Posts Tagged ‘Iran’
Tuesday, May 7th, 2013
Introduction to the REPRISE (May 7, 2013)
So, Obama’s “red line” on the use of chemical weapons in Syria turns out to be a red line that leads directly to the Kremlin.
What American diplomacy has failed to achieve, spectacularly, Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry now think they can achieve by talking to Putin and Lavrov.
Well, maybe. But hardly likely. Lavrov and Putin now achieve their goal of holding the conference Kofi Annan conjured up as one of his last “castles in the sky” at the conference held at Geneva on June 30, 2012.
How this will stop the killing in Syria is anyone’s guess.
It is just words, words to get Obama off the hook for his “red line” comment, which have come back to haunt him now that al-Assad has used chemical weapons in Syria.
Now that Obama is once again seeking a solution by going to the Russians, who have steadfastly supported al-Assad in his commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity, we can all breathe a sigh of relief. See the following Reprise from the Trenchant Observer to understand just how pitiful this last move by Obama and “the gang who couldn’t shoot straight” is.
Sadly, our hopes in John Kerry seem to have been misplaced. He appears now to have joined “the gang who couldn’t shoot straight”. His role will be to do Obama’s bidding. Obama will continue to control foreign policy from the White House, guided by assistants such as Ben Rhodes.
If this course is not corrected, the disasters of Obama’s first term are likely to be repeated, on a much grander scale with much graver consequences.
REPRISE: “Looney Toons” at the White House: New York Times article details Obama’s thinking on Syria—Obama’s Debacle in Syria — Update #45 (May 27)
Originally published May 27, 2012
looney-tunes
adj.
[after Looney Tunes, trademark for a series of animated cartoons] [Slang] crazy; demented: also loon’ y-tunes
***
loony
[Slang]
adj.
loon’i-er, looní-est [LUNATIC] crazy; demented
n.,
pl. loon’-ies a loony person Also loon” ey, pl. -eys
***
–Webster’s New Worl Dictionary
**************************************************
In a front-page article in today’s New York Times, Helen Cooper and Mark Landler describe the thinking behind President Obama’s policy towards Syria. They report,
WASHINGTON — In a new effort to halt more than a year of bloodshed in Syria, President Obama will push for the departure of President Bashar al-Assad under a proposal modeled on the transition in another strife-torn Arab country, Yemen.
The plan calls for a negotiated political settlement that would satisfy Syrian opposition groups but that could leave remnants of Mr. Assad’s government in place. Its goal is the kind of transition under way in Yemen, where after months of violent unrest, President Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to step down and hand control to his vice president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, in a deal arranged by Yemen’s Arab neighbors. Mr. Hadi, though later elected in an uncontested vote, is viewed as a transitional leader.
The success of the plan hinges on Russia, one of Mr. Assad’s staunchest allies, which has strongly opposed his removal.
–Helen Cooper and Mark Landler, “U.S. Hopes Assad Can Be Eased Out With Russia’s Aid,” New York Times, May 27, 2012.
President Obama, administration officials said,
will press the proposal with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia next month at their first meeting since Mr. Putin returned to his old post on May 7. Thomas E. Donilon, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, raised the plan with Mr. Putin in Moscow three weeks ago.
Donilon, who is not a seasoned diplomat, apparently did not impress Putin, judging by the latter’s cancellation of his participation in the G-8 summit at Camp David on May 18-19.
The biggest problem with the Yemen model, several experts said, is that Yemen and Syria are starkly different countries. In Yemen, Mr. Saleh kept his grip on power for three decades by reconciling competing interests through a complex system of patronage. When his authority collapsed, there was a vice president, Mr. Hadi, who was able to assert enough control over Yemen’s splintered security forces to make him a credible transitional leader.
In Syria, by contrast, Mr. Assad oversees a security state in which his minority Alawite sect fears that if his family is ousted, it will face annihilation at the hands of the Sunni majority. That has kept the government remarkably cohesive, cut down on military defections and left Mr. Assad in a less vulnerable position than Mr. Saleh. Even if he leaves, American officials conceded, there is no obvious candidate to replace him.
The sheer incompetence of this White House on foreign policy matters is stunning.
Paradoxically, among a number of news commentators within the Washington bubble, Obama is viewed as doing pretty well on foreign policy, particularly since taking out Osama Bin Laden. None of these commentators are foreign policy experts with any experience, however. Further, Democratic foreign policy experts have largely held their silence, probably out of concern that criticism could help the Republicans in the November elections. Moreover, Obama has since his first days in office charmed the press, and many reporters and commentators are simply unwilling to criticize the administration on foreign policy issues in any fundamental way.
Significantly, the Washington Post, which is the one newspaper read by most government officials in Washington, has simply failed to cover Syria with a reporter, usually being content to just run the AP wire story. What contributions they do make are limited in the main to stories providing information by administration officials, named and unnamed.
The Editorial Board, on the other hand, has written some clear-minded editorials on Syria. The disconnect betwee the Editorial Board and the reporting side of the newspaper is hard to understand, especially in view of the Post’s illustrious history.
Despite the reputed “successfulness” of the administration’s foreign policy leadership–which analytically does not stretch beyond the fact that it has not become an issue which hurts the Obama in the presidential race, the utter lack of serousness of Preident Obama and the White House on Syria is exposed for all to see in today’s New York Times article by Cooper and Landler.
Washington’s response to Moscow’s callous support of al-Assad as he killed thousands of people through war crimes and crimes against humanity is on a par with Éduoard Daladier’s and Neville Chamberlain’s betrayal of Czechoslovakia in October, 1938, when they signed “the Munich Pact”.
One of the first betrayals on Syria was with Turkey:
Secretary Clinton caught her Turkish counterpart off guard during their meeting in Washington last month. Clinton reportedly told Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu that the Obama Administration “preferred going through the Russians” in an attempt to achieve a political solution being shopped by the UN/Arab League’s Special Syrian Envoy Kofi Annan.
–Amb. Marc Ginsberg, “Syria Is Obama’s Srebrenica,” Huffington Post (The Blog), March 28, 2012 .
On the U.S. decision to sell out its regional allies and to work through Russia instead, see
The Trenchant Observer, “The emperor has no clothes”: Foreign policy without a moral core—Obama’s Debacle in Syria — Update #19 (March 29), March 29, 2012.
The Trenchant Observer, “Into the Abyss: Washington’s Fecklessness, Syria’s Fate—Obama’s Debacle in Syria — Update #20 (March 30), March 30, 2012.
The reader is invited to read the Observer’s recent articles on Syria, and to draw his or her own conclusions as to whether Obama, Donilon, Clinton and the rest of the administration’s foreign policy team are conducting a competent foreign policy, first of all in Syria, but also everywhere else.
In the Observer’s opinion, this team is “the gang who couldn’t shoot straight”. For example, the Sixth Summit of the Americas, held in Cartagena, Colombia on April 14-15, was totally overshadowed by the prostitution scandal involving members of the Secret Serivce and the U.S. military. Little press attention was given to the substance of the meeting, the most important of the year with the leaders of the Latin American countries.
See Brian Ellsworth (Cartagena, Colombia), “Despite Obama charm, Americas summit boosts U.S. isolation,” April 16, 1012.
Now, on the Syrian question, by following a path of “working through the Russians”, the Obama administration has given up its last shred of moral legitimacy in the Middle East. Between al-Assad, Russia, China, and Iran, on the one hand, and the people of Syria, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, on the other, and in the face of immense human suffering and the ongoing commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the al-Assad regime, the United States is pursuing a strategy of “working through the Russians.”
Obama is incompetent as a foreign policy leader. Former Ambassador Marc Ginsberg is to be congratulated for his moral courage in speaking out on the question of Syria, in a clear voice.
