to get the fuel to its final destination. On the other hand, as Mor explains, the Israeli military is importing fuel from U.S. refineries located 7,000 miles away, while incurring the CIF, short for "cost, insurance and freight," of moving the fuel that distance.
Mor says Israeli refiners have "complained about this issue" but have had no luck with the Israeli government. He goes on to say that "it is the U.S. government that insisted for some reason to continue with this historical, costly and inefficient arrangement."
Energy analysts squabble about a myriad of issues. But if there is one truism that draws near-universal agreement, it's this: As energy consumption increases, so does wealth. And while that truism holds for oil use, it is particularly apt for electricity. As Peter Huber and Mark Mills point out in their 2005 book, "The Bottomless Well," "Economic growth marches hand in hand with increased consumption of electricity -- always, everywhere, without significant exception in the annals of modern industrial history."
That statement underscores the significance of the FMS fuel shipments to Israel, many of which have occurred at or near the time that the Israeli military has attacked the electric power plants of its neighbors.
In late June 2006, Israeli aircraft fired nine missiles at the transformers at the Gaza City Power Plant, the only electric power plant in the Occupied Territories. (One of the original partners in the project was Enron, but that's another story.) The missiles caused damage estimated at $15 million to $20 million and, for a time, made Gaza wholly reliant on electricity flows from Israel. The 140-megawatt power plant, owned by the Palestine Electric Co., was insured by the Overseas Private Investment Corp., an arm of the U.S. government. Thus the U.S. was providing fuel and materiel to the Israeli military, which destroyed the plant, but it was also paying to fix the damage. Call it cradle-to-grave service.
The Israeli attack on the Gaza City Power Plant offers a stark example of how the FMS fuel helps assure that Israel stays energy rich while many of the citizens in neighboring regions live in energy poverty.
Two weeks after the attack on the Gaza City plant in 2006, during Israel's monthlong war against Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, Israeli aircraft attacked the 346-megawatt Jiyyeh power plant, the oldest electric power plant in Lebanon. Those attacks resulted in the largest-ever oil spill in the eastern Mediterranean. About 100,000 barrels of fuel oil that was stored in tanks at the Jiyyeh site flowed into the sea, creating an oil slick that stretched for more than 150 kilometers.
The attacks on the Jiyyeh plant occurred on July 13 and July 15. Those dates are important because they underscore the timing of the U.S. fuel transfers to Israel.
On July 14, 2006, the U.S. military issued two press releases. In one of them, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced that it would be providing up to $210 million in JP-8 jet fuel to the Israeli government. The other release, put out at 5 p.m. Eastern time, came from the Defense Logistics Agency, which said that it had awarded a $36.7 million contract to Valero as part of another JP-8 supply deal for Israel.
The July 14 release contains this rather bland description of the fuel deal: "The proposed sale of the JP-8 aviation fuel will enable Israel to maintain the operational capability of its aircraft inventory. The jet fuel will be consumed while the aircraft is in use to keep peace and security in the region. Israel will have no difficulty absorbing this additional fuel into its armed forces." The release goes on to claim that the "proposed sale of this JP-8 aviation fuel will not affect the basic military balance in the region."
While the attacks on the Jiyyeh plant were important, Lebanese citizens could get electricity from other power plants in the country. That was not true in Gaza, a province in which electricity has always been in short supply. According to the CIA Fact Book, the Gaza Strip ranks dead last -- 214th out of 214 countries and territories listed -- in the amount of electricity consumed. According to the Palestinian Energy and Natural Resources Agency, in 2004, the average Gazan used about 654 kilowatt-hours of electricity. By contrast, the 7.1 million residents of Israel consume about 6,295 kilowatt-hours of electric power per person per year, nearly 10 times as much as the average Gazan.
Although more recent energy consumption data for Gaza is not available, there's no question that the endemic poverty in the West Bank and particularly in Gaza, is due, largely, to a continuing lack of energy resources. And the Israelis have frequently cut off the flow of fuel and electricity, which has exacerbated the Palestinians' energy poverty.
Over the past few years, the Israelis have cut off the flow of energy to Gaza as retribution for various transgressions. And those cutoffs have forced the Gaza City Power Plant to shut down for lack of the fuel oil it needs to operate. When the power plant is idled, most of the residents of Gaza City are left without power and overall power supplies in the Gaza Strip decline by about 25 percent.
In May 2006, Israel cut off the flow of oil into the Occupied Territories after the Islamic group Hamas won local elections. In January 2008, the Israelis closed the border crossings into Gaza, which resulted in a fuel shortage that closed the Gaza power plant. In April 2008, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency stopped distributing aid in Gaza after it ran out of fuel. The Israelis stopped the fuel flow as retribution for attacks that killed two Israeli civilians and three Israeli soldiers. In November 2008, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency was again forced to suspend work due to lack of fuel. The fuel shortage occurred after Israel closed the border into Gaza in response to rockets and mortar shells that had been fired into Israel from Gaza.
The disparity in energy consumption between the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza and their counterpartsin Israel is just one element in the centuries-old story of tragedy and conflict in the region. But with the U.S. squarely on the side of the Israelis in the Gaza campaign, the potential for an angry backlash against the U.S. appears to be growing.
And that anger will likely only increase when Arabs begin to understand that much of the fuel that the U.S. is giving to Israel is being refined from Arab oil. The Valero refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas, which has won several of the FMS contracts for Israel, is a big buyer of Mideast crude. During the second quarter of 2006, according to data collected by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the refinery got about 40 percent of its crude oil from Kuwait or Saudi Arabia.
In short, U.S. taxpayers are paying for U.S. energy companies to buy Arab crude, ship it across the Atlantic to refineries in the U.S., refine it, and then ship it back across the Atlantic so that the Israel Defense Force can use it in its wars.
While the origination point of the crude may only matter to part of the Arab world, it is becoming apparent that bloodshed in Gaza is further complicating America's efforts to gain credibility as an honest broker in the region. Anti-U.S. sentiment is not in America's long-term interest, says former diplomat Chas Freeman, a man whose résumé in international affairs extends back nearly four decades.
Freeman is a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, as well as a former assistance secretary of defense. He served as Richard Nixon's chief interpreter during Nixon's visit to China in 1972. Now the president of the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington think tank, Freeman says the FMS fuel program for Israel runs counter to long-term goals of resolving the Palestinian conflict and America's stated goal of protecting the flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf. The Defense Department has assumed "unilateral responsibility for the protection of the oil trade in the Persian Gulf, and yet it's assuming responsibility for the delivery of aviation fuel for the Israeli military," he says. "That's confused and contradictory." The program, he adds, is "one of many elements of our relationship with Israel that is very hard to explain."
Freeman may be correct, but the House of Representatives has scant doubt about continued U.S. support for Israel. Nor has Congress shown much interest in the fuel shortages among Palestinians. On Jan. 9, the 14th day of the fighting in Gaza, the House passed a resolution sponsored by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "recognizing Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza." The vote was 390 to 5.
Two days before the vote, UNICEF estimated that 800,000 Gazans did not have running water and 1 million were living without electricity.
Editor's note: Generous support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute.
1/16/09
Gaza invasion: Powered by the U.S.
Taxpayers are spending over $1 billion to send refined fuel to the Israeli military -- at a time when Israel doesn't need it and America does.
Robert Bryce
Israel's current air and ground assault on the Gaza Strip has left about 1,000 Palestinians dead, including 400 women and children. Several thousand people have been wounded and dozens of buildings have been destroyed. An estimated 90,000 Gazans have abandoned their homes. Israel's campaign in Gaza, which began more than two weeks ago, has been denounced by the Red Cross, multiple Arab and European countries, and agencies from the United Nations. Demonstrations in Pakistan and elsewhere have been held to denounce America's support for Israel.
It's well known that the U.S. supplies the Israelis with much of their military hardware. Over the past few decades, the U.S. has provided about $53 billion in military aid to Israel. What's not well known is that since 2004, U.S. taxpayers have paid to supply over 500 million gallons of refined oil products -- worth about $1.1 billion –- to the Israeli military. While a handful of countries get motor fuel from the U.S., they receive only a fraction of the fuel that Israel does -- fuel now being used by Israeli fighter jets, helicopters and tanks to battle Hamas.
According to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, between 2004 and 2007 the U.S. Defense Department gave $818 million worth of fuel to the Israeli military. The total amount was 479 million gallons, the equivalent of about 66 gallons per Israeli citizen. In 2008, an additional $280 million in fuel was given to the Israeli military, again at U.S. taxpayers' expense. The U.S. has even paid the cost of shipping the fuel from U.S. refineries to ports in Israel.
In 2008, the fuel shipped to Israel from U.S. refineries accounted for 2 percent of Israel's $13.3 billion defense budget. Publicly available data shows that about 2 percent of the U.S. Defense Department's budget is also spent on oil. A senior analyst at the Pentagon, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press, says the Israel Defense Force's fuel use is most likely similar to that of the U.S. Defense Department. In other words, the Israeli military is spending about the same percentage of its defense budget on oil as the U.S. is. Therefore it's possible that the U.S. is providing most, or perhaps even all, of the Israeli military's fuel needs.
What's more, Israel does not need the U.S. handout. Its own recently privatized refineries, located at Haifa and Ashdod, could supply all of the fuel needed by the Israeli military. Those same refineries are now producing and selling jet fuel and other refined products on the open market. But rather than purchase lower-cost jet fuel from its own refineries, the Israeli military is using U.S. taxpayer money to buy and ship large quantities of fuel from U.S. refineries.
The Israeli government obtains the fuel through the Defense Department's Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, and pays for the fuel and the shipping with funds granted to it through Foreign Military Financing (FMF), another Defense Department program. (In 2008, Congress earmarked $2.4 billion in FMF money for Israel, and $2.5 billion for 2009.) The dimensions of the FMS fuel program are virtually unknown among America's top experts on Middle East policy. For his part, the Pentagon analyst was surprised to learn that FMS money was even being used to supply fuel to Israel. "That's not the purpose of the program," he says. "FMS was designed to allow U.S. weapons makers to sell their goods to foreign countries. The idea that fuel is being bought under FMS is very, very odd."
The fuel program, in fact, raises a number of pressing questions. The shipments have occurred during times of record-high oil prices, when American consumers have been angered by motor fuel prices that in 2008 exceeded $4 per gallon. Given those high prices, it appears to make little sense for the U.S. government to be promoting policies that reduce the volume of -- and potentially raise the price of -- motor fuel available for sale to U.S. motorists.
The U.S. fuel shipments are part of a sustained policy that has widened the energy gap between Israel and its neighbors. Over the past few years, the Israel Defense Force has cut off fuel supplies and destroyed electricity infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. Those embargoes and attacks on power plants have exacerbated a huge gap in per-capita energy consumption between Israelis and Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. And that sharp disparity helps explain why the Palestinians have never been able to build a viable economy.
Edward S. Walker, former president of the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank, says the fuel supply program is emblematic of U.S. military support for Israel. Walker, who has served as U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Israel, explains that the FMF money allows the Israelis to "do with it what they want. They can buy equipment or fuel. It's their choice, not the government's choice. It's the only program where we give someone a blank check and they can use it any way that they choose."
Given the recent spike in oil prices, which helped send the U.S. and the world economy into a tailspin, and Americans still smarting from paying $4 at the pump, says Walker, "Why are we supplying fuel to Israel when we are paying such high prices?"
Since 1948, oil has been a critically important commodity for both the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli economy. And Israeli leaders have long worried about their energy security. In 1957, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion wrote in his diary, "The only sanctions which could defeat or break us are oil sanctions."
In 1967, Egypt's blockade of the Straits of Tiran precipitated the Six Day War. The Straits, writes Israeli historian Michael Oren in his book on the conflict, "Six Days of War," were "a lifeline for the Jewish state, the conduit to its quiet import of Iranian oil." In 1973, the Yom Kippur War (Arabs call it the Ramadan War) led to the Arab Oil Embargo, an event that still reverberates in the U.S., particularly in the fanciful political rhetoric about the desire for "energy independence."
The U.S.-Israel oil relationship goes back to 1975. In September of that year, Henry Kissinger, who was then secretary of state, struck a deal with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin that led the Israelis to partially withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula. The agreement required Israel to pull out of the Giddi and Mitla passes and relinquish the Sinai oilfields the Israelis had captured during the 1967 war.
In return, Kissinger agreed that America would provide multibillion-dollar economic and military subsidies to Israel. He also agreed that the U.S. would supply Israel with oil in case of any emergency. That agreement was formalized in 1979 about the time of the Camp David peace talks. It says that the U.S. will "make every effort to help Israel secure the necessary means of transport" for the oil that it purchases. The agreement concludes by saying that the U.S. and Israel will "meet annually, or more frequently at the request of either party, to review Israel's continuing oil requirement."
Since 1979, the agreement has been quietly renewed every five years. (The most recent approval of the document was done by the U.S. State Department in November of 2005.) The U.S. does not provide any other country the same insurance.
Nor does any other country get anything close to the volume of fuel that Israel does under FMS. In 2004, more than 140 countries received FMS aid from the U.S. Of that group, only about 13 countries received fuel of any kind through the FMS program and the biggest recipient, after Israel, was Singapore, which got $7.3 million in fuel. That year, Israel received 17 times more FMS fuel than all of the other countries combined.
Why did the U.S. Defense Department begin providing oil to Israel in 1986? And why does the program persist, particularly given that Israel no longer sees its refineries as strategic assets? The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which manages the FMS and FMF programs, referred questions about the program to the Israeli government. The press office of the Israeli Embassy in Washington did not respond to numerous requests about the program.
While the rationale for the oil transfers remains elusive, the facts behind Israel's refinery privatization are freely available. In 2006, the government sold the Ashdod refinery to Israeli tycoon Zadik Bino for about $500 million. And in early 2007, it sold the larger refinery in Haifa to a group led by Israel Corp., the shipping and chemicals conglomerate, for $1.5 billion.
The sale of the refineries marked a major turning point in Israel's attitude toward oil. In its earliest years as an independent nation, Israel's survival was made possible by using crude from the Soviet Union and Venezuela. >From the 1950s to the late 1970s, Iranian crude was the lifeblood of the Zionist state. Later still, the Israelis relied on the Kuwaitis. Today, the Russians are providing much of Israel's crude needs. And the sale of the refineries is indicative of the Israeli government's confidence in its ongoing ability to purchase the oil it needs on the international market.
Nevertheless, the FMS fuel shipments to Israel have continued. The most recent shipments for which records are readily available occurred in July and October 2008.
On July 7, 2008, the spot price for U.S. crude oil hit a near-record of $141. That same day, the San Antonio Business Journal reported that San Antonio-based refiner Valero Energy Corp. had been awarded a contract by the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC) worth $46 million to provide fuel to Israel. Valero has won a number of lucrative contracts from the DESC, the Defense Department agency that handles all of the Pentagon's bulk fuel purchases. On Oct. 9, the Journal reported that Valero had been awarded a $235 million contract under FMS. Bill Day, a spokesman for Valero, says that the company "doesn't talk publicly about its contracts."
Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that U.S. taxpayers are paying the shipping costs to move the fuel from refineries -- many of them on the Texas Gulf Coast -- to Israeli ports at Haifa or Ashkelon. Shipping costs vary but one specific bid called for shipping costs of $.30 per gallon. Officials with the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the arm of the Pentagon that manages programs that "strengthen America's alliances and partnerships," has confirmed that the costs to ship the fuel from U.S. refineries to Israel have been paid for with FMF money designated for Israel by Congress.
The huge FMS fuel shipments are puzzling to the Israelis. Amit Mor, CEO of Eco Energy, an Israeli consulting and investment firm, has worked on energy issues in his home country for about two decades. In a recent e-mail, Mor says that "there is a paradox" in the fuel shipments that Israel gets from the U.S. He said that the privately owned Israeli refineries export jet fuel in "FOB prices," while the defense ministry imports jet fuel in "high CIF prices," with the funds of U.S. military assistance.
FOB, short for "free on board," means that customers must take possession of the fuel at the refinery and then pay for all shipping and related costs to get the fuel to its final destination. On the other hand, as Mor explains, the Israeli military is importing fuel from U.S. refineries located 7,000 miles away, while incurring the CIF, short for "cost, insurance and freight," of moving the fuel that distance.
Mor says Israeli refiners have "complained about this issue" but have had no luck with the Israeli government. He goes on to say that "it is the U.S. government that insisted for some reason to continue with this historical, costly and inefficient arrangement."
Energy analysts squabble about a myriad of issues. But if there is one truism that draws near-universal agreement, it's this: As energy consumption increases, so does wealth. And while that truism holds for oil use, it is particularly apt for electricity. As Peter Huber and Mark Mills point out in their 2005 book, "The Bottomless Well," "Economic growth marches hand in hand with increased consumption of electricity -- always, everywhere, without significant exception in the annals of modern industrial history."
That statement underscores the significance of the FMS fuel shipments to Israel, many of which have occurred at or near the time that the Israeli military has attacked the electric power plants of its neighbors.
In late June 2006, Israeli aircraft fired nine missiles at the transformers at the Gaza City Power Plant, the only electric power plant in the Occupied Territories. (One of the original partners in the project was Enron, but that's another story.) The missiles caused damage estimated at $15 million to $20 million and, for a time, made Gaza wholly reliant on electricity flows from Israel. The 140-megawatt power plant, owned by the Palestine Electric Co., was insured by the Overseas Private Investment Corp., an arm of the U.S. government. Thus the U.S. was providing fuel and materiel to the Israeli military, which destroyed the plant, but it was also paying to fix the damage. Call it cradle-to-grave service.
The Israeli attack on the Gaza City Power Plant offers a stark example of how the FMS fuel helps assure that Israel stays energy rich while many of the citizens in neighboring regions live in energy poverty.
Two weeks after the attack on the Gaza City plant in 2006, during Israel's monthlong war against Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, Israeli aircraft attacked the 346-megawatt Jiyyeh power plant, the oldest electric power plant in Lebanon. Those attacks resulted in the largest-ever oil spill in the eastern Mediterranean. About 100,000 barrels of fuel oil that was stored in tanks at the Jiyyeh site flowed into the sea, creating an oil slick that stretched for more than 150 kilometers.
The attacks on the Jiyyeh plant occurred on July 13 and July 15. Those dates are important because they underscore the timing of the U.S. fuel transfers to Israel.
On July 14, 2006, the U.S. military issued two press releases. In one of them, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced that it would be providing up to $210 million in JP-8 jet fuel to the Israeli government. The other release, put out at 5 p.m. Eastern time, came from the Defense Logistics Agency, which said that it had awarded a $36.7 million contract to Valero as part of another JP-8 supply deal for Israel.
The July 14 release contains this rather bland description of the fuel deal: "The proposed sale of the JP-8 aviation fuel will enable Israel to maintain the operational capability of its aircraft inventory. The jet fuel will be consumed while the aircraft is in use to keep peace and security in the region. Israel will have no difficulty absorbing this additional fuel into its armed forces." The release goes on to claim that the "proposed sale of this JP-8 aviation fuel will not affect the basic military balance in the region."
While the attacks on the Jiyyeh plant were important, Lebanese citizens could get electricity from other power plants in the country. That was not true in Gaza, a province in which electricity has always been in short supply. According to the CIA Fact Book, the Gaza Strip ranks dead last -- 214th out of 214 countries and territories listed -- in the amount of electricity consumed. According to the Palestinian Energy and Natural Resources Agency, in 2004, the average Gazan used about 654 kilowatt-hours of electricity. By contrast, the 7.1 million residents of Israel consume about 6,295 kilowatt-hours of electric power per person per year, nearly 10 times as much as the average Gazan.
Although more recent energy consumption data for Gaza is not available, there's no question that the endemic poverty in the West Bank and particularly in Gaza, is due, largely, to a continuing lack of energy resources. And the Israelis have frequently cut off the flow of fuel and electricity, which has exacerbated the Palestinians' energy poverty.
Over the past few years, the Israelis have cut off the flow of energy to Gaza as retribution for various transgressions. And those cutoffs have forced the Gaza City Power Plant to shut down for lack of the fuel oil it needs to operate. When the power plant is idled, most of the residents of Gaza City are left without power and overall power supplies in the Gaza Strip decline by about 25 percent.
In May 2006, Israel cut off the flow of oil into the Occupied Territories after the Islamic group Hamas won local elections. In January 2008, the Israelis closed the border crossings into Gaza, which resulted in a fuel shortage that closed the Gaza power plant. In April 2008, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency stopped distributing aid in Gaza after it ran out of fuel. The Israelis stopped the fuel flow as retribution for attacks that killed two Israeli civilians and three Israeli soldiers. In November 2008, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency was again forced to suspend work due to lack of fuel. The fuel shortage occurred after Israel closed the border into Gaza in response to rockets and mortar shells that had been fired into Israel from Gaza.
The disparity in energy consumption between the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza and their counterpartsin Israel is just one element in the centuries-old story of tragedy and conflict in the region. But with the U.S. squarely on the side of the Israelis in the Gaza campaign, the potential for an angry backlash against the U.S. appears to be growing.
And that anger will likely only increase when Arabs begin to understand that much of the fuel that the U.S. is giving to Israel is being refined from Arab oil. The Valero refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas, which has won several of the FMS contracts for Israel, is a big buyer of Mideast crude. During the second quarter of 2006, according to data collected by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the refinery got about 40 percent of its crude oil from Kuwait or Saudi Arabia.
In short, U.S. taxpayers are paying for U.S. energy companies to buy Arab crude, ship it across the Atlantic to refineries in the U.S., refine it, and then ship it back across the Atlantic so that the Israel Defense Force can use it in its wars.
While the origination point of the crude may only matter to part of the Arab world, it is becoming apparent that bloodshed in Gaza is further complicating America's efforts to gain credibility as an honest broker in the region. Anti-U.S. sentiment is not in America's long-term interest, says former diplomat Chas Freeman, a man whose résumé in international affairs extends back nearly four decades.
Freeman is a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, as well as a former assistance secretary of defense. He served as Richard Nixon's chief interpreter during Nixon's visit to China in 1972. Now the president of the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington think tank, Freeman says the FMS fuel program for Israel runs counter to long-term goals of resolving the Palestinian conflict and America's stated goal of protecting the flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf. The Defense Department has assumed "unilateral responsibility for the protection of the oil trade in the Persian Gulf, and yet it's assuming responsibility for the delivery of aviation fuel for the Israeli military," he says. "That's confused and contradictory." The program, he adds, is "one of many elements of our relationship with Israel that is very hard to explain."
Freeman may be correct, but the House of Representatives has scant doubt about continued U.S. support for Israel. Nor has Congress shown much interest in the fuel shortages among Palestinians. On Jan. 9, the 14th day of the fighting in Gaza, the House passed a resolution sponsored by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "recognizing Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza." The vote was 390 to 5.
Two days before the vote, UNICEF estimated that 800,000 Gazans did not have running water and 1 million were living without electricity.
Editor's note: Generous support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute.
How to Deal with Iran By William Luers, Thomas R. Pickering, Jim Walsh
The New York Review of Books
Volume 56, Number 2 · February 12, 2009
How to Deal with Iran
By William Luers, Thomas R. Pickering, Jim Walsh
Three of the most pressing national security issues facing the Obama administration—nuclear proliferation, the war in Iraq, and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan—have one element in common: Iran.[1] The Islamic Republic has made startling progress over the past few years in its nuclear program. Setting aside recent, misleading reports that Iran already has enough nuclear fuel to build a weapon, the reality is that Tehran now has five thousand centrifuges for enriching uranium and is steadily moving toward achieving the capability to build nuclear bombs.[2] Having the capacity to build a nuclear weapon is not the same thing as having one, and having a large stock of low-enriched uranium is not the same as having the highly enriched uranium necessary for a bomb. But the Obama administration cannot postpone dealing with the nuclear situation in Iran, as President Bush did.
Iran is closely implicated in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as well. Iran's influence in Iraq is well known. As Michael Massing has reported in these pages:
The SIIC [Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council], the main government party, was founded in Iran and remains so close to Tehran that many Iraqis shun it for having a "Persian taint." Iran is erecting mosques and power plants in the Shiite south and investing heavily in construction and communications in the Kurdish north.[3]
But Iran also has critical interests in Afghanistan, its neighbor to the east, where it has long opposed the Taliban and is concerned to avoid the chaos that would result from the fall of the increasingly threatened Karzai government. The Iranian government places a high priority on defeating al-Qaeda and the Taliban—extremist Sunni groups which it views as direct threats to Iran's Shiites—as well as on reducing Afghanistan's rampant drug trade.
Of course the United States has other important concerns about Iran, including Iranian support for Hezbollah and Hamas, and the threat it poses to Israel—particularly in view of the recent conflict in Gaza. But the paramount issues of Iran's nuclear enrichment and its influence in Iraq and Afghanistan, we argue, are closely interrelated, and the way they are dealt with could determine the US's ability to address other problems in the US–Iranian relationship.
Under President Bush, Iran's nuclear program and its role in Iraq and Afghanistan were treated as wholly separate issues. The US government largely refused to talk to Iran on the nuclear issue and instead relied on sanctions and hectoring. By contrast, on the issue of Iraq, it agreed to ambassadorial talks, although these were largely limited to discussions of Iraq's internal security issues, including Iranian provision of weapons to insurgents. On Afghanistan, aside from occasional allegations about collaboration with the Taliban—this despite Iran's well-known opposition to the group—the Bush administration studiously ignored Iran. As a consequence, little progress was made on any front.
If President Obama is to dissuade Iran from building a nuclear bomb, as well as develop a successful regional strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, he will have to develop an integrated approach toward Iran that addresses all three issues.
First, both sides must recognize the connection among these issues. Success with one can build trust and create confidence needed for progress on the others. Failure on one could stymie advancement on the others. Using military force against Iran's nuclear facilities, for example, would make cooperation on Iraq and Afghanistan impossible. Discussions across a broader agenda also create opportunities for constructive compromise. A concession on one issue can be used to resolve a sticking point on another.
Second, for such a strategy to work the US must consult in advance other parties including, most particularly, the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council (France, Britain, Russia, and China), the UN secretary-general, Israel, Turkey, Pakistan, and the Arab countries. The governments in the region have a direct interest in Iran's nuclear program, the future of Iraq and Afghanistan, and US–Iranian relations. All of the countries listed have a stake in one or more of these issues, and success is more likely if they believe their concerns are being taken into account, not excluded.
The third requirement of an integrated strategy would be to create a continuing forum or other institution that would allow the US, Iran, members of the Security Council, and neighboring governments to discuss questions involving Iraq and Afghanistan. No such institution now exists.
Resolving the nuclear issue and bringing stability to Iraq and Afghanistan will require direct talks between the United States, Iran, and other interested parties, and these talks must be without preconditions. President-elect Obama has pledged to do just that. Still, for a government to say that it is ready for talks is not enough. Three issues must be addressed before proceeding: when to talk, what to say, and how to say it.
Even if the pace of confirmation hearings and security clearances is uncharacteristically swift, it will be at least several months before the President's foreign policy team is ready to advance a major shift in policy toward Iran. By that time, Iran will be in the middle of the campaign for its June 12 presidential elections. That vote will likely be followed by a run-off election held later in the summer.
We suggest that a new policy be launched after the new Iranian president is chosen. A major diplomatic initiative begun in the middle of Iran's presidential campaign would almost certainly become caught up in Iran's domestic politics with consequences that are difficult to predict. The administration can use this time to win the support of members of Congress as well as the Europeans, Russians, and Chinese who have been part of the so-called "P5+1" talks with Iran—involving the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany.
Equally if not more important, the Obama administration will have to consult with and reassure the US's friends and allies in the region—notably the Arab states, Turkey, Pakistan, and Israel. It will have to make it clear that a dialogue with Iran does not mean a downgrading of our relations with other Muslim countries in the region, and that America's direct engagement with Iran serves their security and political interests, for example, by diplomatically resolving issues that might otherwise lead to the use of American (or Israeli) military force. As regards Israel, the US should emphasize that engaging Iran offers the best chance of heading off an Iranian nuclear weapons program and for dealing with the threat Israel faces from Hezbollah and Hamas.
While the Obama administration prepares for a major diplomatic push following the Iranian elections, it should take a number of actions in the meantime. These actions would be modest and low-key but would send an unambiguous signal to the Iranian government that the US is prepared to enter serious negotiations at the appropriate time. Early on, the Obama administration could offer a simple statement that the US government will seek to talk directly to all nations, without preconditions, in order to address the world's problems. This could be followed by a reaffirmation of Article I of the 1981 Algiers Accord, in which the United States pledged not to interfere politically or militarily in Iran's internal affairs.
Following these initial actions and before the results of the Iranian presidential elections become apparent, the US should consider opening mid-level, official contact with Iran to discuss simultaneous public actions that each government could take to improve the tone and, eventually, the substance of the relationship. This direct contact could explore renewed talks on Iraq, releasing Iranian detainees captured in Iraq, allowing direct air flights between the US and Iran, easing travel restrictions on Iranian diplomats in New York, the establishment of a US-staffed interests section in Tehran, new forms of cooperation to combat illicit drug trafficking on the Afghan–Iranian border, and confidence-building measures among the two countries' naval forces in the Persian Gulf. (As it stands, the US and Iran find themselves cheek to jowl both in the Persian Gulf and along the Iraq–Iran border—a dangerous situation that risks accident, escalating tensions, or even war.)
Actions such as these are limited in scope, and would not at first substantively alter the character of US–Iranian relations, but they would communicate to Iran that the US intends to pursue a different strategy from the one followed by the previous administration. Following the Iranian elections in the summer, the new administration could privately and informally explore the idea of talks at a higher level.
A new policy also requires a new tone. Iran is a proud nation with roots in a centuries-old civilization; its insistence on being treated with mutual respect is not empty rhetoric. Continued denunciation of the regime will likely produce greater intransigence, especially as Iran enters its presidential campaign. Iranians bristle at the use of the phrase "carrots and sticks," which they associate with the treatment of donkeys and which in any case suggests that they can be either bought off or beaten into submission. More generally, the US government would do well to follow a first principle of diplomacy—when you want to change a bad situation, start by shutting up.
Moreover, Iranian paranoia about the US cannot be underestimated. Alerting the Iranian government in advance to the timing and objectives of each of the steps described above would avoid a negative reaction. It would also prepare the way for a major new approach to the issues concerning nuclear enrichment, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
In an earlier article in these pages[4] we outlined an approach that would open a way to deal with Iran's nuclear aspirations. We proposed that, with US support, European nations form a multinational consortium with Iran to produce enriched uranium inside Iran, thus transferring a purely national program to international ownership, management, and supervision. All nuclear developments in Iran would be monitored by an enhanced verification system with the full participation of the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure that military nuclear activities are not taking place. Highly placed Iranians support this approach and the Iranian government itself has at various times raised the possibility of a multinationally owned enrichment facility on Iranian soil—which would provide it with a guaranteed supply of fuel for a civilian nuclear energy program.
With international staff on the ground, around the clock, a multinational system could effectively prevent enrichment for military purposes and would deter Iran from pursuing a parallel or clandestine enrichment program. If Iran accepts such an arrangement, it would not only accept international scrutiny but would put itself in a deeply vulnerable position if it revoked the agreement.
The Obama administration will not have many opportunities to formulate a workable nuclear policy toward Iran. Up to now, the Obama team seems to be seeking to have it both ways. The President-elect has endorsed negotiations but also has indicated a readiness to continue the tough talk of recent years and the use of punitive sanctions. Such a policy is unlikely to succeed. Saying you are willing to talk while acting the same way as your predecessor is not going to persuade the Iranians to agree to controls on an enrichment program in which they have invested precious resources and considerable pride.
Skeptics of our proposal often concede that the international community may have to accept some Iranian enrichment activity; but they also insist that turning this enrichment into a multinational enterprise should be seen as a fallback position for the US. The problem with such a view is that it is tantamount to saying that a multinational project is a good idea that the US cannot consider without first failing with its existing, sanctions-based policy.
We think US policy is already failing, as Iran's growing numbers of centrifuges attest. Starting with a workable proposal is better than continuing with a losing approach in the hope that we can recoup our position later. It is unlikely that if the Obama administration adopts a zero-centrifuge approach and fails it will end up with more political and bargaining leverage than it had when it started. Put another way, if the US continues to insist that Iran scrap all its centrifuges or else, we will soon find ourselves in a situation where Iran has tens of thousands of centrifuges and the only options left are both unpromising and prohibitively costly.
We have proposed that the United States engage in direct, bilateral talks with Iran on its nuclear program in parallel with continued multilateral discussions with Germany and the members of the UN Security Council (the "P5+1"). We envisage a prominent role for America's European partners in the establishment of a multilateral enrichment facility on Iranian soil. We believe that this approach offers crucial advantages not only for the nuclear issue but for addressing the parallel challenges of Iraq and Afghanistan. Here again, we argue that the US and Iran should hold separate but parallel direct discussions on the issues of Iraq and Afghanistan, and that these discussions, in turn, must become part of a broader, multiparty approach that includes the members of the Security Council and neighboring countries in the region. On the US side, these three distinct but related tracks would be coordinated by the secretary of state.
Exploratory negotiations in the region will first require a solution to the problem of who will participate and how best to coordinate their relations. Each major issue—Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Iran nuclear problem—would have its own negotiating forum, or track, with Iran and the other key players participating. Working in parallel with the UN secretary-general, an umbrella group, including all the major players, would be established to coordinate the work of the smaller groups and ratify the results.
As far as Iraq is concerned, in Washington's ideal world, Tehran would have no influence over Iraqi affairs, and Iraq would act as a stalwart supporter of American interests and allies in the region. Tehran would like the same for itself, namely, an Iraq over which America has little or no influence and an Iraqi government dominated by Shiite factions friendly to Iranian interests. Despite these differences, there is much on which the US and Iran can agree. Both support keeping Iraq territorially intact (rather than carved up into separate, sectarian regions) and with popularly elected leadership.
