Peace Not Apartheid

In 2006 Former President Jimmy Carter published a book on the situation in Israel/Palestine entitled “Peace Not Apartheid”. In the book Carter argued that all parties to the situation in Israel/Palestine must take immediate steps to implement the Oslo Process designed to create two states living alongside each other in peace. Failing this, he argued, the result would be a land completely controlled by Israel with limited or no rights for its Palestinian residents. Carter’s use of the dreaded “A” word in the title caused considerable controversy at the time. As time has passed, with no progress towards a viable “two state solution”, Carter is beginning to look prescient.

Many observers, this one included, for a number of years have said that the day of the “two state solution” had come and gone. (See here) With over 500,000 Jews living on the Palestinian side of the green line and 1.5 mm Palestinians living on the Israeli side of the green line, it is impossible to unscramble the egg. The location of settlements and Jewish only roads on the West Bank make a viable Palestinian state impossible. As the situation has worsened over the years, the concept of a single state is becoming a more mainstream position. Veteran Israeli journalist Nahum Barnea recently wrote, “Everybody knows how this will end. There will be a bi-national [state]”. The only remaining question is, what kind of a state it will be. Will it be a bi-national state with equal rights for all of its citizens? Will it be a state ethnically cleansed of its Palestinian citizens? Or will it be an apartheid state where only Jewish citizens have complete rights of citizenship?

Some on the far right fringe in Israel advocate for an ethnically cleansed state. They say “Jordan is the Palestinian state”. It is unlikely that even Israel’s most ardent backers in the U.S. could support this outcome.

What appears to be more acceptable, at least in Israel, is an apartheid state. A recent poll commissioned by the Israeli paper Haaretz (See here) reported that 58% of Israeli Jews believe that Israel already practices apartheid against Palestinians. Two thirds believe that the 2.5 mm Palestinians living on the West Bank should be denied the right to vote. 33% say Palestinians living within Israel proper should be denied the right to vote. 75% are in favor of segregated roads. 60% say Jews should be given preference in government jobs and 50% say Jewish citizens should be treated better than Arabs.

Since Israel is a democracy, the views of its citizens are generally translated into government policies. It is likely that, in next year’s elections, the current right wing government will be even more solidified and Israel will move even further on the path to a bi-national apartheid state. The question for the Americans will be can they sustain their unbending support for Israeli policies in the face of this outcome.

Technorati Tags: Israel,Palestine,Apartheid

Afghanistan after America

With all the loud and largely fact free debate that is going on during the current presidential campaign, very little has been said about America’s longest war in Afghanistan. Neither candidate wants to talk about it since a reluctant Obama was never really sold on the surge strategy and any position taken by Romney would tie his hands should he be elected. However, whoever wins the election will quickly be faced with some very difficult decisions. With the 2014 deadline for withdrawal of American combat forces and a massive logistical task required to implement an orderly withdrawal, decisions will need to be made quickly. Since the press is preoccupied with campaign non-events, it might be useful to look at where we are and what the future might bring.

At a recent conference on the subject which I attended, Ryan Crocker, recently retired ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and four other Middle East countries, expressed his view that the surge had been relatively successful. Since Ambassador Crocker is no Pollyanna, (He was sarcastically dubbed “sunshine” by President Bush for ongoing pessimistic reports on the on the situation in Iraq) his assessment should be taken seriously.

While poorly conceived, planned and implemented the surge has accomplished some of its objectives. The surge forces have gained control of major population centers and the roads connecting them. While it might been more useful to train fewer forces better, 350,000 Afghan security forces have been partially trained and they may be capable of sustaining some control of the population centers once U.S. forces have departed. Some economic development projects have been completed. However, the vast majority of Afghan GDP is still directly tied to western aid and the presence of thousands of foreign troops and civilian workers. All this has been achieved in the face of rampant corruption, incompetence and bureaucratic infighting between the Dept. of State and the Pentagon, within the armed services and between allies. No small accomplishment. It is possible that we might just muddle through.

Nonetheless, everything must go right over the next few years for this to work out OK and not be a complete disaster. Some of the factors we have some control over and some we do not. It should be noted that Murphy probably developed his law after observing Afghanistan. Some of the factors to watch for are:

• · Are the Afghan security forces as good as Crocker thinks they are?
• · The Afghan political situation is fragile. Will Hamid Karzai step down at the end of his term? Who will succeed him?
• · What will Iran do? In the current circumstance, Iran is incentivized to maintain managed chaos.
• · What will Pakistan do? Pakistan will not allow an Indian client state on its western border. The good news on this front is that the Pakistani public no longer sees India as the major threat. America has assumed this position.
• · Will economically stressed western countries be able to deliver on their promised aid?
• · Will al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban be able to reconstitute themselves and regain their position as a global threat?

Ambassador Crocker articulated his primary rules for international relations. “Be very concerned about the unintended consequences of any decision that you make. Be very careful before you get in. Be very careful how you get out.”

So far we have violated the first two in Afghanistan. I hope that we don’t go 3 for 3. The last time we were involved in Afghanistan, we declared victory and walked away. We ended up with al Qaeda.

The Birth Pangs of a New Middle East

In the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon, during which Israeli aerial attacks claimed more than 1000 lives (mostly civilians) in Lebanon, Secretary of State Condi Rice, in declining to push for a cease fire, famously described the carnage as the “birth pangs of a new Middle East”. The Bush administration’s “new Middle East”, which was western initiated democracies who would be friendly to U.S./Israeli hegemony, was stillborn. In 2012 we are seeing in Egypt a newborn fledgling democracy that, in all its messiness, is being born of Middle Eastern lineage and parentage.

In this week’s initial presidential election voting 13 candidates competed fiercely for the support of Egyptian voters. Egyptians that I heard from described their feelings about participating in their first election in which the winner was not predetermined and in which their vote actually meant something as a mixture of excitement and fear of the unknown. Many did not make up their minds until they were standing in line at the polls. Although the official count will not be known until next week, it appears Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate and Ahmed Shafiq, a former Prime Minister in the Mubarak regime, will face off in the run-off election on June 16 and 17.