What the United States needs, desperately, is for other foreign policy experts–and national leaders–to speak out with equal clarity, be they aligned with the Democratic Party in the United States, with the Republicans, or from other countries that are friends of the United States.
In the meantime, the international community would do well to look elsewhere than to the United States for leadership on the Syrian question.
See The Trenchant Observer, “At least 70 killed nationwide; massacre of 50 in Houla; U.N. International Commission on Syria Update—Obama’s Debacle in Syria — Update # 43 (May 25),” May 25, 2012.
The Trenchant Observer, “Chief of UN Observers confirms massacre at Houla; NGOs report 35 children and total of 110 killed—Obama’s Debacle in Syria — Update #44 (May 26),” May 26, 2012.
The Trenchant Observer
Tags: 1933, Alawite, Barack Obama, Bashar al-Assad, Brian Ellsworth, Camp David, Cartagena, China, Democratic Party, Democrats, dimitri medvedev, doing well on foreign policy, editorial board, Éduoard Daladier, foreign policy experts, foreign policy experts from other countries, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Hadi, Helen Cooper, Iran, John Kerry, last shred of moral legitimacy in the Middle East, Lebanon, looney, Looney Tunes, loony, LOooney Tunes at the White House, marc ginsberg, Mark Landler, Munich Pact, Neville Chamberlain, Obama's Srebrenice, Osama Bin Laden, Qatar, Republicans, Russia, Saleh, Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State, sheer incompetence of the White House, struggle for democracy in syria, Syria is Obama's Srebrenice, the emperor has no clothes, the most imcompetent president on foreign policy since World War II, the Yemen model, Thomas E. Donilon, Turkey, vladimir putin, Washington Post, with Russia's aid, working through the Russians, worst president on foreign policy since WW II, Yemen
Posted in Barack Obama, China, CIA, Crimes Against Humanity, History, human rights, International Law, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Russia, State Department, State Department Legal Adviser, U.N. Charter, U.S Foreign Relations, U.S. Congress, U.S. Intervention, United Kingdom, United States, use of force, war crimes, Yemen | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 20th, 2013
See also the following related articles:
The Trenchant Observer, “eide shoma mobarak”—President Obama sends 2012 Nowruz greetings to Persians, denounces “electronic curtain” in Iran,” March 20, 2012
President Barack Obama, “President Obama’s Nowruz Message,” The White House, (with links to video and written text in Persian), March 20, 2011
The Trenchant Observer, “Obama: ‘eide shoma mobarak’ — The President’s Nowruz (New Year’s) Greeting to Persians Throughout the World,” March 24, 2010
President Barack Obama has issued this year’s statement on Nowruz, the Persian New Year. Last year it was a greeting. This year it is a “Statement”, issued while the president was on his way to Israel. In Israel he stood next to Prime Minister Netanyahu as the latter made a coded threat to militarily attack Iran.
Instead of being a genuine cultural greeting and expression of good will for the New Year (“Eid e Shoma Mobarak”) the “Statement” was no more than a political statement on what Iran must do to solve the nuclear issue with the United States and the Security Council. The flavor is revealed by the following excerpt:
As I have every year as President, I want to take this opportunity to speak directly to the people and leaders of Iran. Since taking office, I have offered the Iranian government an opportunity—if it meets its international obligations, then there could be a new relationship between our two countries, and Iran could begin to return to its rightful place among the community of nations.
It was kind of like receiving a Christmas card from someone who is threatening you with a gun, closing with a “Merry Christmas”. It goes to show, more than anything else, how wet behind the ears, lacking in true international experience, and ultimately incompetent Obama’s White House writers and foreign policy staff really are.
There is no internal evidence in the document that suggests Obama either drafted the statement himself or was meaningfully involved in its review, aside from the self-referential use of the first person singular pronoun and the fact that he did deliver the statement.
The full text of the statement follows:
The White House Ofice of the Press Secretary March 18, 2013 Statement by President Obama on Nowruz.
Dorood. As you and your families come together to celebrate Nowruz, I want to extend my best wishes on this new spring and new year. Around the world, and here in the United States, you are gathering at the Nowruz table—to give thanks for loved ones, reflect on your blessings and welcome all the possibilities of a new season. As I have every year as President, I want to take this opportunity to speak directly to the people and leaders of Iran. Since taking office, I have offered the Iranian government an opportunity—if it meets its international obligations, then there could be a new relationship between our two countries, and Iran could begin to return to its rightful place among the community of nations. I have had no illusions about the difficulty of overcoming decades of mistrust. It will take a serious and sustained effort to resolve the many differences between Iran and the United States. This includes the world’s serious and growing concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, which threatens peace and security in the region and beyond. Iran’s leaders say that their nuclear program is for medical research and electricity. To date, however, they have been unable to convince the international community that their nuclear activities are solely for peaceful purposes. That’s why the world is united in its resolve to address this issue and why Iran is now so isolated. The people of Iran have paid a high and unnecessary price because of your leaders’ unwillingness to address this issue. As I’ve said all along, the United States prefers to resolve this matter peacefully, diplomatically. Indeed, if—as Iran’s leaders say—their nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, then there is a basis for a practical solution. It’s a solution that would give Iran access to peaceful nuclear energy while resolving once and for all the serious questions that the world has about the true nature of the Iranian nuclear program. The United States, alongside the rest of the international community, is ready to reach such a solution. Now is the time for the Iranian government to take immediate and meaningful steps to reduce tensions and work toward an enduring, long-term settlement of the nuclear issue. Finding a solution will be no easy task. But if we can, the Iranian people will begin to see the benefits of greater trade and ties with other nations, including the United States. Whereas if the Iranian government continues down its current path, it will only further isolate Iran. This is the choice now before Iran’s leaders. I hope they choose a better path—for the sake of the Iranian people and for the sake of the world. Because there’s no good reason for Iranians to be denied the opportunities enjoyed by people in other countries, just as Iranians deserve the same freedoms and rights as people everywhere. Iran’s isolation isn’t good for the world either. Just as your forbearers enriched the arts and sciences throughout history, all nations would benefit from the talents and creativity of the Iranian people, especially your young people. Every day that you are cut off from us is a day we’re not working together, building together, innovating together—and building a future of peace and prosperity that is at the heart of this holiday. As you gather with family and friends this Nowruz, many of you will turn to the poet Hafez who wrote: “Plant the tree of friendship that bears the fruit of fulfillment; uproot the sapling of enmity that bears endless suffering.” As a new spring begins, I remain hopeful that our two countries can move beyond tension. And I will continue to work toward a new day between our nations that bears the fruit of friendship and peace. Thank you, and Eid-eh Shoma Mobarak.
More than anything else, the Statement shows that “the gang who couldn’t shoot straight” is still running the White House on foreign policy matters. It sounds like a simple press statement issued at the White House Press Secretary’s daily briefing, not a direct message to the Iranian people from the President.
This year’s “Statement on Nowruz” represents one more lost opportunity to communicate something meaningful and of substance to the people and government of Iran. You don’t express good will by veiled threats of potential military attack, and telling the other party what they must do to regain their good standing with you, and with the world.
There is no warmth in Obama’s heart expressed in this Statement. It compares unfavorably with the three previous Nowruz greetings issued by the President. The tone of what is essentially a political policy statement does not even reflect recent advances in the five-plus-one talks (the permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany) with Iran.
One final point is significant. The statement begins with “dorood”, an antiquated greeting which has Islamic overtones.
Durood or Darood Shareef (from Persian: درود dorood) or AS-Salatu alan-nabi (from Arabic: الصلاة على النبي) is an invocation which Muslims make by saying specific phrases to compliment the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The Islamic view is to say durood whenever a Muslim reads, speaks or hears the name of Muhammad. Durood, which is a kind of prayer and is mentioned in hadith as well as in Qur’an, are also recited in the form of Wazifa.