Indeed, although Iran has shown its readiness to support militias that attack US troops, both countries support the Maliki government, and neither wants to see Iraq become the battleground for proxy wars, in which neighboring countries provide military or political support for their client groups inside Iraq. Saudi Arabia, for example, might increase its support for Sunni tribal groups such as those in Anbar province—which continue to be regarded with deep suspicion by the Maliki government—while Iran might feel compelled to bolster Shiite militias or elements in the Iraqi security forces. The aim of negotiations would be to avoid both kinds of intervention.
The United States wants to be able to draw down troops and other personnel in Iraq while maintaining a reasonable level of stability and security. Iran also wants US forces out of Iraq, while avoiding a situation of renewed chaos and civil war. Iran also has economic interests in Iraq, which it sees as a potential trading partner and OPEC ally.
Neither the US nor Iran is likely to achieve all of its aims in Iraq. For the US, it is a stubborn and unalterable fact of geography that while its forces may leave Iraq, Iran will always be there, sharing a border with its neighbor and sometime rival. On the other hand, Iraq will likely want to maintain a relationship with the US, if only to counterbalance Iran's influence. Most Iraqi Shias, despite common religious preferences and temporary connections with Iran, have no interest in becoming Persian puppets.
Both the US and Iran would profit if they were willing to settle for a stable and secure Iraq to which both countries have strong ties but over which neither is dominant. The stakes are sufficiently high and the potential for disastrous conflict sufficiently strong that there is reason to find common ground on mutual interests.
As the Iraq Study Group (ISG) chaired by Lee Hamilton and James Baker stressed in 2006, and American military commanders have repeatedly underscored, the primary challenge facing Iraq is political, not military. Iraq's internal political disputes have to be resolved by the Iraqis themselves. But Iraq's neighbors, with their strong ties to various Iraqi factions, have the power to promote progress, paralysis, or worse—civil war.
A multilateral diplomatic initiative—involving not just Iran and the US but also Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, and Syria—would complement and facilitate a change in the size of the US military deployments in Iraq. A similar effort was first proposed in the ISG report, which observes:
No country in the region will benefit in the long term from a chaotic Iraq. Yet Iraq's neighbors are not doing enough to help Iraq achieve stability. Some are undercutting stability.[5]
The bipartisan report called for a "new diplomatic offensive to build an international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region." It also proposed that Iraq's neighbors and other relevant governments—including the permanent members of the UN Security Council—"should form a support group to reinforce security and national reconciliation within Iraq—neither of which Iraq can achieve on its own." These recommendations were ignored by the Bush administration, yet they have only become more urgent as the US drawdown approaches.
Consistent with the ISG report, we propose that the US encourage an international diplomatic effort on Iraq to be organized, preferably under the auspices of the United Nations. Its purpose would be to provide a diplomatic setting so that the parties could coordinate their efforts to help Iraq create a workable federal government, preserve its territorial integrity, achieve a fair distribution of oil wealth, and resettle the nearly five million Iraqi displaced persons and refugees, many of whom are now in neighboring countries in the Middle East.
It has to be stressed that until now, no regional institution has been established that includes all of Iraq's neighbors together with members of the Security Council. Instead, each government in the region has been left to pursue its own policy in an ad hoc fashion and with no or only haphazard coordination with other governments.
The consequences of this "everyone for himself" approach are obvious and unwelcome. The US has sought to develop relations with many constituencies in Iraq, including various groups that have taken part in the insurgency, such as the Sunnis of the Awakening, not only as part of its effort to pacify Iraq, but also to counter the influence of Iran. The Iranians are aware of this and have pursued a similar strategy of their own—including brokering peace agreements between different Shiite factions and providing support to the Badr Brigade and other militias. The Saudis and Jordanians, fearful of Iranian intentions, have provided assistance to Sunni insurgents, which is contrary to the interests of their ally, the United States.
If these competing interests are to be addressed and resolved, it would, we suggest, be important for the various governments to establish a regional diplomatic forum where they can confront their differences in a process of ongoing consultation and negotiation. The members of such a forum would need to recognize and address the concerns of all of Iraq's neighbors; the central question facing them will be their ability to put Iraq's national interests first. A regional forum and a series of agreements among Iraq's neighbors would not guarantee stability in the region. They could, however, avoid a disastrous outcome and then go beyond that to support a secure Iraq.
The diplomatic effort proposed here would have several components. First, the US president would appoint a special envoy to initiate a round of diplomacy with all the governments in the region to address questions concerning Iraq. The UN secretary-general would designate a diplomatic team that would work in parallel with or together with the US special envoy to establish such a team. The US, together with the other permanent members of the UN Security Council and Iraq's neighbors, would share the burden in organizing this initiative. American leadership will be critical, but Washington cannot monopolize the effort. If it does, this will be perceived as yet another "Made in the USA" project imposed from outside and intended to further American interests at the expense of others. International participation under UN auspices will provide the kind of legitimacy needed for the project to succeed.
A priority for the UN and the US envoys would be to make it clear to Baghdad that the first and most important goal of this initiative is the support of Iraqi sovereignty and regional stability and that any decisions or actions would be consistent with the objectives of the Iraqis themselves. This is important, because no plan for Iraq can succeed without the support of the Iraqis. At the same time, no such plan can succeed—even if it has the support of Iraq and its Sunni neighbors—without the endorsement and participation of Iran.
The forum would have both near-term and long-term objectives. At the beginning, the UN and US envoys would meet with participating governments bilaterally with the goal of agreeing to refrain from interfering with or undermining the government of Iraq. The forum would also allow Iraq's neighbors to articulate to international negotiators their suspicions and grievances about the behavior of others in the region and have them addressed. These UN-endorsed exploratory exchanges can also be used to better coordinate the material and political support that the regional and great power governments are providing to Iraq.
The long-term objective might be a formal agreement in which all participating governments pledge themselves to a set of principles and actions: supporting Iraq's territorial integrity, encouraging reconciliation between the various groups within Iraq (based on majority rule, minority rights, and the fair division of oil income), abstaining from interference in Iraqi internal affairs, ending military support for non-state groups operating in Iraq, planning for the resettlement of the five million Iraqis who have been displaced from their homes, whether outside or inside Iraq, bolstering economic and political relations between Iraq and its neighbors, and the inclusion of Iraq in any future regional security arrangements. These resolutions will be of particular importance to Iran, because Tehran wants a stable and friendly neighbor on its border—one governed by Iraq's Shia majority and without a large contingent of US troops on its territory. In addition, Iran's interest in Iraq's economic development will continue to be substantial. Iran has benefited in the past from trade with Iraq but has suffered when Iraq has been unstable or aggressively hostile, as under Saddam Hussein.
All the governments in the Middle East have a common interest in avoiding wholesale disintegration and civil war in the region, but it would be naive to think that there are not obstacles or risks associated with this approach. The Saudis, for example, support Sunni militias against what they see as Shia retribution. Saudi Arabia has less leverage in Iraq than Iran and worries that Iran's star is ascending. Like other Sunni countries, Saudi Arabia also views the Maliki government as unfriendly. Turkey's leaders fear that the good relations that the Shias of Iraq and Iran have established with the Iraqi Kurds will bring about their worst nightmare—a declared and recognized independent Kurdistan. This is a result Turkey cannot accept, despite the fact that the Kurdish population has explicitly supported it.
There are obvious risks to what we propose. Not only may a multilateral initiative for Iraq fail, but a regional forum could become an arena where disputing parties seek to frustrate or dominate others. While this is one potential outcome, we believe the risks are far greater if the countries continue to pursue their current, independent policies in Iraq. Without an institution that allows for the recognition and management of their competing interests, the parties will act on their own, and the results will play out in the streets of Kirkuk and Baghdad. Finally, it is almost certain that there will be increased suspicion and rivalry between the United States and Iran if Iran is left to pursue its own interests in Iraq without some form of regional mediation. Each side will see the worst in the other and publicly blame the other for rising violence and dislocation—including, for example, the recent dramatic escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. In this context of deepening anger and distrust, it will be even more difficult to address other issues the US and Iran should be discussing, such as the future of Afghanistan and Iran's nuclear program.
Afghanistan and its increasingly volatile neighbor, Pakistan, face deeply difficult problems, many of which now threaten to engulf the entire region. Having been given sanctuary in northwest Pakistan after September 11, the Taliban have very substantially increased their presence in Afghanistan, while Pakistan itself has become a safe haven for al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, including those that attacked Mumbai in December.
These developments are of great concern to Iran, which shares borders with both Afghanistan and Pakistan. In fact, Iran supported Northern Alliance forces against the Taliban, and contributed in important ways to the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001. Renewed Iranian assistance, for example in the form of political cooperation, could help prevent the continued spread of the conflict. The Afghanistan expert Barney Rubin has pointed out that US–Iranian cooperation will be crucial for the Afghanistan presidential elections to be held in the second half of this year. If an election is not possible, the US will again need Iran's help to organize a Loya Jirga (a traditional assembly of tribal leaders used in Afghanistan to resolve important political matters), drawing on Iran's longstanding ties and influence over some Afghan warlords and tribal leaders.
A US decision on a new strategy toward Iran will not wait. That is President-elect Obama's inheritance. Talking to Iran will be difficult. In the US, some political leaders and interest groups oppose better relations, though public opinion surveys suggest that a solid majority of Americans favor a diplomatic solution to US–Iranian differences over nuclear enrichment and other issues. Similarly, in Iran, an attempt to engage or compromise with the US will be attacked by factions seeking a political advantage, despite the hopes of millions of Iranians that the US and Iran find a way to improve relations. Suspicion dominates a relationship with a long history of grievances on both sides. Washington doubts the innocence of Iran's nuclear intentions, and Tehran suspects that America's real intent is regime change.
Moreover, some analysts, including many Israelis, view Iran as an "existential threat" to Israel, object to Iran's backing of Hezbollah, and believe that Iran's support for Hamas undermines a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine. In addition, Iran's human rights record provokes understandable opposition internationally. These concerns are extremely urgent, but deteriorating relations between Washington and Tehran will only strengthen Iranian hard-liners and therefore exacerbate the human rights situation. US–Iranian hostility may also give Iran a greater incentive to exercise its leverage with Hamas and Hezbollah in ways that undermine a resolution to the Israel–Palestinian dispute. We believe that successful engagement with Iran on Iraq, Afghanistan, and the nuclear issue could translate into progress on other issues. Indeed, Iran's secret 2003 proposal for US talks included on its agenda Hamas, Hezbollah, and a two-state solution.
The US can impose costs on Iran, but it cannot impose its will. The same is true for Iran. Progress requires on both sides a greater focus on strategy rather than tactics. Adopting a new, integrated approach will require political leadership that is disciplined and willing to take risks. There could be frustrations, setbacks and dangers, but the US and Iran can avoid a downward spiral that risks military conflict. They can also create an opportunity for progress on some of the most difficult and complicated challenges the US will have to confront in the coming years.
—January 15, 2009
COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE
The central recommendation of this article is that the US must engage Iran directly and without preconditions, one of the primary recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. These distinguished authors have a firm grasp of the difficulties and the opportunities such engagement with this complex region requires. On the whole, I found the article a refreshing contribution to the US foreign policy discourse. Since President Obama will be addressing Iraq, Afghanistan, and the nuclear program in Iran as core national security problems soon after taking office, I commend this valuable perspective on how the administration's policies on these three critical issues could be integrated into a new approach to the region.
Lee H. Hamilton
Co-chair, Iraq Study Group
An important contribution to a better understanding of what needs to be done to cope constructively, and in a manner that genuinely enhances US national interests, in response to the Iranian challenge.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
This is an important article about the direction of American policy, even if one does not agree with every prescription.
Henry Kissinger
Notes
[1]The authors believe that today Afghanistan and Pakistan have become virtually a hyphenated name for a large problem. Our concentration in this article is on Afghanistan as a neighbor of Iran, but includes Pakistan wherever that is relevant.
[2]News reports and some commentators have recently claimed that Iran has enough material for a nuclear weapon. These reports referred to Iran's stock of low-enriched uranium. This is a misleading claim. To begin with, one cannot make a nuclear weapon with low-enriched uranium. A nuclear weapon requires highly enriched uranium or plutonium, and Iran possesses neither. In theory, Iran could take its stock of low-enriched uranium and enrich it to a grade required for making bombs, but its low-enriched uranium is currently under the surveillance of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Diverting this material for military purposes would be discovered by the IAEA. (Detection of diversion is the IAEA's technological strong suit.) Iran's choices, therefore, are to cheat and get caught or to kick out the inspectors. Either action would represent an extreme departure from Iranian strategy to date and in any case would likely precipitate military action by Israel.
[3]"Embedded in Iraq," The New York Review, July 17, 2008.
[4]"A Solution for the US–Iran Nuclear Standoff," The New York Review, March 20, 2008.
[5]The Iraq Study Group Report, p. 6; available at www.usip.org.
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Volume 56, Number 2 · February 12, 2009
How to Deal with Iran
By William Luers, Thomas R. Pickering, Jim Walsh
Three of the most pressing national security issues facing the Obama administration—nuclear proliferation, the war in Iraq, and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan—have one element in common: Iran.[1] The Islamic Republic has made startling progress over the past few years in its nuclear program. Setting aside recent, misleading reports that Iran already has enough nuclear fuel to build a weapon, the reality is that Tehran now has five thousand centrifuges for enriching uranium and is steadily moving toward achieving the capability to build nuclear bombs.[2] Having the capacity to build a nuclear weapon is not the same thing as having one, and having a large stock of low-enriched uranium is not the same as having the highly enriched uranium necessary for a bomb. But the Obama administration cannot postpone dealing with the nuclear situation in Iran, as President Bush did.
Iran is closely implicated in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as well. Iran's influence in Iraq is well known. As Michael Massing has reported in these pages:
The SIIC [Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council], the main government party, was founded in Iran and remains so close to Tehran that many Iraqis shun it for having a "Persian taint." Iran is erecting mosques and power plants in the Shiite south and investing heavily in construction and communications in the Kurdish north.[3]
But Iran also has critical interests in Afghanistan, its neighbor to the east, where it has long opposed the Taliban and is concerned to avoid the chaos that would result from the fall of the increasingly threatened Karzai government. The Iranian government places a high priority on defeating al-Qaeda and the Taliban—extremist Sunni groups which it views as direct threats to Iran's Shiites—as well as on reducing Afghanistan's rampant drug trade.
Of course the United States has other important concerns about Iran, including Iranian support for Hezbollah and Hamas, and the threat it poses to Israel—particularly in view of the recent conflict in Gaza. But the paramount issues of Iran's nuclear enrichment and its influence in Iraq and Afghanistan, we argue, are closely interrelated, and the way they are dealt with could determine the US's ability to address other problems in the US–Iranian relationship.
Under President Bush, Iran's nuclear program and its role in Iraq and Afghanistan were treated as wholly separate issues. The US government largely refused to talk to Iran on the nuclear issue and instead relied on sanctions and hectoring. By contrast, on the issue of Iraq, it agreed to ambassadorial talks, although these were largely limited to discussions of Iraq's internal security issues, including Iranian provision of weapons to insurgents. On Afghanistan, aside from occasional allegations about collaboration with the Taliban—this despite Iran's well-known opposition to the group—the Bush administration studiously ignored Iran. As a consequence, little progress was made on any front.
If President Obama is to dissuade Iran from building a nuclear bomb, as well as develop a successful regional strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, he will have to develop an integrated approach toward Iran that addresses all three issues.
First, both sides must recognize the connection among these issues. Success with one can build trust and create confidence needed for progress on the others. Failure on one could stymie advancement on the others. Using military force against Iran's nuclear facilities, for example, would make cooperation on Iraq and Afghanistan impossible. Discussions across a broader agenda also create opportunities for constructive compromise. A concession on one issue can be used to resolve a sticking point on another.
Second, for such a strategy to work the US must consult in advance other parties including, most particularly, the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council (France, Britain, Russia, and China), the UN secretary-general, Israel, Turkey, Pakistan, and the Arab countries. The governments in the region have a direct interest in Iran's nuclear program, the future of Iraq and Afghanistan, and US–Iranian relations. All of the countries listed have a stake in one or more of these issues, and success is more likely if they believe their concerns are being taken into account, not excluded.
The third requirement of an integrated strategy would be to create a continuing forum or other institution that would allow the US, Iran, members of the Security Council, and neighboring governments to discuss questions involving Iraq and Afghanistan. No such institution now exists.
Resolving the nuclear issue and bringing stability to Iraq and Afghanistan will require direct talks between the United States, Iran, and other interested parties, and these talks must be without preconditions. President-elect Obama has pledged to do just that. Still, for a government to say that it is ready for talks is not enough. Three issues must be addressed before proceeding: when to talk, what to say, and how to say it.
Even if the pace of confirmation hearings and security clearances is uncharacteristically swift, it will be at least several months before the President's foreign policy team is ready to advance a major shift in policy toward Iran. By that time, Iran will be in the middle of the campaign for its June 12 presidential elections. That vote will likely be followed by a run-off election held later in the summer.
We suggest that a new policy be launched after the new Iranian president is chosen. A major diplomatic initiative begun in the middle of Iran's presidential campaign would almost certainly become caught up in Iran's domestic politics with consequences that are difficult to predict. The administration can use this time to win the support of members of Congress as well as the Europeans, Russians, and Chinese who have been part of the so-called "P5+1" talks with Iran—involving the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany.
Equally if not more important, the Obama administration will have to consult with and reassure the US's friends and allies in the region—notably the Arab states, Turkey, Pakistan, and Israel. It will have to make it clear that a dialogue with Iran does not mean a downgrading of our relations with other Muslim countries in the region, and that America's direct engagement with Iran serves their security and political interests, for example, by diplomatically resolving issues that might otherwise lead to the use of American (or Israeli) military force. As regards Israel, the US should emphasize that engaging Iran offers the best chance of heading off an Iranian nuclear weapons program and for dealing with the threat Israel faces from Hezbollah and Hamas.
While the Obama administration prepares for a major diplomatic push following the Iranian elections, it should take a number of actions in the meantime. These actions would be modest and low-key but would send an unambiguous signal to the Iranian government that the US is prepared to enter serious negotiations at the appropriate time. Early on, the Obama administration could offer a simple statement that the US government will seek to talk directly to all nations, without preconditions, in order to address the world's problems. This could be followed by a reaffirmation of Article I of the 1981 Algiers Accord, in which the United States pledged not to interfere politically or militarily in Iran's internal affairs.
Following these initial actions and before the results of the Iranian presidential elections become apparent, the US should consider opening mid-level, official contact with Iran to discuss simultaneous public actions that each government could take to improve the tone and, eventually, the substance of the relationship. This direct contact could explore renewed talks on Iraq, releasing Iranian detainees captured in Iraq, allowing direct air flights between the US and Iran, easing travel restrictions on Iranian diplomats in New York, the establishment of a US-staffed interests section in Tehran, new forms of cooperation to combat illicit drug trafficking on the Afghan–Iranian border, and confidence-building measures among the two countries' naval forces in the Persian Gulf. (As it stands, the US and Iran find themselves cheek to jowl both in the Persian Gulf and along the Iraq–Iran border—a dangerous situation that risks accident, escalating tensions, or even war.)
Actions such as these are limited in scope, and would not at first substantively alter the character of US–Iranian relations, but they would communicate to Iran that the US intends to pursue a different strategy from the one followed by the previous administration. Following the Iranian elections in the summer, the new administration could privately and informally explore the idea of talks at a higher level.
A new policy also requires a new tone. Iran is a proud nation with roots in a centuries-old civilization; its insistence on being treated with mutual respect is not empty rhetoric. Continued denunciation of the regime will likely produce greater intransigence, especially as Iran enters its presidential campaign. Iranians bristle at the use of the phrase "carrots and sticks," which they associate with the treatment of donkeys and which in any case suggests that they can be either bought off or beaten into submission. More generally, the US government would do well to follow a first principle of diplomacy—when you want to change a bad situation, start by shutting up.
Moreover, Iranian paranoia about the US cannot be underestimated. Alerting the Iranian government in advance to the timing and objectives of each of the steps described above would avoid a negative reaction. It would also prepare the way for a major new approach to the issues concerning nuclear enrichment, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
In an earlier article in these pages[4] we outlined an approach that would open a way to deal with Iran's nuclear aspirations. We proposed that, with US support, European nations form a multinational consortium with Iran to produce enriched uranium inside Iran, thus transferring a purely national program to international ownership, management, and supervision. All nuclear developments in Iran would be monitored by an enhanced verification system with the full participation of the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure that military nuclear activities are not taking place. Highly placed Iranians support this approach and the Iranian government itself has at various times raised the possibility of a multinationally owned enrichment facility on Iranian soil—which would provide it with a guaranteed supply of fuel for a civilian nuclear energy program.
With international staff on the ground, around the clock, a multinational system could effectively prevent enrichment for military purposes and would deter Iran from pursuing a parallel or clandestine enrichment program. If Iran accepts such an arrangement, it would not only accept international scrutiny but would put itself in a deeply vulnerable position if it revoked the agreement.
The Obama administration will not have many opportunities to formulate a workable nuclear policy toward Iran. Up to now, the Obama team seems to be seeking to have it both ways. The President-elect has endorsed negotiations but also has indicated a readiness to continue the tough talk of recent years and the use of punitive sanctions. Such a policy is unlikely to succeed. Saying you are willing to talk while acting the same way as your predecessor is not going to persuade the Iranians to agree to controls on an enrichment program in which they have invested precious resources and considerable pride.
Skeptics of our proposal often concede that the international community may have to accept some Iranian enrichment activity; but they also insist that turning this enrichment into a multinational enterprise should be seen as a fallback position for the US. The problem with such a view is that it is tantamount to saying that a multinational project is a good idea that the US cannot consider without first failing with its existing, sanctions-based policy.
We think US policy is already failing, as Iran's growing numbers of centrifuges attest. Starting with a workable proposal is better than continuing with a losing approach in the hope that we can recoup our position later. It is unlikely that if the Obama administration adopts a zero-centrifuge approach and fails it will end up with more political and bargaining leverage than it had when it started. Put another way, if the US continues to insist that Iran scrap all its centrifuges or else, we will soon find ourselves in a situation where Iran has tens of thousands of centrifuges and the only options left are both unpromising and prohibitively costly.
We have proposed that the United States engage in direct, bilateral talks with Iran on its nuclear program in parallel with continued multilateral discussions with Germany and the members of the UN Security Council (the "P5+1"). We envisage a prominent role for America's European partners in the establishment of a multilateral enrichment facility on Iranian soil. We believe that this approach offers crucial advantages not only for the nuclear issue but for addressing the parallel challenges of Iraq and Afghanistan. Here again, we argue that the US and Iran should hold separate but parallel direct discussions on the issues of Iraq and Afghanistan, and that these discussions, in turn, must become part of a broader, multiparty approach that includes the members of the Security Council and neighboring countries in the region. On the US side, these three distinct but related tracks would be coordinated by the secretary of state.
Exploratory negotiations in the region will first require a solution to the problem of who will participate and how best to coordinate their relations. Each major issue—Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Iran nuclear problem—would have its own negotiating forum, or track, with Iran and the other key players participating. Working in parallel with the UN secretary-general, an umbrella group, including all the major players, would be established to coordinate the work of the smaller groups and ratify the results.
As far as Iraq is concerned, in Washington's ideal world, Tehran would have no influence over Iraqi affairs, and Iraq would act as a stalwart supporter of American interests and allies in the region. Tehran would like the same for itself, namely, an Iraq over which America has little or no influence and an Iraqi government dominated by Shiite factions friendly to Iranian interests. Despite these differences, there is much on which the US and Iran can agree. Both support keeping Iraq territorially intact (rather than carved up into separate, sectarian regions) and with popularly elected leadership.
Indeed, although Iran has shown its readiness to support militias that attack US troops, both countries support the Maliki government, and neither wants to see Iraq become the battleground for proxy wars, in which neighboring countries provide military or political support for their client groups inside Iraq. Saudi Arabia, for example, might increase its support for Sunni tribal groups such as those in Anbar province—which continue to be regarded with deep suspicion by the Maliki government—while Iran might feel compelled to bolster Shiite militias or elements in the Iraqi security forces. The aim of negotiations would be to avoid both kinds of intervention.
The United States wants to be able to draw down troops and other personnel in Iraq while maintaining a reasonable level of stability and security. Iran also wants US forces out of Iraq, while avoiding a situation of renewed chaos and civil war. Iran also has economic interests in Iraq, which it sees as a potential trading partner and OPEC ally.
Neither the US nor Iran is likely to achieve all of its aims in Iraq. For the US, it is a stubborn and unalterable fact of geography that while its forces may leave Iraq, Iran will always be there, sharing a border with its neighbor and sometime rival. On the other hand, Iraq will likely want to maintain a relationship with the US, if only to counterbalance Iran's influence. Most Iraqi Shias, despite common religious preferences and temporary connections with Iran, have no interest in becoming Persian puppets.
Both the US and Iran would profit if they were willing to settle for a stable and secure Iraq to which both countries have strong ties but over which neither is dominant. The stakes are sufficiently high and the potential for disastrous conflict sufficiently strong that there is reason to find common ground on mutual interests.
As the Iraq Study Group (ISG) chaired by Lee Hamilton and James Baker stressed in 2006, and American military commanders have repeatedly underscored, the primary challenge facing Iraq is political, not military. Iraq's internal political disputes have to be resolved by the Iraqis themselves. But Iraq's neighbors, with their strong ties to various Iraqi factions, have the power to promote progress, paralysis, or worse—civil war.
A multilateral diplomatic initiative—involving not just Iran and the US but also Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, and Syria—would complement and facilitate a change in the size of the US military deployments in Iraq. A similar effort was first proposed in the ISG report, which observes:
No country in the region will benefit in the long term from a chaotic Iraq. Yet Iraq's neighbors are not doing enough to help Iraq achieve stability. Some are undercutting stability.[5]
The bipartisan report called for a "new diplomatic offensive to build an international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region." It also proposed that Iraq's neighbors and other relevant governments—including the permanent members of the UN Security Council—"should form a support group to reinforce security and national reconciliation within Iraq—neither of which Iraq can achieve on its own." These recommendations were ignored by the Bush administration, yet they have only become more urgent as the US drawdown approaches.
Consistent with the ISG report, we propose that the US encourage an international diplomatic effort on Iraq to be organized, preferably under the auspices of the United Nations. Its purpose would be to provide a diplomatic setting so that the parties could coordinate their efforts to help Iraq create a workable federal government, preserve its territorial integrity, achieve a fair distribution of oil wealth, and resettle the nearly five million Iraqi displaced persons and refugees, many of whom are now in neighboring countries in the Middle East.
It has to be stressed that until now, no regional institution has been established that includes all of Iraq's neighbors together with members of the Security Council. Instead, each government in the region has been left to pursue its own policy in an ad hoc fashion and with no or only haphazard coordination with other governments.
The consequences of this "everyone for himself" approach are obvious and unwelcome. The US has sought to develop relations with many constituencies in Iraq, including various groups that have taken part in the insurgency, such as the Sunnis of the Awakening, not only as part of its effort to pacify Iraq, but also to counter the influence of Iran. The Iranians are aware of this and have pursued a similar strategy of their own—including brokering peace agreements between different Shiite factions and providing support to the Badr Brigade and other militias. The Saudis and Jordanians, fearful of Iranian intentions, have provided assistance to Sunni insurgents, which is contrary to the interests of their ally, the United States.
If these competing interests are to be addressed and resolved, it would, we suggest, be important for the various governments to establish a regional diplomatic forum where they can confront their differences in a process of ongoing consultation and negotiation. The members of such a forum would need to recognize and address the concerns of all of Iraq's neighbors; the central question facing them will be their ability to put Iraq's national interests first. A regional forum and a series of agreements among Iraq's neighbors would not guarantee stability in the region. They could, however, avoid a disastrous outcome and then go beyond that to support a secure Iraq.
The diplomatic effort proposed here would have several components. First, the US president would appoint a special envoy to initiate a round of diplomacy with all the governments in the region to address questions concerning Iraq. The UN secretary-general would designate a diplomatic team that would work in parallel with or together with the US special envoy to establish such a team. The US, together with the other permanent members of the UN Security Council and Iraq's neighbors, would share the burden in organizing this initiative. American leadership will be critical, but Washington cannot monopolize the effort. If it does, this will be perceived as yet another "Made in the USA" project imposed from outside and intended to further American interests at the expense of others. International participation under UN auspices will provide the kind of legitimacy needed for the project to succeed.
A priority for the UN and the US envoys would be to make it clear to Baghdad that the first and most important goal of this initiative is the support of Iraqi sovereignty and regional stability and that any decisions or actions would be consistent with the objectives of the Iraqis themselves. This is important, because no plan for Iraq can succeed without the support of the Iraqis. At the same time, no such plan can succeed—even if it has the support of Iraq and its Sunni neighbors—without the endorsement and participation of Iran.
The forum would have both near-term and long-term objectives. At the beginning, the UN and US envoys would meet with participating governments bilaterally with the goal of agreeing to refrain from interfering with or undermining the government of Iraq. The forum would also allow Iraq's neighbors to articulate to international negotiators their suspicions and grievances about the behavior of others in the region and have them addressed. These UN-endorsed exploratory exchanges can also be used to better coordinate the material and political support that the regional and great power governments are providing to Iraq.
The long-term objective might be a formal agreement in which all participating governments pledge themselves to a set of principles and actions: supporting Iraq's territorial integrity, encouraging reconciliation between the various groups within Iraq (based on majority rule, minority rights, and the fair division of oil income), abstaining from interference in Iraqi internal affairs, ending military support for non-state groups operating in Iraq, planning for the resettlement of the five million Iraqis who have been displaced from their homes, whether outside or inside Iraq, bolstering economic and political relations between Iraq and its neighbors, and the inclusion of Iraq in any future regional security arrangements. These resolutions will be of particular importance to Iran, because Tehran wants a stable and friendly neighbor on its border—one governed by Iraq's Shia majority and without a large contingent of US troops on its territory. In addition, Iran's interest in Iraq's economic development will continue to be substantial. Iran has benefited in the past from trade with Iraq but has suffered when Iraq has been unstable or aggressively hostile, as under Saddam Hussein.
All the governments in the Middle East have a common interest in avoiding wholesale disintegration and civil war in the region, but it would be naive to think that there are not obstacles or risks associated with this approach. The Saudis, for example, support Sunni militias against what they see as Shia retribution. Saudi Arabia has less leverage in Iraq than Iran and worries that Iran's star is ascending. Like other Sunni countries, Saudi Arabia also views the Maliki government as unfriendly. Turkey's leaders fear that the good relations that the Shias of Iraq and Iran have established with the Iraqi Kurds will bring about their worst nightmare—a declared and recognized independent Kurdistan. This is a result Turkey cannot accept, despite the fact that the Kurdish population has explicitly supported it.
There are obvious risks to what we propose. Not only may a multilateral initiative for Iraq fail, but a regional forum could become an arena where disputing parties seek to frustrate or dominate others. While this is one potential outcome, we believe the risks are far greater if the countries continue to pursue their current, independent policies in Iraq. Without an institution that allows for the recognition and management of their competing interests, the parties will act on their own, and the results will play out in the streets of Kirkuk and Baghdad. Finally, it is almost certain that there will be increased suspicion and rivalry between the United States and Iran if Iran is left to pursue its own interests in Iraq without some form of regional mediation. Each side will see the worst in the other and publicly blame the other for rising violence and dislocation—including, for example, the recent dramatic escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. In this context of deepening anger and distrust, it will be even more difficult to address other issues the US and Iran should be discussing, such as the future of Afghanistan and Iran's nuclear program.
Afghanistan and its increasingly volatile neighbor, Pakistan, face deeply difficult problems, many of which now threaten to engulf the entire region. Having been given sanctuary in northwest Pakistan after September 11, the Taliban have very substantially increased their presence in Afghanistan, while Pakistan itself has become a safe haven for al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, including those that attacked Mumbai in December.
These developments are of great concern to Iran, which shares borders with both Afghanistan and Pakistan. In fact, Iran supported Northern Alliance forces against the Taliban, and contributed in important ways to the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001. Renewed Iranian assistance, for example in the form of political cooperation, could help prevent the continued spread of the conflict. The Afghanistan expert Barney Rubin has pointed out that US–Iranian cooperation will be crucial for the Afghanistan presidential elections to be held in the second half of this year. If an election is not possible, the US will again need Iran's help to organize a Loya Jirga (a traditional assembly of tribal leaders used in Afghanistan to resolve important political matters), drawing on Iran's longstanding ties and influence over some Afghan warlords and tribal leaders.
A US decision on a new strategy toward Iran will not wait. That is President-elect Obama's inheritance. Talking to Iran will be difficult. In the US, some political leaders and interest groups oppose better relations, though public opinion surveys suggest that a solid majority of Americans favor a diplomatic solution to US–Iranian differences over nuclear enrichment and other issues. Similarly, in Iran, an attempt to engage or compromise with the US will be attacked by factions seeking a political advantage, despite the hopes of millions of Iranians that the US and Iran find a way to improve relations. Suspicion dominates a relationship with a long history of grievances on both sides. Washington doubts the innocence of Iran's nuclear intentions, and Tehran suspects that America's real intent is regime change.