Many commentators and analysts expressed surprise at the strong showing by Shafiq who has been described by opponents as a “remnant” of the old regime. However, in my discussions with Egyptians during my trip to Egypt last month, it seemed to me that there was room for support for a “law and order’ candidate. In discussing the rising chaos and lawlessness, one Egyptian said to me “We overthrew Mubarak for this?” The lawlessness has varied from nuisance, such as an occupy movement in Tahrir Square and driving the wrong way around the Tahrir Square roundabout to the more serious burglaries and assaults. Fearing criticism of their tactics, the police have largely stood on the sidelines. The people working in the tourist industry, the largest industry in Egypt, have been devastated by the unrest which led to the collapse of tourism. They are fed up with the insecurity and just want an opportunity to work and to earn a living.

As we approach the run-off election, it must be remembered that Shafiq and Morsi received only 50% of the vote. The 50% that supported other candidates will have to decide if they want to give the Muslim Brotherhood complete control of the government or if they want to bring back part of the old regime in the name of stability. Western commentators have been apoplectic about the outcome, describing it as a “nightmare scenario”. (See here.) In democratic elections, sometimes the candidate you don’t like wins. Get over it. Whatever the result, it will have a “Made in Egypt” label.

Technorati Tags: Egypt Election,Ahmed Shafiq,Mohammed Morsi

Success and the Iran Nuclear File

 

With the convening today of the second meeting of the current round of negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 (or the E3+3, depending on whether you are talking to Americans or Europeans) over Iran’s nuclear program, there has been much discussion about whether or not these talks will be a “success”. In order get any kind of answer to this question, we need to define what “success” means and I think that it means something different to all of the parties.

For the Iranians, the primary objective is to normalize relations with the West and to have the U.S. recognize Iran’s legitimate role in Middle East regional politics. Everything that Iran has tried to accomplish over the past decade has been designed to achieve sufficient negotiating leverage to obtain significant concessions from the P5+1 and to create a stockpile of enriched uranium that can be used as a bargaining chip in any negotiations.

Defining “success” for the P5+1 or E3+3 is a more complicated endeavor since there is little agreement among the parties on what success looks like. For the European countries (Britain, France and Germany) “success” is obtaining an agreement with Iran that ensures that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons and that modifies any sanctions so that Europe is assured of a continued flow of oil to the weak European economies. Russia and China share the goal of no nuclear weapons in Iran, but differ in their approach. Russia, as an oil exporter, is comfortable with the ongoing confrontation as it drives up the global price of oil. China on the other hand is an oil importer and desires a return to normal commercial ties with Iran.

The U.S. is an even more complicated situation as there are numerous powerful forces influencing policy decisions and thus preventing a united position. The Obama administration would like to “kick the can” past the elections and, in the interim, lower the tensions in order reduce the price of gasoline. To this end the U.S. has quietly signaled to the Iranians that it would accept low level uranium enrichment. Also, according to an Iranian political analyst close to the government, the U.S. recognizes that the Iranians consider the threat of military attack as a “bad joke”, and has signaled that the military option is no longer on the table. (See here)

The Israel Lobby and its allies in Congress, on the other hand, see “success” as regime change in the Islamic Republic and are taking steps to blow up any negotiations, and maybe the region as well. By large majorities, both Houses of Congress have rushed through legislation that will tie the Obama administration’s hands in the give and take of negotiations and are also taking steps to remove the Iranian terrorist group MEK/MKO from the U.S. terrorist list, a move that will enrage all Iranians.

My definition of “success” is much more modest. I would be pleased if we just managed to schedule another meeting.

(Photo by FARS News Agency)

Technorati Tags: Iran Nuclear Program,Nuclear Negotiations

King Abdullah’s Dilemma

With the recent resignation of Prime Minister Awn Shawkat al-Khasawneh after only six months in office, the Jordanian political
merry-go-round continued to spin. Ever since the Arab Awakening arrived in Amman last year, King Abdullah has enhanced his strategy of avoiding political reforms by expressing support for reform, appointing study committees, ignoring their recommendations, blaming the failure on the Prime Minister and then firing the Prime Minister. The exiting PM then fades gracefully into the background until called upon again in some future political round. As the International Crisis Group recently reported, “The king has shuffled cabinets and then shuffled them again, using prime ministers as buffers to absorb popular discontent. He has charged committees to explore possible reforms, but these remain largely unimplemented."

Al-Khasawneh violated all the political rules by resigning in a curtly worded letter submitted while he was traveling in Turkey. Al-Khasawneh was generally seen as a reformist, liberal politician determined to root out corruption and reign in the intelligence service. He opened dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Islamic Action Front and other opposition groups. His failure to deliver on his promises and his introduction of a new election law designed to further marginalize the opposition by banning religious parties and limiting the number of opposition seats in Parliament cost him what support he had among opposition MP’s.

The Jordanian political landscape is characterized by sharp divisions between “East Bankers” and “West Bankers”. The “East Bankers” are largely Bedouins who tend to vote along tribal lines and generally support the monarch. The “West Bankers” are largely urban Palestinians who migrated to today’s Jordan when the West Bank was part of Transjordan or are refugees from the wars of 1948 and 1967. Making up half of Jordan’s population, “West Bankers” tend to be more Islamic in their politics and advocate for a more powerful and representative Parliament. They have been marginalized politically by election laws that weight the tribal vote much heavier than the urban vote.

Low level unrest demanding real reform and deteriorating economic conditions continue to plague the ruling political class. The new Prime Minister, Fayez Tarawneh, is seen as a conservative who is unlikely to bring about significant change.

When I was in Jordan last month, I asked a number of Jordanians about their views on the current political situation. Most that I spoke with expressed support for King Abdullah and his fashionable wife Rania. I tend to agree with Middle East analyst Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institute Doha Center who commented on Twitter, “Jordan will seem 'stable', until it's not. And then it will be too late”.