–Wikipedia
It is extraordinarily inappropriate for Obama to begin his Nowruz statement to Iranians with an Islamic greeting. Not everyone in Iran is a traditional Muslim. There are Bahai, Zoroastrians, Sufi, Christians, and people of other beliefs, who are often oppressed.
“Dorood” is not the word normally used by Iranians to greet each other. “Salam” (Peace), or “Salam aleikum”(Peace be with you) are used instead. There is something very strange about “Dorood”, which Obama’s writers either pulled from a dictionary or are using with some kind of a religious slant. It adds to the whole statement being way off the mark as a goodwill message.
Onama’s statement is not a genuine greeting or expression of goodwill. Consider the combined effect of his use of a weird religious salutation: “Dorood”; the timing of his travel to Israel where he stood by at a joint press conference while Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened military action against Iran; and his own repeating (in Israel) of his mantra, “All options are on the table,” which in code amounts to a threat to use military force against Iran in violation of Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter.
It is a bit like poking your fingers in someone’s eyes, on the one day in the year when he or she and his or her family and relatives from around the world are paying close attention to what you have to say.
Sadly, Obama’s 2013 “Statement on Nowruz” represents yet another episode of incompetence in foreign policy from “the gang who couldn’t shoot straight”, the Obanians.
The Trenchant Observer
Tags: All options are on the table, Barack Obama, Barack Obama Mr. Dorood, Benjamin Netanyahu, eid e shoma mobarak, Eid eh Shoma Mobarak, Eide Shoma Mobarak, Iran, Iran nuclear question, Iranians full text of speech video link text in Arabic, Israel, Mr. Dorood, Nowruz, Nowruz 2013, Nowruz greeting, obama's 2013 "Sstatement on "Nowruz", Obama's use off "dorood" in Nowruz greeting in 2013, obama's visit to Israel, people of Iran., President obama's 2013 greeting on Persian New Year, text in Farsi, the gang who couldn't shoot straight, the Obanians, نوروز
Posted in Barack Obama, Culture and Communication, International Law, self-defense, State Department, U.N. Security Council, United States, use of force | No Comments »
Thursday, December 6th, 2012
Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, a cunning tactician in an unflenching quest to establish a Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist dictatorship in Egypt, must have grasped the essential softness of American policy in the Middle East during his talks with Israel and the U.S. to reach a cease-fire agreement in Gaza. Immediately after the success of the cease-fire talks, for which he received great praise from the Hillary Clinton and the U.S. for the role he played, he seized the moment by launching his and the Muslim Brotherhood’s coup d’etat, issuing his infamous “constitutional decree” on November 22.
Washington needed Morsi to conclude the truce between Hamas and Israel when an invasion of Gaza by Israeli forces seemed imminent.
The U.S. needed and needs Egypt’s support to keep the entire 1979 Camp David peace treaty from coming unraveled. This gives Morsi great leverage.
And, judging from Obama’s silence and the anodyne statements issuing from Washington, America is willing to look the other way as Morsi executes a coup d’etat on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
To be sure, it will take Morsi and the Brotherhood a little time to fully and formally consolidate their power and control over all the institutions of the Egyptian state. But the draft constitution when approved will give them the constitutional architecture necessary to achieve their goals.
In all of this, the President of the United States has been been quiet, maintaining a deafening silence in the face of Morsi’s coup d’etat.
The situation calls out for him to make a clear and outspoken demand for Morsi to restore the rule of law, or risk losing $1.5 billion per year in military assistance, and another $4.8 billion IMF standby loan agreement–not yet formally approved. Neither should be extended to a new Egyptian dictator, ruling under an authoritarian constitution instead of a modern constitution–based on the separation of powers and the rule of law–to chart the course of a new democracy in Egypt.
Barack Obama is losing Egypt.
It is the character of the Egyptian state, and whether it is governed by the rule of law, that will ultimately provide Israel with the best guarantee that Egypt will be a trustworthy parrner for peace in the coming years and decades.
Moreover, Congress will not continue to fund at $1.5 billion per year the military of an Islamic dictatorship in Egypt.
By not speaking out now for the rule of law in Egypt, Obama is betting that “making nice” with Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood will best secure U.S. national interests.
He is likely to be sorely disappointed. In four years, the Democrats could well be vulnerable to the charge that Obama “lost” Egypt to an authoritarian and potentially totalitarian Islamic dictatorship, like that in Iran.
But this is merely from the electoral point of view. What is actually at stake is of much greater significance to the national interests of the United States and the West, and other countries in the region.
Is Obama losing Egypt?
What is Obama doing to prevent Egypt from becoming an Islamic dictatorship, like Iran? That is the question of the hour.
The Trenchant Observer
Tags: 1979 Camp David Accords, Agypten, authoritarian, coup d'etat, Dictatorship, Did Obama lose Egypt?, draft constitution, Egipto, Egito, Egypt, Egypte, Iran, Is Obama losing Egypt?, Islamic dictatorship, Israel, misr, Mohamed Morsi, morsi, Morsi's Putsch, morsy, Muslim Brotherhood, Musr, Obama, putsch, shari'a, totalitarian, United States, Who lost egypt?
Posted in Africa, Barack Obama, Dictatorship, Egypt, freedom of speech, Germany, human rights, State Department, U.S. Congress, United States | No Comments »
Saturday, December 1st, 2012
What is President Obama doing regarding Egypt that might help avoid a second Islamic dictatorship like the one in Tehran?
Background articles by the Trenchant Observer:
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Coup d’Etat in Egypt; William Butler Yeats and “The Second Coming”
November 28, 2012
“L’État, c’est moi”—Mohamed Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood launch coup d’état in Egypt
November 27, 2012
English text of Egypt’s new draft constitution
For the most complete English translation of the first 199 articles of the draft constitution Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has submitted to a referendum to be held on December 15, see
Egypt’s draft constitution (English translation by Nariman Youssef), Egypt Independent, December 1, 2012. Additional articles are being translated and will be added throughout the day.
For analysis of some of the key provisions of the draft constitution and how they differ from the 1971 constitution, see:
Gregg Carlstrom, “Controversial clauses in Egypt’s constitution; Many aspects of draft constitution passed by constituent assembly are unpopular with citizens and global rights groups,” Al Jazeera, November 30, 2012 (20:23 h).
BBC News, “Comparison of Egypt’s suspended and draft constitutions, BBC, November 30, 2012.
Analysis and Commentary
Democracy is not simply a piece of paper called a constitution. As the experience of many countries demonstrates, including the Weimar Republic and Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, would-be dictators and tyrants can subvert democracy through the relentless leveling of independent institutions and political groups which oppose them, as they pursue a strategy of obtaining effective control or acquiescence of all of the institutions of the state. Both the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran offer further chilling examples of how such dictatorships can be established, with a little time.
It is thus not the piece of paper which Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood now seek to shove down the throats of all institutions, parties, political groups and individuals who strive to achieve a pluralistic government based on and subject to the rule of law, including international human rights treaties to which it is a party and the international human rights obligations contained in customary international law, but the realities of power and how it is exercised that will dtermine if Egypt is to have a democratic future. To have such a future, political power needs to be exercised democratically and in accordance with the rule of law, not through dictatorial means.
To Morsi’s appeal, “Trust me,” a great number of people in and outside of Egypt will ask, “What have you done to prove that you are trustworthy?”