Moreover, some analysts, including many Israelis, view Iran as an "existential threat" to Israel, object to Iran's backing of Hezbollah, and believe that Iran's support for Hamas undermines a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine. In addition, Iran's human rights record provokes understandable opposition internationally. These concerns are extremely urgent, but deteriorating relations between Washington and Tehran will only strengthen Iranian hard-liners and therefore exacerbate the human rights situation. US–Iranian hostility may also give Iran a greater incentive to exercise its leverage with Hamas and Hezbollah in ways that undermine a resolution to the Israel–Palestinian dispute. We believe that successful engagement with Iran on Iraq, Afghanistan, and the nuclear issue could translate into progress on other issues. Indeed, Iran's secret 2003 proposal for US talks included on its agenda Hamas, Hezbollah, and a two-state solution.
The US can impose costs on Iran, but it cannot impose its will. The same is true for Iran. Progress requires on both sides a greater focus on strategy rather than tactics. Adopting a new, integrated approach will require political leadership that is disciplined and willing to take risks. There could be frustrations, setbacks and dangers, but the US and Iran can avoid a downward spiral that risks military conflict. They can also create an opportunity for progress on some of the most difficult and complicated challenges the US will have to confront in the coming years.
—January 15, 2009
COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE
The central recommendation of this article is that the US must engage Iran directly and without preconditions, one of the primary recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. These distinguished authors have a firm grasp of the difficulties and the opportunities such engagement with this complex region requires. On the whole, I found the article a refreshing contribution to the US foreign policy discourse. Since President Obama will be addressing Iraq, Afghanistan, and the nuclear program in Iran as core national security problems soon after taking office, I commend this valuable perspective on how the administration's policies on these three critical issues could be integrated into a new approach to the region.
Lee H. Hamilton
Co-chair, Iraq Study Group
An important contribution to a better understanding of what needs to be done to cope constructively, and in a manner that genuinely enhances US national interests, in response to the Iranian challenge.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
This is an important article about the direction of American policy, even if one does not agree with every prescription.
Henry Kissinger
Notes
[1]The authors believe that today Afghanistan and Pakistan have become virtually a hyphenated name for a large problem. Our concentration in this article is on Afghanistan as a neighbor of Iran, but includes Pakistan wherever that is relevant.
[2]News reports and some commentators have recently claimed that Iran has enough material for a nuclear weapon. These reports referred to Iran's stock of low-enriched uranium. This is a misleading claim. To begin with, one cannot make a nuclear weapon with low-enriched uranium. A nuclear weapon requires highly enriched uranium or plutonium, and Iran possesses neither. In theory, Iran could take its stock of low-enriched uranium and enrich it to a grade required for making bombs, but its low-enriched uranium is currently under the surveillance of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Diverting this material for military purposes would be discovered by the IAEA. (Detection of diversion is the IAEA's technological strong suit.) Iran's choices, therefore, are to cheat and get caught or to kick out the inspectors. Either action would represent an extreme departure from Iranian strategy to date and in any case would likely precipitate military action by Israel.
[3]"Embedded in Iraq," The New York Review, July 17, 2008.
[4]"A Solution for the US–Iran Nuclear Standoff," The New York Review, March 20, 2008.
[5]The Iraq Study Group Report, p. 6; available at www.usip.org.
_______________________________________________
The elusive search for peace by Osama Al Sharif
The Middle East's Leading English Language Daily
Wednesday 14 January 2009 (17 Muharram 1430)
The elusive search for peace
Osama Al Sharif | osama@mediaarabia.com —
For decades the people of this troubled part of the world have been expressing the same hope over and over again: To see peace realized so that they and their children can live normal lives. And for decades they saw their wish repeatedly blown to smithereens. My generation lived through many wars and conflicts, and today, as I consider the future of my children and their children, I find myself frightened and restless.
The war on Gaza has extinguished the last flicker of a possible peaceful settlement between Palestinians and Israelis, Arabs and Jews, in the holy land and beyond. Barring a miracle, this region appears to be heading into the mouth of a wild beast. The scars of the Gaza pogrom will take many years to heal, if ever. The case for peace, always a noble undertaking, has been dealt a terrible blow.
And in spite of all the needless deaths and injuries, and senseless destruction and fanatic display of arrogant military power, we are today in the same thorny spot that we have always found ourselves in. The evil agents of war loom large over the Middle East today. The dreams of a better world have been cut to pieces like the soft dead bodies of Gaza children. Those who promote war and death have won the day. It is a sad and desperate confession. But the butchery that took place in Gaza brought back horrific images of past massacres. Our recent history is full of them. And after each aggression on human life, in Jenin and Hebron, in Jerusalem and Qana, in Bahr Al-Baqar and Sabra, there were those who still believed peace was possible.
But the trail of blood is driving us farther away from that goal. In Gaza, the world looked closely at the faces of the victims and the victimizers. The slaughter that has been going on for weeks underlined the world's incapacity to bring peace, or keep it. The killing of peace in Gaza was not an accident, but a deliberate scheme carried out by ruthless men and women who rule armies and politicians, from Washington to Tel Aviv.
And regardless of the immediate political gains, if any, that the aggressors wanted to achieve. The reality is that it is now shameful to speak of coexistence, ludicrous to promote a just political settlement and madness to believe that the coming generations of Arabs will be less angry, more forgiving or accommodating than the present ones. On the other side we have also seen the true face of the enemy.
When over 70 percent of Israelis strongly supported the war on Gaza, the case of the peace camp collapsed. And the irony is that the government that waged this barbaric aggression is the one that wants to make peace with the Arabs. It represents the moderates, those who believe in a land-for-peace deal. We have been duped for years into believing that peace was possible if only we can rein in our radicals and extremists. But no one in Israel is restraining Zionist radicals and Jewish extremists. They are Cabinet ministers and Knesset members. They are part of the political establishment, not outside it. They have a right to express hatred, threaten ethnic cleansing and justify war crimes against millions under occupation. This is the kind of democracy that is Israel's pride and America's joy.
The war on Gaza has exposed many other accomplices. We have discovered that we are alone in this dangerous world we live in. International law and conventions could not protect the children of Gaza from a nightmarish fate, sometimes worse than death. The UN and its agencies stood still as the systematic liquidation of civilians, sometimes entire families, was carried out in broad daylight under the eyes of the press and humanitarian agencies.
We have discovered that our European "friends" will lecture us for hours and days on law, morality and good citizenship but shy away when we ask them to turn their words into deeds. We already know that our American "ally" is only interested in our oil and petrodollars. No one, not the Russians or the Chinese, really cared enough to take a stand. This was our nightmare and Israel's frenzy. But we have also discovered that our people and kin are our only asset. From London to Lahore, Jakarta to Casablanca, Amman to Istanbul, rallies and vigils reminded us that we belong to a bigger nation, far sturdier than any other. The Palestinians are not alone, even when they face the brunt of Israel's madness with their bodies and lives. This is not war. It would be degrading to any honorable soldier in uniform to call it such. This is a massacre of civilians under occupation. If the killing of one protester in Ramallah or Tulkarem by the occupation army is a possible war crime, how would one describe the annihilation that took place in the biggest concentration camp the world has ever known?
Peace has eluded this region and its people for decades. Many innocent lives have been lost, and hope has been trampled on too many times. For now, let us not talk about peace and negotiations. Let us honor the dead and extend our thanks to the millions who said "no" to the killers. For now, let us focus on helping the survivors rebuild their lives in an honorable fashion.
Only when the culprits of this evil deed are punished will we begin to listen. Israel is not above the law; it must face the consequences of its action if it wants recognition, if it wants coexistence. Maybe then we can cultivate hope. But for now let us tell the world that the message of peace is buried somewhere under the rubble in Jabaliya and Beit Lahiya.
— Osama Al Sharif is a political commentator based in Amman
Wednesday 14 January 2009 (17 Muharram 1430)
The elusive search for peace
Osama Al Sharif | osama@mediaarabia.com —
For decades the people of this troubled part of the world have been expressing the same hope over and over again: To see peace realized so that they and their children can live normal lives. And for decades they saw their wish repeatedly blown to smithereens. My generation lived through many wars and conflicts, and today, as I consider the future of my children and their children, I find myself frightened and restless.
The war on Gaza has extinguished the last flicker of a possible peaceful settlement between Palestinians and Israelis, Arabs and Jews, in the holy land and beyond. Barring a miracle, this region appears to be heading into the mouth of a wild beast. The scars of the Gaza pogrom will take many years to heal, if ever. The case for peace, always a noble undertaking, has been dealt a terrible blow.
And in spite of all the needless deaths and injuries, and senseless destruction and fanatic display of arrogant military power, we are today in the same thorny spot that we have always found ourselves in. The evil agents of war loom large over the Middle East today. The dreams of a better world have been cut to pieces like the soft dead bodies of Gaza children. Those who promote war and death have won the day. It is a sad and desperate confession. But the butchery that took place in Gaza brought back horrific images of past massacres. Our recent history is full of them. And after each aggression on human life, in Jenin and Hebron, in Jerusalem and Qana, in Bahr Al-Baqar and Sabra, there were those who still believed peace was possible.
But the trail of blood is driving us farther away from that goal. In Gaza, the world looked closely at the faces of the victims and the victimizers. The slaughter that has been going on for weeks underlined the world's incapacity to bring peace, or keep it. The killing of peace in Gaza was not an accident, but a deliberate scheme carried out by ruthless men and women who rule armies and politicians, from Washington to Tel Aviv.
And regardless of the immediate political gains, if any, that the aggressors wanted to achieve. The reality is that it is now shameful to speak of coexistence, ludicrous to promote a just political settlement and madness to believe that the coming generations of Arabs will be less angry, more forgiving or accommodating than the present ones. On the other side we have also seen the true face of the enemy.
When over 70 percent of Israelis strongly supported the war on Gaza, the case of the peace camp collapsed. And the irony is that the government that waged this barbaric aggression is the one that wants to make peace with the Arabs. It represents the moderates, those who believe in a land-for-peace deal. We have been duped for years into believing that peace was possible if only we can rein in our radicals and extremists. But no one in Israel is restraining Zionist radicals and Jewish extremists. They are Cabinet ministers and Knesset members. They are part of the political establishment, not outside it. They have a right to express hatred, threaten ethnic cleansing and justify war crimes against millions under occupation. This is the kind of democracy that is Israel's pride and America's joy.
The war on Gaza has exposed many other accomplices. We have discovered that we are alone in this dangerous world we live in. International law and conventions could not protect the children of Gaza from a nightmarish fate, sometimes worse than death. The UN and its agencies stood still as the systematic liquidation of civilians, sometimes entire families, was carried out in broad daylight under the eyes of the press and humanitarian agencies.
We have discovered that our European "friends" will lecture us for hours and days on law, morality and good citizenship but shy away when we ask them to turn their words into deeds. We already know that our American "ally" is only interested in our oil and petrodollars. No one, not the Russians or the Chinese, really cared enough to take a stand. This was our nightmare and Israel's frenzy. But we have also discovered that our people and kin are our only asset. From London to Lahore, Jakarta to Casablanca, Amman to Istanbul, rallies and vigils reminded us that we belong to a bigger nation, far sturdier than any other. The Palestinians are not alone, even when they face the brunt of Israel's madness with their bodies and lives. This is not war. It would be degrading to any honorable soldier in uniform to call it such. This is a massacre of civilians under occupation. If the killing of one protester in Ramallah or Tulkarem by the occupation army is a possible war crime, how would one describe the annihilation that took place in the biggest concentration camp the world has ever known?
Peace has eluded this region and its people for decades. Many innocent lives have been lost, and hope has been trampled on too many times. For now, let us not talk about peace and negotiations. Let us honor the dead and extend our thanks to the millions who said "no" to the killers. For now, let us focus on helping the survivors rebuild their lives in an honorable fashion.
Only when the culprits of this evil deed are punished will we begin to listen. Israel is not above the law; it must face the consequences of its action if it wants recognition, if it wants coexistence. Maybe then we can cultivate hope. But for now let us tell the world that the message of peace is buried somewhere under the rubble in Jabaliya and Beit Lahiya.
— Osama Al Sharif is a political commentator based in Amman
Amid broad Israeli support for Gaza war, a rare dissenting voice by Joshua Mitnick
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
1/15/09
Amid broad Israeli support for Gaza war, a rare dissenting voice
Sari Bashi of the group Gisha argued before the Israeli Supreme Court Thursday that Israel is still responsible for Gazan civilians because it controls the enclave's borders, airspace, and sea space.
Joshua Mitnick
Tel Aviv - With the sleek tower of the Israeli defense ministry dominating the skyline outside her office window, Israeli-American human rights lawyer Sari Bashi wages a counter offensive on the military's blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Breaking with mainstream Israelis who turned their backs on Gaza after the army pullout three years ago, the graduate of Yale Law School and an Orthodox Jewish elementary school argued in Israel's Supreme Court Thursday that Israel is still responsible for the well-being of Gaza's civilians.
As the head of Gisha, a legal group that lobbies for freedom of movement for Palestinians, Ms. Bashi is at the forefront of a small coalition of human rights groups pressing the government to ensure water, electricity, and medical supplies are restored for Gazans.
"Today we're fighting for their right to exist at the most basic level, and that is tragic," she says. "Because the long-term damage that we're doing in Gaza right now by destroying the infrastructure and traumatizing civilians ... is going to make it very difficult to build a better future in this region."
The Supreme Court appearance was part of a petition to force the government to allow fuel into Gaza so electricity plants can supply power for water pumps and to enable Palestinian technicians to fix downed power cables.
On Wednesday, the Israeli human rights coalition held a press conference to call for an international investigation into alleged war crimes by the Israeli army. In addition to pressure for a renewal of Gaza's water and electricity supply, the coalition called on the army to stop targeting civilian buildings and to allow civilians escape routes to flee battle zones.
When Israelis unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, pulling out soldiers and uprooting settlements, there was a sigh of relief that their four-decade-long occupation of the enclave was over.
The contention that with the withdrawal Palestinians lost their casus belli to launch cross-border attacks into Israel is one of the main reasons why the onslaught against Hamas enjoys wide support in Israel. A poll published Thursday in the left-wing Haaretz newspaper found that 78 percent of the public believe the war is a success. So strong is the approval that a recent demonstration in favor of a cease-fire by Peace Now only drew about 1,000 people.
Experts cite eight years of Israeli malaise after the 2000 Camp David peace conference collapsed into the Palestinian uprising. "Some of the people in the peace camp lost hope in the Palestinians, and some left hope in the Israelis," says Akiva Eldar, a political commentator for Haaretz. "Some don't believe a two-state solution is practical and doable."
Despite the US-brokered agreement in 2005 that aspired to keep Gaza's borders open after the Israeli withdrawal, Israel has restricted traffic of people and goods, citing security considerations. Since Hamas overran Gaza in 2007, it has been all but sealed except for basic supplies.
Anticipating the difficulties moving in and out of Gaza following the withdrawal, Gisha has spent the past three years focusing on the cases of Gazan students with foreign scholarships being denied authorization from Israel to leave, as well as Palestinian families separated by the ban on movement between the West Bank and Gaza.
As Israel tightened supply restrictions, Gisha has also pushed Israel to allow more trucks and fuel shipments. The sanctions have decimated Gaza's economy, but haven't shaken Hamas's grip on power.
"There was a concern that if Israel left Gaza and closed the doors real tight we would have a problem. That's of course what happened," Bashi says. "Our goal is to get Israelis to stop targeting Palestinian civilians in Gaza under the guise of targeting Hamas. But it's very, very slow progress."
Victories have been rare. Though the legal and media pressure helped win a permit for a Palestinian student from Bethlehem to study at Hebrew University, Israel's Supreme Court rarely challenges the army in the West Bank or Gaza. In response to Gisha's petition this week, the state said the army's activities in Gaza are in keeping with international law and Israeli court rulings. The argument that Israel still is responsible for Gaza because it controls border crossings, its airspace and its sea space has outraged some Israelis.
"The issue of Israel being an occupying power is a Palestinian Liberation Organization claim," says Gerald Steinberg, a political science professor at Bar-Ilan University who heads a watch-dog group that criticizes left-wing organizations. "They misuse ... international legal rhetoric."
As peace efforts have faltered, activists have been left on shakier ground. Bashi, who was accused by a Supreme Court justice of siding with militants, says she empathizes with the Israeli mainstream. The restrictions she fights are imposed because Israelis fear Hamas and rocket attacks, she says. "What we're trying to do is to remind Israel of its deeply held values. Human rights and humanitarian considerations are a part of the national credo, but they are buried, and they need to be uncovered."
1/15/09
Amid broad Israeli support for Gaza war, a rare dissenting voice
Sari Bashi of the group Gisha argued before the Israeli Supreme Court Thursday that Israel is still responsible for Gazan civilians because it controls the enclave's borders, airspace, and sea space.
Joshua Mitnick
Tel Aviv - With the sleek tower of the Israeli defense ministry dominating the skyline outside her office window, Israeli-American human rights lawyer Sari Bashi wages a counter offensive on the military's blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Breaking with mainstream Israelis who turned their backs on Gaza after the army pullout three years ago, the graduate of Yale Law School and an Orthodox Jewish elementary school argued in Israel's Supreme Court Thursday that Israel is still responsible for the well-being of Gaza's civilians.
As the head of Gisha, a legal group that lobbies for freedom of movement for Palestinians, Ms. Bashi is at the forefront of a small coalition of human rights groups pressing the government to ensure water, electricity, and medical supplies are restored for Gazans.
"Today we're fighting for their right to exist at the most basic level, and that is tragic," she says. "Because the long-term damage that we're doing in Gaza right now by destroying the infrastructure and traumatizing civilians ... is going to make it very difficult to build a better future in this region."
The Supreme Court appearance was part of a petition to force the government to allow fuel into Gaza so electricity plants can supply power for water pumps and to enable Palestinian technicians to fix downed power cables.
On Wednesday, the Israeli human rights coalition held a press conference to call for an international investigation into alleged war crimes by the Israeli army. In addition to pressure for a renewal of Gaza's water and electricity supply, the coalition called on the army to stop targeting civilian buildings and to allow civilians escape routes to flee battle zones.
When Israelis unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, pulling out soldiers and uprooting settlements, there was a sigh of relief that their four-decade-long occupation of the enclave was over.
The contention that with the withdrawal Palestinians lost their casus belli to launch cross-border attacks into Israel is one of the main reasons why the onslaught against Hamas enjoys wide support in Israel. A poll published Thursday in the left-wing Haaretz newspaper found that 78 percent of the public believe the war is a success. So strong is the approval that a recent demonstration in favor of a cease-fire by Peace Now only drew about 1,000 people.
Experts cite eight years of Israeli malaise after the 2000 Camp David peace conference collapsed into the Palestinian uprising. "Some of the people in the peace camp lost hope in the Palestinians, and some left hope in the Israelis," says Akiva Eldar, a political commentator for Haaretz. "Some don't believe a two-state solution is practical and doable."
Despite the US-brokered agreement in 2005 that aspired to keep Gaza's borders open after the Israeli withdrawal, Israel has restricted traffic of people and goods, citing security considerations. Since Hamas overran Gaza in 2007, it has been all but sealed except for basic supplies.
Anticipating the difficulties moving in and out of Gaza following the withdrawal, Gisha has spent the past three years focusing on the cases of Gazan students with foreign scholarships being denied authorization from Israel to leave, as well as Palestinian families separated by the ban on movement between the West Bank and Gaza.
As Israel tightened supply restrictions, Gisha has also pushed Israel to allow more trucks and fuel shipments. The sanctions have decimated Gaza's economy, but haven't shaken Hamas's grip on power.
"There was a concern that if Israel left Gaza and closed the doors real tight we would have a problem. That's of course what happened," Bashi says. "Our goal is to get Israelis to stop targeting Palestinian civilians in Gaza under the guise of targeting Hamas. But it's very, very slow progress."
Victories have been rare. Though the legal and media pressure helped win a permit for a Palestinian student from Bethlehem to study at Hebrew University, Israel's Supreme Court rarely challenges the army in the West Bank or Gaza. In response to Gisha's petition this week, the state said the army's activities in Gaza are in keeping with international law and Israeli court rulings. The argument that Israel still is responsible for Gaza because it controls border crossings, its airspace and its sea space has outraged some Israelis.
"The issue of Israel being an occupying power is a Palestinian Liberation Organization claim," says Gerald Steinberg, a political science professor at Bar-Ilan University who heads a watch-dog group that criticizes left-wing organizations. "They misuse ... international legal rhetoric."
As peace efforts have faltered, activists have been left on shakier ground. Bashi, who was accused by a Supreme Court justice of siding with militants, says she empathizes with the Israeli mainstream. The restrictions she fights are imposed because Israelis fear Hamas and rocket attacks, she says. "What we're trying to do is to remind Israel of its deeply held values. Human rights and humanitarian considerations are a part of the national credo, but they are buried, and they need to be uncovered."
Obama's pro-Israel congressional welcome By Rami G. Khouri
Rami Khouri has long been considered one of the most balanced commentators on American policy in the region. His comments in this article are a measure of the fallout on us of Israel's operations in Gaza.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_ID=10&article_ID=98991&categ_id=5#
Obama's pro-Israel congressional welcome
By Rami G. Khouri
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
If the Israeli attack on Gaza that started 18 days ago was designed partly to send a message to the incoming Barack Obama, the United States Congress in the past week seems to have joined the battle to handcuff the new president and lay down the law for him, even before he takes office.
Obama has tried to remain aloof and stay out of the political battle over the Gaza war by making no substantive statements about it. Israel and its supporters in Washington have different plans. Obama has stayed away from the war, but they brought the war to him - shoving it down his throat as his first pre-incumbency lesson in how American presidents must behave with respect to Israel's desires, if they wish to remain in power.
The House of Representatives voted last Friday by 390-5 for a resolution that backed Israel in its Gaza onslaught, affirming "Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza." A day earlier, the Senate overwhelmingly supported Israel and its right to defend itself against terrorism.
Such extraordinary one-sided support for Israel by Congress mirrors the same position taken by the administration. Both President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared on Monday that Hamas was to blame for the current war and for the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza, and that any ceasefire had to guarantee that Hamas stopped attacking Israel. They seemed incomprehensibly blind to Israel's combined strangulation of and assault on Gaza.
This almost irrational absolute support for Israel in both the legislative and executive branches of the US government occurs amid a chorus of international condemnation of Israel for using excessive force. This includes calls by some United Nations officials and respectable non-governmental organizations to investigate whether Israel has committed war crimes.
Israel is using the two arsenals it is most comfortable with - military force to kill, injure, terrorize and displace thousands of Palestinian civilians; and the equivalent political overkill to bludgeon the American political establishment into total submission. After six decades of trying, Israel has been unable to turn Palestinians into vassals and subservient slaves - but it has succeeded in transforming an otherwise impressive American political governance system into a herd of castrated cattle who cower before the threats that Israel's Washington-based henchmen and hit men direct at them. Gaza will get its ceasefire soon, but will Washington ever find relief from the stranglehold of Israel's political thugs?
These Congressional votes in the past few days were not an unusual event, sadly, but rather a routine reaffirmation of the chokehold that Israel enjoys over the elected representatives of an otherwise healthy democracy. For example, two years ago, when Israel attacked Lebanon with similar ferocity, the House of Representatives voted 410-8 to support the Israeli onslaught and to condemn Hamas and Hizbullah for "unprovoked and reprehensible armed attacks against Israel." Two years before that, in 2004, the House voted 407-9 to support Bush's position that it was "unrealistic" for Israel to return completely to its pre-June 1967 borders in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
On no other foreign policy issue does Congress collectively stick its head in its back pocket, turn off its power of independent judgment, and disregard the impact of its decisions on how the US is perceived around the world. On no other issue does Congress vote according to the interests of a foreign country, rather than according to the US national interest. This kind of blind, wholehearted plunge into a maelstrom of pro-Israeli fanaticism and zealotry reflects precisely how strong the pro-Israeli lobby is in the United States, and how weak are the voices of reason, balance and justice as drivers of American foreign policy.
This is the distorted reality that Obama will inherit in one week's time, and what an ugly thing it is. It captures the worst of all worlds all rolled into one: the vicious force of the pro-Israel lobby in the US that buys and terrorizes politicians as easily as buying peanuts at a circus; the anemic, mindless and spineless Arab governments who stand naked before Israel and the US, and shameless before their own people; and the American political establishment that behaves on the Palestinian issue - with a handful of brave and decent exceptions - in a most un-American manner in the face of the pro-Israeli forces that decide if they live or die politically.
None of this is surprising or new. It only amazes me that Americans expect us to take them seriously and not to laugh - or throw up - when they preach to us about promoting democracy.
Rami G. Khouri is published twice-weekly by THE DAILY STAR.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_ID=10&article_ID=98991&categ_id=5#
Obama's pro-Israel congressional welcome
By Rami G. Khouri
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
If the Israeli attack on Gaza that started 18 days ago was designed partly to send a message to the incoming Barack Obama, the United States Congress in the past week seems to have joined the battle to handcuff the new president and lay down the law for him, even before he takes office.
Obama has tried to remain aloof and stay out of the political battle over the Gaza war by making no substantive statements about it. Israel and its supporters in Washington have different plans. Obama has stayed away from the war, but they brought the war to him - shoving it down his throat as his first pre-incumbency lesson in how American presidents must behave with respect to Israel's desires, if they wish to remain in power.
The House of Representatives voted last Friday by 390-5 for a resolution that backed Israel in its Gaza onslaught, affirming "Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza." A day earlier, the Senate overwhelmingly supported Israel and its right to defend itself against terrorism.
Such extraordinary one-sided support for Israel by Congress mirrors the same position taken by the administration. Both President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared on Monday that Hamas was to blame for the current war and for the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza, and that any ceasefire had to guarantee that Hamas stopped attacking Israel. They seemed incomprehensibly blind to Israel's combined strangulation of and assault on Gaza.
This almost irrational absolute support for Israel in both the legislative and executive branches of the US government occurs amid a chorus of international condemnation of Israel for using excessive force. This includes calls by some United Nations officials and respectable non-governmental organizations to investigate whether Israel has committed war crimes.
Israel is using the two arsenals it is most comfortable with - military force to kill, injure, terrorize and displace thousands of Palestinian civilians; and the equivalent political overkill to bludgeon the American political establishment into total submission. After six decades of trying, Israel has been unable to turn Palestinians into vassals and subservient slaves - but it has succeeded in transforming an otherwise impressive American political governance system into a herd of castrated cattle who cower before the threats that Israel's Washington-based henchmen and hit men direct at them. Gaza will get its ceasefire soon, but will Washington ever find relief from the stranglehold of Israel's political thugs?
These Congressional votes in the past few days were not an unusual event, sadly, but rather a routine reaffirmation of the chokehold that Israel enjoys over the elected representatives of an otherwise healthy democracy. For example, two years ago, when Israel attacked Lebanon with similar ferocity, the House of Representatives voted 410-8 to support the Israeli onslaught and to condemn Hamas and Hizbullah for "unprovoked and reprehensible armed attacks against Israel." Two years before that, in 2004, the House voted 407-9 to support Bush's position that it was "unrealistic" for Israel to return completely to its pre-June 1967 borders in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
On no other foreign policy issue does Congress collectively stick its head in its back pocket, turn off its power of independent judgment, and disregard the impact of its decisions on how the US is perceived around the world. On no other issue does Congress vote according to the interests of a foreign country, rather than according to the US national interest. This kind of blind, wholehearted plunge into a maelstrom of pro-Israeli fanaticism and zealotry reflects precisely how strong the pro-Israeli lobby is in the United States, and how weak are the voices of reason, balance and justice as drivers of American foreign policy.
This is the distorted reality that Obama will inherit in one week's time, and what an ugly thing it is. It captures the worst of all worlds all rolled into one: the vicious force of the pro-Israel lobby in the US that buys and terrorizes politicians as easily as buying peanuts at a circus; the anemic, mindless and spineless Arab governments who stand naked before Israel and the US, and shameless before their own people; and the American political establishment that behaves on the Palestinian issue - with a handful of brave and decent exceptions - in a most un-American manner in the face of the pro-Israeli forces that decide if they live or die politically.
None of this is surprising or new. It only amazes me that Americans expect us to take them seriously and not to laugh - or throw up - when they preach to us about promoting democracy.
Rami G. Khouri is published twice-weekly by THE DAILY STAR.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
'War on terror' was wrong The phrase gives a false idea of a unified global enemy, and encourages a primarily military reply David Miliband
Some pointed comments from the author, who is the foreign minister of the UK.
'War on terror' was wrong
The phrase gives a false idea of a unified global enemy, and encourages a primarily military reply
David Miliband
Thursday January 15 2009
The Guardian
The terrorist attacks in Mumbai seven weeks ago sent shock waves around the world. Now all eyes are fixed on the Middle East, where Israel's response to Hamas's rockets, a ferocious military campaign, has already left a thousand Gazans dead.
Seven years on from 9/11 it is clear that we need to take a fundamental look at our efforts to prevent extremism and its terrible offspring, terrorist violence. Since 9/11, the notion of a "war on terror" has defined the terrain. The phrase had some merit: it captured the gravity of the threats, the need for solidarity, and the need to respond urgently - where necessary, with force. But ultimately, the notion is misleading and mistaken. The issue is not whether we need to attack the use of terror at its roots, with all the tools available. We must. The question is how.
The idea of a "war on terror" gave the impression of a unified, transnational enemy, embodied in the figure of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. The reality is that the motivations and identities of terrorist groups are disparate. Lashkar-e-Taiba has roots in Pakistan and says its cause is Kashmir. Hezbollah says it stands for resistance to occupation of the Golan Heights. The Shia and Sunni insurgent groups in Iraq have myriad demands. They are as diverse as the 1970s European movements of the IRA, Baader-Meinhof, and Eta. All used terrorism and sometimes they supported each other, but their causes were not unified and their cooperation was opportunistic. So it is today.
The more we lump terrorist groups together and draw the battle lines as a simple binary struggle between moderates and extremists, or good and evil, the more we play into the hands of those seeking to unify groups with little in common. Terrorist groups need to be tackled at root, interdicting flows of weapons and finance, exposing the shallowness of their claims, channelling their followers into democratic politics.
The "war on terror" also implied that the correct response was primarily military. But as General Petraeus said to me and others in Iraq, the coalition there could not kill its way out of the problems of insurgency and civil strife.
This is what divides supporters and opponents of the military action in Gaza. Similar issues are raised by the debate about the response to the Mumbai attacks. Those who were responsible must be brought to justice and the government of Pakistan must take urgent and effective action to break up terror networks on its soil. But on my visit to south Asia this week, I am arguing that the best antidote to the terrorist threat in the long term is cooperation. Although I understand the current difficulties, resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms, and allow Pakistani authorities to focus more effectively on tackling the threat on their western borders.
We must respond to terrorism by championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, for it is the cornerstone of the democratic society. We must uphold our commitments to human rights and civil liberties at home and abroad. That is surely the lesson of Guantánamo and it is why we welcome President-elect Obama's commitment to close it.
The call for a "war on terror" was a call to arms, an attempt to build solidarity for a fight against a single shared enemy. But the foundation for solidarity between peoples and nations should be based not on who we are against, but on the idea of who we are and the values we share. Terrorists succeed when they render countries fearful and vindictive; when they sow division and animosity; when they force countries to respond with violence and repression. The best response is to refuse to be cowed.
David Miliband is the foreign secretary milibandd@parliament.uk
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited 2009
'War on terror' was wrong
The phrase gives a false idea of a unified global enemy, and encourages a primarily military reply
David Miliband
Thursday January 15 2009
The Guardian
The terrorist attacks in Mumbai seven weeks ago sent shock waves around the world. Now all eyes are fixed on the Middle East, where Israel's response to Hamas's rockets, a ferocious military campaign, has already left a thousand Gazans dead.
Seven years on from 9/11 it is clear that we need to take a fundamental look at our efforts to prevent extremism and its terrible offspring, terrorist violence. Since 9/11, the notion of a "war on terror" has defined the terrain. The phrase had some merit: it captured the gravity of the threats, the need for solidarity, and the need to respond urgently - where necessary, with force. But ultimately, the notion is misleading and mistaken. The issue is not whether we need to attack the use of terror at its roots, with all the tools available. We must. The question is how.
The idea of a "war on terror" gave the impression of a unified, transnational enemy, embodied in the figure of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. The reality is that the motivations and identities of terrorist groups are disparate. Lashkar-e-Taiba has roots in Pakistan and says its cause is Kashmir. Hezbollah says it stands for resistance to occupation of the Golan Heights. The Shia and Sunni insurgent groups in Iraq have myriad demands. They are as diverse as the 1970s European movements of the IRA, Baader-Meinhof, and Eta. All used terrorism and sometimes they supported each other, but their causes were not unified and their cooperation was opportunistic. So it is today.
The more we lump terrorist groups together and draw the battle lines as a simple binary struggle between moderates and extremists, or good and evil, the more we play into the hands of those seeking to unify groups with little in common. Terrorist groups need to be tackled at root, interdicting flows of weapons and finance, exposing the shallowness of their claims, channelling their followers into democratic politics.
The "war on terror" also implied that the correct response was primarily military. But as General Petraeus said to me and others in Iraq, the coalition there could not kill its way out of the problems of insurgency and civil strife.
This is what divides supporters and opponents of the military action in Gaza. Similar issues are raised by the debate about the response to the Mumbai attacks. Those who were responsible must be brought to justice and the government of Pakistan must take urgent and effective action to break up terror networks on its soil. But on my visit to south Asia this week, I am arguing that the best antidote to the terrorist threat in the long term is cooperation. Although I understand the current difficulties, resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms, and allow Pakistani authorities to focus more effectively on tackling the threat on their western borders.
We must respond to terrorism by championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, for it is the cornerstone of the democratic society. We must uphold our commitments to human rights and civil liberties at home and abroad. That is surely the lesson of Guantánamo and it is why we welcome President-elect Obama's commitment to close it.
