tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37529840896335423852024-02-06T21:34:45.179-05:00ChippshotsComments and Analysis from John Robertson on the Middle East, Central Asia, and U.S. PolicyJohn Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.comBlogger1381125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-58659433724146065322014-06-21T11:44:00.001-04:002014-06-21T11:44:04.817-04:00Rami Khouri on Obama's "300"<p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">As ever, <a href="http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/2014/Jun-21/260957-what-obama-didnt-say-about-iraqs-mess.ashx#axzz35HuweM8w">Rami Khouri</a> tells it like it is - in this instance, reminding us that it was Mr. Bush's Iraq escapade, and its enforcers, that lit the fire that threatens to consume Iraq altogether. He also spotlights the hypocrisy of Obama's warning Iran that it must play a constructive role:</span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">Obama’s comments on Iran are truly offensive. He resorts to his hallmark “audacity” in saying that Iran can be part of the regional diplomatic action needed to bring calm to Iraq if Iran plays a constructive role in Iraq. There is zero credibility in such statements coming from the president of a country whose war on Iraq probably created the most destruction there since the Mongol invasion and sacking of Baghdad in 1258. If there were a global award for willful and criminal destruction of a sovereign state by a foreign power, the U.S. and the United Kingdom would have to share that prize for their policies in Iraq.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">Obama’s disdainful treatment of Iran reflects, however, a pattern of American attitudes that the U.S. can do anything around the world and not be held accountable for the death and destruction it causes, while smaller and darker states in the South must conform to behavioral norms set in Washington (and sometimes in Tel Aviv, though Israel usually is exempt from adhering to the same norms, as we witness today in the mass arrests, collective punishments and continued arrest and killing of children in Israeli-occupied Palestinian lands).</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">Indeed. Well said.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/2014/Jun-21/260957-what-obama-didnt-say-about-iraqs-mess.ashx#ixzz35HyK4cJJ </span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb) </span></p>John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-3606122197727469722014-06-20T11:41:00.000-04:002014-06-20T13:59:45.812-04:00The Pathetic Figure that is Dick Cheney<p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">Amy Davidson's N<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2014/06/barack-obama-and-the-three-hundred-iraq-advisers.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailyemail&mbid=nl_Daily%20(201)">ew Yorker pos</a>t spotlights the recent column by the Cheneys (Dick and Elizabeth) calling out Mr. Obama for not manning up and reinserting US forces into Iraq. As Davidson puts it:</span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">On Tuesday, Dick and Liz Cheney published a column in the Wall Street Journal suggesting that it was a shame and a failure that the American war—which the elder Cheney had helped start—had not gone on and on. American soldiers, they suggested, should be there right now. “It is time the president and his allies faced some hard truths: America remains at war, and withdrawing troops from the field of battle while our enemies stay in the fight does not ‘end’ wars. Weakness and retreat are provocative.”</span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">In the Cheneys’ contorted diagram of history, going to war is itself a victory. They seem to see Iraq’s wreckage as a vindication of that war, not an indictment of it. It is difficult, otherwise, to explain their contempt for Obama’s withdrawal of troops. (“President Obama seems determined to leave office ensuring he has taken America down a notch.”) On this question, the Cheneys appear to be out of touch even with many in their own party. When Megyn Kelly, interviewing the Cheneys on Fox News, told Cheney that he had made a historic mistake in Iraq, he seemed startled enough to address her as “Reagan.” Perhaps the Cheneys and other conservatives do realize that the American public has come to view the Iraq War as a disaster, and have simply persuaded themselves that the only way to void that judgment is to get the war going again.</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">Sad, isn't it, that such a once-powerful public figure is utterly unable to imagine a world stage without American full-spectrum dominance. Nor can he imagine - much less accept - that the actions he encouraged, and policies he advocated (torture, anyone?), merit his own disgrace and banishment from the cohorts of serious discussion. (One might consider Tony Blair as a similar case in point.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">Watching CNN's broadcast special on the Vietnam War last night, I couldn't help noticing its serendipitous timing with a new insertion (in this instance, re-insertion) of American military forces into a region whose cultural dynamics they and their leaders cannot comprehend, and into a conflict in which (contra Dick Cheney and John McCain) they cannot "prevail" (to borrow General Westmoreland's promise of almost 50 years ago). </span></p>John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-53337453590091625292014-05-07T13:29:00.000-04:002014-05-07T13:29:15.850-04:00Holocaust Denial - in California?!<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">There are times when all you can do is scratch your head and wonder about the idiocy of some people.