Morsi has replaced the editors of leading state-owned newspapers. Morsi has replaced leadership of the military, and now counts on their support by promising them the retention of their economic and other privileges. But these promises too can be revised. Morsi has conducted a coup d’etat abrogating the rule of law, stripping the Constitutional Court and the judiciary of its role of judicial review and placing his decrees beyond their reach. Egypt has a well-developed legal system. Yet at the precise moment of the birth of a new constitution, instead of strengthening the independence of the judiciary and the guarantees for the separation of powers, Morsi has acted to weaken them and ensure they will be subservient to his and the Brotherhood’s will.
Can democracy be established through the consolidation of all power within the hands of a president and his single ruling party, which has a strong ideology, strictly enforced, that is in many respects fundamentally anti-democratic in nature?
This is the question facing Egypt and the drama the country is living, today.
Consider but one article of the draft constitution: There is freedom of religion for Muslims, Christians and Jews, the people of “the book”, in accordance with 14 centuries of Islamic law or sharia. And according to the text of the draft constitution, this freedom of religion exists only for them.
Following World War II, the Western democracies had ample experience watching the fledgling democracies of Eastern Europe subverted and taken over by “the salami technique” employed by communist parties controlled by Moscow and backed by Soviet armed forces. One by one, they fell.
Democracy is a state of national consciousness as well as a country with a piece of paper called a constitution. The Soviet constitution of 1936 was a beautiful piece of paper, in many respects, but it did not stop Stalin’s purges, or his other crimes under a totalitarian system.
Further Commentary and Analysis of the Broader Context for Morsi’s Actions
Tomas Avanasius writes from Cairo the following:
[The following text can be translated into English with Google Translator.]
Religiöse Minderheiten und Frauen behandelt die neue ägyptische Verfassung als Menschen mit eingeschränkten Grundrechten. Die Vielfalt islamischer und ägyptischer Kultur fällt dem Tunnelblick religiöser Eiferer zum Opfer. All das interessiert die Muslimbrüder nicht – sie sind Wegbereiter einer Glaubens- und Gesinnungsdiktatur in Ägypten.
…
Muslimbrüder und Salafisten schaffen eineinhalb Jahre nach Beginn der Revolte in Ägypten Fakten: Die neue Verfassung ist der erste, der entscheidende Schritt hin zum islamischen Staat. Eine politisch pervertierte Religion und Moral mit Anspruch auf Allgemeingültigkeit soll den Alltag bestimmen – in Politik, Wirtschaft und Kultur, bei der Bildung, in der Ehe, im Privatleben. Das ist totalitär. Christen, gemäßigte Muslime, Säkulare und Freigeister werden zu Menschen zweiter Klasse gestempelt, Frauen auch. Kunst und Kultur werden an Richtlinien gemessen, die nicht ästhetischer, sondern theologischer Natur sind. Die Vielfalt der islamischen und der ägyptischen Kultur fällt dem Tunnelblick religiöser Eiferer zum Opfer. Dass die bärtigen “Verfassungsväter” ernsthaft diskutiert haben, ob neunjährige Mädchen schon verheiratet werden können oder doch erst die Pubertät erreicht haben sollten, sagt alles über diese Rechtsexperten.
Im Grunde sind die viele Muslimbrüder eine religiöse Variante von Lenins Kommunisten – frömmelnde Bolschewiken, die sich als geheimniskrämerische Avantgarde der Muslime sehen. In Wahrheit jedoch sind sie die Wegbereiter einer Glaubens- und Gesinnungsdiktatur in Ägypten.
***
The last paragraph of Avanasius’ article opinion states, in English, the following:
Basically the many Muslim Brothers are a religious version of Lenin’s Communists – sanctimonious Bolsheviks, who see themselves as the secretive vanguard of the Muslims. In fact, they are the pioneers of a belief and conviction dictatorship in Egypt.
–Tomas Avanasius (Meinung/opinion), “Neue Verfassung für Ägypten: Freifahrtsschein ins Paradies für Islamisten,” Die Südeutsche Zeitung, 1 Dezember 2012.
Con Coughlin, the Defense Editor of The Telegraph, writes:
It is not only the anti-government protesters in Egypt’s Tahrir Square who should be concerned about President Mohammed Morsi’s audacious power grab. Mr Morsi’s claim at the weekend that “God’s will and elections made me the captain of this ship” has echoes of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s claim during the 1979 Iranian revolution that his mission to overthrow the Shah enjoyed divine guidance.
Since his announcement that he was granting himself sweeping new powers, Mr Morsi has been trying to reassure sceptical Egyptian voters that he has no ambition to become Egypt’s new Pharaoh. But you only have to look at the violent scenes that have once again erupted in Tahrir Square to see that the majority of Egyptians remain unconvinced.
…
Similar sentiments were expressed by Iranian demonstrators during the build-up to the Shah’s overthrow in February 1979 as they sought to remove a similarly corrupt regime.
But as we now know to our cost, the worthy aspirations of the Iranian masses were hijacked by Khomeini’s hardline Islamist agenda, and within months of the Shah’s overthrow Iran had been transformed into an Islamic republic.
I am sure I am not the only one wondering whether Mr Morsi is about to become the new Ayatollah Khomeini.
–Con Coughlin (Defense Editor), “Is Egypt about to become the new Iran?” The Telegraph, November 28, 2012.
What is President Obama doing regarding Egypt that might help avoid a second Islamic dictatorship like the one in Tehran?
The Trenchant Observer
Tags: 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, Al Jazeera, Barack Obama, BBC Egypt draft constitution, BBC News, Con Coughlin, coup d'etat, Egypt, Egypt Independent, English text of Egyptian draft constitution, errin cuningham, globalpost, Gregg Carlsrom, Iran, Mohamed Morsi, Muslinm Brotherhood, Nariman Youssef, Obama, second Islamic dictatorship, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Tehran, the salami technique, tHE tELEGRAPH, Tomas Avanasius
Posted in Africa, Barack Obama, Deutschland, Dictatorship, Egypt, elections, Germany, History, human rights, internal supporters of human rights, International Law, State Department, State Department Human Rights Country Reports, State Department Legal Adviser, U.S. Congress, U.S. news coverage, United States | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, October 9th, 2012
Governor Mitt Romney has delivered an important speech on his vision of U.S. foreign policy.
Pundits and Obama supporters have already criticized and rebutted the speech, revealing again that, with few exceptions, they cannot hear criticism and respond constructively to it.
See “SPEECH TEXT: Mitt Romney Delivers Foreign Policy Address to the Virginia Military Institute,” National Journal, October 8, 2012. The text of the speech can be found here.
The speech, which is well-written and at times eloquent, merits a close and direct reading.
Obama and his supporters would be well-advised to try to put down their defenses and really hear the essential criticisms contained in the speech, whether or not they agree with them.
Perhaps the greatest weakness of Obama and his foreign policy team has been that they have been unable to hear and respond to criticisms. Romney’s October 8 speech provides them with a new opportunity to do some deep thinking and self-examination.
If Obama has no more to offer in response to Romney’s critisims than the typical defensive statements (“you just don’t understand, these are the facts”), he will will be hurt by Romney in the forthcoming debate on foreign policy issues.
The Trenchant Observer
Tags: barackm obama, foreign policy speech, Iran, Libya, libye libia, lybyen, Middle East, Mitt Romney, obama foreign policy team, october 8, romney, romney foreign policy, Siria, syria, Syrie, Syrien, u.s. foreign polkicy, virginaia military academy, vmi
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Wednesday, August 29th, 2012
Updated August 31, 2012
Recent News Reports
“U.S. Marines begin ‘Operation Hammer’ in Guatemala; The Marines intend to help the Guatemalan military curb drug trafficking during the two-month operation,” The Tico Times (San José), August 24, 2012.
Romina Ruiz-Goiriena and Martha Mendoza From (AAP), “US Marines fight drugs in Central America; A team of 200 US Marines have started patrolling Guatemala’s western coast in an unprecedented operation against drug traffickers in the Central America region, a US military spokesman says,” The Australian, August 30, 2012 (10:51AM).