The call for a "war on terror" was a call to arms, an attempt to build solidarity for a fight against a single shared enemy. But the foundation for solidarity between peoples and nations should be based not on who we are against, but on the idea of who we are and the values we share. Terrorists succeed when they render countries fearful and vindictive; when they sow division and animosity; when they force countries to respond with violence and repression. The best response is to refuse to be cowed.
David Miliband is the foreign secretary milibandd@parliament.uk
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited 2009
U.S. and U.A.E. to Sign Nuclear-Cooperation Pact
U.S. and U.A.E. to Sign Nuclear-Cooperation Pact
Jay Solomon, The Wall Street Journal
Rice and NayhanThe Bush administration plans to sign a nuclear-cooperation agreement with the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, according to officials involved in the negotiations, despite concerns in Congress.
The pact, one of the administration's final foreign-policy acts, could help the U.A.E. become the first Arab nation to develop a nuclear-power industry as early as 2017, said these officials. The Bush administration has championed the agreement as a model for promoting peaceful nuclear energy, while guarding against weapons proliferation.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123195403132281949.html
Jay Solomon, The Wall Street Journal
Rice and NayhanThe Bush administration plans to sign a nuclear-cooperation agreement with the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, according to officials involved in the negotiations, despite concerns in Congress.
The pact, one of the administration's final foreign-policy acts, could help the U.A.E. become the first Arab nation to develop a nuclear-power industry as early as 2017, said these officials. The Bush administration has championed the agreement as a model for promoting peaceful nuclear energy, while guarding against weapons proliferation.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123195403132281949.html
Nuclear Security Spending: Assessing Costs, Examining Priorities
Nuclear Security Spending: Assessing Costs, Examining Priorities
Stephen I. Schwartz, Deepti Choubey Monday, January 12, 2009
In a time of economic turmoil, new American leadership, threats to U.S. security, and debates about the future of U.S. nuclear weapons, it is vital to know how much the United States spends to achieve nuclear security. Using publicly available government documents and conducting extensive interviews with government officials and budget experts, Stephen Schwartz and Deepti Choubey assembled a reasonably accurate, although not comprehensive, "budget" of nuclear weapons and weapons-related spending: at least $52 billion dollars
.http://www.carnegieendowment.org/events/?fa=eventDetail&id=1239&prog=zru
Stephen I. Schwartz, Deepti Choubey Monday, January 12, 2009
In a time of economic turmoil, new American leadership, threats to U.S. security, and debates about the future of U.S. nuclear weapons, it is vital to know how much the United States spends to achieve nuclear security. Using publicly available government documents and conducting extensive interviews with government officials and budget experts, Stephen Schwartz and Deepti Choubey assembled a reasonably accurate, although not comprehensive, "budget" of nuclear weapons and weapons-related spending: at least $52 billion dollars
.http://www.carnegieendowment.org/events/?fa=eventDetail&id=1239&prog=zru
Prime Numbers: The Nuclear Option By Charles D. Ferguson, Michelle M. Smith
Prime Numbers: The Nuclear Option
By Charles D. Ferguson, Michelle M. Smith
Page 1 of 1
January/February 2009
After a decades-long slowdown, nuclear power once again dominates the global energy debate. Dozens of countries are vying to join the nuclear power club and hundreds of new reactors are on the drawing board. But despite the hype, it will not be the miracle cure for energy dependence or global warming that boosters promise.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4586
By Charles D. Ferguson, Michelle M. Smith
Page 1 of 1
January/February 2009
After a decades-long slowdown, nuclear power once again dominates the global energy debate. Dozens of countries are vying to join the nuclear power club and hundreds of new reactors are on the drawing board. But despite the hype, it will not be the miracle cure for energy dependence or global warming that boosters promise.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4586
Bitterlemons International Middle East Roundtable: War in Gaza: The American Dimension, January
bitterlemons-international.org
Middle East Roundtable
Edition 2 Volume 7 - January 15, 2009
War in Gaza: the American dimension
• Bombs for Barack - Akram Baker
The assault on the Palestinian coastal strip can only be carried out with the clear acquiescence of the United States.
• Questions for Barack Obama - Mark Perry
Will Israel have a parade?
• Israel-Palestine again front and center - Danielle Pletka
America's special relationship with Israel will change.
• Proving US indispensability - Itamar Rabinovich
Middle Easterners do not just wait for Obama to enter the White House. They offer him abundant advice and guidance.
Bombs for Barack
Akram Baker
After almost three weeks of brutal bombing, it is time to call a spade a spade. The unprecedented Israeli offensive in Gaza, which is offensive in every way, has nothing to do with Hamas, primitive rockets, Mahmoud Abbas or a little town in southern Israel. It also has little to do with the upcoming Israeli elections. All of these bit players are sideshows in the face of Israel's true, multi-pronged strategy: the denial of Palestinian independence.
Tony Clifton, Newsweek Magazine's then-Beirut correspondent, wrote in his heart-breaking book about the Israel siege of Beirut in 1982, "God Cried", that he had come to the conclusion that the systematic destruction of the Lebanese capital one hot summer 27 years ago had nothing to do with "destroying the PLO infrastructure of terror" and was nothing but an elaborate and deadly diversionary action. He claimed that it was all done to divert the world's attention from Israel's determined thrust to settle and colonize the West Bank and pre-empt any kind of two-state settlement based on UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338.
His words, written over a quarter of a century ago, have proved to be prescient. Like clockwork, Israel could be relied on to do two things when it felt that something could obstruct its grand design: increase settlement activity and wage a war against whoever was out of favor at the moment. In 1982, 1987, and 2002 it was the PLO/Fateh/Palestinian Authority who were the bogeymen. During the so called "peace years" between 1995-2000, settlements in the West Bank doubled in size and grew at a rate previously unseen. Now, it is Hamas' turn.
The repercussions of this strategy are and will be disastrous for the region and the world at large. But the question which begs to be asked is, "why now?" Any sort of peace deal seems extremely remote so what is the hurry? One reason: Barack Obama.
The assault on the Palestinian coastal strip can only be carried out, like all the others were, with the clear acquiescence of the United States. George W. Bush, like Ronald Reagan, has given the Israelis carte blanche to do whatever they please, to the detriment of all, Israel included. Olmert, Livni and Barak are just not sure what the man from Illinois will do. But they are fairly certain that he won't risk vital US national security interests to please the Jewish lobby or the pathetically subservient Congress. While the president-elect's statements have calmed many Jewish Americans, the cabal in Tel Aviv is acutely aware that Barack Obama is like nothing they have seen before. And that worries them.
Unlike most recent US presidents, he is not beholden to the Jewish lobby and other special interests. He represents hope, change and a new, rational way of thinking. And if there is anything that worries the Middle East powers that be (the corrupt Arab regimes very much included), it is hope and change. Hence, the wanton bombardment of an already miserable Gaza. If the situation wasn't so tragic, it would be farcical. The lame attempts, slavishly parroted by much of the world's press, by Israel's mouthpieces to put Hamas' AK-47s on a par with one of the most powerful and well equipped militaries in the world is simply preposterous. Israel is killing Palestinians, most of them innocent civilians, at a rate of 100 to one. The fact that all of this is ridiculously disproportionate is only topped by the way the Bushies seem to be more Israeli than Ariel Sharon.
Israel, which has drifted steadily to the right of Augusto Pinochet over the past 30 years, was in a panic. Livni and Barak found themselves confronted with the great unknown, completely unsure how it would affect their dismal electoral chances and the disgraced Olmert was willing to do just about anything to divert attention from his corrupt and scandal-ridden present. So they did what they know best: create facts on the ground. They are doing their utmost to box the soon-to-be president into a corner where he loses himself in the distractions of the moment. Barack Obama's brilliant victory was solidly based on sticking to his core message while translating that message into real support via one hell of a team. He is not easily distracted or led astray. But Bush has left him a country in such dire economic straights that he truly has his hands busy even before he takes the oath on January 20. And no matter what any Palestinian may say, he has wisely held his counsel regarding Gaza for he realizes he has nothing to gain and much to lose. Yet, herein lies the opportunity.
Out of the death and destruction wreaked by the Israeli army, air force, and navy on Gaza, Barack Obama can make the ruins bloom. By breaking the paradigm of procedure over substance, by insisting on serving US national interests (as opposed to Israel's), and by leading his national security team with a crystal clear vision that doesn't allow for the support of either corrupt Arab regimes or the Israeli occupation, he has a chance, by sheer force of will, to alter history in a lasting manner. I am quite confident that he will find a receptive audience around the world, once he holds his own against the sure to be toxic and concerted attacks of his detractors.
The line is clear: US security lies in a safe and secure Israel and Israel's security lies in peace and not in blatant militarism and occupation. More than that, Israel's future is directly tied to the freedom of the Palestinian people. A real friend of Israel would do well to make sure they understand that. - 15/1/2009 © bitterlemons-international.org
Akram Baker is an independent Palestinian political analyst. He is co-president of the Arab Western Summit of Skills, a platform for Arab professionals dedicated to reform and development in the Arab and Islamic worlds.
Questions for Barack Obama
Mark Perry
We await the arrival of Barack Obama. Some believe he will work wonders. Others aren't so sure. This uncertainty has forced the hand of our citizens, who scramble to shape the ground he will walk. It is under the guise of influencing public attitudes that commentators have most recently focused on crucial issues. But make no mistake: the audience is him. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our nation's editorial pages, where Israel's invasion of Gaza has eclipsed all questions. Rising unemployment? Collapsing industries? American deaths in Iraq? These are nothing compared to Israel, its war in Gaza and the rightness of its cause.
If Barack Obama ever doubted the threat that Israel faces, all he need do is read the Washington Post. In its pages, Ephraim Sneh ("Why Israel is Bombing Gaza", January 1) accused Hamas of transforming Gaza into "a military base for Iran". The same day, Robert Lieber ("Hard Truths About the Conflict") described Hamas as a "radical, terrorist, adventurist, Islamist organization" whose defeat would "enhance the prospects for peace". The barrage continued the next day: Charles Krauthammer ("Moral Clarity in Gaza") defended the justice of Israel's cause by noting that "for Hamas, the only thing more prized than dead Jews are dead Palestinians", while Michael Gerson ("Defining Victory for Israel") compared the intensity of Hamas' attacks on Israel to "the London Blitz".
Sneh, Lieber, Krauthammer and Gerson are welcome to their opinions, but the new president would do well to add perspective to their views. He will need to decide why, if Gaza is "a military base for Iran", Hamas' arsenal lacked Iran's more robust weaponry. Or why, if Hamas is a "radical, terrorist, adventurist, Islamist organization", the Palestinian people made them the majority party in the Palestinian parliament. Obama may well conclude that Hamas purposely set out to kill its own people, but if he does, that will more likely result from muddled thinking than "moral clarity". Simple arithmetic might add perspective to the claim that living in Sderot is like living in England during the blitz--when 48,000 Londoners died. Then too the new president might note that Palestinians are not Germans--as Gerson implies.
The hallmark of liberal societies is that they require obeisance to the same principles they are, in extremis, loathe to adopt. The respect for human life is one of these. In times of war, even the most progressive societies arm teenagers to kill and call it just. There is a perceivable calculus in such acts: the more just the war the less need for explanation. Unjust wars, however, provide a fertile field for ideologues. In 1890, US troops slaughtered 200 Indian men, women and children at Wounded Knee. A court of inquiry determined it was "the fault of the Indians themselves" and the killers were awarded medals. So too now, it seems, the Palestinian dead in Gaza were the fault of Palestinians, regardless of who pulled the trigger. As one Israeli commentator notes: "It is not our soldiers who are aiming their guns at Palestinian children, but the leaders of Hamas who are using them as human shields and decoys, while they hide away in safe houses prepared in advance."
If a Palestinian brigade were loose in Tel Aviv would we say: the Israelis must disarm? If Israeli corpses were piled high on Dizengoff Street would we say: it's their own fault? If Israelis were fighting in their own streets would we say: for Israelis the only thing more prized than a dead Palestinian is a dead Jew? The requirement to make a conflict moral is a function of its ambiguity. If the reasons for the invasion of Gaza are so obvious then why do they need to be explained? Why, if it is so moral, are we demanding "moral clarity?" What does morality have to do with it? When a society is faced with extinction, discussions of morality are suspended. Roosevelt and Churchill were never asked to explain why they allied with Stalin; no explanation was necessary. Our war was not a matter of morality, but of survival. We killed Germans and we liked it. We did not say: we have nothing against the German people, but only their government. On the contrary. We incinerated Germans from great heights. When enough of them had died, we made them sign a document. Then we had a parade.
The last victory parade my country had was at the end of the first Gulf War. We celebrated the defeat of our enemy. But through the smiles and triumph a bitter taste emerged that has yet to be washed away. For we left behind in Najaf and Karbala and Basra a society ruined. Our victory led to the collapse of civil order: a reign of terror wrought by Saddam Hussein that destroyed hospitals, clinics, orphanages, mosques, that destroyed water, electrical and sewage plants, that led to widespread starvation, indifferent murder and rapine, blood reprisals, the vicious exaction of revenge for perceived betrayals--the loosing of society's psychopaths. All of this while we stood silent. We did not say we were not responsible. We knew.
This is what Barack Obama may well face in Gaza on the day he becomes president. In those circumstances, questions of moral clarity--of who started this and why--will pale. The international community will have to respond. Will we say: it was their fault? Will we say: they deserved it?
Will Israel have a parade?- 15/1/2009 © bitterlemons-international.org
Mark Perry is a director of the Washington and Beirut-based Conflicts Forum and the author of Partners in Command: George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower in War and Peace.
Israel-Palestine again front and center
Danielle Pletka
The Middle East has a way of forcing itself on the agenda, upending the priorities of White House residents no matter their party. For George W. Bush, the attacks of 9/11 pushed al-Qaeda, Islamist extremism and Saddam Hussein's menace to the front burner. A year ago, punters might have nominated Iraq as President-elect Barack Obama's primary challenge in the Middle East. Thanks to the surge, that notion is a distant memory, and even the question of Iran's nuclear weapons has been relegated to second tier in the face of the war between Israel and Hamas. As it was in the Clinton years, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is again front and center.
Some in Washington have greeted this renewal of overt hostilities between Muslims and Jews with dismay, a reminder of the intractable nature of the region's problems and another indicator of the failure of President Bush's efforts to reshape the Middle East. For others--particularly some associated with the incoming Obama administration--the Israel-Hamas battle, deplorable in human terms, nonetheless offers a chance to define the challenges anew.
The Bush administration came into office determined to avoid the errors of its predecessor. Unlike Bill Clinton, George Bush had no intention of personally servicing the Arab-Israel peace process. The terrorist attacks of 2001 cemented that determination as the new president concluded that decades of obsession with Israel and the Palestinians had distracted the United States from the more strategically urgent task of promoting liberal principles in the Islamic world--a distraction that had allowed Islamist extremism to take root and flourish.
As is Washington's wont, the pendulum is now poised to swing back to 2000, with the question of the Palestinians at the core of America's priorities in the Middle East. Most associated with the new administration are less than eager to latch on to a freedom agenda that has proven remarkably difficult to carry out. As one former Clinton administration official asserted to me, "democracy is dead." To be fair, the push for democracy--once a staple of the outgoing administration's rhetoric--has been largely set aside by Bush's own secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice; and while jettisoning a principle at the heart of American national purpose bothers some stalwarts at home, an end to the freedom agenda will certainly be welcome among Washington's traditional allies in the region, Egypt and Saudi Arabia in particular.
For those who fashion themselves the architects of a new agenda, the outlines of the vision are clear. "We've allowed our special relationship with Israel to become exclusive," Aaron David Miller, a Democrat Middle East advisor told the New York Times this week. "We acquiesced in too many bad Israeli ideas; we road-tested every idea with Israel first." Implied, although those with ambitions for senior positions in the Obama administration have been less explicit, is that America's special relationship with Israel will change.
The change of course laid out in a variety of reports over recent months by Obama supporters restores finding a solution to the Arab-Israel conflict to the heart of American Middle East diplomacy. In that regard, Israel will be pressed to deal directly with Syria under American auspices, and to return the Golan Heights on terms that would today be unacceptable. Aggressive American mediation will bring Fateh and the new Israeli government to the table, with a chastened Hamas offered an unofficial spot on the sidelines if it allows Fateh the leadership role. Pleased with this new American resolve to redefine the special relationship with Israel (and with the abandonment of the freedom agenda), Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others in the Gulf will join American efforts to further isolate Iran and force the Tehran regime to make concessions across the table from an American negotiator.
Does this all work? It might at the outset. The Israeli campaign in Gaza could weaken Hamas as a spoiler for the near term, enabling the temporary resuscitation of Fateh. But as before, Fateh will likely prove itself incapable of governance and of delivering what a partner for peace must: peace and security to the other side. In Syria, Bashar al-Assad will recall that his regime's raison d'etre is predicated upon a Zionist enemy; though he will play along in the hopes of extracting aid from Europe and the United States, ultimately, as his father did before him, he will walk away. Iran too will foil the best-laid plans of Washington's doves, stringing along all concerned until it has a nuclear bomb.
All too quickly, past will become prologue. The players in the region will do what they have done for the last 50 years: serve their own interests, advance their hold on power, build up their weapons systems and marshal their forces for another decade of battle.- Published 15/1/2009 © bitterlemons-international.org
Danielle Pletka is vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
Proving US indispensability
Itamar Rabinovich
The current fighting in Gaza has for some time been "a disaster waiting to happen". When it finally did happen this came at an inopportune time, toward the end of the US presidential transition, as the Bush administration was fading and President-elect Barack Obama adamantly (and correctly) refused to make his opinion known, let alone be drawn into the politics of the crisis.
This turn of events is likely to have two main consequences. First, it has already demonstrated the indispensability of the United States as the ultimate political broker in the Middle East. Two weeks of fighting have provided ample building blocks for a political-diplomatic solution to the immediate crisis (though not to the larger, underlying crisis). But with the US absent from the scene, international (France) and regional (Egypt, Turkey) actors have proven inadequate for the task. Critics of Washington's dominant role in the Arab-Israel peace process will have to moderate if not mute their criticism.
Second, the Obama administration will have to move up its timetable with regard to its involvement in a revival of the Arab-Israel peace process, particularly its Palestinian parts. This would certainly be the case should the crisis not be resolved prior to January 20. But even if it is, the lingering issues, the political and emotional impact and the renewed sense of urgency would in all likelihood prod the new administration to assign a higher priority to the Arab-Israel issue in its foreign policy agenda.
Barack Obama is seen in the Middle East as an antithesis to George W. Bush, but also as much more. He is America's first black president, with a strong third world background. During his campaign and after his election, he assigned priority to diplomacy over waging war. He advocated talking to Iran and Syria (but said also that a nuclear Iran was unacceptable). Middle Easterners do not just wait for Obama to enter the White House. They offer him abundant advice and guidance on how to mend Washington's relationship with the Muslim world and how to solve the Middle East's endemic problems.
With all the speculation on what the new president will do in the Middle East, there are precious few clues for educated guessing and analysis to go by. The president-elect has been very careful in his post-election statements, and wisely so. On the weekend of January 10-11, under pressure of the crisis in Gaza, he was slightly more specific. He reiterated his campaign position that he would "engage" Iran and promised that his administration would deal with the Israeli-Palestinian crisis immediately upon assuming office. He also spoke about the concessions that both sides will have to make in order for a settlement to be reached.
What could an Obama policy look like on January 21? It should be conducted on two levels: in the short term, Washington should deal with the crisis in Gaza or with its immediate aftermath and byproducts. But a stable solution in Gaza is not likely to be reached before the fundamental issues of the region and of Arab-Israel relations are addressed, if not resolved.
In approaching these issues, the Obama administration may well be advised to abandon two widely held assumptions. The first is that in order to deal effectively with such regional issues as Iraq and Iran, the US should be actively engaged in resolving the Arab-Israel problem. The operative conclusion happens to be right, but the logic of the underlying argumentation should be reversed. You must not deal with the Arab-Israel issue in order to build a fruitful dialogue with Iran, but you must deal effectively with Iran if you want to become an effective sponsor of a renewed Arab-Israel peace process.
Iran is currently the chief engine, pulling and pushing the radical forces in the Arab world that pose the most significant obstacles to the renewal and success of the peace process. This is no longer the pure product of the rage and zeal that underlay the original Islamic revolution of 1979 but, to a large extent, the calculated policy of a regime seeking regional hegemony and international influence. Barack Obama set himself a tall order: to engage Iran and persuade it to refrain from acquiring a nuclear arsenal as part of an American-Iranian "grand bargain". This is not beyond reach if the negotiation with Iran is constructed and conducted properly. But it is a daunting task and it must be accomplished within a brief timetable, for two reasons: the ticking of Iran's nuclear clock and the repercussions of the dialogue for the anticipated Arab-Israel peace process.
Another conventional wisdom concerning that process that needs to be abandoned holds that a sharp choice should be made between a "Syria first" and a "Palestine first" policy. Underlying this conclusion is the assumption that no Israeli government can deal simultaneously with final status agreements with both Syria and the Palestinians. This may very well still be true (particularly if the February elections in Israel produce a right-wing government), but a final status agreement with the Palestinians is not a relevant option now. Changes will have to occur in Palestinian politics before an effective Palestinian Authority in control of its whole territory can seriously and credibly negotiate such a settlement. Thus, if it turns out that Syria is a real candidate for a final status deal with Israel, an interim agreement could be the goal of an Israeli-Palestinian negotiation that actually enjoys considerable support in post-Gaza war Israel.
As suggested above, the prospect of a serious Syrian-Israeli negotiation will have to be tested with a new US president and a new Israeli prime minister. The indirect Syrian-Israeli negotiation conducted by the outgoing Israeli prime minister and barely tolerated by President Bush did not quite examine the fundamental issue: Is Syria willing--in return for a Golan agreement, a new relationship with Washington and recognition of its influence in (but not control of) Lebanon--to go through a Sadat-like realignment of policies and opt out of the Iranian-led radical camp in the Middle East?
In the meantime, in the absence from the scene of the US, the fighting in Gaza and rocket attacks on Israel continue.- Published 15/1/2009 © bitterlemons-international.org
Itamar Rabinovich is the incumbent of the Ettinger Chair at Tel-Aviv University and a distinguished global professor at NYU. He is a former chief negotiator with Syria and a former ambassador in Washington.
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Bitterlemons-international.org is an internet forum for an array of world perspectives on the Middle East and its specific concerns. It aspires to engender greater understanding about the Middle East region and open a new common space for world thinkers and political leaders to present their viewpoints and initiatives on the region. Editors Ghassan Khatib and Yossi Alpher can be reached at ghassan@bitterlemons-international.org and yossi@bitterlemons-international.org, respectively.
Middle East Roundtable
Edition 2 Volume 7 - January 15, 2009
War in Gaza: the American dimension
• Bombs for Barack - Akram Baker
The assault on the Palestinian coastal strip can only be carried out with the clear acquiescence of the United States.
• Questions for Barack Obama - Mark Perry
Will Israel have a parade?
• Israel-Palestine again front and center - Danielle Pletka
America's special relationship with Israel will change.
• Proving US indispensability - Itamar Rabinovich
Middle Easterners do not just wait for Obama to enter the White House. They offer him abundant advice and guidance.
Bombs for Barack
Akram Baker
After almost three weeks of brutal bombing, it is time to call a spade a spade. The unprecedented Israeli offensive in Gaza, which is offensive in every way, has nothing to do with Hamas, primitive rockets, Mahmoud Abbas or a little town in southern Israel. It also has little to do with the upcoming Israeli elections. All of these bit players are sideshows in the face of Israel's true, multi-pronged strategy: the denial of Palestinian independence.
Tony Clifton, Newsweek Magazine's then-Beirut correspondent, wrote in his heart-breaking book about the Israel siege of Beirut in 1982, "God Cried", that he had come to the conclusion that the systematic destruction of the Lebanese capital one hot summer 27 years ago had nothing to do with "destroying the PLO infrastructure of terror" and was nothing but an elaborate and deadly diversionary action. He claimed that it was all done to divert the world's attention from Israel's determined thrust to settle and colonize the West Bank and pre-empt any kind of two-state settlement based on UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338.
His words, written over a quarter of a century ago, have proved to be prescient. Like clockwork, Israel could be relied on to do two things when it felt that something could obstruct its grand design: increase settlement activity and wage a war against whoever was out of favor at the moment. In 1982, 1987, and 2002 it was the PLO/Fateh/Palestinian Authority who were the bogeymen. During the so called "peace years" between 1995-2000, settlements in the West Bank doubled in size and grew at a rate previously unseen. Now, it is Hamas' turn.
The repercussions of this strategy are and will be disastrous for the region and the world at large. But the question which begs to be asked is, "why now?" Any sort of peace deal seems extremely remote so what is the hurry? One reason: Barack Obama.
The assault on the Palestinian coastal strip can only be carried out, like all the others were, with the clear acquiescence of the United States. George W. Bush, like Ronald Reagan, has given the Israelis carte blanche to do whatever they please, to the detriment of all, Israel included. Olmert, Livni and Barak are just not sure what the man from Illinois will do. But they are fairly certain that he won't risk vital US national security interests to please the Jewish lobby or the pathetically subservient Congress. While the president-elect's statements have calmed many Jewish Americans, the cabal in Tel Aviv is acutely aware that Barack Obama is like nothing they have seen before. And that worries them.
Unlike most recent US presidents, he is not beholden to the Jewish lobby and other special interests. He represents hope, change and a new, rational way of thinking. And if there is anything that worries the Middle East powers that be (the corrupt Arab regimes very much included), it is hope and change. Hence, the wanton bombardment of an already miserable Gaza. If the situation wasn't so tragic, it would be farcical. The lame attempts, slavishly parroted by much of the world's press, by Israel's mouthpieces to put Hamas' AK-47s on a par with one of the most powerful and well equipped militaries in the world is simply preposterous. Israel is killing Palestinians, most of them innocent civilians, at a rate of 100 to one. The fact that all of this is ridiculously disproportionate is only topped by the way the Bushies seem to be more Israeli than Ariel Sharon.
Israel, which has drifted steadily to the right of Augusto Pinochet over the past 30 years, was in a panic. Livni and Barak found themselves confronted with the great unknown, completely unsure how it would affect their dismal electoral chances and the disgraced Olmert was willing to do just about anything to divert attention from his corrupt and scandal-ridden present. So they did what they know best: create facts on the ground. They are doing their utmost to box the soon-to-be president into a corner where he loses himself in the distractions of the moment. Barack Obama's brilliant victory was solidly based on sticking to his core message while translating that message into real support via one hell of a team. He is not easily distracted or led astray. But Bush has left him a country in such dire economic straights that he truly has his hands busy even before he takes the oath on January 20. And no matter what any Palestinian may say, he has wisely held his counsel regarding Gaza for he realizes he has nothing to gain and much to lose. Yet, herein lies the opportunity.
Out of the death and destruction wreaked by the Israeli army, air force, and navy on Gaza, Barack Obama can make the ruins bloom. By breaking the paradigm of procedure over substance, by insisting on serving US national interests (as opposed to Israel's), and by leading his national security team with a crystal clear vision that doesn't allow for the support of either corrupt Arab regimes or the Israeli occupation, he has a chance, by sheer force of will, to alter history in a lasting manner. I am quite confident that he will find a receptive audience around the world, once he holds his own against the sure to be toxic and concerted attacks of his detractors.
The line is clear: US security lies in a safe and secure Israel and Israel's security lies in peace and not in blatant militarism and occupation. More than that, Israel's future is directly tied to the freedom of the Palestinian people. A real friend of Israel would do well to make sure they understand that. - 15/1/2009 © bitterlemons-international.org
Akram Baker is an independent Palestinian political analyst. He is co-president of the Arab Western Summit of Skills, a platform for Arab professionals dedicated to reform and development in the Arab and Islamic worlds.
Questions for Barack Obama
Mark Perry
We await the arrival of Barack Obama. Some believe he will work wonders. Others aren't so sure. This uncertainty has forced the hand of our citizens, who scramble to shape the ground he will walk. It is under the guise of influencing public attitudes that commentators have most recently focused on crucial issues. But make no mistake: the audience is him. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our nation's editorial pages, where Israel's invasion of Gaza has eclipsed all questions. Rising unemployment? Collapsing industries? American deaths in Iraq? These are nothing compared to Israel, its war in Gaza and the rightness of its cause.
If Barack Obama ever doubted the threat that Israel faces, all he need do is read the Washington Post. In its pages, Ephraim Sneh ("Why Israel is Bombing Gaza", January 1) accused Hamas of transforming Gaza into "a military base for Iran". The same day, Robert Lieber ("Hard Truths About the Conflict") described Hamas as a "radical, terrorist, adventurist, Islamist organization" whose defeat would "enhance the prospects for peace". The barrage continued the next day: Charles Krauthammer ("Moral Clarity in Gaza") defended the justice of Israel's cause by noting that "for Hamas, the only thing more prized than dead Jews are dead Palestinians", while Michael Gerson ("Defining Victory for Israel") compared the intensity of Hamas' attacks on Israel to "the London Blitz".
Sneh, Lieber, Krauthammer and Gerson are welcome to their opinions, but the new president would do well to add perspective to their views. He will need to decide why, if Gaza is "a military base for Iran", Hamas' arsenal lacked Iran's more robust weaponry. Or why, if Hamas is a "radical, terrorist, adventurist, Islamist organization", the Palestinian people made them the majority party in the Palestinian parliament. Obama may well conclude that Hamas purposely set out to kill its own people, but if he does, that will more likely result from muddled thinking than "moral clarity". Simple arithmetic might add perspective to the claim that living in Sderot is like living in England during the blitz--when 48,000 Londoners died. Then too the new president might note that Palestinians are not Germans--as Gerson implies.
The hallmark of liberal societies is that they require obeisance to the same principles they are, in extremis, loathe to adopt. The respect for human life is one of these. In times of war, even the most progressive societies arm teenagers to kill and call it just. There is a perceivable calculus in such acts: the more just the war the less need for explanation. Unjust wars, however, provide a fertile field for ideologues. In 1890, US troops slaughtered 200 Indian men, women and children at Wounded Knee. A court of inquiry determined it was "the fault of the Indians themselves" and the killers were awarded medals. So too now, it seems, the Palestinian dead in Gaza were the fault of Palestinians, regardless of who pulled the trigger. As one Israeli commentator notes: "It is not our soldiers who are aiming their guns at Palestinian children, but the leaders of Hamas who are using them as human shields and decoys, while they hide away in safe houses prepared in advance."
If a Palestinian brigade were loose in Tel Aviv would we say: the Israelis must disarm? If Israeli corpses were piled high on Dizengoff Street would we say: it's their own fault? If Israelis were fighting in their own streets would we say: for Israelis the only thing more prized than a dead Palestinian is a dead Jew? The requirement to make a conflict moral is a function of its ambiguity. If the reasons for the invasion of Gaza are so obvious then why do they need to be explained? Why, if it is so moral, are we demanding "moral clarity?" What does morality have to do with it? When a society is faced with extinction, discussions of morality are suspended. Roosevelt and Churchill were never asked to explain why they allied with Stalin; no explanation was necessary. Our war was not a matter of morality, but of survival. We killed Germans and we liked it. We did not say: we have nothing against the German people, but only their government. On the contrary. We incinerated Germans from great heights. When enough of them had died, we made them sign a document. Then we had a parade.
The last victory parade my country had was at the end of the first Gulf War. We celebrated the defeat of our enemy. But through the smiles and triumph a bitter taste emerged that has yet to be washed away. For we left behind in Najaf and Karbala and Basra a society ruined. Our victory led to the collapse of civil order: a reign of terror wrought by Saddam Hussein that destroyed hospitals, clinics, orphanages, mosques, that destroyed water, electrical and sewage plants, that led to widespread starvation, indifferent murder and rapine, blood reprisals, the vicious exaction of revenge for perceived betrayals--the loosing of society's psychopaths. All of this while we stood silent. We did not say we were not responsible. We knew.
This is what Barack Obama may well face in Gaza on the day he becomes president. In those circumstances, questions of moral clarity--of who started this and why--will pale. The international community will have to respond. Will we say: it was their fault? Will we say: they deserved it?
Will Israel have a parade?- 15/1/2009 © bitterlemons-international.org
Mark Perry is a director of the Washington and Beirut-based Conflicts Forum and the author of Partners in Command: George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower in War and Peace.
Israel-Palestine again front and center
Danielle Pletka
The Middle East has a way of forcing itself on the agenda, upending the priorities of White House residents no matter their party. For George W. Bush, the attacks of 9/11 pushed al-Qaeda, Islamist extremism and Saddam Hussein's menace to the front burner. A year ago, punters might have nominated Iraq as President-elect Barack Obama's primary challenge in the Middle East. Thanks to the surge, that notion is a distant memory, and even the question of Iran's nuclear weapons has been relegated to second tier in the face of the war between Israel and Hamas. As it was in the Clinton years, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is again front and center.
Some in Washington have greeted this renewal of overt hostilities between Muslims and Jews with dismay, a reminder of the intractable nature of the region's problems and another indicator of the failure of President Bush's efforts to reshape the Middle East. For others--particularly some associated with the incoming Obama administration--the Israel-Hamas battle, deplorable in human terms, nonetheless offers a chance to define the challenges anew.
The Bush administration came into office determined to avoid the errors of its predecessor. Unlike Bill Clinton, George Bush had no intention of personally servicing the Arab-Israel peace process. The terrorist attacks of 2001 cemented that determination as the new president concluded that decades of obsession with Israel and the Palestinians had distracted the United States from the more strategically urgent task of promoting liberal principles in the Islamic world--a distraction that had allowed Islamist extremism to take root and flourish.