(Picture by ForeignPolicy.com)

Technorati Tags: Jordan,Arab Spring

Syria’s Budding Civil War

In the middle of the last decade, during the dark days of internecine violence in Iraq following the 2003 U.S. invasion, there was a vociferous political argument as to whether or not there was civil war in Iraq. As with most political debates in the U.S. the discussion was generally devoid of facts and intellectual rigor. No one bothered to define exactly what constitutes a civil war. Scholars generally describe a civil war as a violent conflict within the recognized borders of a state whose participants are geographically contiguous and concerned with having to live with one another after the conflict. Both sides must have formally organized armed forces and must control some amount of territory. The purpose of this definition is to differentiate civil war from other domestic violence such as riots and guerilla insurgencies.

By this definition the yearlong Syrian uprising seems to be morphing into a civil war. The members of the so called “Friends of Syria” (FOS) group led by the U.S. and its allies has recognized the Syrian National Council (SNC) as the legitimate representative of the Syrian opposition and promised to provide support to the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The conservative Sunni Gulf State monarchies, led by Qatar, have gone further by declaring their intent to support the Syrian opposition against the Shia Assad regime “by all means”, including supplying weapons and paying the FSA. Ironically, this has put the FOS on the same side as al Qaeda who has declared its support for the Syrian uprising. (See here) The al Qaeda support has resulted in an increase in the flow if experienced jihadist fighters from Lebanon, Iraq and Libya into the FSA.

One characteristic of civil wars is, once they begin, they are notoriously difficult to end. Ending an interstate war is hard enough, but in that case, one side will eventually return to its own territory and the war will end. In civil wars, where partition is not possible (as in the case of Syria), the two sides who have been killing each other must either live side by side and work together peacefully in a common government or one side must be victorious and get all. In order for the war to end both sides must be simultaneously pessimistic about the possibility of improving their situation by continuing fighting. The prospect of outside intervention only increases the likelihood the one side or the other will conclude that if it only fights on a little longer, its position will improve. In an internal conflict, stalemate is an acceptable alternative to losing.

As the outside forces, FOS on one side and Russia, China and Iran on the other, escalate their support for their preferred party, the prospect for Syria is years of violence, bloodshed and instability. The duration of post WW II civil wars is usually measured in decades and the wars usually do not end, but merely become frozen conflicts or guerilla insurgencies.

Technorati Tags: Syria,Civil War,Middle East,Friends of Syria,Syrian National Council,Free Syrian Army

A Dangerous Game in Iran

Next week Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu will visit Washington to rally his supporters at AIPAC and in Congress. He will also visit with President Obama to demand that the U.S. commit to a military strike on Iran. (See here and here.) Faced with this mounting political pressure in an election year, Obama has already become more forceful in his commitment to military action. In an interview with Jeffery Goldberg of The Atlantic, Obama said, “I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don’t bluff.” (The whole story is here.) As the clamor for war increases the nature of the game between U.S./Israel and Iran is changing.

Over the decades of conflict and confrontation the two adversaries have been playing a game described by game theorists as “Prisoner’s Dilemma”. In this scenario, the two players are prisoners trying to decide if they should confess or remain silent. They are unable to talk to each other. The game matrix looks like this:

	Prisoner B stays silent (cooperates)	Prisoner B confesses (defects)
Prisoner A stays silent (cooperates)	Each serves 1 month	Prisoner A: 1 year Prisoner B: goes free
Prisoner A confesses (defects)	Prisoner A: goes free Prisoner B: 1 year	Each serves 3 months

In the optimum solution each player stays silent and serves one month. This solution requires communication and trust between the players. The equilibrium solution is that each player serves three months, being punished more than they would have been if there were communication and trust. This outcome is particularly likely if there are multiple iterations and one player has lied to the other. For three decades the U.S. and Iran have played this game multiple times with the same sub-optimal outcome.

Unfortunately, we seem to be changing to the “Chicken Game”. British philosopher Bertrand Russell described this game, as it played out between the West and the Soviet Union during the Cold War (particularly during the Cuban Missile Crisis) like this, “Since the nuclear stalemate became apparent, the Governments of East and West have adopted the policy which Mr. Dulles calls 'brinkmanship'. This is a policy adapted from a sport which, I am told, is practiced by some youthful degenerates. This sport is called 'Chicken!'. It is played by choosing a long straight road with a white line down the middle and starting two very fast cars towards each other from opposite ends. Each car is expected to keep the wheels of one side on the white line. As they approach each other, mutual destruction becomes more and more imminent. If one of them swerves from the white line before the other, the other, as he passes, shouts 'Chicken!', and the one who has swerved becomes an object of contempt. As played by irresponsible boys, this game is considered decadent and immoral, though only the lives of the players are risked. But when the game is played by eminent statesmen, who risk not only their own lives but those of many hundreds of millions of human beings, it is thought on both sides that the statesmen on one side are displaying a high degree of wisdom and courage, and only the statesmen on the other side are reprehensible. This, of course, is absurd. Both are to blame for playing such an incredibly dangerous game.”

The matrix looks like this:

	Swerve	Straight
Swerve	Tie, Tie	Lose, Win
Straight	Win, Lose	Crash, Crash

One strategy in this game is to tell your opponent that you have tied your steering wheel and thus cannot swerve. Obama appears to be trying this strategy. The problem arises if your opponent does not believe you and you end up in the lower right hand corner.

Bertrand Russell concludes like this, “The moment will come when neither side can face the derisive cry of 'Chicken!' from the other side. When that moment is come, the statesmen of both sides will plunge the world into destruction.” The stakes may not be as high now, but they are still pretty high.

Technorati Tags: Iran,Israel

Obama’s Self Inflicted Pain

When candidate Barack Obama was running for president against Hilary Clinton and John McCain, he made a strong case for engagement and dialogue with Iran. However, once he was elected he quickly reverted to the Bush administration policy of confrontation and conflict. He never made an effective public case for engagement; never used the bully pulpit to advocate for a grand bargain with the Islamic Republic. This stance has left him in a deep policy and political hole.