For anyone familiar with the last 70 or 80 years of Guatemalan history, the news that the United States has deployed 200 marines within Guatemala to patrol for drug-smuggling activities must have had a stunning, jaw-dropping effect.
In 1954, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency backed a coup that overthrew the elected government of Jacobo Árbenz in that country.
The ensuing guerrilla war (1960-1996) that pitted leftist movements and large sections of the indigenous peasantry against right-wing military dictatorships, in which over 200,000 people were killed, including a particularly brutal peiod of repression in the early 1980′s under General Efraín Rios Montt, did not come to an end until 1996 and a U.N. brokered peace agreement.
By the presidential elections in 1985, the conflict had become greatly attenuated. In 1986, Vinicio Cerezo became the first democratically-elected president since the 1950′s. A struggling democracy with periodic elections has had its ups and downs since then.
Still, the social and ethnic divisions in Guatemala remain among the sharpest in the world. U.S. military assistance to Guatemala has been a particularly senistive subject, given the military’s responsibilities for widespread human rights abuses involving murder, disappearances and torture.
Guatemalan governments have become increasingly unable to face down the challenge of drug gangs. In 2010, Attorney General Conrado Reyes was removed by the Constitutional Court after only two weeks in office, following allegations that he had close ties to drug traffickers.
See Elizabeth Malkin, “Guatemala Attorney General Ousted,” New York Times, June 10, 2010.
So, it has come to this. Guatemala is almost a failed state, if it has to call in the U.S. marines to exercise its police functions.
As it turns out, Guatemala is in fact only one of several Central American states which are under tremendous challenge from drug cartels.
Moreover, the appeal of leftist politicians, often hostile to the U.S., is rebounding. Daniel Ortega, who with his Sandinista party inspired Ronald Reagan to back the counter-revolutionaries known as the contras and even to conduct direct attacks on Nicaraguan ports and harbors in attempts to overthrow the government of Nicaragua in the 1980′s, is once again in power in Managua following elections.
A left-leaning president of Honduras, José Manuel Zelaya, was overthrown by a military coup with the backing of the Honduran congress on June 28, 2009, which led to prompt suspension of Honduras from the Organization of American States, and the subsequent election of Porfírio Lobo in elections boycotted by Zelaya’s supporters. The elections were applauded by the U.S., but not by other democratic governments in Latin America. In 2011, following a deal which allowed Zelaya to return from exile in the Dominican Republic, Honduras was readmitted to the OAS.
Dana Frank, in an op-ed column in the New York Times, reported in 2010,
It’s time to acknowledge the foreign policy disaster that American support for the Porfirio Lobo administration in Honduras has become. Ever since the June 28, 2009 coup that deposed Honduras’s democratically elected president, José Manuel Zelaya, the country has been descending deeper into a human rights and security abyss. That abyss is in good part the State Department’s making.
–Dana Frank (op-ed), “In Honduras, a Mess Made in the U.S.,”New York Times, January 26, 2012.
Frank paints a disturbing picture of the human rights situation under the Porfírio Lobo administration.
Two key points regarding this most recent news about the deployment of marines in Guatemala need to be stressed. The first is that U.S. officials responsible for its design and execution could well be oblivious to the historical resentments which lie just beneath the surface in countries like Guatemala.
The second is that the deployment of marines to the territory of Guatemala, in apparent violation of its Constitution, also suggests that the State Department is not doing a very good job managing its Latin American portolio. This plan has all the earmarks of a decision by military and security officials narrowly focused on interdicting drug shipments to the United States, without the guiding input of State department officials (outside State’s INL–the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs) who might bring to bear some of the broader historical and diplomatic considerations that call into question this kind of operation.
See Constitution of Guatemala, as amended, Articles 171-172:
Other Powers of the Congress
Article 171. It is also among the powers of the Congress to do the following:…
Article 172.
Qualified Majority.
To approve before their ratification, with a vote of two-thirds of the total number of deputies who make up the Congress, treaties, agreements, or any international arrangement (arreglo) when:
a. They refer to the passage of foreign armed forces through the national territory or the temporary establishment of foreign military bases;
…
These officials don’t seem to have learned from their experience in Bolivia, where U.S. officials undertook an increasingly active role in fighting drugs within the country, only to be thrown out of Bolivia following the election of Evo Morales in 2005. Bolivia has become one of the leading anti-American countries in South America, together with Venezuela and Ecuador.
The policeman of the world?
President Obama, despite all of his talk of “red lines” in Syria, or with respect to Iran, doesn’t seem to grasp the fundamental principle that the United States may advise and train foreign government officials, but it should never cross what is a really clear line, between an advisory and an operational role, in order to literally act as the world’s “policeman” within the territory of another state.
This term used to mean acting as the world’s policeman by intervening to topple or install governments. Now, it appears that what U.S. security and drug enforcement officials have in mind is that U.S. marines and other forces should operate literally as the “policemen” of foreign countries.
The history of U.S.-Latin American relations has left a strong residue of anti-American feeling, often deeply submerged in the minds of today’s Latin Americans. But it is still there. Those opposed to the U.S. will try mightily to reactivate it. The U.S. should always bear this in mind.
Could programs implementing this approach of acting as “policeman” to the world fuel nationalism and anti-American sentiment, complicating U.S. relations with the country in question in the future?
It’s a question that merits serious reflection, and public discussion.
The Trenchant Observer
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Tags: AP, Article 171, Article 172, Artículo 171, Artículo 172, Attorney General Conrado Reyes, Bolivia, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, COHA, Conrado Reyes, Constitución de Guatemala, Constitution of Guatemala, contras, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Dana Frank, Daniel Ortega, docial and ethnic cleavages in Guatemala, drug gangs, drug interdiction, Efraín Rios Montt, Elizabeth Malkin, Evo MOrales, failed state, Guatemala, Guatemalan civil war, Guatemalan history, Honduras, human rights in Honduras, increasingly active role in fighting drugs, INL, Iran, Jacobo Árbenz, José Manuel Zelaya, Martha Mendoza, Naomi Glassman, Nicaragua, OAS, Operaciön Martillo, policeman of the world, policemann of the world, Porfírio Lobo, red lines, residue of anti-American feeling, Romina Ruiz-Goiriena, Ronald Reagan, Sandinista government, social and enthnic divisions in Guatemala, State Department, syria, The Australian, the tico times, Vinício Cerezo
Posted in Barack Obama, Bolivia, Colombia, corruption, Guatemala, History, Honduras, human rights, Latin America, Mexico, Nicaragua, South America, State Department, syria | No Comments »
Monday, August 27th, 2012
Latest Press Reports and Commentary
(1) Die Zeit (Berlin) reported on August 27, in an article by Martin Gehlen, that military intervention in Syria is “absolutely essential” (unverzichtbar).
Syria is on the way to Hell. With or without the U.N. Security Council, whether they want to risk it or not: the international community in the foreseeable future will have to intervene.
Gehlen reports that each day more horrible crimes are committed, as the number of refugees exceeds the capacity of neighboring states to absorb them–30,000 crossed the border last week alone. Some two million refugees are fleeing, both inside and outside the country, while hundreds of thousands of families are trapped between the front lines.
But above all, Gehlen asserts, it is the stocks of chemical weapons that will require intervention, if al-Assad uses them in the civil war, or to keep them from falling into the wrong hands. They cannot just be left to themselves.
The international community will also have to provide food and shelter for the refugees, who can’t just go home as their homes have been destroyed, together with their schools and their hospitals.