As is Washington's wont, the pendulum is now poised to swing back to 2000, with the question of the Palestinians at the core of America's priorities in the Middle East. Most associated with the new administration are less than eager to latch on to a freedom agenda that has proven remarkably difficult to carry out. As one former Clinton administration official asserted to me, "democracy is dead." To be fair, the push for democracy--once a staple of the outgoing administration's rhetoric--has been largely set aside by Bush's own secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice; and while jettisoning a principle at the heart of American national purpose bothers some stalwarts at home, an end to the freedom agenda will certainly be welcome among Washington's traditional allies in the region, Egypt and Saudi Arabia in particular.
For those who fashion themselves the architects of a new agenda, the outlines of the vision are clear. "We've allowed our special relationship with Israel to become exclusive," Aaron David Miller, a Democrat Middle East advisor told the New York Times this week. "We acquiesced in too many bad Israeli ideas; we road-tested every idea with Israel first." Implied, although those with ambitions for senior positions in the Obama administration have been less explicit, is that America's special relationship with Israel will change.
The change of course laid out in a variety of reports over recent months by Obama supporters restores finding a solution to the Arab-Israel conflict to the heart of American Middle East diplomacy. In that regard, Israel will be pressed to deal directly with Syria under American auspices, and to return the Golan Heights on terms that would today be unacceptable. Aggressive American mediation will bring Fateh and the new Israeli government to the table, with a chastened Hamas offered an unofficial spot on the sidelines if it allows Fateh the leadership role. Pleased with this new American resolve to redefine the special relationship with Israel (and with the abandonment of the freedom agenda), Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others in the Gulf will join American efforts to further isolate Iran and force the Tehran regime to make concessions across the table from an American negotiator.
Does this all work? It might at the outset. The Israeli campaign in Gaza could weaken Hamas as a spoiler for the near term, enabling the temporary resuscitation of Fateh. But as before, Fateh will likely prove itself incapable of governance and of delivering what a partner for peace must: peace and security to the other side. In Syria, Bashar al-Assad will recall that his regime's raison d'etre is predicated upon a Zionist enemy; though he will play along in the hopes of extracting aid from Europe and the United States, ultimately, as his father did before him, he will walk away. Iran too will foil the best-laid plans of Washington's doves, stringing along all concerned until it has a nuclear bomb.
All too quickly, past will become prologue. The players in the region will do what they have done for the last 50 years: serve their own interests, advance their hold on power, build up their weapons systems and marshal their forces for another decade of battle.- Published 15/1/2009 © bitterlemons-international.org
Danielle Pletka is vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
Proving US indispensability
Itamar Rabinovich
The current fighting in Gaza has for some time been "a disaster waiting to happen". When it finally did happen this came at an inopportune time, toward the end of the US presidential transition, as the Bush administration was fading and President-elect Barack Obama adamantly (and correctly) refused to make his opinion known, let alone be drawn into the politics of the crisis.
This turn of events is likely to have two main consequences. First, it has already demonstrated the indispensability of the United States as the ultimate political broker in the Middle East. Two weeks of fighting have provided ample building blocks for a political-diplomatic solution to the immediate crisis (though not to the larger, underlying crisis). But with the US absent from the scene, international (France) and regional (Egypt, Turkey) actors have proven inadequate for the task. Critics of Washington's dominant role in the Arab-Israel peace process will have to moderate if not mute their criticism.
Second, the Obama administration will have to move up its timetable with regard to its involvement in a revival of the Arab-Israel peace process, particularly its Palestinian parts. This would certainly be the case should the crisis not be resolved prior to January 20. But even if it is, the lingering issues, the political and emotional impact and the renewed sense of urgency would in all likelihood prod the new administration to assign a higher priority to the Arab-Israel issue in its foreign policy agenda.
Barack Obama is seen in the Middle East as an antithesis to George W. Bush, but also as much more. He is America's first black president, with a strong third world background. During his campaign and after his election, he assigned priority to diplomacy over waging war. He advocated talking to Iran and Syria (but said also that a nuclear Iran was unacceptable). Middle Easterners do not just wait for Obama to enter the White House. They offer him abundant advice and guidance on how to mend Washington's relationship with the Muslim world and how to solve the Middle East's endemic problems.
With all the speculation on what the new president will do in the Middle East, there are precious few clues for educated guessing and analysis to go by. The president-elect has been very careful in his post-election statements, and wisely so. On the weekend of January 10-11, under pressure of the crisis in Gaza, he was slightly more specific. He reiterated his campaign position that he would "engage" Iran and promised that his administration would deal with the Israeli-Palestinian crisis immediately upon assuming office. He also spoke about the concessions that both sides will have to make in order for a settlement to be reached.
What could an Obama policy look like on January 21? It should be conducted on two levels: in the short term, Washington should deal with the crisis in Gaza or with its immediate aftermath and byproducts. But a stable solution in Gaza is not likely to be reached before the fundamental issues of the region and of Arab-Israel relations are addressed, if not resolved.
In approaching these issues, the Obama administration may well be advised to abandon two widely held assumptions. The first is that in order to deal effectively with such regional issues as Iraq and Iran, the US should be actively engaged in resolving the Arab-Israel problem. The operative conclusion happens to be right, but the logic of the underlying argumentation should be reversed. You must not deal with the Arab-Israel issue in order to build a fruitful dialogue with Iran, but you must deal effectively with Iran if you want to become an effective sponsor of a renewed Arab-Israel peace process.
Iran is currently the chief engine, pulling and pushing the radical forces in the Arab world that pose the most significant obstacles to the renewal and success of the peace process. This is no longer the pure product of the rage and zeal that underlay the original Islamic revolution of 1979 but, to a large extent, the calculated policy of a regime seeking regional hegemony and international influence. Barack Obama set himself a tall order: to engage Iran and persuade it to refrain from acquiring a nuclear arsenal as part of an American-Iranian "grand bargain". This is not beyond reach if the negotiation with Iran is constructed and conducted properly. But it is a daunting task and it must be accomplished within a brief timetable, for two reasons: the ticking of Iran's nuclear clock and the repercussions of the dialogue for the anticipated Arab-Israel peace process.
Another conventional wisdom concerning that process that needs to be abandoned holds that a sharp choice should be made between a "Syria first" and a "Palestine first" policy. Underlying this conclusion is the assumption that no Israeli government can deal simultaneously with final status agreements with both Syria and the Palestinians. This may very well still be true (particularly if the February elections in Israel produce a right-wing government), but a final status agreement with the Palestinians is not a relevant option now. Changes will have to occur in Palestinian politics before an effective Palestinian Authority in control of its whole territory can seriously and credibly negotiate such a settlement. Thus, if it turns out that Syria is a real candidate for a final status deal with Israel, an interim agreement could be the goal of an Israeli-Palestinian negotiation that actually enjoys considerable support in post-Gaza war Israel.
As suggested above, the prospect of a serious Syrian-Israeli negotiation will have to be tested with a new US president and a new Israeli prime minister. The indirect Syrian-Israeli negotiation conducted by the outgoing Israeli prime minister and barely tolerated by President Bush did not quite examine the fundamental issue: Is Syria willing--in return for a Golan agreement, a new relationship with Washington and recognition of its influence in (but not control of) Lebanon--to go through a Sadat-like realignment of policies and opt out of the Iranian-led radical camp in the Middle East?
In the meantime, in the absence from the scene of the US, the fighting in Gaza and rocket attacks on Israel continue.- Published 15/1/2009 © bitterlemons-international.org
Itamar Rabinovich is the incumbent of the Ettinger Chair at Tel-Aviv University and a distinguished global professor at NYU. He is a former chief negotiator with Syria and a former ambassador in Washington.
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Bitterlemons-international.org is an internet forum for an array of world perspectives on the Middle East and its specific concerns. It aspires to engender greater understanding about the Middle East region and open a new common space for world thinkers and political leaders to present their viewpoints and initiatives on the region. Editors Ghassan Khatib and Yossi Alpher can be reached at ghassan@bitterlemons-international.org and yossi@bitterlemons-international.org, respectively.
Gaza by William Pfaff
Gaza
William Pfaff
Paris, January 13, 2009 – The guarded remarks by Hillary Clinton on Tuesday have produced equally guarded hope that there will indeed be change in American Middle Eastern policy under an Obama administration.
Such is tragically overdue as the reciprocal self-destruction of Palestine and Israel continues in a bewildering and savage concatenation of decisions that have no rationally achievable purposes. One of them is the objective that Israel has itself set as its priority in Gaza.
Many Israelis themselves have observed that the announced purpose of the assault on Gaza is to stop Hamas from firing rockets into Israel. This would seem to have little chance of success, since rockets are plentiful and the number of young Arab men determined to fire them has no practical limit.
If this actually is the measure by which the success of the operation will be judged by Israel's citizens and the international community -- as if the international community's opinion counted for much in Israel today – the operation is guaranteed to fail. The Israeli military commentator Martin Van Creveld has observed to the European press that if stopping the rockets – which continue – is the sole criteria of victory it remains and will remain unachieved.
In the days following the end of Israeli army operations in Gaza the first in a new series of rockets will be fired at Israel. This is as certain as anything can be. Such Hamas militants as survive the Israeli attack will be applauded as the victors in parts of the world where international opinion does count for a lot. Remember that in 2006, for much of the world, Hizbollah "defeated" Israel's invasion of Lebanon.
Hamas in Gaza will have its victory, according to the official account, despite having broken the truce that had prevailed in the months leading up to this crisis. Resuming rocket attacks on Israel was even more stupid and useless -- with catastrophic results for Gaza's people -- than what Israel's leadership has done.
Even if it were true, as widely claimed, that it was the Israelis who for their own reasons deliberately first broke the truce, the Hamas leaders are doubly stupid for having reacted like automatons to the provocation. Their reaction has caused the destruction of their community and of hundreds, possibly thousands when the count is made -- of their guiltless people.
The people of Gaza are much worse off now, but so are the Israelis. The poison of hatred has spread even further in both camps, and in much of the non-western world, and particularly in Western Europe.
A member of the European Parliament asked a few days ago how many times Israel was going to expect the European Community – chief furnisher of funds to the United Nations' and the non-governmental aid agencies supporting the Palestinian population – to rebuild the Gaza and Palestine (or Lebanese) infrastructures for Israel to destroy once again. A loaded question, but so are most of the questions that are being asked these days, everywhere except inside Israel and in the United States.
There, the idea still prevails that what this is all about is a morbid and racist Palestinian passion to destroy Israel. No one any longer seems to recognize that now, with the two-states Israel-Palestine solution seemingly dead of a thousand wounds inflicted by the Bush government, Palestinian militants are engaged in what has become a desperate effort to take revenge on the Israeli expansionists, the fanatical settler movement, and the Israeli government for having robbed the Palestinians of some 40 percent of the land still legally belonging to them after the 1967 war.
The Palestinian militants are what remains of what used to be called a National Resistance movement. An unsuccessful one, now driven by failure, and the encouragement of Iran, into self-destructive acts. Israel gains nothing from this. Only peace can save the two of them.
© Copyright 2009 by Tribune Media Services International. All Rights Reserved.
This article comes from William PFAFF
http://www.williampfaff.com
The URL for this article is:
http://www.williampfaff.com/article.php?storyid=373
William Pfaff
Paris, January 13, 2009 – The guarded remarks by Hillary Clinton on Tuesday have produced equally guarded hope that there will indeed be change in American Middle Eastern policy under an Obama administration.
Such is tragically overdue as the reciprocal self-destruction of Palestine and Israel continues in a bewildering and savage concatenation of decisions that have no rationally achievable purposes. One of them is the objective that Israel has itself set as its priority in Gaza.
Many Israelis themselves have observed that the announced purpose of the assault on Gaza is to stop Hamas from firing rockets into Israel. This would seem to have little chance of success, since rockets are plentiful and the number of young Arab men determined to fire them has no practical limit.
If this actually is the measure by which the success of the operation will be judged by Israel's citizens and the international community -- as if the international community's opinion counted for much in Israel today – the operation is guaranteed to fail. The Israeli military commentator Martin Van Creveld has observed to the European press that if stopping the rockets – which continue – is the sole criteria of victory it remains and will remain unachieved.
In the days following the end of Israeli army operations in Gaza the first in a new series of rockets will be fired at Israel. This is as certain as anything can be. Such Hamas militants as survive the Israeli attack will be applauded as the victors in parts of the world where international opinion does count for a lot. Remember that in 2006, for much of the world, Hizbollah "defeated" Israel's invasion of Lebanon.
Hamas in Gaza will have its victory, according to the official account, despite having broken the truce that had prevailed in the months leading up to this crisis. Resuming rocket attacks on Israel was even more stupid and useless -- with catastrophic results for Gaza's people -- than what Israel's leadership has done.
Even if it were true, as widely claimed, that it was the Israelis who for their own reasons deliberately first broke the truce, the Hamas leaders are doubly stupid for having reacted like automatons to the provocation. Their reaction has caused the destruction of their community and of hundreds, possibly thousands when the count is made -- of their guiltless people.
The people of Gaza are much worse off now, but so are the Israelis. The poison of hatred has spread even further in both camps, and in much of the non-western world, and particularly in Western Europe.
A member of the European Parliament asked a few days ago how many times Israel was going to expect the European Community – chief furnisher of funds to the United Nations' and the non-governmental aid agencies supporting the Palestinian population – to rebuild the Gaza and Palestine (or Lebanese) infrastructures for Israel to destroy once again. A loaded question, but so are most of the questions that are being asked these days, everywhere except inside Israel and in the United States.
There, the idea still prevails that what this is all about is a morbid and racist Palestinian passion to destroy Israel. No one any longer seems to recognize that now, with the two-states Israel-Palestine solution seemingly dead of a thousand wounds inflicted by the Bush government, Palestinian militants are engaged in what has become a desperate effort to take revenge on the Israeli expansionists, the fanatical settler movement, and the Israeli government for having robbed the Palestinians of some 40 percent of the land still legally belonging to them after the 1967 war.
The Palestinian militants are what remains of what used to be called a National Resistance movement. An unsuccessful one, now driven by failure, and the encouragement of Iran, into self-destructive acts. Israel gains nothing from this. Only peace can save the two of them.
© Copyright 2009 by Tribune Media Services International. All Rights Reserved.
This article comes from William PFAFF
http://www.williampfaff.com
The URL for this article is:
http://www.williampfaff.com/article.php?storyid=373
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The Political Impact of Israel's Gaza Operation Nathan Field
WORLD POLITICS REVIEW
1/12/09
The Political Impact of Israel's Gaza Operation
Nathan Field
Israel's attack on Hamas continued through the weekend, despite Egyptian and French efforts to broker a ceasefire. With Israeli ground forces now poised on the outskirts of Gaza City, and with an expansion of the operation into the urban battlefields that represent Hamas' greatest tactical opportunity for exacting losses on the IDF still a possibility, it is difficult to speak decisively about the military outcome of the ongoing fighting.
But according to several American experts on Arab politics, while Israel might very well succeed -- at least temporarily -- in depleting Hamas' military wing, so long as Hamas is still in a position to reassert its control over Gaza following the operation the conflict is likely to have the opposite impact politically.
"It is hard for me to see how Hamas does not come out of this politically strengthened," says Glen R. Robinson, assistant professor of Defense Analysis at the Naval Post-Graduate School in Monterrey, Calif. "Unless Israel is planning a permanent re-occupation of Gaza, they will withdraw their forces and Hamas will proclaim victory. And as Hamas won't accept a ceasefire that does not also include a lifting of the siege, that would also be seen as a political victory for Hamas."
Nathan Brown, director of the Middle East Studies Program at George Washington University, agrees. "Since no party has the will to occupy Gaza, it seems likely that Hamas will return. An outcome that reintroduces Ramallah-based forces [of PA President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party] to the crossing with Egypt is a possibility, but an end to Hamas rule in the strip as a whole is difficult to envision."
Ironically, the attack on Gaza has likely removed the most obvious path to Hamas's demise -- Palestinian presidential and parliamentary elections. The presidential election was supposed to occur in either 2009 (according to Hamas) or 2010 (according to Fatah), although there is little legal basis for resolving the dispute. Parliamentary elections (.pdf) are to be held in 2010.
But as Brown explained, "There is simply no possibility of new Palestinian elections right now. The possibility that Hamas will be voted out -- a very real one had the international community reacted differently after 2006 -- has effectively been destroyed."
As Hamas literally and figuratively digs itself out of the political rubble, they can take comfort that Fatah is in no position to capitalize from the conflict.
"Fatah was already in deep crisis, more focused on internal backbiting and clawing its way back into power than in rebuilding itself as an organization, which made it seem like a poor alternative to Hamas in the eyes of many Palestinians," Brown adds.
Moreover, he considers that the current fighting is likely to place Fatah deeper in that hole. "Charges of collusion between some senior Fatah leaders -- including [Mahmoud Abbas] himself -- and Israel have put Fatah on the defensive. And the short term effect has been not only to undercut Fatah's popular support but also to divide the movement over its future direction."
Robinson concurs: "Fatah is in the very real position of being seen as a toady for Israel if it is not extremely careful in how it plays out the endgame . . . and I think they will come out much weaker politically."
Still, given the financial and diplomatic support Fatah receives from the U.S. and the international community, it is too early to rule out a comeback. "Unless Fatah clumsily attempts to reassert control in Gaza in the wake of the Israeli campaign, I expect the damage in one sense will be temporary," posits Brown.
Gregory Gause, professor of political science at the University of Vermont, points out that Hamas "enjoys the rally around the flag effect" as long as the attacks continue. He warns, however, against dismissing Fatah's ability to recover, because eventually the violence will end and a sense of normalcy will return to Palestinian politics. "If the anecdotal evidence about the improvement in the economic situation in the West Bank holds up, by the spring people might look more favorably on Fatah and ask themselves what Hamas' policy of provocation got them."
Comparisons with Hezbollah's experience after the 2006 Lebanon War illustrate Hamas' political vulnerability should the Palestinian people ultimately deem its policy of instigation reckless and hold it accountable.
"Given the Lebanese political system," Gause explained, "Hezbollah had the Shia community sewed up; [the Shias] don't really have an option and the party remains strong despite the pounding they took in 2006. But Palestinians do have an option besides Hamas in Fatah."
Perhaps the most alarming possibility is that Salafi jihadists with ideological links to al-Qaida will be in a position to benefit from a weakened Hamas.
"A Hamas with a seriously degraded coercive apparatus will be less able to check the Salafi trend, so some inroads in the coming months are likely," predicts Robinson.
However, he expects Hamas to be "rather effective in rebuilding its coercive capability, especially given its [likely] political bump, and therefore limit Salafi inroads."
By most estimates, the Salafi jihadist presence in Gaza does not exceed 200 fighters, so a serious political challenge to Hamas from the more extremist flank of Palestinian politics is unlikely. But as Palestinians bury their dead, several hundred of them civilians, the general climate will be one that favors calls for revenge. For ultra-extremist groups such as al-Qaida, this is only a good thing.
Nathan Field is a reporter based in Cairo, Egypt.
1/12/09
The Political Impact of Israel's Gaza Operation
Nathan Field
Israel's attack on Hamas continued through the weekend, despite Egyptian and French efforts to broker a ceasefire. With Israeli ground forces now poised on the outskirts of Gaza City, and with an expansion of the operation into the urban battlefields that represent Hamas' greatest tactical opportunity for exacting losses on the IDF still a possibility, it is difficult to speak decisively about the military outcome of the ongoing fighting.
But according to several American experts on Arab politics, while Israel might very well succeed -- at least temporarily -- in depleting Hamas' military wing, so long as Hamas is still in a position to reassert its control over Gaza following the operation the conflict is likely to have the opposite impact politically.
"It is hard for me to see how Hamas does not come out of this politically strengthened," says Glen R. Robinson, assistant professor of Defense Analysis at the Naval Post-Graduate School in Monterrey, Calif. "Unless Israel is planning a permanent re-occupation of Gaza, they will withdraw their forces and Hamas will proclaim victory. And as Hamas won't accept a ceasefire that does not also include a lifting of the siege, that would also be seen as a political victory for Hamas."
Nathan Brown, director of the Middle East Studies Program at George Washington University, agrees. "Since no party has the will to occupy Gaza, it seems likely that Hamas will return. An outcome that reintroduces Ramallah-based forces [of PA President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party] to the crossing with Egypt is a possibility, but an end to Hamas rule in the strip as a whole is difficult to envision."
Ironically, the attack on Gaza has likely removed the most obvious path to Hamas's demise -- Palestinian presidential and parliamentary elections. The presidential election was supposed to occur in either 2009 (according to Hamas) or 2010 (according to Fatah), although there is little legal basis for resolving the dispute. Parliamentary elections (.pdf) are to be held in 2010.
But as Brown explained, "There is simply no possibility of new Palestinian elections right now. The possibility that Hamas will be voted out -- a very real one had the international community reacted differently after 2006 -- has effectively been destroyed."
As Hamas literally and figuratively digs itself out of the political rubble, they can take comfort that Fatah is in no position to capitalize from the conflict.
"Fatah was already in deep crisis, more focused on internal backbiting and clawing its way back into power than in rebuilding itself as an organization, which made it seem like a poor alternative to Hamas in the eyes of many Palestinians," Brown adds.
Moreover, he considers that the current fighting is likely to place Fatah deeper in that hole. "Charges of collusion between some senior Fatah leaders -- including [Mahmoud Abbas] himself -- and Israel have put Fatah on the defensive. And the short term effect has been not only to undercut Fatah's popular support but also to divide the movement over its future direction."
Robinson concurs: "Fatah is in the very real position of being seen as a toady for Israel if it is not extremely careful in how it plays out the endgame . . . and I think they will come out much weaker politically."
Still, given the financial and diplomatic support Fatah receives from the U.S. and the international community, it is too early to rule out a comeback. "Unless Fatah clumsily attempts to reassert control in Gaza in the wake of the Israeli campaign, I expect the damage in one sense will be temporary," posits Brown.
Gregory Gause, professor of political science at the University of Vermont, points out that Hamas "enjoys the rally around the flag effect" as long as the attacks continue. He warns, however, against dismissing Fatah's ability to recover, because eventually the violence will end and a sense of normalcy will return to Palestinian politics. "If the anecdotal evidence about the improvement in the economic situation in the West Bank holds up, by the spring people might look more favorably on Fatah and ask themselves what Hamas' policy of provocation got them."
Comparisons with Hezbollah's experience after the 2006 Lebanon War illustrate Hamas' political vulnerability should the Palestinian people ultimately deem its policy of instigation reckless and hold it accountable.
"Given the Lebanese political system," Gause explained, "Hezbollah had the Shia community sewed up; [the Shias] don't really have an option and the party remains strong despite the pounding they took in 2006. But Palestinians do have an option besides Hamas in Fatah."
Perhaps the most alarming possibility is that Salafi jihadists with ideological links to al-Qaida will be in a position to benefit from a weakened Hamas.
"A Hamas with a seriously degraded coercive apparatus will be less able to check the Salafi trend, so some inroads in the coming months are likely," predicts Robinson.
However, he expects Hamas to be "rather effective in rebuilding its coercive capability, especially given its [likely] political bump, and therefore limit Salafi inroads."
By most estimates, the Salafi jihadist presence in Gaza does not exceed 200 fighters, so a serious political challenge to Hamas from the more extremist flank of Palestinian politics is unlikely. But as Palestinians bury their dead, several hundred of them civilians, the general climate will be one that favors calls for revenge. For ultra-extremist groups such as al-Qaida, this is only a good thing.
Nathan Field is a reporter based in Cairo, Egypt.
The Gaza Bombshell
The Gaza Bombshell
After failing to anticipate Hamas's victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, the author reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804
After failing to anticipate Hamas's victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, the author reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804
Viewpoint: The end of the neocons?
BBC NEWS
Viewpoint: The end of the neocons?
Jonathan Clarke, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs looks back at the rise and fall of the neocons, who encouraged George Bush to invade Iraq.
With the Bush Administration about to recede into history, a widely asked question is whether the neoconservative philosophy that underpinned its major foreign policy decisions will likewise vanish from the scene.
The answer seems likely to be Yes.
But the epitaph of neoconservatism has been written before - prematurely, as it turned out, in the 1980s.
Having been apparently headed for extinction at the end of the Reagan Administration a second generation emerged in the mid-1990s.
This was period of post-Cold War overwhelming US military dominance which the neocons anointed as the "unipolar moment". It acted as the incubator for the ideas of modern neoconservatism.
Bold ambition
The main characteristics of neoconservatism are:
* a tendency to see the world in binary good/evil terms
* low tolerance for diplomacy
* readiness to use military force
* emphasis on US unilateral action
* disdain for multilateral organisations
* focus on the Middle East
Prominent neocons destined to play a major role in the Bush Administration included Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Elliott Abrams, David Addington and Richard Perle.
Neocon advocates in the media included Bill Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, while in academia, Bernard Lewis and Victor Davis Hanson were among those who provided intellectual heft.
Many neocons are Jews, but it is wrong to suggest that neoconservatism is an exclusively Jewish phenomenon.
In Washington DC, the favourite neocon think tank was the American Enterprise Institute.
Here they authored a series of papers arguing for a more forceful US foreign policy, the centre-point of which was a rejection of conventional negotiations on the Palestine/Israel peace process.
Instead, they harboured the much bolder ambition of a US-instigated region-wide democratic transformation.
The first phase was the overthrow of Saddam Hussein - which, they believed, would have a sort of "demonstrator effect" on the region.
At the beginning of the Bush administration, the neocons' prospects looked dim.
True, several - like Wolfowitz, Feith and Perle - obtained senior appointments, but Bush himself had promised a "humble" foreign policy, the diametric opposite of the neocon approach.
Neither Secretary of State Colin Powell nor Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was a neocon.
The neocons did, however, find a crucial ally in Vice-President Dick Cheney.
Although not one himself, Mr Cheney was a founding signatory of the Project for the New American Century, which became the preferred forum for neocon thinking.
A critical crossover point with the neocons was Mr Cheney's commitment to the bold deployment of US military power.
His alliance with the neocons proved critical for them.
High-water mark
Their opportunity came with the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
More than anyone else they had a well-prepared strategy which matched the need of the day for a bold, decisive response.
No-one else came close to them in having a ready-to-go action plan.
Suddenly, their ideas of democratic transformation looked like a reasonable policy option.
Their proposals to attack Iraq rapidly moved to centre stage.
Clearly, the neocons were not the only - or even the main - actors in bringing about the Iraq war.
But the key fact remains it was their ideas that ensured that the US response to 9/11 would go beyond Afghanistan.
They were, without doubt, the intellectual godfathers of the war.
The first few weeks of the war represented the high-water mark for the neocons.
On the battlefield, everything seemed to be going their way; politically, their protege Ahmed Chalabi seemed on track to accede to power.
But as invasion turned into occupation and the insurgency intensified, the neocon ideas of region-wide democratic transformation were revealed for the fantastical pipedreams they always were.
With the Bush administration ratcheting back its definitions of success in Iraq, the neocons were in full retreat.
They started to leave the administration, as elite and public opinion shifted decisively against the war.
Polar opposite
In many ways, the 2008 election represented a direct repudiation of the neocon style of foreign policy based on military-centred, unilateralist overreaching.
At first sight, the incoming Obama administration appears to be the polar opposite of neoconservatism.
Its instincts are multilateralist, being committed, for example, to adhering to the Kyoto Protocol and to international agreements like the Geneva Convention.
It places a high priority on diplomacy, with President-elect Obama being open to direct talks with long-ignored countries like Iran and Cuba. Defense Secretary Gates, who is remaining in office, has made it clear that he regards military intervention as the genuinely last option.
Furthermore, the financial meltdown and the drains of the Iraq and Afghan wars have chipped away at the pre-eminence of US power. It is difficult to argue today that the US enjoys a unipolar advantage.
The safest bet, therefore, is that we can bid adieu to the neocons and leave their role to be adjudicated by history.
They themselves argue that they form part of the mainstream of American history. It seems more likely that they will come to be seen as an aberration.
Two things may change this. First, the flipside of neoconservatism is what might be called neo-humanitarianism. This is the idea that US military power should be used to intervene on the ground in crises like the Rwandan genocide or in Darfur.
Some Obama officials, for example Susan Rice at the UN, will be making this case. All indications are that the Obama administration will be cautious but, if not, US unilateral military deployment may be back on the global agenda.
Secondly, the Obama administration faces unsettled business on Iran.
The neocons are arguing that Iran is the defining issue for US foreign policy and that, short of an abandonment by Tehran of its apparent nuclear weapons program, the US must use force.
Once again, the early signs are that, for the Obama team, military force is well down the agenda and a new form of engagement is under consideration.
Should this change - possibly on the back of intransigence from Tehran - the neocons will be back in business and will crow that they have survived yet another premature obituary.
Jonathan Clarke is co-author, with Stefan Halper, of America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the World Order
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7825039.stm
Published: 2009/01/13
_______________________________________________
Viewpoint: The end of the neocons?
Jonathan Clarke, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs looks back at the rise and fall of the neocons, who encouraged George Bush to invade Iraq.
With the Bush Administration about to recede into history, a widely asked question is whether the neoconservative philosophy that underpinned its major foreign policy decisions will likewise vanish from the scene.
The answer seems likely to be Yes.
But the epitaph of neoconservatism has been written before - prematurely, as it turned out, in the 1980s.
Having been apparently headed for extinction at the end of the Reagan Administration a second generation emerged in the mid-1990s.
This was period of post-Cold War overwhelming US military dominance which the neocons anointed as the "unipolar moment". It acted as the incubator for the ideas of modern neoconservatism.
Bold ambition
The main characteristics of neoconservatism are:
* a tendency to see the world in binary good/evil terms
* low tolerance for diplomacy
* readiness to use military force
* emphasis on US unilateral action
* disdain for multilateral organisations
* focus on the Middle East
Prominent neocons destined to play a major role in the Bush Administration included Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Elliott Abrams, David Addington and Richard Perle.
Neocon advocates in the media included Bill Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, while in academia, Bernard Lewis and Victor Davis Hanson were among those who provided intellectual heft.
Many neocons are Jews, but it is wrong to suggest that neoconservatism is an exclusively Jewish phenomenon.
In Washington DC, the favourite neocon think tank was the American Enterprise Institute.
Here they authored a series of papers arguing for a more forceful US foreign policy, the centre-point of which was a rejection of conventional negotiations on the Palestine/Israel peace process.
Instead, they harboured the much bolder ambition of a US-instigated region-wide democratic transformation.
The first phase was the overthrow of Saddam Hussein - which, they believed, would have a sort of "demonstrator effect" on the region.
At the beginning of the Bush administration, the neocons' prospects looked dim.
True, several - like Wolfowitz, Feith and Perle - obtained senior appointments, but Bush himself had promised a "humble" foreign policy, the diametric opposite of the neocon approach.
Neither Secretary of State Colin Powell nor Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was a neocon.
The neocons did, however, find a crucial ally in Vice-President Dick Cheney.
Although not one himself, Mr Cheney was a founding signatory of the Project for the New American Century, which became the preferred forum for neocon thinking.
A critical crossover point with the neocons was Mr Cheney's commitment to the bold deployment of US military power.
His alliance with the neocons proved critical for them.
High-water mark
Their opportunity came with the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
More than anyone else they had a well-prepared strategy which matched the need of the day for a bold, decisive response.
No-one else came close to them in having a ready-to-go action plan.
Suddenly, their ideas of democratic transformation looked like a reasonable policy option.
Their proposals to attack Iraq rapidly moved to centre stage.
Clearly, the neocons were not the only - or even the main - actors in bringing about the Iraq war.
But the key fact remains it was their ideas that ensured that the US response to 9/11 would go beyond Afghanistan.
They were, without doubt, the intellectual godfathers of the war.
The first few weeks of the war represented the high-water mark for the neocons.
On the battlefield, everything seemed to be going their way; politically, their protege Ahmed Chalabi seemed on track to accede to power.
But as invasion turned into occupation and the insurgency intensified, the neocon ideas of region-wide democratic transformation were revealed for the fantastical pipedreams they always were.
With the Bush administration ratcheting back its definitions of success in Iraq, the neocons were in full retreat.
They started to leave the administration, as elite and public opinion shifted decisively against the war.
Polar opposite
In many ways, the 2008 election represented a direct repudiation of the neocon style of foreign policy based on military-centred, unilateralist overreaching.
At first sight, the incoming Obama administration appears to be the polar opposite of neoconservatism.
Its instincts are multilateralist, being committed, for example, to adhering to the Kyoto Protocol and to international agreements like the Geneva Convention.
It places a high priority on diplomacy, with President-elect Obama being open to direct talks with long-ignored countries like Iran and Cuba. Defense Secretary Gates, who is remaining in office, has made it clear that he regards military intervention as the genuinely last option.
Furthermore, the financial meltdown and the drains of the Iraq and Afghan wars have chipped away at the pre-eminence of US power. It is difficult to argue today that the US enjoys a unipolar advantage.
The safest bet, therefore, is that we can bid adieu to the neocons and leave their role to be adjudicated by history.
They themselves argue that they form part of the mainstream of American history. It seems more likely that they will come to be seen as an aberration.
Two things may change this. First, the flipside of neoconservatism is what might be called neo-humanitarianism. This is the idea that US military power should be used to intervene on the ground in crises like the Rwandan genocide or in Darfur.
Some Obama officials, for example Susan Rice at the UN, will be making this case. All indications are that the Obama administration will be cautious but, if not, US unilateral military deployment may be back on the global agenda.
Secondly, the Obama administration faces unsettled business on Iran.