This week a delegation of IAEA officials met with Iranian officials in Tehran in order to discuss renewed negotiations concerning Iran’s nuclear program. During the discussion, the IAEA officials requested a visit to the Parchin military base. The Iranians refused to allow the requested visit. The reaction of U.S. and western media and governments to this refusal can be summed up by the statement by White House spokesperson Jay Carney in which he said, "This particular action by Iran suggest that they have not changed their behavior when it comes to abiding by their international obligations.” He expressed regret that the IAEA mission had ended in failure.

Carney neglected to acknowledge that, under its 1974 Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA, Iran is under no obligation to allow inspections of non-nuclear sites such as Parchin. Iran believes that the IAEA has shared confidential information from inspections with the U.S. and Israel and that this information has led to attacks on facilities and assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. It is not surprising, therefore, that Iran would be very careful about unnecessary sharing of information with the IAEA. The U.S. portrayal of a perfectly rational Iranian position as a “failure to abide by its international obligations” only fans the flames of war, already burning brightly.

It is this kind of fact free reporting and posturing that leads to polling results which show that 60% of Americans favor U.S. military action to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapons program and only 5% would oppose an Israeli attack which would assuredly draw the U.S. into war with Iran. (The complete poll results are here.) I will admit that it is relatively easy to get Americans to support a war, since recent history has shown that they neither have to participate in nor pay for military adventures.

The risk of war in the Persian Gulf has driven oil prices well north of $100 a barrel and gas prices are headed above $4 per gallon. The resulting drag on the still fragile U.S. and global economies will not help Obama’s reelection bid. If Obama wants to get himself out of this policy and political hole, the first step would be to stop digging.

Technorati Tags: Iran,Barack Obama

War Hysteria over Iran

Over the past month hysteria over a possible war with Iran has reached a new crescendo. Pundits, government officials and presidential candidates have been debating ad nauseam about issues such as whether Iran is an existential threat to Israel, whether deterrence will work, whether air strikes would be effective, whether Iran is entering a “zone of immunity”, the effect of Iranian nuclear weapons on the Middle East balance of power, the nature of an Iranian response, etc. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius ignited a fire storm when he said that Defense Secretary Panetta “ believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June — before Iran enters what Israelis described as a “zone of immunity” to commence building a nuclear bomb.” (See here)

The Obama administration has weighed into the fray with a series of statements which have sent mixed signals about U.S. policy and only served to increase the rhetoric. In a series of speeches and interviews Secretary Panetta stressed his belief that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that a military strike would at best delay any future production of a nuclear weapon. Secretary of State Clinton on the other hand took a more hawkish tone saying in discussing Iran’s expansion of its enrichment site near Qom, "The circumstances surrounding this latest action are especially troubling. There is no plausible justification for this production. Such enrichment brings Iran a significant step closer to having the capability to produce weapons-grade highly enriched uranium." (See here) James Clapper, U.S. director of national intelligence raised the stakes by claiming, during Congressional testimony. that Iran is now more willing to carry out attacks inside the U.S. and that intelligence agencies were worried about attacks on U.S. interests around the world. President Obama, on the other hand, said that he did not believe that Iran had the “intentions or capabilities” to attack inside the United States.

I am persuaded that the Obama administration has decided that it does not want war with Iran. If it wanted war, it could have attacked any time in the past three years, rather than waiting until just before the elections. Ignatius reports that Israel believes that it would be a short war. “‘You stay to the side, and let us do it,’ one Israeli official is said to have advised the United States. A short-war scenario assumes five days or so of limited Israeli strikes, followed by a U.N.-brokered cease-fire.” Make no mistake; a military strike is an act of war. As the U.S. found to its pain in Iraq and Afghanistan, the enemy has a say in how long the war lasts.

If Obama doesn’t want another major Middle East war right before the elections, he had better say to Israel, not only no, but hell no! To do this he will need to make the case for diplomacy and defy the Israel Lobby. Is this likely in an election year? Probably not.

Technorati Tags: Iran,Barack Obama

The Syrian Dilemma Part 2

After months of opposition demonstrations, counter demonstrations by regime supporters, attacks on opposition demonstrators by government forces, terrorist bombings of government facilities, various efforts at international intervention, charges and counter charges, the situation in Syria is in word a “mess”. Currently we have three wars going on in this strategically located, but fragile state. There is a low grade civil war between government and opposition forces. Overlaying this war is a proxy war between the US and its Gulf State and European allies and Iran and its allies. A third war has now emerged, a war of perceptions. As in many such wars, the facts are usually the first casualty.

The U.S. and its supporters in the conservative Sunni Gulf States, particularly Qatar and the UAE would like to see regime change in Syria and Iran and a weakening of the Shia resistance group Hezbollah. Under Secretary of State for the Near East Jeffery Feltman in describing US regime change policy in Syria said that the U.S. would “relentlessly pursue our two-track strategy of supporting the opposition and diplomatically and financially strangling the regime until that outcome is achieved”. (See here)

The Arab League has dispatched a monitoring team to Syria in order to attempt to reach a mediated solution. Qatar and the Istanbul based opposition Syrian National Council (SNC), on the other hand have criticized the Arab League mission and have pushed for western military intervention rather than a mediated solution that would reform the regime, but leave Assad in power.

The western media have portrayed the Syrian situation as one in which a peaceful opposition, representing the overwhelming majority of Syrians is faced off against a brutal, intransigent regime. However, a recent poll conducted by the Qatar based Doha Debates points out that while 81% of Arabs want President Assad to step down, 55% of Syrians are supportive of Assad and do not want Assad to resign. (See here) The respondents said that without Assad, they feared for the future of their country.