In the meantime, Gehlen writes, the United States, Turkey and France are preparing, for the first time, to establish limited no-fly zones. The United States is bringing into position special forces for chemical weapons, and planning large-scale distribution of food and medicines. What is clear, he concludes, is that whatever responsibilities for Syria may come to the international community, they will be more comprehensive, last much longer, and be far more costly than the 7,587 NATO air-raids against Libya.
See Martin Gehlen “Militäreinsatz: Ein Eingreifen in Syrien ist unverzichtbar; Die Zahl der Flüchtlinge steigt, Kämpfe eskalieren, Chemiewaffen drohen in falsche Hände zu geraten; Der Westen wird sich einer Intervention in Syrien bald nicht mehr entziehen können, Die Zeit, 27 August 2012.
(2) Meanwhile, French President François Hollande has asserted that the use of chemical weapons by al-Assad would justify a military attack. He also stated that he would recognize an interim government in Syria, once it is formed.
Le Monde et agences, “Pour Hollande, l’emploi d’armes chimiques légitimerait une intervention en Syrie,” Le Monde, 27 août 2012 (mis à jour à 19h18).
Steven Erlanger, “France Urges Syrian Opposition to Form New Government,” Mew York Times, August 27, 2012.
(3) Last week, on August 23, the Pentagon ordered one of its aircraft carriers, the USS Stennis, previously scheduled to be deployed in the Pacific, to return to the Persian Gulf in view of the situation in Iran and also that in Syria. The early deployment cut short short home leaves.
Panetta cited Iran’s nuclear program and its threats to oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz as two concerns the Stennis strike group could counter in the U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility, which also includes Syria and Afghanistan.
U.S. attention on Syria is focused on providing humanitarian aid, monitoring chemical and biological weapon stockpiles, and offering non-lethal assistance to forces opposing President Bashar al-Assad, he said.
–Daniel Fineren(Dubai/Reuters), “U.S. sends aircraft carrier back to Gulf to face Iran, Syria; The U.S. Navy is cutting short home leave for the crew of one of its aircraft carriers and sending them back to the Middle East next week to counter any threat from Iran, according to the official Navy News Service,” Reuters, August 23, 2012.
(4) For insight into the thinking of Obama administration officials, see
Steven Lee Meyers and Scott Shane, “Risks of Syrian Intervention Limit Options for U.S., New York Times, August 21. 2012.
Meyers and Erlanger report,
The administration’s current policy involves intensifying diplomatic and economic pressure on Mr. Assad’s government through sanctions, offering humanitarian assistance to Syrians inside and outside the country, and providing $25 million in “nonlethal” help to Mr. Assad’s opponents, including more recently to members of the Free Syrian Army. That aid has paid for communication equipment to enable the armed and unarmed opposition to better coordinate their attacks and plans for taking power.
The administration has also ruled out providing arms to the rebels for broadly the same reason: more weapons, the officials say, would probably make the war only worse.
The idea that supplying more weapons for the rebels would make the war only worse, when they are being slaughtered by the instruments of war of a modern state including attack helicopters, jet fighters, artillery and tanks, while they themselves are running out of ammunition (as reported recently in Aleppo), is nothing short of obscene, revealing a callousness that is almost beyond belief.
That, however, is the policy of the American president, Barack Obama, and his foreign policy juggernaut, “the gang who couldn’t shoot straight.”
The Trenchant Observer
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Tags: 000, 000 syrian refugees, 2, Bashar al-Assad, callousness, callousness that is almost beyond belief, chemical weapons, Chemiewaffen, Daniel Fineren, die Zeit, Eingreifen in syrien, foreign policy juggernaut, France, françois hollande, Free Syrian army, Hwaida Saad, Iran, Kareem Fahim, limited no-fly zones, Martin Gehlen, Militäreinsatz, NATO air-raids against Libya, New York Times, obscene, Reuters, Rick Gladstone, Scott Shane, Sebnem Arsu, Siria, Steven Erlanger, Steven Lee Meyers, struggle for democracy in syria, syria, Syrie, Syrien, the gang who couldn't shoot straight, thinking of Obama administration officials, Turkey, United States, unverzichtbar, USS Stennis, Zahl der Fluctlinge
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Sunday, August 26th, 2012
Anxiety over the risks of a regional conflagration deepened further as it became clear that the violence in Syria was intensifying, with more civilians killed. The Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC), an opposition network, claimed that more than 200 bodies had been found in Daraya, and activists circulated a video appearing to show dozens of bodies lined up in dimly lit rooms, described in the commentary as being in the town’s Abu Suleiman al-Durani mosque.
…
The storming of Daraya followed three days of heavy bombardment by government tanks and artillery, which the opposition said killed another 70 people. The offensive appeared to be part of a larger struggle for control of the southern fringe of the capital. Residents said that government tanks on the Damascus ring-road shelled the neighbourhoods of al-Lawwan and Nahr Aisheh late into Saturday night and that there was also heavy fighting in the Ghouta suburbs to the east of the city.
The LCC said forces loyal to Assad had killed 440 people across Syria on Saturday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based activist group drawing information from a network of monitors across Syria, put the nationwide death toll for the day at 370, including 174 civilians. If confirmed, it would be one of the bloodiest days the country has suffered since the anti-Assad revolt broke out in March 2011.
–Julian Borger (Diplomatic Editor), “Syrian regime accused of killing hundreds in Daraya massacre; At least 200 dead in poor Sunni community on outskirts of capital targeted by President Bashar al-Assad’s troops, The Guardian, August 26, 2012 (14.28 EDT).
The massacres by government forces continue at an accelerating pace in Syria.
This is actually old news, repeated again daily.
We know that the situation in Syria is horrific, and that al-Assad’s barbarism knows no limits. The daily evidence accumulates.
We don’t need to wait for new and ever greater atrocities to have all the information we need in order to act.
There is some indication that the West and the Arab countries, and Turkey and other civilized countries are moving toward taking actions that might affect the situation on the ground in Syria. Yet we must be clear that talk of action, even impending action, is not action itself, and that only actions in the air and on the ground can halt al-Assad’s terror–or even slow it.
There has been talk in France of the possibility of an air exclusion zone or no-fly zone being established in northern Syria, following discussion between Hillary Clinton and Turkish officials raising the possibility, which was to be “studied”. There are more serious indications that military and other officials are meeting, or beginning to meet, to develop contingency plans. Still, back in Washington, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was quick to comment, when the first reports of Clinton’s raising this possibility were published, that the development of such options was “not on the front burner”. More recently, a U.S. aircraft carrier was reported to be headed toward the region.
Statements by French officials sugest they have not fully come to grips with the real options: the establishment of a no-fly zone without U.N. Security Council approval, or no action at all.
They mindlessly repeat the shibboleth that military action without Security Council authorization is not permitted under international law, without considering the details of the arguments that might be used to justify such action. So far, the extremely cautious approach of President François Hollande shows little similarity to the dynamic leadership of his predecessor, Nicholas Sarkozy, who led the civilized nations of the world to finally intervene in Libya.
What has changed is the fierce opposition of Russia and China to any potentially effective action in Syria by the international community. That is now the reality of the situation. Even under these new circumstances, however, it is doubtful that Sarkozy would have simply given up, or obfuscated the real choices as the Hollande government has done in its public statements.
Military intervention in Syria to halt the movement or dispersal of chemical weapons would also require a legal justification for military action outside the framework of the Security Council, as it is most unlikely that Russia and China would accede to an authorization of such action. Clearly such authorization would be preferable, but it is not likely to occur even if chemical weapons are used or dispersed.
It should also be quite clear that any military action against Iran by Israel, or by Israel and the United States, would also have to be taken outside the framework of the Security Council. The legal justification would probably end up looking something like the justification for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, absent the thin reed the U.S. leaned on in claiming that the first Security Council resolution actually authorized the invasion.