The neocons are arguing that Iran is the defining issue for US foreign policy and that, short of an abandonment by Tehran of its apparent nuclear weapons program, the US must use force.
Once again, the early signs are that, for the Obama team, military force is well down the agenda and a new form of engagement is under consideration.
Should this change - possibly on the back of intransigence from Tehran - the neocons will be back in business and will crow that they have survived yet another premature obituary.
Jonathan Clarke is co-author, with Stefan Halper, of America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the World Order
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7825039.stm
Published: 2009/01/13
_______________________________________________
The chance for a new world order By Henry A. Kissinger
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=19281915
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
January 12, 2009
The chance for a new world order
By Henry A. Kissinger
As the new U.S. administration prepares to take office amid grave financial and international crises, it may seem counterintuitive to argue that the very unsettled nature of the international system generates a unique opportunity for creative diplomacy.
That opportunity involves a seeming contradiction. On one level, the financial collapse represents a major blow to the standing of the United States. While American political judgments have often proved controversial, the American prescription for a world financial order has generally been unchallenged. Now disillusionment with the United States' management of it is widespread.
At the same time, the magnitude of the debacle makes it impossible for the rest of the world to shelter any longer behind American predominance or American failings.
Every country will have to reassess its own contribution to the prevailing crisis. Each will seek to make itself independent, to the greatest possible degree, of the conditions that produced the collapse; at the same time, each will be obliged to face the reality that its dilemmas can be mastered only by common action.
Even the most affluent countries will confront shrinking resources. Each will have to redefine its national priorities. An international order will emerge if a system of compatible priorities comes into being. It will fragment disastrously if the various priorities cannot be reconciled.
The nadir of the existing international financial system coincides with simultaneous political crises around the globe. Never have so many transformations occurred at the same time in so many different parts of the world and been made globally accessible via instantaneous communication. The alternative to a new international order is chaos.
The financial and political crises are, in fact, closely related partly because, during the period of economic exuberance, a gap had opened up between the economic and the political organization of the world.
The economic world has been globalized. Its institutions have a global reach and have operated by maxims that assumed a self-regulating global market.
The financial collapse exposed the mirage. It made evident the absence of global institutions to cushion the shock and to reverse the trend. Inevitably, when the affected publics turned to their national political institutions, these were driven principally by domestic politics, not considerations of world order.
Every major country has attempted to solve its immediate problems essentially on its own and to defer common action to a later, less crisis-driven point. So-called rescue packages have emerged on a piecemeal national basis, generally by substituting seemingly unlimited governmental credit for the domestic credit that produced the debacle in the first place - so far without more than stemming incipient panic.
International order will not come about either in the political or economic field until there emerge general rules toward which countries can orient themselves.
In the end, the political and economic systems can be harmonized in only one of two ways: by creating an international political regulatory system with the same reach as that of the economic world; or by shrinking the economic units to a size manageable by existing political structures, which is likely to lead to a new mercantilism, perhaps of regional units.
A new Bretton Woods-kind of global agreement is by far the preferable outcome. America's role in this enterprise will be decisive. Paradoxically, American influence will be great in proportion to the modesty in our conduct; we need to modify the righteousness that has characterized too many American attitudes, especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
That seminal event and the subsequent period of nearly uninterrupted global growth induced too many to equate world order with the acceptance of American designs, including our domestic preferences.
The result was a certain inherent unilateralism - the standard complaint of European critics - or else an insistent kind of consultation by which nations were invited to prove their fitness to enter the international system by conforming to American prescriptions.
Not since the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy half a century ago has a new administration come into office with such a reservoir of expectations. It is unprecedented that all the principal actors on the world stage are avowing their desire to undertake the transformations imposed on them by the world crisis in collaboration with the United States.
The extraordinary impact of the president-elect on the imagination of humanity is an important element in shaping a new world order. But it defines an opportunity, not a policy.
The ultimate challenge is to shape the common concern of most countries and all major ones regarding the economic crisis, together with a common fear of jihadist terrorism, into a common strategy reinforced by the realization that the new issues like proliferation, energy and climate change permit no national or regional solution.
The new administration could make no worse mistake than to rest on its initial popularity. The cooperative mood of the moment needs to be channeled into a grand strategy going beyond the controversies of the recent past.
The charge of American unilateralism has some basis in fact; it also has become an alibi for a key European difference with America: that the United States still conducts itself as a national state capable of asking its people for sacrifices for the sake of the future, while Europe, suspended between abandoning its national framework and a yet-to-be-reached political substitute, finds it much harder to defer present benefits.
Hence its concentration on soft power. Most Atlantic controversies have been substantive and only marginally procedural; there would have been conflict no matter how intense the consultation. The Atlantic partnership will depend much more on common policies than agreed procedures.
The role of China in a new world order is equally crucial. A relationship that started on both sides as essentially a strategic design to constrain a common adversary has evolved over the decades into a pillar of the international system.
China made possible the American consumption splurge by buying American debt; America helped the modernization and reform of the Chinese economy by opening its markets to Chinese goods.
Both sides overestimated the durability of this arrangement. But while it lasted, it sustained unprecedented global growth. It mitigated as well the concerns over China's role once China emerged in full force as a fellow superpower. A consensus had developed according to which adversarial relations between these pillars of the international system would destroy much that had been achieved and benefit no one. That conviction needs to be preserved and reinforced.
Each side of the Pacific needs the cooperation of the other in addressing the consequences of the financial crisis. Now that the global financial collapse has devastated Chinese export markets, China is emphasizing infrastructure development and domestic consumption.
It will not be easy to shift gears rapidly, and the Chinese growth rate may fall temporarily below the 7.5 percent that Chinese experts have always defined as the line that challenges political stability. America needs Chinese cooperation to address its current account imbalance and to prevent its exploding deficits from sparking a devastating inflation.
What kind of global economic order arises will depend importantly on how China and America deal with each other over the next few years. A frustrated China may take another look at an exclusive regional Asian structure, for which the nucleus already exists in the Asean-plus-three concept.
At the same time, if protectionism grows in America or if China comes to be seen as a long-term adversary, a self-fulfilling prophecy may blight the prospects of global order.
Such a return to mercantilism and 19th-century diplomacy would divide the world into competing regional units with dangerous long-term consequences.
The Sino-American relationship needs to be taken to a new level. The current crisis can be overcome only by developing a sense of common purpose. Such issues as proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, energy and the environment demand strengthened political ties between China and the United States.
This generation of leaders has the opportunity to shape trans-Pacific relations into a design for a common destiny, much as was done with trans-Atlantic relations in the immediate postwar period - except that the challenges now are more political and economic than military.
Such a vision must embrace as well such countries as Japan, Korea, India, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand, whether as part of trans-Pacific structures or, in regional arrangements, dealing with special subjects as energy, proliferation and the environment.
The complexity of the emerging world requires from America a more historical approach than the insistence that every problem has a final solution expressible in programs with specific time limits not infrequently geared to our political process.
We must learn to operate within the attainable and be prepared to pursue ultimate ends by the accumulation of nuance.
An international order can be permanent only if its participants have a share not only in building but also in securing it. In this manner, America and its potential partners have a unique opportunity to transform a moment of crisis into a vision of hope.
Henry A. Kissinger served as national security adviser and as secretary of state in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Distributed by Tribune Media Services.
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
January 12, 2009
The chance for a new world order
By Henry A. Kissinger
As the new U.S. administration prepares to take office amid grave financial and international crises, it may seem counterintuitive to argue that the very unsettled nature of the international system generates a unique opportunity for creative diplomacy.
That opportunity involves a seeming contradiction. On one level, the financial collapse represents a major blow to the standing of the United States. While American political judgments have often proved controversial, the American prescription for a world financial order has generally been unchallenged. Now disillusionment with the United States' management of it is widespread.
At the same time, the magnitude of the debacle makes it impossible for the rest of the world to shelter any longer behind American predominance or American failings.
Every country will have to reassess its own contribution to the prevailing crisis. Each will seek to make itself independent, to the greatest possible degree, of the conditions that produced the collapse; at the same time, each will be obliged to face the reality that its dilemmas can be mastered only by common action.
Even the most affluent countries will confront shrinking resources. Each will have to redefine its national priorities. An international order will emerge if a system of compatible priorities comes into being. It will fragment disastrously if the various priorities cannot be reconciled.
The nadir of the existing international financial system coincides with simultaneous political crises around the globe. Never have so many transformations occurred at the same time in so many different parts of the world and been made globally accessible via instantaneous communication. The alternative to a new international order is chaos.
The financial and political crises are, in fact, closely related partly because, during the period of economic exuberance, a gap had opened up between the economic and the political organization of the world.
The economic world has been globalized. Its institutions have a global reach and have operated by maxims that assumed a self-regulating global market.
The financial collapse exposed the mirage. It made evident the absence of global institutions to cushion the shock and to reverse the trend. Inevitably, when the affected publics turned to their national political institutions, these were driven principally by domestic politics, not considerations of world order.
Every major country has attempted to solve its immediate problems essentially on its own and to defer common action to a later, less crisis-driven point. So-called rescue packages have emerged on a piecemeal national basis, generally by substituting seemingly unlimited governmental credit for the domestic credit that produced the debacle in the first place - so far without more than stemming incipient panic.
International order will not come about either in the political or economic field until there emerge general rules toward which countries can orient themselves.
In the end, the political and economic systems can be harmonized in only one of two ways: by creating an international political regulatory system with the same reach as that of the economic world; or by shrinking the economic units to a size manageable by existing political structures, which is likely to lead to a new mercantilism, perhaps of regional units.
A new Bretton Woods-kind of global agreement is by far the preferable outcome. America's role in this enterprise will be decisive. Paradoxically, American influence will be great in proportion to the modesty in our conduct; we need to modify the righteousness that has characterized too many American attitudes, especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
That seminal event and the subsequent period of nearly uninterrupted global growth induced too many to equate world order with the acceptance of American designs, including our domestic preferences.
The result was a certain inherent unilateralism - the standard complaint of European critics - or else an insistent kind of consultation by which nations were invited to prove their fitness to enter the international system by conforming to American prescriptions.
Not since the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy half a century ago has a new administration come into office with such a reservoir of expectations. It is unprecedented that all the principal actors on the world stage are avowing their desire to undertake the transformations imposed on them by the world crisis in collaboration with the United States.
The extraordinary impact of the president-elect on the imagination of humanity is an important element in shaping a new world order. But it defines an opportunity, not a policy.
The ultimate challenge is to shape the common concern of most countries and all major ones regarding the economic crisis, together with a common fear of jihadist terrorism, into a common strategy reinforced by the realization that the new issues like proliferation, energy and climate change permit no national or regional solution.
The new administration could make no worse mistake than to rest on its initial popularity. The cooperative mood of the moment needs to be channeled into a grand strategy going beyond the controversies of the recent past.
The charge of American unilateralism has some basis in fact; it also has become an alibi for a key European difference with America: that the United States still conducts itself as a national state capable of asking its people for sacrifices for the sake of the future, while Europe, suspended between abandoning its national framework and a yet-to-be-reached political substitute, finds it much harder to defer present benefits.
Hence its concentration on soft power. Most Atlantic controversies have been substantive and only marginally procedural; there would have been conflict no matter how intense the consultation. The Atlantic partnership will depend much more on common policies than agreed procedures.
The role of China in a new world order is equally crucial. A relationship that started on both sides as essentially a strategic design to constrain a common adversary has evolved over the decades into a pillar of the international system.
China made possible the American consumption splurge by buying American debt; America helped the modernization and reform of the Chinese economy by opening its markets to Chinese goods.
Both sides overestimated the durability of this arrangement. But while it lasted, it sustained unprecedented global growth. It mitigated as well the concerns over China's role once China emerged in full force as a fellow superpower. A consensus had developed according to which adversarial relations between these pillars of the international system would destroy much that had been achieved and benefit no one. That conviction needs to be preserved and reinforced.
Each side of the Pacific needs the cooperation of the other in addressing the consequences of the financial crisis. Now that the global financial collapse has devastated Chinese export markets, China is emphasizing infrastructure development and domestic consumption.
It will not be easy to shift gears rapidly, and the Chinese growth rate may fall temporarily below the 7.5 percent that Chinese experts have always defined as the line that challenges political stability. America needs Chinese cooperation to address its current account imbalance and to prevent its exploding deficits from sparking a devastating inflation.
What kind of global economic order arises will depend importantly on how China and America deal with each other over the next few years. A frustrated China may take another look at an exclusive regional Asian structure, for which the nucleus already exists in the Asean-plus-three concept.
At the same time, if protectionism grows in America or if China comes to be seen as a long-term adversary, a self-fulfilling prophecy may blight the prospects of global order.
Such a return to mercantilism and 19th-century diplomacy would divide the world into competing regional units with dangerous long-term consequences.
The Sino-American relationship needs to be taken to a new level. The current crisis can be overcome only by developing a sense of common purpose. Such issues as proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, energy and the environment demand strengthened political ties between China and the United States.
This generation of leaders has the opportunity to shape trans-Pacific relations into a design for a common destiny, much as was done with trans-Atlantic relations in the immediate postwar period - except that the challenges now are more political and economic than military.
Such a vision must embrace as well such countries as Japan, Korea, India, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand, whether as part of trans-Pacific structures or, in regional arrangements, dealing with special subjects as energy, proliferation and the environment.
The complexity of the emerging world requires from America a more historical approach than the insistence that every problem has a final solution expressible in programs with specific time limits not infrequently geared to our political process.
We must learn to operate within the attainable and be prepared to pursue ultimate ends by the accumulation of nuance.
An international order can be permanent only if its participants have a share not only in building but also in securing it. In this manner, America and its potential partners have a unique opportunity to transform a moment of crisis into a vision of hope.
Henry A. Kissinger served as national security adviser and as secretary of state in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Distributed by Tribune Media Services.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Seeing Through the Lies The Facts About Hamas and the War on Gaza
January 13, 2009
Seeing Through the Lies
The Facts About Hamas and the War on Gaza
By NORMAN FINKELSTEIN
The record is fairly clear. You can find it on the Israeli website, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. Israel broke the ceasefire by going into the Gaza and killing six or seven Palestinian militants. At that point—and now I’m quoting the official Israeli website—Hamas retaliated or, in retaliation for the Israeli attack, then launched the missiles.
Now, as to the reason why, the record is fairly clear as well. According to Ha’aretz, Defense Minister Barak began plans for this invasion before the ceasefire even began. In fact, according to yesterday’s Ha’aretz, the plans for the invasion began in March. And the main reasons for the invasion, I think, are twofold. Number one; to enhance what Israel calls its deterrence capacity, which in layman’s language basically means Israel’s capacity to terrorize the region into submission. After their defeat in July 2006 in Lebanon, they felt it important to transmit the message that Israel is still a fighting force, still capable of terrorizing those who dare defy its word.
And the second main reason for the attack is because Hamas was signaling that it wanted a diplomatic settlement of the conflict along the June 1967 border. That is to say, Hamas was signaling they had joined the international consensus, they had joined most of the international community, overwhelmingly the international community, in seeking a diplomatic settlement. And at that point, Israel was faced with what Israelis call a Palestinian peace offensive. And in order to defeat the peace offensive, they sought to dismantle Hamas.
As was documented in the April 2008 issue of Vanity Fair by the writer David Rose, basing himself on internal US documents, it was the United States in cahoots with the Palestinian Authority and Israel which were attempting a putsch on Hamas, and Hamas preempted the putsch. That, too, is no longer debatable or no longer a controversial claim.
The issue is can it rule in Gaza if Israel maintains a blockade and prevents economic activity among the Palestinians. The blockade, incidentally, was implemented before Hamas came to power. The blockade doesn’t even have anything to do with Hamas. The blockade came to—there were Americans who were sent over, in particular James Wolfensohn, to try to break the blockade after Israel redeployed its troops in Gaza.
The problem all along has been that Israel doesn’t want Gaza to develop, and Israel doesn’t want to resolve diplomatically the conflict, both the leadership in Damascus and the leadership in the Gaza have repeatedly made statements they’re willing to settle the conflict in the June 1967 border. The record is fairly clear. In fact, it’s unambiguously clear.
Every year, the United Nations General Assembly votes on a resolution entitled “Peaceful Settlement of the Palestine Question.” And every year the vote is the same: it’s the whole world on one side; Israel, the United States and some South Sea atolls and Australia on the other side. The vote this past year was 164-to-7. Every year since 1989—in 1989, the vote was 151-to-3, the whole world on one side, the United States, Israel and the island state of Dominica on the other side.
We have the Arab League, all twenty-two members of the Arab League, favoring a two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. We have the Palestinian Authority favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. We now have Hamas favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. The one and only obstacle is Israel, backed by the United States. That’s the problem.
Well, the record shows that Hamas wanted to continue the ceasefire, but only on condition that Israel eases the blockade. Long before Hamas began the retaliatory rocket attacks on Israel, Palestinians were facing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza because of the blockade. The former High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, described what was going on in Gaza as a destruction of a civilization. This was during the ceasefire period.
What does the record show? The record shows for the past twenty or more years, the entire international community has sought to settle the conflict in the June 1967 border with a just resolution of the refugee question. Are all 164 nations of the United Nations the rejectionists? And are the only people in favor of peace the United States, Israel, Nauru, Palau, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Australia? Who are the rejectionists? Who’s opposing a peace?
The record shows that in every crucial issue raised at Camp David, then under the Clinton parameters, and then in Taba, at every single point, all the concessions came from the Palestinians. Israel didn’t make any concessions. Every concession came from the Palestinians. The Palestinians have repeatedly expressed a willingness to settle the conflict in accordance with international law.
The law is very clear. July 2004, the highest judicial body in the world, the International Court of Justice, ruled Israel has no title to any of the West Bank and any of Gaza. They have no title to Jerusalem. Arab East Jerusalem, according to the highest judicial body in the world, is occupied Palestinian territory. The International Court of Justice ruled all the settlements, all the settlements in the West Bank, are illegal under international law.
Now, the important point is, on all those questions, the Palestinians were willing to make concessions. They made all the concessions. Israel didn’t make any concessions.
I think it’s fairly clear what needs to happen. Number one, the United States and Israel have to join the rest of the international community, have to abide by international law. I don’t think international law should be trivialized. I think it’s a serious issue. If Israel is in defiance of international law, it should be called into account, just like any other state in the world.
Mr. Obama has to level with the American people. He has to be honest about what is the main obstacle to resolving the conflict. It’s not Palestinian rejectionism. It’s the refusal of Israel, backed by the United States government, to abide by international law, to abide by the opinion of the international community.
And the main challenge for all of us as Americans is to see through the lies.
Norman Finkelstein is author of five books, including Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, Beyond Chutzpah and The Holocaust Industry, which have been translated into more than 40 foreign editions. He is the son of Holocaust survivors. This article is an edited extract of the views of Finkelstein given at DemocracyNow.org. His website is www.NormanFinkelstein.com
http://www.counterpunch.org/finkelstein01132009.html
Seeing Through the Lies
The Facts About Hamas and the War on Gaza
By NORMAN FINKELSTEIN
The record is fairly clear. You can find it on the Israeli website, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. Israel broke the ceasefire by going into the Gaza and killing six or seven Palestinian militants. At that point—and now I’m quoting the official Israeli website—Hamas retaliated or, in retaliation for the Israeli attack, then launched the missiles.
Now, as to the reason why, the record is fairly clear as well. According to Ha’aretz, Defense Minister Barak began plans for this invasion before the ceasefire even began. In fact, according to yesterday’s Ha’aretz, the plans for the invasion began in March. And the main reasons for the invasion, I think, are twofold. Number one; to enhance what Israel calls its deterrence capacity, which in layman’s language basically means Israel’s capacity to terrorize the region into submission. After their defeat in July 2006 in Lebanon, they felt it important to transmit the message that Israel is still a fighting force, still capable of terrorizing those who dare defy its word.
And the second main reason for the attack is because Hamas was signaling that it wanted a diplomatic settlement of the conflict along the June 1967 border. That is to say, Hamas was signaling they had joined the international consensus, they had joined most of the international community, overwhelmingly the international community, in seeking a diplomatic settlement. And at that point, Israel was faced with what Israelis call a Palestinian peace offensive. And in order to defeat the peace offensive, they sought to dismantle Hamas.
As was documented in the April 2008 issue of Vanity Fair by the writer David Rose, basing himself on internal US documents, it was the United States in cahoots with the Palestinian Authority and Israel which were attempting a putsch on Hamas, and Hamas preempted the putsch. That, too, is no longer debatable or no longer a controversial claim.
The issue is can it rule in Gaza if Israel maintains a blockade and prevents economic activity among the Palestinians. The blockade, incidentally, was implemented before Hamas came to power. The blockade doesn’t even have anything to do with Hamas. The blockade came to—there were Americans who were sent over, in particular James Wolfensohn, to try to break the blockade after Israel redeployed its troops in Gaza.
The problem all along has been that Israel doesn’t want Gaza to develop, and Israel doesn’t want to resolve diplomatically the conflict, both the leadership in Damascus and the leadership in the Gaza have repeatedly made statements they’re willing to settle the conflict in the June 1967 border. The record is fairly clear. In fact, it’s unambiguously clear.
Every year, the United Nations General Assembly votes on a resolution entitled “Peaceful Settlement of the Palestine Question.” And every year the vote is the same: it’s the whole world on one side; Israel, the United States and some South Sea atolls and Australia on the other side. The vote this past year was 164-to-7. Every year since 1989—in 1989, the vote was 151-to-3, the whole world on one side, the United States, Israel and the island state of Dominica on the other side.
We have the Arab League, all twenty-two members of the Arab League, favoring a two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. We have the Palestinian Authority favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. We now have Hamas favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. The one and only obstacle is Israel, backed by the United States. That’s the problem.
Well, the record shows that Hamas wanted to continue the ceasefire, but only on condition that Israel eases the blockade. Long before Hamas began the retaliatory rocket attacks on Israel, Palestinians were facing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza because of the blockade. The former High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, described what was going on in Gaza as a destruction of a civilization. This was during the ceasefire period.
What does the record show? The record shows for the past twenty or more years, the entire international community has sought to settle the conflict in the June 1967 border with a just resolution of the refugee question. Are all 164 nations of the United Nations the rejectionists? And are the only people in favor of peace the United States, Israel, Nauru, Palau, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Australia? Who are the rejectionists? Who’s opposing a peace?
The record shows that in every crucial issue raised at Camp David, then under the Clinton parameters, and then in Taba, at every single point, all the concessions came from the Palestinians. Israel didn’t make any concessions. Every concession came from the Palestinians. The Palestinians have repeatedly expressed a willingness to settle the conflict in accordance with international law.
The law is very clear. July 2004, the highest judicial body in the world, the International Court of Justice, ruled Israel has no title to any of the West Bank and any of Gaza. They have no title to Jerusalem. Arab East Jerusalem, according to the highest judicial body in the world, is occupied Palestinian territory. The International Court of Justice ruled all the settlements, all the settlements in the West Bank, are illegal under international law.
Now, the important point is, on all those questions, the Palestinians were willing to make concessions. They made all the concessions. Israel didn’t make any concessions.
I think it’s fairly clear what needs to happen. Number one, the United States and Israel have to join the rest of the international community, have to abide by international law. I don’t think international law should be trivialized. I think it’s a serious issue. If Israel is in defiance of international law, it should be called into account, just like any other state in the world.
Mr. Obama has to level with the American people. He has to be honest about what is the main obstacle to resolving the conflict. It’s not Palestinian rejectionism. It’s the refusal of Israel, backed by the United States government, to abide by international law, to abide by the opinion of the international community.
And the main challenge for all of us as Americans is to see through the lies.
Norman Finkelstein is author of five books, including Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, Beyond Chutzpah and The Holocaust Industry, which have been translated into more than 40 foreign editions. He is the son of Holocaust survivors. This article is an edited extract of the views of Finkelstein given at DemocracyNow.org. His website is www.NormanFinkelstein.com
http://www.counterpunch.org/finkelstein01132009.html
Monday, January 12, 2009
How Many Divisions? The Blood-Stained Monster Enters Gaza
How Many Divisions?
The Blood-Stained Monster Enters Gaza
By URI AVNERY
Nearly seventy ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called “the Red Army” held the millions of the town’s inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.
Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the Blitz.
This is the description that would now appear in the history books – if the Germans had won the war.
Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of Gaza as “hostages” and exploit the women and children as “human shields”, they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children and unarmed men are killed and injured.
* * *
IN THIS WAR, as in any modern war, propaganda plays a major role. The disparity between the forces, between the Israeli army - with its airplanes, gunships, drones, warships, artillery and tanks - and the few thousand lightly armed Hamas fighters, is one to a thousand, perhaps one to a million. In the political arena the gap between them is even wider. But in the propaganda war, the gap is almost infinite.
Almost all the Western media initially repeated the official Israeli propaganda line. They almost entirely ignored the Palestinian side of the story, not to mention the daily demonstrations of the Israeli peace camp. The rationale of the Israeli government (“The state must defend its citizens against the Qassam rockets”) has been accepted as the whole truth. The view from the other side, that the Qassams are a retaliation for the siege that starves the one and a half million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, was not mentioned at all.
Only when the horrible scenes from Gaza started to appear on Western TV screens, did world public opinion gradually begin to change.
True, Western and Israeli TV channels showed only a tiny fraction of the dreadful events that appear 24 hours every day on Aljazeera’s Arabic channel, but one picture of a dead baby in the arms of its terrified father is more powerful than a thousand elegantly constructed sentences from the Israeli army spokesman. And that is what is decisive, in the end.
War – every war – is the realm of lies. Whether called propaganda or psychological warfare, everybody accepts that it is right to lie for one’s country. Anyone who speaks the truth runs the risk of being branded a traitor.
The trouble is that propaganda is most convincing for the propagandist himself. And after you convince yourself that a lie is the truth and falsification reality, you can no longer make rational decisions.
An example of this process surrounds the most shocking atrocity of this war so far: the shelling of the UN Fakhura school in Jabaliya refugee camp.
Immediately after the incident became known throughout the world, the army “revealed” that Hamas fighters had been firing mortars from near the school entrance. As proof they released an aerial photo which indeed showed the school and the mortar. But within a short time the official army liar had to admit that the photo was more than a year old. In brief: a falsification.
Later the official liar claimed that “our soldiers were shot at from inside the school”. Barely a day passed before the army had to admit to UN personnel that that was a lie, too. Nobody had shot from inside the school, no Hamas fighters were inside the school, which was full of terrified refugees.
But the admission made hardly any difference anymore. By that time, the Israeli public was completely convinced that “they shot from inside the school”, and TV announcers stated this as a simple fact.
So it went with the other atrocities. Every baby metamorphosed, in the act of dying, into a Hamas terrorist. Every bombed mosque instantly became a Hamas base, every apartment building an arms cache, every school a terror command post, every civilian government building a “symbol of Hamas rule”. Thus the Israeli army retained its purity as the “most moral army in the world”.
* * *
THE TRUTH is that the atrocities are a direct result of the war plan. This reflects the personality of Ehud Barak – a man whose way of thinking and actions are clear evidence of what is called “moral insanity”, a sociopathic disorder.
The real aim (apart from gaining seats in the coming elections) is to terminate the rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In the imagination of the planners, Hamas is an invader which has gained control of a foreign country. The reality is, of course, entirely different.
The Hamas movement won the majority of the votes in the eminently democratic elections that took place in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. It won because the Palestinians had come to the conclusion that Fatah’s peaceful approach had gained precisely nothing from Israel - neither a freeze of the settlements, nor release of the prisoners, nor any significant steps toward ending the occupation and creating the Palestinian state. Hamas is deeply rooted in the population – not only as a resistance movement fighting the foreign occupier, like the Irgun and the Stern Group in the past – but also as a political and religious body that provides social, educational and medical services.
From the point of view of the population, the Hamas fighters are not a foreign body, but the sons of every family in the Strip and the other Palestinian regions. They do not “hide behind the population”, the population views them as their only defenders.
Therefore, the whole operation is based on erroneous assumptions. Turning life into living hell does not cause the population to rise up against Hamas, but on the contrary, it unites behind Hamas and reinforces its determination not to surrender. The population of Leningrad did not rise up against Stalin, any more than the Londoners rose up against Churchill.
He who gives the order for such a war with such methods in a densely populated area knows that it will cause dreadful slaughter of civilians. Apparently that did not touch him. Or he believed that “they will change their ways” and “it will sear their consciousness”, so that in future they will not dare to resist Israel.
A top priority for the planners was the need to minimize casualties among the soldiers, knowing that the mood of a large part of the pro-war public would change if reports of such casualties came in. That is what happened in Lebanon Wars I and II.
This consideration played an especially important role because the entire war is a part of the election campaign. Ehud Barak, who gained in the polls in the first days of the war, knew that his ratings would collapse if pictures of dead soldiers filled the TV screens.
Therefore, a new doctrine was applied: to avoid losses among our soldiers by the total destruction of everything in their path. The planners were not only ready to kill 80 Palestinians to save one Israeli soldier, as has happened, but also 800. The avoidance of casualties on our side is the overriding commandment, which is causing record numbers of civilian casualties on the other side.
That means the conscious choice of an especially cruel kind of warfare – and that has been its Achilles heel.
A person without imagination, like Barak (his election slogan: “Not a Nice Guy, but a Leader”) cannot imagine how decent people around the world react to actions like the killing of whole extended families, the destruction of houses over the heads of their inhabitants, the rows of boys and girls in white shrouds ready for burial, the reports about people bleeding to death over days because ambulances are not allowed to reach them, the killing of doctors and medics on their way to save lives, the killing of UN drivers bringing in food. The pictures of the hospitals, with the dead, the dying and the injured lying together on the floor for lack of space, have shocked the world. No argument has any force next to an image of a wounded little girl lying on the floor, twisting with pain and crying out: “Mama! Mama!”
The planners thought that they could stop the world from seeing these images by forcibly preventing press coverage. The Israeli journalists, to their shame, agreed to be satisfied with the reports and photos provided by the Army Spokesman, as if they were authentic news, while they themselves remained miles away from the events. Foreign journalists were not allowed in either, until they protested and were taken for quick tours in selected and supervised groups. But in a modern war, such a sterile manufactured view cannot completely exclude all others – the cameras are inside the strip, in the middle of the hell, and cannot be controlled. Aljazeera broadcasts the pictures around the clock and reaches every home.
* * *
THE BATTLE for the TV screen is one of the decisive battles of the war.
Hundreds of millions of Arabs from Mauritania to Iraq, more than a billion Muslims from Nigeria to Indonesia see the pictures and are horrified. This has a strong impact on the war. Many of the viewers see the rulers of Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority as collaborators with Israel in carrying out these atrocities against their Palestinian brothers.
The security services of the Arab regimes are registering a dangerous ferment among the peoples. Hosny Mubarak, the most exposed Arab leader because of his closing of the Rafah crossing in the face of terrified refugees, started to pressure the decision-makers in Washington, who until that time had blocked all calls for a cease-fire. These began to understand the menace to vital American interests in the Arab world and suddenly changed their attitude – causing consternation among the complacent Israeli diplomats.
People with moral insanity cannot really understand the motives of normal people and must guess their reactions. “How many divisions has the Pope?” Stalin sneered. “How many divisions have people of conscience?” Ehud Barak may well be asking.
As it turns out, they do have some. Not numerous. Not very quick to react. Not very strong and organized. But at a certain moment, when the atrocities overflow and masses of protesters come together, that can decide a war.
* * *
THE FAILURE to grasp the nature of Hamas has caused a failure to grasp the predictable results. Not only is Israel unable to win the war, Hamas cannot lose it.
Even if the Israeli army were to succeed in killing every Hamas fighter to the last man, even then Hamas would win. The Hamas fighters would be seen as the paragons of the Arab nation, the heroes of the Palestinian people, models for emulation by every youngster in the Arab world. The West Bank would fall into the hands of Hamas like a ripe fruit, Fatah would drown in a sea of contempt, the Arab regimes would be threatened with collapse.
If the war ends with Hamas still standing, bloodied but unvanquished, in face of the mighty Israeli military machine, it will look like a fantastic victory, a victory of mind over matter.
What will be seared into the consciousness of the world will be the image of Israel as a blood-stained monster, ready at any moment to commit war crimes and not prepared to abide by any moral restraints. This will have severe consequences for our long-term future, our standing in the world, our chance of achieving peace and quiet.
In the end, this war is a crime against ourselves too, a crime against the State of Israel.
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch's book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.
The Blood-Stained Monster Enters Gaza
By URI AVNERY
Nearly seventy ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called “the Red Army” held the millions of the town’s inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.
Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the Blitz.
This is the description that would now appear in the history books – if the Germans had won the war.
Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of Gaza as “hostages” and exploit the women and children as “human shields”, they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children and unarmed men are killed and injured.
* * *
IN THIS WAR, as in any modern war, propaganda plays a major role. The disparity between the forces, between the Israeli army - with its airplanes, gunships, drones, warships, artillery and tanks - and the few thousand lightly armed Hamas fighters, is one to a thousand, perhaps one to a million. In the political arena the gap between them is even wider. But in the propaganda war, the gap is almost infinite.
Almost all the Western media initially repeated the official Israeli propaganda line. They almost entirely ignored the Palestinian side of the story, not to mention the daily demonstrations of the Israeli peace camp. The rationale of the Israeli government (“The state must defend its citizens against the Qassam rockets”) has been accepted as the whole truth. The view from the other side, that the Qassams are a retaliation for the siege that starves the one and a half million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, was not mentioned at all.
Only when the horrible scenes from Gaza started to appear on Western TV screens, did world public opinion gradually begin to change.
True, Western and Israeli TV channels showed only a tiny fraction of the dreadful events that appear 24 hours every day on Aljazeera’s Arabic channel, but one picture of a dead baby in the arms of its terrified father is more powerful than a thousand elegantly constructed sentences from the Israeli army spokesman. And that is what is decisive, in the end.