The appalling statistics of massacres, rapes of Sunni women and girls and torture by regime supporters that have been reported by the western media with the disclaimer “we were unable to confirm the accuracy of these figures” have been largely provided by the British based Syrian National Observatory. (SNO) The SNO is an arm of the SNC and is funded by a Dubai based pooled fund of western and Gulf money and thus the accuracy of these figures is suspect. Somehow the media has not managed to receive reports of casualties among regime supporters and military forces.

The U.S. based private intelligence group Stratfor has advised caution on the accuracy of the mainstream narrative on Syria saying “with two sides to every war … the war of perceptions in Syria is no exception”.

Technorati Tags: Syria,Arab League,Middle East

A New Threat to the Israeli Occupation

Three years ago in Damascus, when I met with Khaled Meshal, the leader of Hamas’ political wing, he acknowledged that Hamas was committed to violent resistance to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. While emphasizing that if Israel withdrew to the 1967 borders the resistance would end, he said that violent resistance was the only effective means of ending Israeli occupation. He used examples of Hezbollah ending the Israeli occupation in Lebanon, of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and of the Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai.
Many observers of the situation in Israel/Palestine (this one included) have felt that, given the overwhelming power of the Israeli occupation force, the biggest threat to the occupation would be mass non-violent protests by the Palestinians on both sides of the green line separating Israel from the West Bank. The effectiveness of Dr. Martin Luther King’s demonstrations for African American civil rights and the Arab Awakening uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia demonstrate this. While there have been demonstrations against the Separation Barrier in the West Bank towns of Biliin, Ni’lin and Qalqilya, they have never been large enough to attract much international media attention despite the violent response by the Israeli Army (IDF).
Waging a mass non-violent campaign requires a lot of education and organization. The Fatah led PLO has never had the organizational ability to achieve an effective campaign of mass non-violent resistance. Hamas, on the other hand, through its extensive network in the mosques, has had the ability, but not the will.
The winds of change, however, may be blowing. In the past month, Hamas and Fatah have agreed to move forward with a unity government and to move toward a posture of mass non-violent resistance. (This story is here, here and here.) If this transition comes about it will pose a significant threat to Israel’s ongoing occupation and settlement building. Images of Israeli forces and settlers attacking unarmed demonstrators marching on Jewish only roads on the West Bank and chanting silmiya, silmiya (peaceful, peaceful) will not play well in the international media.
Only time will tell if the Palestinian leadership can pull off this change in tactics. There will certainly be resistance from those groups committed to violence. However, if mass non-violent protests can be effectively implemented, they have the potential to be a game changer.
A regional war with Iran would also be a game changer, but that is another story.
(Photo from Hamas Press Office)

Technorati Tags: Israel,Palestine,Hamas

America’s War with Iran Escalates

The U.S. campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran has a long history dating back to the founding of the Islamic Republic when the Carter administration imposed unilateral sanctions following the hostage crisis in 1979. Over time the sanctions regime has expanded as the U.S.has attempted to deal with what it saw as Iranian challenges to U.S. interests in the region. The U.S. overthrow of the regime of Sadaam Hussein in Iraq enhanced the Iranian position and in response President George W. Bush, in 2007, initiated a program of covert military action against the Islamic Republic.

President Obama, after campaigning on a policy of dialogue, has enhanced the sanctions regime and lobbied and coerced other countries to enhance their sanctions. The practical effect of the sanctions has been modest. The World Bank estimates that the Iranian economy grew at a rate of 3% in 2010. This is not to say that the Iranian economy doesn’t have its problems. Years of inconsistent and incompetent management by the theocratic regime have resulted in sub-par economic performance. Sanctions have negatively impacted privately owned enterprises leaving more of the economy in the hands of government enterprises.

Dissatisfaction with economic performance has led to political conflict within the regime. The Iranian system of government is similar to the U.S. system with separation of powers and checks and balances. As in the U.S., this leads to political power struggles and gridlock. There is one thing that could unite the squabbling leadership and that is the rise of an existential outside threat. This appears to be on the horizon.

President Obama has not only enhanced sanctions, but has escalated the covert military campaign. Over the last year, several Iranian nuclear and electronic warfare scientists have been assassinated. The Stuxnet virus has been unleashed against Iranian nuclear facilities. Deadly explosions have occurred at military and other facilities near the major cities of Tehran and Isfahan. Support for ethnic terrorist groups such as MEK, PJAK and Jundallah has continued. Some analysts claim that there have been attempts to assassinate Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. (See here).

In reaction, Iran appears to have escalated its own responses. In past months, Iran, in conjunction with Hezbollah, has unraveled a CIA spy ring in Lebanon and Iran, arresting over thirty operatives. In October, U.S. authorities accused Iran of orchestrating a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in a popular Washington, DC restaurant. If true, this represents a major escalation on the part of the Iranian regime and a major shift in their tolerance for risk. Two weeks ago Iran displayed an American drone aircraft, claiming that they had hacked into its GPS guidance system and guided it to an intact landing. (An interesting account of how they did it is here.) Iranian officials have also claimed that they will soon display other U.S. and Israeli drones that they have shot down or hijacked.

This week, Iran announced that they will soon conduct a “military maneuver on how to close the Strait of Hormuz” through which 17% of the world’s oil flows. This announcement alone caused oil prices to jump $3 a barrel. As we continue down this path of confrontation with no vehicle to prevent or defuse miscalculation, the danger of unintended conflict increases.