Let us not forget that the United States is also using force outside the framework of the Security Council through its drone attacks in countries ranging from Somalia to Yemen. It hasn’t even bothered to comply with its obligation to justify its actions under international law.
A no-fly zone would be an important step forward in efforts to halt al-Assad’s butchery. Let there be no illusions, however, that the option might be pursued with the authorization of the U.N. Security Council, as this is simply not in the cards given Russian and Chinese opposition.
France needs to get serious in talking about the options it is considering with respect to Syria. Talk of a no-fly zone will not stop al-Assad’s helicopters and jet fighters from bombarding civilian towns and neighborhoods in Syria.
Only the establishment of a no-fly zone will achieve this objective, and then only after it has been implemented and Western military aircraft and missiles are defeating any Syrian government attempts to violate the air exclusion zone.
The Trenchant Observer
Tags: 370 killed, 400 killed, air exclusion zone, attack on iran, chemical weapons in syria, China, daraya, drone attacks, France, françois hollande, Hillary Clinton, International Law, intervention militaire en Syrie, invasion of iraq, Iran, Israel, legal justification, Leon Panetta, massacres, Militärintervention in Syrien, military intervention in Syria, Nicholas Sarkozy, no-fly zone, Obama, Qatar, red lines, Russia, saturday, Saudi Arabia, security council, Siria, Somalia, syria, Syrien, Turkey, Turkish officials, U.N., un, United States, Yemen, zona d'exclusão aérea, Zona de exclusion aerea, zone d'exclusion aérienne
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Friday, August 24th, 2012
If you’ve ever attended a conference at the Commodore Hotel or walked near the American University in West Beirut, or had a drink at a lively bar or eaten lunch in Ashrafiieh, in East Beirut, you may have some sense of the charms of Lebanon and its capital city. If you’ve driven around Beirut and seen the way the center of the city near the Green Line has been rebuilt following the long civil war (1975-1990), or witnessed the variety of religious beliefs represented in the dress of women at one of the busy shopping malls, and seen how despite their differences Lebanese seem to manage getting along with each other, you may have some idea of their achievement in building a country with a working democracy and a strong civil society, after a devastating civil war, in a place where the tectonic plates of Islamic and Christian civilizations come together.
And if you’ve ever studied a little bit of Lebanon’s history, from the development of the alphabet at Byblos and the Phoenicians to the Romans and the Crusaders to the present, and particularly since the landing of U.S. marines in 1958 to stabilize the existing order and the sudden withdrawal of U.S. marines on a separate mission, following the deaths of 241 American marines and 58 French servicemen from a truck bombing at their headquarters in Beirut in 1983, you may have some sense of the delicate balance of forces at play in Lebanon, and the careful efforts of the Lebanese themselves to avoid a return to civil war. Nor do they wish to return to the enforced peace which existed under Syrian occupation until the Syrians were forced to withdraw following the assassination of Rafiq Hariri in 2005. The Syrian withdrawal resulted from what came to be known as “the Cedar Revolution”, led by forces now known as “the March 14 Alliance” (not to be confused with their opponents, the “the March 8 Alliance”).
The government, representing a finely-balanced equilibrium between opposing alliances, seems perennially on the verge of collapse. Before the Arab Spring reached Syria and exploded into civil war as a result of Bashar al-Assad’s use of terror in attempting to suppress it, a huge issue which threatened political stability in the country was whether the government would pay its share of the expenses of the international Special Tribunal for Lebanon set up by the United Nations to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the Hariri assassination. This became a burning issue when it became known that the Tribunal was planning to issue, and then issued, indictments against members of Hezbollah for their involvement in the Hariri assassination. Somehow, through a number of crises, the Lebanese were able to work out a solution to this problem. Lebanon paid its share of the Tribunal’s budget without Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, bringing down the government or even seizing control of Beirut’s southern suburbs (and other parts of the city) and the southern part of the country, in addition to the Bekaa Valley, which through his actions he had threatened to do in the past. Somehow, Lebanon muddled through.
Culturally, Lebanon has played a very special role in the Arab imagination, a fact reflected in many Egyptian films, as a romantic and holiday destination. It is also known as a place of personal and intellectual freedom where individuals of different nationalities and political, religious and ethnic backgrounds can come together, in order to meet, exchange ideas, negotiate, and enjoy the vibrant music and cultural scene. Lebanon’s cultural life is now broadcast through the Arab world by satellite television channels including LBC.
The love songs and melodies of Farouz, perhaps the best known singer in the Middle East in the last 50 years, are known throughout the Arab world and beyond.
Yet the toll of the Lebanese Civil War on the people of Lebanon was horrendous.
Now, the carefully constructed peace and political balance in Lebanon, built on the ruins of that war, is in great danger of being rendered by the raging forces of the civil war in Syria, which has recently spilled over into Tripoli and northern Lebanon. Moreover, the former Lebanese Minister of Information, Michel Samaha, has been arrested with explosives on charges he brought explosives into Lebanon with the intent of bombing crowds and assassinating Sunni leaders supportive of the Free Syrian Army, in coordination with Syrian intelligence officials.
See
Misbah al-Ali and Antoine Amrieh, “Tripoli trapped in Syria quagmire,” The Daily Star, August 25, 2012 (12:48 a.m.).
“Syria spillover clashes escalate in Lebanon; Killing of Sunni leader by sniper fire reignites violence that has left 17 people dead in Tripoli over last five days,” Al Jazeera, August 24, 2012.
Damien Cave, “Syrian War Plays Out Along a Street in Lebanon,” New York Times, August 23, 2012.
Damian Cave, “Syria Seen as Trying to Roil Lebanon,” New York Times, August 21, 2012.
Victor Kotsev, “Assad opens regional Pandora’s box,” Asia Times (online), August 25, 2012.
Donna Abu-Nasr, “Foiled Lebanon Bomb Plot Raises Concern of Spread
from Syria,” Bloomberg, August 20, 2012.
This spill-over has been largely due to the passivity of the West and the Arab countries and the civilized nations of the world, in the face of Russian and Chinese blocking actions in the U.N. Security Council. The West and their allies have shown an appalling lack of resolve in standing up to the terror in Syria orchestrated by Bashar al-Assad, with material and political support from Russia, Iran and China.
If the West and the Arab countries and Turkey had intervened early with the calibrated use of military force to halt al-Assad’s atrocities, would the civil war have reached its current dimensions or intensity?
Revealingly, Dimitri Simes, a well-known Russian expert, stated on the PBS Newshour on June 13, 2012, that he had just had a number of conversations in Moscow with key officials, and had come away with the clear impression that if the West and the Arab countries were to intervene with military force, the Russians would not be happy and would complain loudly, but in the end would be prepared to accept the fact of the intervention.
DIMITRI SIMES:
Let me say, however, again something Michele Dunne said which I find quite interesting, and I don’t know whether she had it in mind, but perhaps she did, namely, that nobody said we’re not entitled to act without U.N. Security Council blessing. And as one official in Moscow put it to me, well, look, if the United States feels very strongly that force has to be used and is determined to act, let the United States and NATO do it without U.N. Security Council blessing, the way it has happened in the case of Kosovo, the way it has happened in Iraq.
The Russians obviously would criticize that. They wouldn’t want a decision which doesn’t give a role to the U.N. Security Council. But if that is the only way to resolve the situation, I think they would be prepared to live with that.
–PBS Newshour, June 13, 2012.
Even if Simes’ assessment was accurate at the time, the Russian position has since evolved sharply to one of direct confrontation with the West.
The civil war in Syria is like a large and growing forest fire which outsiders have decided to allow to grow in intensity and extension, hoping that it will burn itself out before it consumes their homes and livestock and other precious goods.