War – every war – is the realm of lies. Whether called propaganda or psychological warfare, everybody accepts that it is right to lie for one’s country. Anyone who speaks the truth runs the risk of being branded a traitor.
The trouble is that propaganda is most convincing for the propagandist himself. And after you convince yourself that a lie is the truth and falsification reality, you can no longer make rational decisions.
An example of this process surrounds the most shocking atrocity of this war so far: the shelling of the UN Fakhura school in Jabaliya refugee camp.
Immediately after the incident became known throughout the world, the army “revealed” that Hamas fighters had been firing mortars from near the school entrance. As proof they released an aerial photo which indeed showed the school and the mortar. But within a short time the official army liar had to admit that the photo was more than a year old. In brief: a falsification.
Later the official liar claimed that “our soldiers were shot at from inside the school”. Barely a day passed before the army had to admit to UN personnel that that was a lie, too. Nobody had shot from inside the school, no Hamas fighters were inside the school, which was full of terrified refugees.
But the admission made hardly any difference anymore. By that time, the Israeli public was completely convinced that “they shot from inside the school”, and TV announcers stated this as a simple fact.
So it went with the other atrocities. Every baby metamorphosed, in the act of dying, into a Hamas terrorist. Every bombed mosque instantly became a Hamas base, every apartment building an arms cache, every school a terror command post, every civilian government building a “symbol of Hamas rule”. Thus the Israeli army retained its purity as the “most moral army in the world”.
* * *
THE TRUTH is that the atrocities are a direct result of the war plan. This reflects the personality of Ehud Barak – a man whose way of thinking and actions are clear evidence of what is called “moral insanity”, a sociopathic disorder.
The real aim (apart from gaining seats in the coming elections) is to terminate the rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In the imagination of the planners, Hamas is an invader which has gained control of a foreign country. The reality is, of course, entirely different.
The Hamas movement won the majority of the votes in the eminently democratic elections that took place in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. It won because the Palestinians had come to the conclusion that Fatah’s peaceful approach had gained precisely nothing from Israel - neither a freeze of the settlements, nor release of the prisoners, nor any significant steps toward ending the occupation and creating the Palestinian state. Hamas is deeply rooted in the population – not only as a resistance movement fighting the foreign occupier, like the Irgun and the Stern Group in the past – but also as a political and religious body that provides social, educational and medical services.
From the point of view of the population, the Hamas fighters are not a foreign body, but the sons of every family in the Strip and the other Palestinian regions. They do not “hide behind the population”, the population views them as their only defenders.
Therefore, the whole operation is based on erroneous assumptions. Turning life into living hell does not cause the population to rise up against Hamas, but on the contrary, it unites behind Hamas and reinforces its determination not to surrender. The population of Leningrad did not rise up against Stalin, any more than the Londoners rose up against Churchill.
He who gives the order for such a war with such methods in a densely populated area knows that it will cause dreadful slaughter of civilians. Apparently that did not touch him. Or he believed that “they will change their ways” and “it will sear their consciousness”, so that in future they will not dare to resist Israel.
A top priority for the planners was the need to minimize casualties among the soldiers, knowing that the mood of a large part of the pro-war public would change if reports of such casualties came in. That is what happened in Lebanon Wars I and II.
This consideration played an especially important role because the entire war is a part of the election campaign. Ehud Barak, who gained in the polls in the first days of the war, knew that his ratings would collapse if pictures of dead soldiers filled the TV screens.
Therefore, a new doctrine was applied: to avoid losses among our soldiers by the total destruction of everything in their path. The planners were not only ready to kill 80 Palestinians to save one Israeli soldier, as has happened, but also 800. The avoidance of casualties on our side is the overriding commandment, which is causing record numbers of civilian casualties on the other side.
That means the conscious choice of an especially cruel kind of warfare – and that has been its Achilles heel.
A person without imagination, like Barak (his election slogan: “Not a Nice Guy, but a Leader”) cannot imagine how decent people around the world react to actions like the killing of whole extended families, the destruction of houses over the heads of their inhabitants, the rows of boys and girls in white shrouds ready for burial, the reports about people bleeding to death over days because ambulances are not allowed to reach them, the killing of doctors and medics on their way to save lives, the killing of UN drivers bringing in food. The pictures of the hospitals, with the dead, the dying and the injured lying together on the floor for lack of space, have shocked the world. No argument has any force next to an image of a wounded little girl lying on the floor, twisting with pain and crying out: “Mama! Mama!”
The planners thought that they could stop the world from seeing these images by forcibly preventing press coverage. The Israeli journalists, to their shame, agreed to be satisfied with the reports and photos provided by the Army Spokesman, as if they were authentic news, while they themselves remained miles away from the events. Foreign journalists were not allowed in either, until they protested and were taken for quick tours in selected and supervised groups. But in a modern war, such a sterile manufactured view cannot completely exclude all others – the cameras are inside the strip, in the middle of the hell, and cannot be controlled. Aljazeera broadcasts the pictures around the clock and reaches every home.
* * *
THE BATTLE for the TV screen is one of the decisive battles of the war.
Hundreds of millions of Arabs from Mauritania to Iraq, more than a billion Muslims from Nigeria to Indonesia see the pictures and are horrified. This has a strong impact on the war. Many of the viewers see the rulers of Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority as collaborators with Israel in carrying out these atrocities against their Palestinian brothers.
The security services of the Arab regimes are registering a dangerous ferment among the peoples. Hosny Mubarak, the most exposed Arab leader because of his closing of the Rafah crossing in the face of terrified refugees, started to pressure the decision-makers in Washington, who until that time had blocked all calls for a cease-fire. These began to understand the menace to vital American interests in the Arab world and suddenly changed their attitude – causing consternation among the complacent Israeli diplomats.
People with moral insanity cannot really understand the motives of normal people and must guess their reactions. “How many divisions has the Pope?” Stalin sneered. “How many divisions have people of conscience?” Ehud Barak may well be asking.
As it turns out, they do have some. Not numerous. Not very quick to react. Not very strong and organized. But at a certain moment, when the atrocities overflow and masses of protesters come together, that can decide a war.
* * *
THE FAILURE to grasp the nature of Hamas has caused a failure to grasp the predictable results. Not only is Israel unable to win the war, Hamas cannot lose it.
Even if the Israeli army were to succeed in killing every Hamas fighter to the last man, even then Hamas would win. The Hamas fighters would be seen as the paragons of the Arab nation, the heroes of the Palestinian people, models for emulation by every youngster in the Arab world. The West Bank would fall into the hands of Hamas like a ripe fruit, Fatah would drown in a sea of contempt, the Arab regimes would be threatened with collapse.
If the war ends with Hamas still standing, bloodied but unvanquished, in face of the mighty Israeli military machine, it will look like a fantastic victory, a victory of mind over matter.
What will be seared into the consciousness of the world will be the image of Israel as a blood-stained monster, ready at any moment to commit war crimes and not prepared to abide by any moral restraints. This will have severe consequences for our long-term future, our standing in the world, our chance of achieving peace and quiet.
In the end, this war is a crime against ourselves too, a crime against the State of Israel.
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch's book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.
A time of transition Obama's intelligence team entering new era in counter-terrorism
LOS ANGELES TIMES
1/10/09
A time of transition
Obama's intelligence team entering new era in counter-terrorism
It promises a break from Bush policies. But questions remain on what will come next.
Greg Miller
Reporting from Washington — With the introduction of President-elect Barack Obama's intelligence team on Friday, the United States is poised to enter what might be considered the second phase in the counter-terrorism campaign launched after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Obama and his spy chief nominees have promised a dramatic break with the policies of the Bush administration, largely by focusing attention on what they intend to undo -- including shutting down the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison complex and ending the CIA's use of "enhanced" interrogation techniques.
But the incoming administration has been less clear about what it will erect to replace those programs, which drew condemnation from much of the world but often were cited by Bush administration officials as key to keeping the country safe.
The team introduced Friday faces the daunting task of filling in the details on what comes next. Indeed, senior lawmakers and intelligence officials said that retired U.S. Navy Adm. Dennis C. Blair, who is nominated to be director of national intelligence, and Leon E. Panetta, Obama's choice to head the CIA, might find themselves at the center of an intense debate.
"We need to talk about these problems anew," said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), who introduced legislation Friday to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. A similar bill was introduced this week in the Senate.
More than seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States is only beginning to chart long-term strategies for dealing with detainees: "How we apprehend them. Where they go. What process they go through," Harman said. "The expectation of the Obama administration is that they are going to bring this into the sunlight."
At the same time, current and former U.S. intelligence officials said there were other components of the Bush administration's counter-terrorism apparatus that the Obama team might find difficult to dismantle, if not enthusiastically embrace.
Among them are overseas prison facilities that are operated by the CIA -- and currently not accessible to Red Cross monitors -- as well as the use of unmanned Predator drones to fire missiles at suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban compounds in Pakistan, strikes that often cause civilian casualties.
Obama appeared to leave little wiggle room in his remarks Friday. The president-elect pledged that his administration would "adhere to our values as vigilantly as we protect our safety, with no exceptions."
But Obama specifically mentioned only the CIA's interrogation program, without addressing other pieces of the U.S. intelligence arsenal that may be more difficult to set aside.
Richard Clarke, a former senior U.S. counter-terrorism official who advised the Obama team and was considered for the CIA job, said he did not expect Obama to be any less aggressive in pursuing Al Qaeda.
"Obama consistently talks about using all the weapons in our tool kit to deal with Afghanistan, to deal with terrorism," Clarke said. "And that does mean all."
Even so, Clarke said that he believed the new administration would go far beyond tightening CIA interrogation policy and would make sweeping changes to other clandestine programs.
Asked about the CIA's secret prisons, Clarke said: "I assume they will be closed. Maybe not on Day One."
The secret prison program was developed in the aftermath of Sept. 11, and at one point included a constellation of undisclosed facilities stretching from Eastern Europe to Thailand.
Under mounting pressure from U.S. courts and other countries, the Bush administration emptied the prisons in 2006, transferring 14 detainees -- including self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed -- from CIA custody to the military-run camp at Guantanamo Bay.
But the administration kept at least a kernel of the program intact, and the agency is believed to still operate a secret facility near Kabul, Afghanistan. If those prisons are closed in addition to Guantanamo Bay, experts said, the United States would face a dilemma concerning detainees it does not want to release.
"Preventive detention is a tricky issue," said Daniel Byman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University and former analyst at the CIA. "It's a sweeping tool and dangerous in the wrong hands. But do you want to be the one who made the decision to let the jihadist go, and he kills someone?"
The Obama team could decide to keep the CIA facilities under a modified framework and, for the first time, allow them to be visited by monitors from the Red Cross. But some experts believe that it is more likely that the U.S. will shut down the CIA prisons and rely more heavily on "extraordinary renditions," the practice of turning captives over to the custody of other countries.
The CIA began carrying out renditions under President Clinton, but the practice became a source of controversy during the Bush administration, largely because of cases like that of Khaled Masri, a German citizen arrested by the CIA and detained in secret in Afghanistan for months in an embarrassing case of mistaken identity. Masri, like many such detainees, said he was beaten and tortured.
Critics accused the CIA of using renditions to deliver suspects to nations known to engage in torture. But if the United States is no longer willing to hold suspects itself, Obama may have little choice.
"I think it's reasonable to expect [that Obama] would be much more careful about turning prisoners over," said another former U.S. intelligence official who has advised the Obama team. "But I would not expect there would be a policy against ever doing renditions."
John Brennan, a former high-ranking CIA official selected by Obama to serve as his counter-terrorism advisor, could hold wide influence over many of these matters.
Brennan was forced to withdraw from consideration for CIA director because of ties to the agency's controversial programs. But he has spoken out against harsh tactics, saying in a PBS interview in 2006 that the "dark side has its limits."
The current CIA chief, Michael V. Hayden, has argued that the agency should be able to use more aggressive interrogation techniques than those authorized for use by the U.S. military, saying that the agency's interrogation program accounted for the bulk of the intelligence community's understanding of Al Qaeda.
But senior lawmakers introduced legislation this week that would require the CIA to abide by the Army's interrogation field manual. And Obama made it clear Friday that he intended to impose sweeping new restrictions.
"Under my administration the United States does not torture," Obama said, adding that banning such methods "will make us safer and will help in changing hearts and minds in our struggle against extremists."
1/10/09
A time of transition
Obama's intelligence team entering new era in counter-terrorism
It promises a break from Bush policies. But questions remain on what will come next.
Greg Miller
Reporting from Washington — With the introduction of President-elect Barack Obama's intelligence team on Friday, the United States is poised to enter what might be considered the second phase in the counter-terrorism campaign launched after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Obama and his spy chief nominees have promised a dramatic break with the policies of the Bush administration, largely by focusing attention on what they intend to undo -- including shutting down the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison complex and ending the CIA's use of "enhanced" interrogation techniques.
But the incoming administration has been less clear about what it will erect to replace those programs, which drew condemnation from much of the world but often were cited by Bush administration officials as key to keeping the country safe.
The team introduced Friday faces the daunting task of filling in the details on what comes next. Indeed, senior lawmakers and intelligence officials said that retired U.S. Navy Adm. Dennis C. Blair, who is nominated to be director of national intelligence, and Leon E. Panetta, Obama's choice to head the CIA, might find themselves at the center of an intense debate.
"We need to talk about these problems anew," said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), who introduced legislation Friday to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. A similar bill was introduced this week in the Senate.
More than seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States is only beginning to chart long-term strategies for dealing with detainees: "How we apprehend them. Where they go. What process they go through," Harman said. "The expectation of the Obama administration is that they are going to bring this into the sunlight."
At the same time, current and former U.S. intelligence officials said there were other components of the Bush administration's counter-terrorism apparatus that the Obama team might find difficult to dismantle, if not enthusiastically embrace.
Among them are overseas prison facilities that are operated by the CIA -- and currently not accessible to Red Cross monitors -- as well as the use of unmanned Predator drones to fire missiles at suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban compounds in Pakistan, strikes that often cause civilian casualties.
Obama appeared to leave little wiggle room in his remarks Friday. The president-elect pledged that his administration would "adhere to our values as vigilantly as we protect our safety, with no exceptions."
But Obama specifically mentioned only the CIA's interrogation program, without addressing other pieces of the U.S. intelligence arsenal that may be more difficult to set aside.
Richard Clarke, a former senior U.S. counter-terrorism official who advised the Obama team and was considered for the CIA job, said he did not expect Obama to be any less aggressive in pursuing Al Qaeda.
"Obama consistently talks about using all the weapons in our tool kit to deal with Afghanistan, to deal with terrorism," Clarke said. "And that does mean all."
Even so, Clarke said that he believed the new administration would go far beyond tightening CIA interrogation policy and would make sweeping changes to other clandestine programs.
Asked about the CIA's secret prisons, Clarke said: "I assume they will be closed. Maybe not on Day One."
The secret prison program was developed in the aftermath of Sept. 11, and at one point included a constellation of undisclosed facilities stretching from Eastern Europe to Thailand.
Under mounting pressure from U.S. courts and other countries, the Bush administration emptied the prisons in 2006, transferring 14 detainees -- including self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed -- from CIA custody to the military-run camp at Guantanamo Bay.
But the administration kept at least a kernel of the program intact, and the agency is believed to still operate a secret facility near Kabul, Afghanistan. If those prisons are closed in addition to Guantanamo Bay, experts said, the United States would face a dilemma concerning detainees it does not want to release.
"Preventive detention is a tricky issue," said Daniel Byman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University and former analyst at the CIA. "It's a sweeping tool and dangerous in the wrong hands. But do you want to be the one who made the decision to let the jihadist go, and he kills someone?"
The Obama team could decide to keep the CIA facilities under a modified framework and, for the first time, allow them to be visited by monitors from the Red Cross. But some experts believe that it is more likely that the U.S. will shut down the CIA prisons and rely more heavily on "extraordinary renditions," the practice of turning captives over to the custody of other countries.
The CIA began carrying out renditions under President Clinton, but the practice became a source of controversy during the Bush administration, largely because of cases like that of Khaled Masri, a German citizen arrested by the CIA and detained in secret in Afghanistan for months in an embarrassing case of mistaken identity. Masri, like many such detainees, said he was beaten and tortured.
Critics accused the CIA of using renditions to deliver suspects to nations known to engage in torture. But if the United States is no longer willing to hold suspects itself, Obama may have little choice.
"I think it's reasonable to expect [that Obama] would be much more careful about turning prisoners over," said another former U.S. intelligence official who has advised the Obama team. "But I would not expect there would be a policy against ever doing renditions."
John Brennan, a former high-ranking CIA official selected by Obama to serve as his counter-terrorism advisor, could hold wide influence over many of these matters.
Brennan was forced to withdraw from consideration for CIA director because of ties to the agency's controversial programs. But he has spoken out against harsh tactics, saying in a PBS interview in 2006 that the "dark side has its limits."
The current CIA chief, Michael V. Hayden, has argued that the agency should be able to use more aggressive interrogation techniques than those authorized for use by the U.S. military, saying that the agency's interrogation program accounted for the bulk of the intelligence community's understanding of Al Qaeda.
But senior lawmakers introduced legislation this week that would require the CIA to abide by the Army's interrogation field manual. And Obama made it clear Friday that he intended to impose sweeping new restrictions.
"Under my administration the United States does not torture," Obama said, adding that banning such methods "will make us safer and will help in changing hearts and minds in our struggle against extremists."
An inside story of how the US magnified Palestinian suffering. The covert push to empower Fatah failed. And isolating Hamas just made things worse.
csmonitor.com
An inside story of how the US magnified Palestinian suffering.
The covert push to empower Fatah failed. And isolating Hamas just made things worse. But it's not too late to change course.
By Norman H. Olsen and Matthew N. Olsen
from the January 12, 2009 edition
A million and a half Palestinians are learning the hard way that democracy isn't so good if you vote the wrong way. In 2006, they elected Hamas when the US and Israel wanted them to support the more-moderate Fatah. As a result, having long ago lost their homes and property, Gazans have endured three years of embargo, crippling shortages of food and basic necessities, and total economic collapse.
We spoke again Saturday with three of our longtime Gazan contacts. They and their families, all Fatah supporters, were in their eleventh day without electricity, running water, or heat. They are cowering in cold basements trying to protect their children from the storm of explosions that is filling Shifa hospital with amputees and the dead. Our friends in Israel are likewise living in fear.
The 850-plus dead Gazans, more than a dozen dead Israelis, and some 3,000 injured have since the end of the cease-fire become part of what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice once called the birth pains of a new Middle East.
It didn't have to be this way. We could have talked instead of fought.
Hamas never called for the elections that put them in power. That was the brainstorm of Secretary Rice and her staff, who had apparently decided they could steer Palestinians into supporting the more-compliant Mahmoud Abbas (the current president of the Palestinian authority) and his Fatah Party through a marketing campaign that was to counter Hamas's growing popularity – all while ignoring continued Israeli settlement construction, land confiscation, and cantonization of the West Bank.
State Department staffers helped finance and supervise the Fatah campaign, down to the choice of backdrop color for the podium where Mr. Abbas was to proclaim victory. An adviser working for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) explained to incredulous staffers at the Embassy in Tel Aviv how he would finance and direct elements of the campaign, leaving no US fingerprints. USAID teams, meanwhile, struggled to implement projects for which Abbas could claim credit. Once the covert political program cemented Fatah in place, the militia Washington was building for Fatah warlord-wannabee Mohammed Dahlan would destroy Hamas militarily.
Their collective confidence was unbounded. But the Palestinians didn't get the memo. Rice was reportedly blindsided when she heard the news of Hamas's victory during her 5 a.m. treadmill workout. But that did not prevent a swift response.
She immediately insisted that the Quartet (the US, European Union, United Nations, and Russia) ban all contact with Hamas and support Israel's economic blockade of Gaza. The results of her request were mixed, but Palestinian suffering manifestly intensified. The isolation was supposed to turn angry Palestinians against an ineffective Hamas. As if such blockades had not been tried before.
Simultaneously, the US military team expanded its efforts to build the Mohammed Dahlan-led militia. President Bush considered Dahlan "our guy." But Dahlan's thugs moved too soon. They roamed Gaza, demanding protection money from businesses and individuals, erecting checkpoints to extort bribes, terrorizing Dahlan's opponents within Fatah, and attacking Hamas members.
Finally, in mid-2007, faced with increasing chaos and the widely known implementation of a US-backed militia, Hamas – the lawfully elected government – struck first. They routed the Fatah gangs, securing control of the entire Gaza Strip, and established civil order.
Its efforts stymied, the US has for more than a year inflexibly backed Israel's embargo of Gaza and its collective punishment of the Strip's 1.5 million residents. The recent six-month cease-fire saw a near cessation of rocket fire into Israel and calm along the border, yet the economic siege was further tightened.
Gaza's economy has collapsed, and the population, displaced for decades from their farms and villages, relies ever more on food aid from Hamas and the UN. The US expresses shock that Gazans resort to using smuggling tunnels for survival rather than passively accepting the suffering inflicted by the embargo. What would we expect Americans to do in the same circumstances? With no easing of the blockade, the missile launches have increased in range and frequency, yielding massive Israeli response.
Our "good," US-supported Palestinians did not vanquish the "bad" Palestinians any more than Washington's Lebanese clients turned on Hezbollah, despite the suffering and death of the 2006 war with Israel. Abbas sits emasculated in Ramallah. The Israelis continue to build settlements while blaming Iran for their troubles, as though the Palestinians have no grievances of their own. And we are further than ever from peace.
Cultural differences aside, Gazans, like Americans, unite in adversity. Neither punishment, nor a cease-fire that extends the embargo will make them accept the loss of their property, 60 years of displacement, or life in squalid refugee camps.
Nor, as decades of experience have proved, will too-clever US manipulation make Palestinians pliable to US and Israeli wishes. US financial and military support for Israel can maintain the status quo indefinitely, if that's what we want, but it cannot resolve fundamental issues or bring peace. For that, we need to talk, even if at arm's length initially, and not leave the hard issues to the end. That only leaves the radicals on both sides the opportunity to undermine peace efforts and extend the senseless loss of life. Until we talk about real issues, both Palestinians and Israelis will be cowering in cellars.
Such dialogue won't be easy, but with concerted US-led effort, it is within reach. A significant portion of the provisions that will constitute a comprehensive agreement, even on the most difficult issues, have already been put together by discreet, experienced Track2 negotiators.
The difficulty lies in the politics of giving concessions and selling them to the public. Only the US has the influence to move the parties past their weaknesses with a comprehensive regional initiative, thereby defusing those who argue against concessions for any bilateral peace agreement while other enemies remain.
That's why President-elect Obama must reconsider his plan to appoint a traditional Washington-based Middle East envoy, reportedly former envoy Dennis Ross, and instead pursue a course that signals change. He should:
•Declare his determination to pursue from his first day in office, not the final six months, full peace between Israel and all its neighbors. Only by doing so can he win support among Israelis, Palestinians, the Congress, and the international partners we'll need to support this historic effort.
•Name an outstanding peace envoy to be resident full time in the region with authority over our missions in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. He or she must have the presidential backing and stamina to withstand the pressures and pitfalls of a comprehensive peace process over the long haul. In addition, this envoy must have authority over all US interactions with the Palestinians and Israelis and later, with other parties, reporting directly to the president in collaboration with the National Security Adviser and secretary of State. Assisted with staff comprising the US government's foremost experts, this envoy would be the single US voice on this issue.
•Empower the envoy to engage with all parties to the conflict, regardless of current prohibitions, on all issues, overturning long-established policy.
•Fund a political and economic development process second only to those in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Only by an "all out" effort can we hope to convince all the parties, and a skeptical international community, that the US is determined to achieve peace and prosperity for ALL the peoples of the region.
Norman and Mathew Olsen
[Norman Olsen, the principal author, served for 26 years as a member of the US Foreign Service, including four years working in the Gaza Strip and four years as counselor for political affairs at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv. He was most recently associate coordinator for counterterrorism at the Department of State. His son, Matthew N. Olsen, is the director of Explore Corps, a nascent NGO that uses outdoor education and youth programming to facilitate peace-building among young adults, with several current projects in the Gaza Strip.]
An inside story of how the US magnified Palestinian suffering.
The covert push to empower Fatah failed. And isolating Hamas just made things worse. But it's not too late to change course.
By Norman H. Olsen and Matthew N. Olsen
from the January 12, 2009 edition
A million and a half Palestinians are learning the hard way that democracy isn't so good if you vote the wrong way. In 2006, they elected Hamas when the US and Israel wanted them to support the more-moderate Fatah. As a result, having long ago lost their homes and property, Gazans have endured three years of embargo, crippling shortages of food and basic necessities, and total economic collapse.
We spoke again Saturday with three of our longtime Gazan contacts. They and their families, all Fatah supporters, were in their eleventh day without electricity, running water, or heat. They are cowering in cold basements trying to protect their children from the storm of explosions that is filling Shifa hospital with amputees and the dead. Our friends in Israel are likewise living in fear.
The 850-plus dead Gazans, more than a dozen dead Israelis, and some 3,000 injured have since the end of the cease-fire become part of what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice once called the birth pains of a new Middle East.
It didn't have to be this way. We could have talked instead of fought.
Hamas never called for the elections that put them in power. That was the brainstorm of Secretary Rice and her staff, who had apparently decided they could steer Palestinians into supporting the more-compliant Mahmoud Abbas (the current president of the Palestinian authority) and his Fatah Party through a marketing campaign that was to counter Hamas's growing popularity – all while ignoring continued Israeli settlement construction, land confiscation, and cantonization of the West Bank.
State Department staffers helped finance and supervise the Fatah campaign, down to the choice of backdrop color for the podium where Mr. Abbas was to proclaim victory. An adviser working for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) explained to incredulous staffers at the Embassy in Tel Aviv how he would finance and direct elements of the campaign, leaving no US fingerprints. USAID teams, meanwhile, struggled to implement projects for which Abbas could claim credit. Once the covert political program cemented Fatah in place, the militia Washington was building for Fatah warlord-wannabee Mohammed Dahlan would destroy Hamas militarily.
Their collective confidence was unbounded. But the Palestinians didn't get the memo. Rice was reportedly blindsided when she heard the news of Hamas's victory during her 5 a.m. treadmill workout. But that did not prevent a swift response.
She immediately insisted that the Quartet (the US, European Union, United Nations, and Russia) ban all contact with Hamas and support Israel's economic blockade of Gaza. The results of her request were mixed, but Palestinian suffering manifestly intensified. The isolation was supposed to turn angry Palestinians against an ineffective Hamas. As if such blockades had not been tried before.
Simultaneously, the US military team expanded its efforts to build the Mohammed Dahlan-led militia. President Bush considered Dahlan "our guy." But Dahlan's thugs moved too soon. They roamed Gaza, demanding protection money from businesses and individuals, erecting checkpoints to extort bribes, terrorizing Dahlan's opponents within Fatah, and attacking Hamas members.
Finally, in mid-2007, faced with increasing chaos and the widely known implementation of a US-backed militia, Hamas – the lawfully elected government – struck first. They routed the Fatah gangs, securing control of the entire Gaza Strip, and established civil order.
Its efforts stymied, the US has for more than a year inflexibly backed Israel's embargo of Gaza and its collective punishment of the Strip's 1.5 million residents. The recent six-month cease-fire saw a near cessation of rocket fire into Israel and calm along the border, yet the economic siege was further tightened.
Gaza's economy has collapsed, and the population, displaced for decades from their farms and villages, relies ever more on food aid from Hamas and the UN. The US expresses shock that Gazans resort to using smuggling tunnels for survival rather than passively accepting the suffering inflicted by the embargo. What would we expect Americans to do in the same circumstances? With no easing of the blockade, the missile launches have increased in range and frequency, yielding massive Israeli response.
Our "good," US-supported Palestinians did not vanquish the "bad" Palestinians any more than Washington's Lebanese clients turned on Hezbollah, despite the suffering and death of the 2006 war with Israel. Abbas sits emasculated in Ramallah. The Israelis continue to build settlements while blaming Iran for their troubles, as though the Palestinians have no grievances of their own. And we are further than ever from peace.
Cultural differences aside, Gazans, like Americans, unite in adversity. Neither punishment, nor a cease-fire that extends the embargo will make them accept the loss of their property, 60 years of displacement, or life in squalid refugee camps.
Nor, as decades of experience have proved, will too-clever US manipulation make Palestinians pliable to US and Israeli wishes. US financial and military support for Israel can maintain the status quo indefinitely, if that's what we want, but it cannot resolve fundamental issues or bring peace. For that, we need to talk, even if at arm's length initially, and not leave the hard issues to the end. That only leaves the radicals on both sides the opportunity to undermine peace efforts and extend the senseless loss of life. Until we talk about real issues, both Palestinians and Israelis will be cowering in cellars.
Such dialogue won't be easy, but with concerted US-led effort, it is within reach. A significant portion of the provisions that will constitute a comprehensive agreement, even on the most difficult issues, have already been put together by discreet, experienced Track2 negotiators.
The difficulty lies in the politics of giving concessions and selling them to the public. Only the US has the influence to move the parties past their weaknesses with a comprehensive regional initiative, thereby defusing those who argue against concessions for any bilateral peace agreement while other enemies remain.
That's why President-elect Obama must reconsider his plan to appoint a traditional Washington-based Middle East envoy, reportedly former envoy Dennis Ross, and instead pursue a course that signals change. He should:
•Declare his determination to pursue from his first day in office, not the final six months, full peace between Israel and all its neighbors. Only by doing so can he win support among Israelis, Palestinians, the Congress, and the international partners we'll need to support this historic effort.
•Name an outstanding peace envoy to be resident full time in the region with authority over our missions in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. He or she must have the presidential backing and stamina to withstand the pressures and pitfalls of a comprehensive peace process over the long haul. In addition, this envoy must have authority over all US interactions with the Palestinians and Israelis and later, with other parties, reporting directly to the president in collaboration with the National Security Adviser and secretary of State. Assisted with staff comprising the US government's foremost experts, this envoy would be the single US voice on this issue.
•Empower the envoy to engage with all parties to the conflict, regardless of current prohibitions, on all issues, overturning long-established policy.
•Fund a political and economic development process second only to those in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Only by an "all out" effort can we hope to convince all the parties, and a skeptical international community, that the US is determined to achieve peace and prosperity for ALL the peoples of the region.
Norman and Mathew Olsen
[Norman Olsen, the principal author, served for 26 years as a member of the US Foreign Service, including four years working in the Gaza Strip and four years as counselor for political affairs at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv. He was most recently associate coordinator for counterterrorism at the Department of State. His son, Matthew N. Olsen, is the director of Explore Corps, a nascent NGO that uses outdoor education and youth programming to facilitate peace-building among young adults, with several current projects in the Gaza Strip.]
Sunday, January 11, 2009
If Obama Is Serious, He Should Get Tough With Israel Aaron David Miller NEWSWEEK
If Obama Is Serious, He Should Get Tough With Israel
Aaron David Miller
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Jan 12, 2009
Jews worry for a living; their tragic history compels them to do so. In the next few years, there will be plenty to worry about, particularly when it comes to Israel. The current operation in Gaza won't do much to ease these worries or to address Israel's longer-term security needs. The potential for a nuclear Iran, combined with the growing accuracy and lethality of Hamas and Hizbullah rockets, will create tremendous concern. Anxiety may also be provoked by something else: an Obama administration determined to repair America's image and credibility and to reach a deal in the Middle East.
Don't get me wrong. Barack Obama—as every other U.S. president before him—will protect the special relationship with Israel. But the days of America's exclusive ties to Israel may be coming to an end. Despite efforts to sound reassuring during the campaign, the new administration will have to be tough, much tougher than either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush were, if it's serious about Arab-Israeli peacemaking.
The departure point for a viable peace deal—either with Syria or the Palestinians—must not be based purely on what the political traffic in Israel will bear, but on the requirements of all sides. The new president seems tougher and more focused than his predecessors; he's unlikely to become enthralled by either of Israel's two leading candidates for prime minister—centrist Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, or Likudnik Benjamin Netanyahu. Indeed, if it's the latter, he may well find himself (like Clinton) privately frustrated with Netanyahu's tough policies. Unlike Clinton, if Israeli behavior crosses the line, he should allow those frustrations to surface publicly in the service of American national interests.
The issue at hand is to find the right balance in America's ties with Israel. Driven by shared values and based on America's 60-year commitment to Israel's security and well-being, the special relationship is rock solid. But for the past 16 years, the United States has allowed that special bond to become exclusive in ways that undermine America's, and Israel's, national interests.
If Obama is serious about peacemaking he'll have to adjust that balance in two ways. First, whatever the transgressions of the Palestinians (and there are many, including terror, violence and incitement), he'll also have to deal with Israel's behavior on the ground. The Gaza crisis is a case in point. Israel has every reason to defend itself against Hamas. But does it make sense for America to support its policy of punishing Hamas by making life unbearable for 1.5 million Gazans by denying aid and economic development? The answer is no.
Then there's the settlements issue. In 25 years of working on this issue for six secretaries of state, I can't recall one meeting where we had a serious discussion with an Israeli prime minister about the damage that settlement activity—including land confiscation, bypass roads and housing demolitions—does to the peacemaking process. There is a need to impose some accountability. And this can only come from the president. But Obama should make it clear that America will not lend its auspices to a peacemaking process in which the actions of either side willfully undermine the chances of an agreement America is trying to broker. No process at all would be better than a dishonest one that hurts America's credibility.