(Photo from Iran Revolutionary Guard website)

Technorati Tags: Iran,Drones,CIA

Middle East Policy Newt Gingrich Style

This week Republican Presidential candidates (except for Ron Paul who was not invited because of his “misguided and extreme views”) paraded before a conference of the Republican Jewish Coalition to express their undying loyalty to the State of Israel. Newt Gingrich, the current front runner for the Republican nomination, stood out from the crowd by signaling his intention to overturn long standing US policies on the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Among other things he promised to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a step that has long been opposed by almost all of the international community. However, his most interesting comments occurred in an interview with The Jewish Channel which was posted on-line on Friday.
In this interview he said, "Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places.” This statement has been interpreted by many as questioning long standing US policy supporting a two state solution to the situation. The two state solution has been sustained since the early 1990’s by both Republican and Democratic administrations despite growing evidence that facts on the ground make it no longer viable.
Many historians trace the concept of Palestinian national identity to the 1800’s when the Palestinians revolted against their Ottoman Turkish overlords. Clearly there is now a strong sense of Palestinian national identity created by the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. The whole debate harkens back to a 1969 statement by Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian”.
It is, however, the implications for the two state solution policy that make this discussion interesting. If there is “no such thing as a Palestinian”, is there any need for a Palestinian state? If there is no Palestinian State, will there be a bi-national state for all residents of historical Palestine? If Palestinians can “go many places”, should they be forced out of a Jewish State in Palestine? Martin Indyk, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Director of the pro-Israel think tank, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, recognized the consequences of these positions when he said if Mr. Gingrich believes the positions “as implied in his language, then he's not pro-Israel at all."
While being a “front runner” in the Republican primary race is a precarious position, if Mr. Gingrich can maintain this position, it should provoke an interesting, and much needed debate about U.S. Middle East policy.
(Photo from Al Jazeera English)

Technorati Tags: Newt Gingrich,Israel,Palestine

The Syrian Dilemma

One question I am frequently asked these days is what is the U.S. policy in Syria and why are we acting differently in Syria than we did in Libya. In considering these questions I am reminded of the words of a Middle East expert who when asked about U.S. Middle East policy responded, “We don't have a policy in the Middle East, but that's just as well because, if we did, it would be the wrong one”. Before discussing Syria, it would be useful to examine the Libyan situation.

The Brotherly Leader of Libya, Muammar Qaddafi was an easy target for international military support for a revolution. In addition to his eccentric antics, he had managed, through his words and policies over the years, to make enemies of nearly everybody, the western powers, fellow Arab leaders (especially in the wealthy, autocratic Gulf States) and his own people. When, following the approval of UN Resolution 1973 authorizing “all necessary actions to protect civilians”, the western powers, interpreting the resolution very liberally, embarked on a policy of regime change, no one came to Qaddafi’s defense. The situation in Syria is quite different.

While Libya was isolated politically, diplomatically and geographically, Syria sits in the middle of the volatile Levant region bordering Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Israel. It is a major player in the so-called axis of resistance along with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. Any western intervention in Syria would likely bring its allies into the conflict with serious regional consequences.

The divisions in Libyan society are largely tribal in nature. On the other hand, in Syria, tribal rivalries are overlaid with sectarian divisions. The Christian and Alawite (an offshoot of Shia Islam) minorities are generally part of and supportive of the regime, whereas the majority Sunni Muslims see themselves as oppressed.

Faced with these complicating factors and an overriding concern about the rise of Iran and a possible threat to Israel, the U.S. is attempting to create its own version of the Great Game between Russia and Britain in Central Asia in the 19^th Century. The U.S. is attempting to mobilize and co-opt regional players such as Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to confront the resistance axis and orchestrate regime change in Syria. This effort, well financed by the wealthy Gulf States, appears to be turning the uprising against the Assad regime into a low grade civil war.

The conservative Gulf monarchies have long despised the secular Assad regime in Syria. Among their Sunni proxies in Syria are a large number of Salafist groups including many jihadist fighters who were kicked out of Iraq and who have set up shop in Syria. Orchestrating a Syria/Iran game as part the effort to remake the New Middle East, utilizing allies with different agendas, is risky business and may come back to haunt the U.S. and its allies.

Technorati Tags: Libya,Syria,Axis of Resistance,Middle East

The U.S.–Iran Standoff

This week the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released its much ballyhooed report on Iran’s nuclear program. The release of the report has been accompanied by a great deal of hype and alarmist rhetoric by western governments and media. Upon close inspection, however, the document appears to be “much ado about nothing”. Almost all of the information on Iran’s nuclear weapons program in the report is historical, dating to 2002, and has been known by most observers for some time. In its summary, the IAEA concludes that it “continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material at the nuclear facilities and LOFs declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement”. The report complains that Iran has failed to live up to its obligations under the Additional Protocol, neglecting to mention that Iran signed, but never ratified this protocol.

The new material on weaponization efforts sites as its source undisclosed intelligence information from Member States, presumably U.S, Israel and other western intelligence agencies. This information primarily alleges that Iran is conducting research on weapons systems that could lead to the development of a nuclear weapon. The report gives no hard evidence supporting this allegation. Even if all of the allegations are true, the report neglects to point out that, as a signatory to the NPT, Iran has obligated itself not to “manufacture or acquire” nuclear weapons {there is no mention of weapons research) and, therefore, is not in violation of the NPT.

There are, however, some useful understandings in this report. First, the IAEA has become much more political under its current head, Yukiya Amano, than it was under his predecessor, Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei. Most of the intelligence information included in this report was available to ElBaradei, but he did not deem it credible enough to include in previous reports. Amano, who owes his position to strong U.S. lobbying, has taken the agency in a new direction and, as described in a State Dept. cable released by Wikileaks, is “solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision”.

The second understanding is that U.S. policies toward the Islamic Republic are a complete failure. Iran continues to develop its nuclear program, albeit more slowly than it might have hoped. The so called crippling sanctions have done nothing to affect Iranian policy. Iran has been able to maintain its oil production at about 4 mm bpd and with a budget based on an oil price of $65 and current prices hovering around $100 they are not in financial straits. They have been able to get around many financial restrictions by taking payments from India and China in local currency and leaving the currency in place to pay for imports. They have also been forced to put their currency reserves in gold. (Not a bad investment.)

The U.S. has finally been forced to back down and to acknowledge that stricter sanctions or military conflict would have very serious negative consequences for the struggling western economies. Now might be a good time to reconsider the policies. Unfortunately, this is not a likely occurrence.