But the fire has shown no signs of burning itself out. On the contrary, every day it seems to find new and endless supplies of dry underbrush and dry wood to feed its fury.
This fire could spread to Lebanon very easily. Some of its flames have already lapped across the borders. The only questions are whether the fire marshals, who have up till now been steadily explaining why they cannot intervene without knowing which way the fire will go and ultimately who will dominate the ruins it leaves behind, will call in the fire brigades to halt its advance, and if so when.
The Trenchant Observer
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Tags: 1958 landing of U.S. marines, 1958 lebanon crisis, 1975-1990, 1983 bombing of U.S. marines in Beirut, Achrafieh, Ashrafieh, Barack Obama, Bashar al-Assad, Beirut, Beyrouth, Bloomberg, borders, byblos, cedars of lebanon, China, Commodore Hotel, crusaders, damian cave, dmitri simes, donna abu-nasr, Farouz, France, French, Hezbollah, history of Lebanon, Iran, Lebanese civil war, Lebanon, Lebanon's history, Liban, Libanon, Libnan, Lubnan, march 14 alliance, March 8 alliance, melodies and songs of Farouz, Nasrallah, northern lebanon, passivity of the West, PBS Newshour, phoenicians, Rafiq Hariri, raging fire in Syria, romans, Russia, Saad Hariri, Siria, special role in the Arab imagination, Special Tribunal for Lebanon, spill-over, syria, Syrie, Syrien, terror, the cedar revolution, the green line, the tectonic plates of Islamic and Christian civilizations, Tripoli, Victor Kotsev, vladimir putin, will the raging fire in syria reach the cedars of lebanon, withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon
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Wednesday, July 11th, 2012
For a long-time student of diplomatic history and international politics, it is painful to watch the amateurism of Barack Obama’s foreign policy and foreign policy team.
In the case of Syria, where the interests of Russia, China, Iran, and the al-Bashar regime stand in sharp opposition to the interests of the United States, Europe, NATO, and members of the Arab League, who oppose repression through the use of terror including war crimes and crimes against humanity, following Obama’s foreign policy actions over the last year has been painful indeed.
Russia and China have stood, together with Iran, in stalwart support of the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad, vetoing Security Council resolutions in October 2011 and on February 4, 2012.
Russia, with a very experienced foreign policy team lead by Sergei Lavrov, a veteran diplomat, has acted with great clarity of vision in pursuit of its goal of maintaining Bashar al-Assad in power and deflecting or neutralizing all efforts to bring force to bear in order to halt al-Assad’s terror. Under President Medvedev (with Putin as Prime Minister, but hardly in the background), and now under Putin as president again, Russia has been unwavering in seeking and achieving its objectives.
On the first level, Russia has simply blocked any Security Council resolution that might work to the disadvantage of al-Assad and his regime of war criminals. It has watered down the two resolutions (2042 and 2043) adopted by the Security Council on April 14, and 21, ensuring that the illusory peace plan and cease-fire that they promised were embodied in resolutions with no teeth–with no consequences for al-Assad for violating them. Similarly, it has blocked adoption of any resolution by the Security Council conferring jurisdiction on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria.
On the second level, Russia has brilliantly played the weakly-led states of the West and the Arab League for fools–knowing fools, perhaps, but fools nonetheless.
The Russians’ willing tool and instrument has been Kofi Annan, with his 6-point peace plan and mediation mission. Annan’s mediation effort, interestingly, was already well underway before it was informally endorsed by the Security Council in a Presidential Statement on March 21 (which itself had no legal force).
Resolution 2042 formally endorsed the plan on April 14, and authorized Kofi Annan and his mission to “mediate” resolution of the Syrian crisis with al-Assad, who continued to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity even as Annan sought to mediate their cessation.
Resolution 2043 was adopted by the Security Council on April 21, expanding an observer mission authorized on April 14 to a 300-member mission known as UNSMIS to observe the cease-fire called for in the 6-point plan and Resolution 2042.
Al-Assad never complied with any of the peace plan’s provisions, and following numerous incidents where its observers were fired upon and threatened by crowds, UNSMIS was forced to stand down, confining its observers basically to their hotels in Damascus.
At various key decision points throughout this saga, Russia has raised the possibility of military engagement with them if the U.S., NATO, and the Arab states intervened in Syria.
One such threat was extraordinary: President Medvedev explicitly raised the possibility of a nuclear war in the region if there were military intervention against a state in the region (definitely Syria, possibly Iran).
At each decision point, the United States–without acknowledging the threat–went along with what the Russians wanted.
Now we are approaching another important decision point, to decide whether the UNSMIS mission should be extended when its initial 90-day authorization expires on or about July 20, and whether Kofi Annan should be authorized to continue his mediation effort. And, at precisely this moment, Russia has sent a group of warships including Russian soldiers to the Syrian port of Tartus, just in case anyone had forgotten the threat.
The UNSMIS mission and Kofi Annan’s mediation efforts clearly provide cover for al-Assad and his continuing efforts to exterminate his armed and unarmed opposition through the use of terror.
Russia and Iran, which Annan has tried to bring into the diplomatic muddle, and presumably China, strongly support both of these proposed actions.
Will the U.S., NATO, Europe and the Arab League blink again, and in effect accede to the Russian demand that al-Assad be given as much time as he needs to annihilate his opponents–without military opposition from those who would use military force, if necessary, to halt the commission of crimes against humanity and war crimes?
Will the countries which support a transition toward democracy in Syria, and an immediate halt to al-Assad’s crimes have the clarity of vision and the guts to oppose the Russians, the Chinese, Iran, and the Syrian regime? Stay tuned.
In the meantime, see the following article which offers a profound analysis of how Syria has divided the world, into what we have dubbed “The League of Authoritarian States,” on the one hand, and those supporting democratic transitions in Syria and elsewhere, on the other.
Michael Ignatieff, “How Syria Divided the World,” NYRblog (New York Review of Books), July 11, 2012.
Russia, China, Iran, and Syria share one bedrock principle: they will use “all necessary measures” in order to repress domestic opposition in their own countries, and will support others who do so abroad. These measures include terror, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other grave violations of fundamental human rights. Importantly, this support now includes the veto by Russia or China of any Security Council resolution that would confer on the International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction and a mandate to prosecute those responsible for such crimes.
The battle lines are clearly set. Whether Obama will wake up from his illusion of a “reset” of U.S.-Soviet relations with Medvedev, and now with Putin, is an open question.
Obama is also reported to have a dream of concluding, in his second term, a significant new START treaty with Russia that would dramatically reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world. Given his fecklessness on Syria, and the consequences that are likely to flow from the policies and actions he has adopted, it may be doubtful that he could ever secure the two-thirds vote in the Senate needed for ratification of such a treaty. Having watched Obama being outmaneuvered by Putin in Syria, Republicans would likely be skeptical if not outright hostile to any arms control agreement concluded between the two.
Democrats in the United States have for decades had the reputation of being unwilling to use the military when necessary to protect national interests. Obama clearly seeks to overcome the image of Democrats as being weak on defense through his hard-line policies on civil liberties in the war on terror, and his use of targeted executions by drones and other covert means against those perceived as posing a threat to the United States.
Whether these policies will in fact overcome longstanding doubts about the Democrats being weak on defense, in the heat of an election campaign, is an open question.
Certainly, allowing the Russians to roll over the West and the Arab countries in defending Syria and al-Assad’s crimes, will not strengthen the Democrats’ reputation of being unwilling to use military force to stand up to the military challenges of our opponents in the world.
Obama risks being seen, once the voters focus on the issues and hear the Republicans’ arguments, as being all talk, and no action–no guts, no intestinal fortitude, no resolve to act to defend the nation’s vital interests.
The Trenchant Observer
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