Second, Obama will have to maintain his independence and tactical flexibility to play the mediator's role. This means not road testing everything with Israel first before previewing it to the other side, a practice we followed scrupulously during the Clinton and Bush 43 years. America must also not agree to every idea proposed by an Israeli prime minister. Our willingness to go along with Ehud Barak's make-or-break strategy at the Camp David summit proved very costly where more disciplined critical thinking on our part might have helped preempt the catastrophe that followed. Coordinating with Israel on matters relating to its security is one thing. Giving Israel a veto over American negotiating tactics and positions, particularly when it comes to bridging gaps between the two sides, is quite another.
If the new president adjusts his thinking when it comes to Israel, and is prepared to be tough with the Arabs as well, the next several years could be fascinating and productive ones. I hope so, because the national interest demands it. The process of American mediation will be excruciatingly painful for Arabs, Israelis and Americans. But if done right, with toughness and fairness, it could produce the first real opportunity for a peace deal in many years.
Miller, an adviser for Democratic and Republican administrations and author of "The Much Too Promised Land," is at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Aaron David Miller
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Jan 12, 2009
Jews worry for a living; their tragic history compels them to do so. In the next few years, there will be plenty to worry about, particularly when it comes to Israel. The current operation in Gaza won't do much to ease these worries or to address Israel's longer-term security needs. The potential for a nuclear Iran, combined with the growing accuracy and lethality of Hamas and Hizbullah rockets, will create tremendous concern. Anxiety may also be provoked by something else: an Obama administration determined to repair America's image and credibility and to reach a deal in the Middle East.
Don't get me wrong. Barack Obama—as every other U.S. president before him—will protect the special relationship with Israel. But the days of America's exclusive ties to Israel may be coming to an end. Despite efforts to sound reassuring during the campaign, the new administration will have to be tough, much tougher than either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush were, if it's serious about Arab-Israeli peacemaking.
The departure point for a viable peace deal—either with Syria or the Palestinians—must not be based purely on what the political traffic in Israel will bear, but on the requirements of all sides. The new president seems tougher and more focused than his predecessors; he's unlikely to become enthralled by either of Israel's two leading candidates for prime minister—centrist Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, or Likudnik Benjamin Netanyahu. Indeed, if it's the latter, he may well find himself (like Clinton) privately frustrated with Netanyahu's tough policies. Unlike Clinton, if Israeli behavior crosses the line, he should allow those frustrations to surface publicly in the service of American national interests.
The issue at hand is to find the right balance in America's ties with Israel. Driven by shared values and based on America's 60-year commitment to Israel's security and well-being, the special relationship is rock solid. But for the past 16 years, the United States has allowed that special bond to become exclusive in ways that undermine America's, and Israel's, national interests.
If Obama is serious about peacemaking he'll have to adjust that balance in two ways. First, whatever the transgressions of the Palestinians (and there are many, including terror, violence and incitement), he'll also have to deal with Israel's behavior on the ground. The Gaza crisis is a case in point. Israel has every reason to defend itself against Hamas. But does it make sense for America to support its policy of punishing Hamas by making life unbearable for 1.5 million Gazans by denying aid and economic development? The answer is no.
Then there's the settlements issue. In 25 years of working on this issue for six secretaries of state, I can't recall one meeting where we had a serious discussion with an Israeli prime minister about the damage that settlement activity—including land confiscation, bypass roads and housing demolitions—does to the peacemaking process. There is a need to impose some accountability. And this can only come from the president. But Obama should make it clear that America will not lend its auspices to a peacemaking process in which the actions of either side willfully undermine the chances of an agreement America is trying to broker. No process at all would be better than a dishonest one that hurts America's credibility.
Second, Obama will have to maintain his independence and tactical flexibility to play the mediator's role. This means not road testing everything with Israel first before previewing it to the other side, a practice we followed scrupulously during the Clinton and Bush 43 years. America must also not agree to every idea proposed by an Israeli prime minister. Our willingness to go along with Ehud Barak's make-or-break strategy at the Camp David summit proved very costly where more disciplined critical thinking on our part might have helped preempt the catastrophe that followed. Coordinating with Israel on matters relating to its security is one thing. Giving Israel a veto over American negotiating tactics and positions, particularly when it comes to bridging gaps between the two sides, is quite another.
If the new president adjusts his thinking when it comes to Israel, and is prepared to be tough with the Arabs as well, the next several years could be fascinating and productive ones. I hope so, because the national interest demands it. The process of American mediation will be excruciatingly painful for Arabs, Israelis and Americans. But if done right, with toughness and fairness, it could produce the first real opportunity for a peace deal in many years.
Miller, an adviser for Democratic and Republican administrations and author of "The Much Too Promised Land," is at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Why Gaza War Looks Set To Go On
Why Gaza War Looks Set To Go On
BBC News - Jan 10
As the Israeli raids on Gaza and Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel continue, BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen assesses why both Israel and Hamas seem likely to pursue the conflict.
After two weeks of war both sides have reasons to believe they can fight on.
Israel has suffered relatively light casualties, a fraction of the dead and wounded of Gaza. Even though many reserve units have now been mobilised, which means a large number of husbands and fathers are in uniform and potentially in the line of fire, public support for the war is holding steady.
The government has managed the war of Israeli expectations far more effectively than it did in Lebanon in 2006. Victory has been defined in less sweeping terms, so that it will be harder for anyone to accuse the government of failure.
Even so, it has set objectives that need to be met if Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defence Minister Ehud Barak are going to have any kind of political career when this is over.
Unlike Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is leaving office because of allegations of corruption, Mr Barak and Ms Livni face a general election on 10 February.
They have set two main objectives, neither of which has been achieved yet.
First, damage the Hamas military wing so badly that they will either be unable to launch rockets into Israel, or be so intimidated that they will not dare.
Israel's second demand is that the border between Gaza and Egypt is controlled so that Hamas will not be able to bring in weapons and money through tunnels.
Israel can feel the international pressure to stop. It has persuaded many of its allies that it has the right to defend itself, but it has not won the argument over the methods it is using. Israel's international image is taking a severe beating because it is killing so many civilians and so many children.
But with the United States abstaining in the ceasefire vote at the UN Security Council, Israel feels comfortable enough to dismiss the resolution because it says it is "not practical and will not be implemented by the Palestinian terror organisations".
Moment to fight
Hamas has reasons to fight on too. Like Israel, it has dismissed the ceasefire resolution. It has demanded a ceasefire that opens all Gaza's crossings to Egypt as well as Israel, and a halt to military action and complete pullout by the Israelis.
While it can fire rockets into Israel and mortars and rifles at Israeli troops, Hamas will not consider itself beaten.
Hamas leaders in Gaza have gone underground. But based on the few messages that they have sent out from their hiding places, and statements from Hamas leaders in exile, it is possible to make some reasonable guesses about their thinking. They have an ideology of struggle, resistance and sacrifice. They could have extended the ceasefire with Israel but chose not to do so.
Hamas believed they would have to fight Israel at some time (the feeling was mutual) and it seems that they have decided that the moment has come.
Civilian deaths in Gaza are most likely seen not as reasons to stop but as a reason to go on. I can't say for sure, but if I was able to sit with Hamas leaders, as I have done quite a bit in the last year, I think this is how their logic would go.
They might say that Israel has shown its real agenda towards Palestinians - not peace, but war and death. And they might go on to say that stopping now would betray the dead and encourage Israel to go in even harder.
Third phase
The template of the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah is in the minds of both sides.
Hamas would like to do the same as Hezbollah, and take on the most powerful army in the Middle East, punish it, and live to tell the tale.
That is an experience Israel does not want to repeat. It wants its enemies to be nervous, very nervous, about what it might do.
If Israel is going to fight on, the next stage will be for it to deploy the reservists who have been mobilised and equipped in the last 10 days or so be sent into Gaza.
Committing the reserves means the operation moves into a third phase, seizing more ground in Gaza, following the first week of air strikes, and the ground offensive of the second week.
The war in Gaza is the latest instalment in a very long conflict. Foreign leaders and diplomats who are trying to create peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis should take a long perspective. After all, the Palestinians and the Israelis do.
The conflict has lasted the best part of a century, which suggests that this latest episode, bloody and brutal though it is, will not be decisive.
BBC News - Jan 10
As the Israeli raids on Gaza and Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel continue, BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen assesses why both Israel and Hamas seem likely to pursue the conflict.
After two weeks of war both sides have reasons to believe they can fight on.
Israel has suffered relatively light casualties, a fraction of the dead and wounded of Gaza. Even though many reserve units have now been mobilised, which means a large number of husbands and fathers are in uniform and potentially in the line of fire, public support for the war is holding steady.
The government has managed the war of Israeli expectations far more effectively than it did in Lebanon in 2006. Victory has been defined in less sweeping terms, so that it will be harder for anyone to accuse the government of failure.
Even so, it has set objectives that need to be met if Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defence Minister Ehud Barak are going to have any kind of political career when this is over.
Unlike Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is leaving office because of allegations of corruption, Mr Barak and Ms Livni face a general election on 10 February.
They have set two main objectives, neither of which has been achieved yet.
First, damage the Hamas military wing so badly that they will either be unable to launch rockets into Israel, or be so intimidated that they will not dare.
Israel's second demand is that the border between Gaza and Egypt is controlled so that Hamas will not be able to bring in weapons and money through tunnels.
Israel can feel the international pressure to stop. It has persuaded many of its allies that it has the right to defend itself, but it has not won the argument over the methods it is using. Israel's international image is taking a severe beating because it is killing so many civilians and so many children.
But with the United States abstaining in the ceasefire vote at the UN Security Council, Israel feels comfortable enough to dismiss the resolution because it says it is "not practical and will not be implemented by the Palestinian terror organisations".
Moment to fight
Hamas has reasons to fight on too. Like Israel, it has dismissed the ceasefire resolution. It has demanded a ceasefire that opens all Gaza's crossings to Egypt as well as Israel, and a halt to military action and complete pullout by the Israelis.
While it can fire rockets into Israel and mortars and rifles at Israeli troops, Hamas will not consider itself beaten.
Hamas leaders in Gaza have gone underground. But based on the few messages that they have sent out from their hiding places, and statements from Hamas leaders in exile, it is possible to make some reasonable guesses about their thinking. They have an ideology of struggle, resistance and sacrifice. They could have extended the ceasefire with Israel but chose not to do so.
Hamas believed they would have to fight Israel at some time (the feeling was mutual) and it seems that they have decided that the moment has come.
Civilian deaths in Gaza are most likely seen not as reasons to stop but as a reason to go on. I can't say for sure, but if I was able to sit with Hamas leaders, as I have done quite a bit in the last year, I think this is how their logic would go.
They might say that Israel has shown its real agenda towards Palestinians - not peace, but war and death. And they might go on to say that stopping now would betray the dead and encourage Israel to go in even harder.
Third phase
The template of the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah is in the minds of both sides.
Hamas would like to do the same as Hezbollah, and take on the most powerful army in the Middle East, punish it, and live to tell the tale.
That is an experience Israel does not want to repeat. It wants its enemies to be nervous, very nervous, about what it might do.
If Israel is going to fight on, the next stage will be for it to deploy the reservists who have been mobilised and equipped in the last 10 days or so be sent into Gaza.
Committing the reserves means the operation moves into a third phase, seizing more ground in Gaza, following the first week of air strikes, and the ground offensive of the second week.
The war in Gaza is the latest instalment in a very long conflict. Foreign leaders and diplomats who are trying to create peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis should take a long perspective. After all, the Palestinians and the Israelis do.
The conflict has lasted the best part of a century, which suggests that this latest episode, bloody and brutal though it is, will not be decisive.
Criticism of Israel's conduct mounts
FT.com logo
MIDDLE EAST
Politics & Society
Criticism of Israel's conduct mounts
By Andrew England in Jerusalem and Vita Bekker in Tel Aviv
The Financial Times: January 10 2009
As Israel's offensive in Gaza enters its third week, the Jewish state appears to be rapidly losing the public relations war abroad as criticism from United Nations officials and humanitarian agencies has mounted amid the constant stream of pictures of dead and wounded women and children.
Israeli strikes on UN convoys and schools sheltering hundreds of Palestinians who fled their homes, as well allegations that Israeli troops prevented medical workers from retrieving dead and injured Palestinians, have increasingly called into question Israel's conduct of the war.
A UN agency added to the increasing negative news flow with a report that cited witness testimony alleging that Israeli troops evacuated Palestinian civilians to a house in Gaza City and then repeatedly shelled the building 24 hours later, killing some 30 people inside.
And from the outset, Israel has been under fire for preventing foreign journalists from entering the strip – restrictions that were in place weeks before the bombardment started.
However, a team of reporters from the Al-Jazeera satellite channel were already in Gaza and Arab television stations have broadcast a constant stream of images of death and destruction that have been picked up across the world. International news agencies also have local staff on the ground.
Al-Jazeera reported that a building used by journalists working in the strip, including Turkish and Chinese outlets, was hit by Israeli fire on Friday.
"There's definitely been a step up for the Israelis in their attempt to control the information flow. But if you actually look at the news, information and pictures emerging from Gaza, there's been tons of it and it's all been hugely detrimental to the Israeli cause," said Charlie Beckett, a media specialist at the London School of Economics. "The fact that the Israelis seem to be trying to blockade the media only hurts their argument that they are somehow more democratic, more open and not terrorists."
Israel officials have insisted they regret civilian deaths and have accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields. They have also sought to highlight the threat posed by rockets fired by Palestinian militants into southern Israel – which have killed three Israelis since the offensive started – saying some 950,000 Israelis are vulnerable to attacks.
But analysts say the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza overwhelms the impact.
Anthony Cordesman, at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says Israel has failed to talk to the world "in ways that the outside world finds relevant."
"We are now two weeks into the war and nobody has a clear idea what the Israelis are attempting to accomplish," he says. "They have not communicated the ways in which they are attempting to reduce civilian casualties; it is not clear that they have provided proper guidance to the troops in the field [and] they have not managed the issue of humanitarian relief with any effectiveness."
Still, an Israeli newspaper poll on Friday showed that 91 per cent of Israeli Jews were still in favour of the war, and Nachum Barnea, an Israeli newspaper columnist, says it is the mood of the domestic constituency which is the main concern for officials.
He believes Israel made a mistake in preventing journalists entering Gaza before the conflict, but adds that he is ambivalent towards restrictions preventing reporters from entering the strip while the fighting rages. He was embedded with Israeli troops during the 2006 war with Hizbollah in Lebanon, which turned out to be another PR disaster.
"In 2006 it became a real comedy because every commander of a battalion used his cell phone to call a reporter and to tell him his battalion was discriminated against or didn't get the air protection he wanted," says. "I'm almost sure it caused a lot of damage to the operation."
The Israeli military did allow a pool of three Israel reporters and one foreign correspondent to embed for a day with troops this week. But it has not given clear responses to many of the recent allegations.
It also became embroiled in a controversy after Israeli mortars struck outside a UN-run school used as a shelter, killing at least 40 people. The Israeli army insisted militants fired at Israeli troops from within the compound – claims rejected by UN officials. Shortly after the attack, the military emailed journalists a link to a video that purported to show assailants firing from a school, but that footage was dated October 2007.
Hamas, meanwhile, has managed to issue sporadic statements of defiance. Communicating its survival and willingness to fight on would seem at the core of its public relations strategy. But for Israel losing the propaganda war could be costly.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
MIDDLE EAST
Politics & Society
Criticism of Israel's conduct mounts
By Andrew England in Jerusalem and Vita Bekker in Tel Aviv
The Financial Times: January 10 2009
As Israel's offensive in Gaza enters its third week, the Jewish state appears to be rapidly losing the public relations war abroad as criticism from United Nations officials and humanitarian agencies has mounted amid the constant stream of pictures of dead and wounded women and children.
Israeli strikes on UN convoys and schools sheltering hundreds of Palestinians who fled their homes, as well allegations that Israeli troops prevented medical workers from retrieving dead and injured Palestinians, have increasingly called into question Israel's conduct of the war.
A UN agency added to the increasing negative news flow with a report that cited witness testimony alleging that Israeli troops evacuated Palestinian civilians to a house in Gaza City and then repeatedly shelled the building 24 hours later, killing some 30 people inside.
And from the outset, Israel has been under fire for preventing foreign journalists from entering the strip – restrictions that were in place weeks before the bombardment started.
However, a team of reporters from the Al-Jazeera satellite channel were already in Gaza and Arab television stations have broadcast a constant stream of images of death and destruction that have been picked up across the world. International news agencies also have local staff on the ground.
Al-Jazeera reported that a building used by journalists working in the strip, including Turkish and Chinese outlets, was hit by Israeli fire on Friday.
"There's definitely been a step up for the Israelis in their attempt to control the information flow. But if you actually look at the news, information and pictures emerging from Gaza, there's been tons of it and it's all been hugely detrimental to the Israeli cause," said Charlie Beckett, a media specialist at the London School of Economics. "The fact that the Israelis seem to be trying to blockade the media only hurts their argument that they are somehow more democratic, more open and not terrorists."
Israel officials have insisted they regret civilian deaths and have accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields. They have also sought to highlight the threat posed by rockets fired by Palestinian militants into southern Israel – which have killed three Israelis since the offensive started – saying some 950,000 Israelis are vulnerable to attacks.
But analysts say the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza overwhelms the impact.
Anthony Cordesman, at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says Israel has failed to talk to the world "in ways that the outside world finds relevant."
"We are now two weeks into the war and nobody has a clear idea what the Israelis are attempting to accomplish," he says. "They have not communicated the ways in which they are attempting to reduce civilian casualties; it is not clear that they have provided proper guidance to the troops in the field [and] they have not managed the issue of humanitarian relief with any effectiveness."
Still, an Israeli newspaper poll on Friday showed that 91 per cent of Israeli Jews were still in favour of the war, and Nachum Barnea, an Israeli newspaper columnist, says it is the mood of the domestic constituency which is the main concern for officials.
He believes Israel made a mistake in preventing journalists entering Gaza before the conflict, but adds that he is ambivalent towards restrictions preventing reporters from entering the strip while the fighting rages. He was embedded with Israeli troops during the 2006 war with Hizbollah in Lebanon, which turned out to be another PR disaster.
"In 2006 it became a real comedy because every commander of a battalion used his cell phone to call a reporter and to tell him his battalion was discriminated against or didn't get the air protection he wanted," says. "I'm almost sure it caused a lot of damage to the operation."
The Israeli military did allow a pool of three Israel reporters and one foreign correspondent to embed for a day with troops this week. But it has not given clear responses to many of the recent allegations.
It also became embroiled in a controversy after Israeli mortars struck outside a UN-run school used as a shelter, killing at least 40 people. The Israeli army insisted militants fired at Israeli troops from within the compound – claims rejected by UN officials. Shortly after the attack, the military emailed journalists a link to a video that purported to show assailants firing from a school, but that footage was dated October 2007.
Hamas, meanwhile, has managed to issue sporadic statements of defiance. Communicating its survival and willingness to fight on would seem at the core of its public relations strategy. But for Israel losing the propaganda war could be costly.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
For President-elect Barack Obama, the Urgent Demands of a Perilous World
For President-elect Barack Obama, the Urgent Demands of a Perilous World
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/obama/2008/12/23/for-president-elect-barack-obama-the-urgent-demands-of-a-perilous-world.html
Two wars. Nuclear wannabes. Terrorists. A global recession. Oh, and reversing Bush's legacy.
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/obama/2008/12/23/for-president-elect-barack-obama-the-urgent-demands-of-a-perilous-world.html
Two wars. Nuclear wannabes. Terrorists. A global recession. Oh, and reversing Bush's legacy.
How Many Divisions? by Uri Avnery
Uri Avnery
10.1.09
How Many Divisions?
NEARLY SEVENTY YEARS ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called "the Red Army" held the millions of the town's inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.
Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the Blitz.
This is the description that would now appear in the history books – if the Germans had won the war.
Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of Gaza as "hostages" and exploit the women and children as "human shields", they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children and unarmed men are killed and injured.
IN THIS WAR, as in any modern war, propaganda plays a major role. The disparity between the forces, between the Israeli army - with its airplanes, gunships, drones, warships, artillery and tanks - and the few thousand lightly armed Hamas fighters, is one to a thousand, perhaps one to a million. In the political arena the gap between them is even wider. But in the propaganda war, the gap is almost infinite.
Almost all the Western media initially repeated the official Israeli propaganda line. They almost entirely ignored the Palestinian side of the story, not to mention the daily demonstrations of the Israeli peace camp. The rationale of the Israeli government ("The state must defend its citizens against the Qassam rockets") has been accepted as the whole truth. The view from the other side, that the Qassams are a retaliation for the siege that starves the one and a half million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, was not mentioned at all.
Only when the horrible scenes from Gaza started to appear on Western TV screens, did world public opinion gradually begin to change.
True, Western and Israeli TV channels showed only a tiny fraction of the dreadful events that appear 24 hours every day on Aljazeera's Arabic channel, but one picture of a dead baby in the arms of its terrified father is more powerful than a thousand elegantly constructed sentences from the Israeli army spokesman. And that is what is decisive, in the end.
War – every war – is the realm of lies. Whether called propaganda or psychological warfare, everybody accepts that it is right to lie for one's country. Anyone who speaks the truth runs the risk of being branded a traitor.
The trouble is that propaganda is most convincing for the propagandist himself. And after you convince yourself that a lie is the truth and falsification reality, you can no longer make rational decisions.
An example of this process surrounds the most shocking atrocity of this war so far: the shelling of the UN Fakhura school in Jabaliya refugee camp.
Immediately after the incident became known throughout the world, the army "revealed" that Hamas fighters had been firing mortars from near the school entrance. As proof they released an aerial photo which indeed showed the school and the mortar. But within a short time the official army liar had to admit that the photo was more than a year old. In brief: a falsification.
Later the official liar claimed that "our soldiers were shot at from inside the school". Barely a day passed before the army had to admit to UN personnel that that was a lie, too. Nobody had shot from inside the school, no Hamas fighters were inside the school, which was full of terrified refugees.
But the admission made hardly any difference anymore. By that time, the Israeli public was completely convinced that "they shot from inside the school", and TV announcers stated this as a simple fact.
So it went with the other atrocities. Every baby metamorphosed, in the act of dying, into a Hamas terrorist. Every bombed mosque instantly became a Hamas base, every apartment building an arms cache, every school a terror command post, every civilian government building a "symbol of Hamas rule". Thus the Israeli army retained its purity as the "most moral army in the world".
THE TRUTH is that the atrocities are a direct result of the war plan. This reflects the personality of Ehud Barak – a man whose way of thinking and actions are clear evidence of what is called "moral insanity", a sociopathic disorder.
The real aim (apart from gaining seats in the coming elections) is to terminate the rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In the imagination of the planners, Hamas is an invader which has gained control of a foreign country. The reality is, of course, entirely different.
The Hamas movement won the majority of the votes in the eminently democratic elections that took place in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. It won because the Palestinians had come to the conclusion that Fatah's peaceful approach had gained precisely nothing from Israel - neither a freeze of the settlements, nor release of the prisoners, nor any significant steps toward ending the occupation and creating the Palestinian state. Hamas is deeply rooted in the population – not only as a resistance movement fighting the foreign occupier, like the Irgun and the Stern Group in the past – but also as a political and religious body that provides social, educational and medical services.
From the point of view of the population, the Hamas fighters are not a foreign body, but the sons of every family in the Strip and the other Palestinian regions. They do not "hide behind the population", the population views them as their only defenders.
Therefore, the whole operation is based on erroneous assumptions. Turning life into living hell does not cause the population to rise up against Hamas, but on the contrary, it unites behind Hamas and reinforces its determination not to surrender. The population of Leningrad did not rise up against Stalin, any more than the Londoners rose up against Churchill.
He who gives the order for such a war with such methods in a densely populated area knows that it will cause dreadful slaughter of civilians. Apparently that did not touch him. Or he believed that "they will change their ways" and "it will sear their consciousness", so that in future they will not dare to resist Israel.
A top priority for the planners was the need to minimize casualties among the soldiers, knowing that the mood of a large part of the pro-war public would change if reports of such casualties came in. That is what happened in Lebanon Wars I and II.
This consideration played an especially important role because the entire war is a part of the election campaign. Ehud Barak, who gained in the polls in the first days of the war, knew that his ratings would collapse if pictures of dead soldiers filled the TV screens.
Therefore, a new doctrine was applied: to avoid losses among our soldiers by the total destruction of everything in their path. The planners were not only ready to kill 80 Palestinians to save one Israeli soldier, as has happened, but also 800. The avoidance of casualties on our side is the overriding commandment, which is causing record numbers of civilian casualties on the other side.
That means the conscious choice of an especially cruel kind of warfare – and that has been its Achilles heel.
A person without imagination, like Barak (his election slogan: "Not a Nice Guy, but a Leader") cannot imagine how decent people around the world react to actions like the killing of whole extended families, the destruction of houses over the heads of their inhabitants, the rows of boys and girls in white shrouds ready for burial, the reports about people bleeding to death over days because ambulances are not allowed to reach them, the killing of doctors and medics on their way to save lives, the killing of UN drivers bringing in food. The pictures of the hospitals, with the dead, the dying and the injured lying together on the floor for lack of space, have shocked the world. No argument has any force next to an image of a wounded little girl lying on the floor, twisting with pain and crying out: "Mama! Mama!"
The planners thought that they could stop the world from seeing these images by forcibly preventing press coverage. The Israeli journalists, to their shame, agreed to be satisfied with the reports and photos provided by the Army Spokesman, as if they were authentic news, while they themselves remained miles away from the events. Foreign journalists were not allowed in either, until they protested and were taken for quick tours in selected and supervised groups. But in a modern war, such a sterile manufactured view cannot completely exclude all others – the cameras are inside the strip, in the middle of the hell, and cannot be controlled. Aljazeera broadcasts the pictures around the clock and reaches every home.
THE BATTLE for the TV screen is one of the decisive battles of the war.
Hundreds of millions of Arabs from Mauritania to Iraq, more than a billion Muslims from Nigeria to Indonesia see the pictures and are horrified. This has a strong impact on the war. Many of the viewers see the rulers of Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority as collaborators with Israel in carrying out these atrocities against their Palestinian brothers.
The security services of the Arab regimes are registering a dangerous ferment among the peoples. Hosny Mubarak, the most exposed Arab leader because of his closing of the Rafah crossing in the face of terrified refugees, started to pressure the decision-makers in Washington, who until that time had blocked all calls for a cease-fire. These began to understand the menace to vital American interests in the Arab world and suddenly changed their attitude – causing consternation among the complacent Israeli diplomats.
People with moral insanity cannot really understand the motives of normal people and must guess their reactions. "How many divisions has the Pope?" Stalin sneered. "How many di
10.1.09
How Many Divisions?
NEARLY SEVENTY YEARS ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called "the Red Army" held the millions of the town's inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.
Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the Blitz.
This is the description that would now appear in the history books – if the Germans had won the war.
Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of Gaza as "hostages" and exploit the women and children as "human shields", they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children and unarmed men are killed and injured.
IN THIS WAR, as in any modern war, propaganda plays a major role. The disparity between the forces, between the Israeli army - with its airplanes, gunships, drones, warships, artillery and tanks - and the few thousand lightly armed Hamas fighters, is one to a thousand, perhaps one to a million. In the political arena the gap between them is even wider. But in the propaganda war, the gap is almost infinite.
Almost all the Western media initially repeated the official Israeli propaganda line. They almost entirely ignored the Palestinian side of the story, not to mention the daily demonstrations of the Israeli peace camp. The rationale of the Israeli government ("The state must defend its citizens against the Qassam rockets") has been accepted as the whole truth. The view from the other side, that the Qassams are a retaliation for the siege that starves the one and a half million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, was not mentioned at all.
Only when the horrible scenes from Gaza started to appear on Western TV screens, did world public opinion gradually begin to change.
True, Western and Israeli TV channels showed only a tiny fraction of the dreadful events that appear 24 hours every day on Aljazeera's Arabic channel, but one picture of a dead baby in the arms of its terrified father is more powerful than a thousand elegantly constructed sentences from the Israeli army spokesman. And that is what is decisive, in the end.
War – every war – is the realm of lies. Whether called propaganda or psychological warfare, everybody accepts that it is right to lie for one's country. Anyone who speaks the truth runs the risk of being branded a traitor.
The trouble is that propaganda is most convincing for the propagandist himself. And after you convince yourself that a lie is the truth and falsification reality, you can no longer make rational decisions.
An example of this process surrounds the most shocking atrocity of this war so far: the shelling of the UN Fakhura school in Jabaliya refugee camp.
Immediately after the incident became known throughout the world, the army "revealed" that Hamas fighters had been firing mortars from near the school entrance. As proof they released an aerial photo which indeed showed the school and the mortar. But within a short time the official army liar had to admit that the photo was more than a year old. In brief: a falsification.
Later the official liar claimed that "our soldiers were shot at from inside the school". Barely a day passed before the army had to admit to UN personnel that that was a lie, too. Nobody had shot from inside the school, no Hamas fighters were inside the school, which was full of terrified refugees.
But the admission made hardly any difference anymore. By that time, the Israeli public was completely convinced that "they shot from inside the school", and TV announcers stated this as a simple fact.
So it went with the other atrocities. Every baby metamorphosed, in the act of dying, into a Hamas terrorist. Every bombed mosque instantly became a Hamas base, every apartment building an arms cache, every school a terror command post, every civilian government building a "symbol of Hamas rule". Thus the Israeli army retained its purity as the "most moral army in the world".
THE TRUTH is that the atrocities are a direct result of the war plan. This reflects the personality of Ehud Barak – a man whose way of thinking and actions are clear evidence of what is called "moral insanity", a sociopathic disorder.
The real aim (apart from gaining seats in the coming elections) is to terminate the rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In the imagination of the planners, Hamas is an invader which has gained control of a foreign country. The reality is, of course, entirely different.
The Hamas movement won the majority of the votes in the eminently democratic elections that took place in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. It won because the Palestinians had come to the conclusion that Fatah's peaceful approach had gained precisely nothing from Israel - neither a freeze of the settlements, nor release of the prisoners, nor any significant steps toward ending the occupation and creating the Palestinian state. Hamas is deeply rooted in the population – not only as a resistance movement fighting the foreign occupier, like the Irgun and the Stern Group in the past – but also as a political and religious body that provides social, educational and medical services.
From the point of view of the population, the Hamas fighters are not a foreign body, but the sons of every family in the Strip and the other Palestinian regions. They do not "hide behind the population", the population views them as their only defenders.
Therefore, the whole operation is based on erroneous assumptions. Turning life into living hell does not cause the population to rise up against Hamas, but on the contrary, it unites behind Hamas and reinforces its determination not to surrender. The population of Leningrad did not rise up against Stalin, any more than the Londoners rose up against Churchill.
He who gives the order for such a war with such methods in a densely populated area knows that it will cause dreadful slaughter of civilians. Apparently that did not touch him. Or he believed that "they will change their ways" and "it will sear their consciousness", so that in future they will not dare to resist Israel.
A top priority for the planners was the need to minimize casualties among the soldiers, knowing that the mood of a large part of the pro-war public would change if reports of such casualties came in. That is what happened in Lebanon Wars I and II.
This consideration played an especially important role because the entire war is a part of the election campaign. Ehud Barak, who gained in the polls in the first days of the war, knew that his ratings would collapse if pictures of dead soldiers filled the TV screens.
Therefore, a new doctrine was applied: to avoid losses among our soldiers by the total destruction of everything in their path. The planners were not only ready to kill 80 Palestinians to save one Israeli soldier, as has happened, but also 800. The avoidance of casualties on our side is the overriding commandment, which is causing record numbers of civilian casualties on the other side.
That means the conscious choice of an especially cruel kind of warfare – and that has been its Achilles heel.
A person without imagination, like Barak (his election slogan: "Not a Nice Guy, but a Leader") cannot imagine how decent people around the world react to actions like the killing of whole extended families, the destruction of houses over the heads of their inhabitants, the rows of boys and girls in white shrouds ready for burial, the reports about people bleeding to death over days because ambulances are not allowed to reach them, the killing of doctors and medics on their way to save lives, the killing of UN drivers bringing in food. The pictures of the hospitals, with the dead, the dying and the injured lying together on the floor for lack of space, have shocked the world. No argument has any force next to an image of a wounded little girl lying on the floor, twisting with pain and crying out: "Mama! Mama!"
The planners thought that they could stop the world from seeing these images by forcibly preventing press coverage. The Israeli journalists, to their shame, agreed to be satisfied with the reports and photos provided by the Army Spokesman, as if they were authentic news, while they themselves remained miles away from the events. Foreign journalists were not allowed in either, until they protested and were taken for quick tours in selected and supervised groups. But in a modern war, such a sterile manufactured view cannot completely exclude all others – the cameras are inside the strip, in the middle of the hell, and cannot be controlled. Aljazeera broadcasts the pictures around the clock and reaches every home.
THE BATTLE for the TV screen is one of the decisive battles of the war.
Hundreds of millions of Arabs from Mauritania to Iraq, more than a billion Muslims from Nigeria to Indonesia see the pictures and are horrified. This has a strong impact on the war. Many of the viewers see the rulers of Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority as collaborators with Israel in carrying out these atrocities against their Palestinian brothers.
The security services of the Arab regimes are registering a dangerous ferment among the peoples. Hosny Mubarak, the most exposed Arab leader because of his closing of the Rafah crossing in the face of terrified refugees, started to pressure the decision-makers in Washington, who until that time had blocked all calls for a cease-fire. These began to understand the menace to vital American interests in the Arab world and suddenly changed their attitude – causing consternation among the complacent Israeli diplomats.
People with moral insanity cannot really understand the motives of normal people and must guess their reactions. "How many divisions has the Pope?" Stalin sneered. "How many di