Technorati Tags: Iran. IAEA

America’s Declining Influence

This week Palestine was admitted as a full member of UNESCO, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Despite strong U.S. and Israeli lobbying against the resolution the vote in favor was overwhelmingly positive: 107 for, 14 against and 52 abstentions. It appears that, besides the U.S. and Israel, only 12 states support the Zionist enterprise. As can be seen from this video, the result was enormously popular among conference members and was enthusiastically received despite the potential financial problems that will be created for the organization. The larger implication is for U.S, global influence.

Immediately after the UNESCO result was announced, the U.S. announced that it was withholding its payment of its $80mm contribution to UNESCO which amounts to 22% of the agency’s budget. Should the U.S. continue in arrears for two years, it will lose its voting membership and join such luminaries as Somalia and Libya in being in arrears on its UNESCO dues. While the funding deficit is serious, it could easily be made up by countries such as Russia, China or Saudi Arabia who voted yes and for whom $80mm is pocket change. A similar outcome can be expected if Palestine continues to take its statehood case to other UN agencies such as IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), WHO (World Health Organization) and 12 other agencies who have similar rules. This will have important implications for U.S. national interest in issues such as Iran’s nuclear program and global health among others.

This is only the latest in a series of events which have highlighted U.S. declining influence in the Middle East. When the U.S demanded that Israel halt construction of settlements in occupied Palestine, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was completely comfortable in ignoring the wishes of his strongest ally and continuing construction. Despite U.S. threats to cut off funding to the Palestinian Authority and to veto the statehood resolution at the UN, President Abbas ignored the U.S. threats and proceeded to the UN Security Council.

The decline in U.S. influence in the region and the concurrent rise in Iranian influence began with the U.S invasion of Iraq. This has had significant consequences for U.S. regional policy. In Iraq, Iran’s political allies have been able to prevent the U.S. from retaining a significant military force on the ground. In Bahrain, the U.S. has had to back away from its support of the democracy movements for fear of Iranian influence among Bahrain’s Shia majority. When I recently asked a senior State Department official about this, his reply was, “This is an extremely difficult problem”.

Absent a significant change in policy approach, it is likely that America’s influence with friend and foe alike will continue to decline. The decline will have major implications for America’s foreign policy objectives. Other countries will certainly fill the vacuum. Whether this will be positive or negative remains to be seen.

That said this quote from Amb. Charles Freeman at the recent NCUSAR (National Council on U.S. Arab Relations) Conference is applicable, “I want to close by affirming my faith in the adaptability and resilience of the United States.  With all the problems we have made for ourselves and our friends in the Middle East, we have just about run out of alternatives to doing the right things.  Now we may get around to actually doing them.”

Iran-A Land of Limited Options

Last week U.S. government officials announced the indictment of a former used car salesman in Corpus Christi, Texas on charges of being the coordinator between the Iranian government and a Mexican drug cartel in a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., blow up Jewish synagogues and cause other attacks. As information on the alleged plot begins to trickle out, the whole event begins to sound more like an episode from the 1960’s spy genre spoof Get Smart than a serious threat. Unfortunately Manssor Arbabsiar, the alleged perpetrator, does not appear to have had his own Agent 99 to keep him organized. It looks to me as though this is another one of those “dangerous plots” that is announced with great fanfare and then gradually fades from media coverage and is dismissed for lack of credible evidence.

Whatever the outcome of this case, let’s assume that all of the allegations are true and this was a serious effort, controlled at the very top of the Iranian government, designed to result in a major attack on the U.S. and provoke a regional war with the western powers. What are the options for a U.S. response? To me, they appear pretty limited. President Obama has threatened additional sanctions. However, because of the U.S. led sanctions regime currently in place, Iran is already among the most isolated countries in the world. This state of affairs suits the hardliners in the Iranian government just fine as they have no interest in engaging with the west. The isolation also tends to insulate Iran from the financial contagion that is plaguing countries linked to the western financial system.

The hardline hawks, both within and outside of the U.S. government, who advocate military action have escalated their saber rattling, “all options are on the table” rhetoric following the announcement of the indictment. It is my view, however, that the Iranian strategy of asymmetrical deterrence is fairly effective. Rather than relying on conventional military capability for deterrence, Iran has engaged regional allies including political parties/militias such as Hezbollah and Hamas to threaten Israel and American troops deployed to the region They have succeeded in arming Hezbollah and Hamas to the extent that they pose a significant threat to Israel’s population centers. Pressure from Iran’s allies in Iraq has forced the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and Iran’s relationship with the Taliban and the Northern Alliance poses a similar threat to U.S forces in Afghanistan. The Quds Force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, “responsible for extraterritorial activities” is also deployed around the world.

President Obama is now in campaign mode and it is very unlikely that he will want to instigate another disastrous Middle East conflict just as he is trying to focus attention on domestic economic issues. That said, in this part of the world, anything is possible.

Technorati Tags: Iran,Manssor Arbabsiar

The Palestinian’s Desperate UN Gamble

Last week the Palestinian Authority’s nominal president Mahmoud Abbas defied U.S. and Israeli pressure and submitted an application to the United Nations to become a Member State of the international organization. Many people on both sides of the Israel/Palestine situation have questioned why Abbas has chosen to make this move.

The 1993 Oslo Accords established the Palestinian Authority (PA) and initiated the peace process which was envisioned to lead to a Palestinian state within five years. Instead the Oslo process has led to two decades of alternating negotiations and violence. Instead of a Palestinian state, the Oslo process has led to continued Israeli occupation, construction of a wall that divides families and confiscates land, increased blockades and road closures, more Jewish settlements on the West Bank and further Israeli land annexation

In 2008, faced with an interminable process that was going nowhere, Abbas and his nominal prime minister, Salam Fayyad, embarked on a new strategy which included the building of state institutions before sovereignty. This approach assumed that, once state institutions were in place, international pressure would force Israel to recognize Palestinian rights. This has proved to be a false hope.

Abbas and Fayyad have realized that the U.S. and Israel are satisfied with the status quo and that Obama is now in full campaign mode and unlikely to do anything that would have domestic political consequences. With the Arab Awakening going on all around him, Abbas has become desperate to change the political landscape. The move to the UN was the outcome. It is a desperate gamble with uncertain consequences

With the U.S. certain to veto the Member State application in the Security Council, the recognition of Palestine as a non-member state in the General Assembly is the most likely result. Unless the PA leadership has a strategy (strategic thinking is not their strong suit) to follow up with actions at the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice and to capitalize on the United States’ weakened and isolated position to break the U.S. stranglehold on the peace process, they may end up with the provisional state that Netanyahu has frequently broached. This outcome will have little effect in improving the situation on the ground for ordinary Palestinians.

In the end, the outcome may rest in the hands of the Palestinian people themselves. The Arab Awakening which started in Tunisia and Egypt and has spread across the region has demonstrated the ability of the people to rise up and say “enough is enough” and overthrow their unelected leaders and demand their rights. The Arab Spring may eventually arrive in Palestine.

{Photo by UN News Center)

Technorati Tags: Palestinian Authority,UN,Palestinian State

Mission Accomplished in Libya?

As British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy take a victory lap in Libya, it may be premature to declare victory. The number of nations that that have formally recognized the Transitional National Council (TNC) as the legitimate government of Libya grows every day. Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the chairman of the TNC presents a moderate face to the world which plays well in the western media. Behind the scenes of moderation and unity there are many unresolved issues that will be difficult for even the best intentioned leaders to address.

In contrast with Tunisia and Egypt where the revolutions were largely peaceful and where institutions such as political parties, NGO’s, labor unions, etc. were in place, Libya’s revolution was protracted and violent and civil society institutions had been destroyed by Qaddafi and his cronies. There are, therefore, few building blocks upon which to construct a new government structure.

We are already seeing all the societal divisions, which had been suppressed under Qaddafi, reappear even within the TNC. The most visible division is between the Islamists and the secularists. Under Qaddafi the secular elites have been the most prominent both within Libya and in the exile community. However, during the revolution, the Islamists have commanded the bulk of the fighters and the weapons. The Islamist forces are the most experienced fighters who fought in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq and the Balkans. They, therefore, have assumed leadership positions. Abdul Jalil of the TNC has attempted to bridge these divides by calling for a moderate Islamic regime with a legal system based on Sharia. Within the TNC there is also rivalry between the Benghazi and Tripoli factions.

The TNC, however, is not completely in charge. Qaddafi is gone, but where is unclear. Many of his supporters have fled across the southern deserts to Niger and Chad. Will they now become the insurgents? Most of the focus has been on the populous coastal region. The huge sparsely populated desert regions of the south have long been havens for bandits and militias. It will now be an ideal place from which an insurgency of Qaddafi loyalists can operate.

Tribal factions are also competing for power and influence. Many cities were a captured from Qaddafi’s forces by local tribal militias with no allegiance to the TNC. These armed groups will need to be integrated into the new government structure.

Many of Qaddafi’s weapons stockpiles have disappeared. These included not only light weapons and machine guns, but also surface to air missiles. With al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) right across the porous border with Algeria, this raises the threat of attacks on passenger planes.

President Obama was wise to allow the British and French to be the face of the NATO operations and to avoid a premature “mission accomplished moment”. Obama said at the onset of hostilities, “Libya is not Iraq.” It does, however, look a lot like Afghanistan. It ain’t over til it’s over.

(Photo by John Moore/AP)

Technorati Tags: Libya,Qadaffi,al Qaeda,NATO

America’s Covert War with Iran

After several years of “no options are off the table” saber rattling against Iran, U.S./Israel appear to have decided that another major war in the Middle East is not politically or financially sustainable. Faced with Iran’s determination to continue its nuclear program U.S./Israel have reverted to a covert program of assassination, cyber-attacks and support of terrorist insurgent groups.

Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist at Malek Ashtar University, an institution affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, was kidnapped in June 2009 and transferred to the US. In January 2010, Massoud Ali- Mohammadi, a particle physicist, was killed by a remote-controlled bomb. Recently, Majid Jamali-Fashi confessed to having been trained by the Mossad in Israel and paid $120,000 to carry out this and five other terrorist attacks. In November 2010 Majid Sahriyari, a nuclear scientist, was killed and Fereidoun Abbasi-Davini, Iran’s current nuclear chief, and his wife were wounded in similar attacks. (These stories are here and here)

In 2010 centrifuges in Iran’s nuclear program were attacked by a malware program, the so-called Stuxnet Virus. This attack damaged the centrifuges and undoubtedly delayed Iran’s uranium enrichment program. Most experts believe that this kind of sophisticated attack could only have been accomplished with “nation state support”. In interviews with media organizations, the U.S. and Israel have tacitly acknowledged their involvement. Now that Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor is operating, one wonders whether the US/Israel are willing to risk a nuclear disaster by attacking this facility.

For a number of years, under a program initiated in the George W. Bush administration and continued by the Obama administration, the U.S. has supported The Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), a Kurdish separatist group, Jundallah, a Sunni fundamentalist insurgent group in Baluchistan in Pakistan and southern Iran and The People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), a Iranian group, now based in Iraq. These groups have been designated as terrorist groups by most western countries, including the U.S. (This story is here)

It is unclear what effect these covert efforts are having in achieving U.S. objectives in the Middle East, but one thing is clear: they are not helping relations with the Islamic Republic. When I have talked with Iranians about U.S. – Iran relations they immediately bring up the U.S overthrow of democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammed Mosaddegh, in 1953. It is plain that Iranians have a long memory. They also have a history of not getting mad, but getting even.

Even weak countries have a limited tolerance for ongoing U.S. efforts to assassinate their leaders and to overthrow their governments. At some point the “chickens come home to roost” and they respond. One only needs to think back to conspiracy theories of involvement of Castro’s Cuba in the assassination of John F. Kennedy to see an example. (The latest version is here

Technorati Tags: Iran Nuclear Program

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