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Noted Holocaust scholar and expert Deborah Lipstadt has an important <a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/171856/california-school-holocaust-denial?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=04b7830439-5_7_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-04b7830439-207084081" target="_blank">essay at Table</a>t about a report that 8th-grade students in the school district of Rialto, California, were provided an assignment in which they are to debate whether or not the Holocaust actually happened.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Seriously?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">This is scary stuff. Thankfully (see Below), the district dropped the assignment after protests began to roll in.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But what were they thinking? Who were these people who dreamed up this assignment? Who would let them within a mile of a school building?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And how many numbskulls are now wondering, "golly, why did they pull the assignment? Isn't it important to hear both sides?"</span><br />
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John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-67077428483306655962014-05-01T17:31:00.000-04:002014-05-01T17:31:13.187-04:00Apartheid in the West BankPeter Beinart distinguishes between apartheid as indeed practiced under Israeli hegemony in the West Bank versus what Israeli Arabs must contend with day-to-day in Israel itself. Beinart doesn't recognize how consistently Israeli Arabs have to deal with discrimination, not to mention the increasing calls for their expulsion and the blatant racism with which many Israeli Jews regard them. But given all of that, you have to credit Beinart for calling it like it is in the West Bank:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
. . . there’s a territory—the West Bank—where Israel is practicing apartheid right now. The International Criminal Court defines “apartheid” as “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups.” Yes, Jews and Palestinians aren’t races. They’re peoples. But what matters is that the boundary between them is sealed. For all practical purposes, West Bank Palestinians cannot become Jews and because they cannot, they are barred from citizenship in the state that controls their lives, cannot vote for its government, live under a different legal system than their Jewish neighbors and do not enjoy the same freedom of movement. That’s “systematic oppression and domination” by one group over another. And it’s been going on for 46 years. . . . Apartheid is not a problem Israel must avoid in the future. It’s the reality West Bank Palestinians face today. For Jews and non-Jews who care about justice, that should be all the incentive we need. </blockquote>
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So, kudos then to Beinart. But even more kudos to Gideon Levy, who shares my disgust with John Kerry's retreat from his claim, not that Israel was, at present, an apartheid state, but that it was on the road to becoming one. Here's Levy, in full:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Is Israel at risk of becoming an apartheid state, as John Kerry said on Friday, or not, as he said on Tuesday? Who knows? Given his feeble performance as U.S. secretary of state and his disgraceful apology, maybe it no longer matters what Kerry thinks or says. Given the aggressiveness of the Jewish lobby and the weakness of the Obama administration, which capitulates to every “pro-Israel” whim, Israel doesn’t need enemies with friends like these. Look what happened to its genuine friend, who was only trying to warn it from itself.<br /><br /><br />What a miserable secretary of state, up to his neck in denial. And how unfriendly to Israel he is to retract his frank, genuine and friendly warning merely for fear of the lobby. Now millions of ignorant Americans, viewers of Fox News and its ilk, know that Israel is in no risk of becoming an apartheid state. They believe the power of Hamas and the sophistication of Qassam rocket pose an existential danger to Israel .<br /><br /><br />But Kerry’s vacillations do not change the reality that shrieks from every wall. From every West Bank Palestinian village, from every reservoir and power grid that is for Jews only; apartheid screams from every demolished tent encampment and every verdict of the military court; from every nighttime arrest, every checkpoint, every eviction order and every settlement home. No, Israel is not an apartheid state, but for nearly 50 years an apartheid regime has ruled its occupied territories. Those who want to continue to live a lie, to repress and to deny are invited to visit Hebron. No honest, decent person could return without admitting the existence of apartheid. Those who fear that politically incorrect word have only to walk for a few minutes down Shuhada Street, with its segregated road and sidewalks, and their fear of using the forbidden word will vanish without a trace.<br /><br /><br />The history of the conflict is filled with forbidden words. Once upon a time, it was forbidden to say “Palestinians” was forbidden, after that came the prohibitions against saying “occupation,” “war crime,” “colonialism” or “binational state.” Now “apartheid” is prohibited.</blockquote>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The forbidden words paralyze debate. Did you let the word “apartheid” slip out? The truth is no longer important. But no political correctness or bowdlerization, however sanctimonious, can conceal reality forever. And the reality is an occupation regime of apartheid.<br /><br /><br />The naysayers can find countless differences between the apartheid of Pretoria and that of Jerusalem. Pretoria’s was openly racist and anchored in law; Jerusalem’s is denied and repressed, hidden beneath a heavy cloak of propaganda and messianic religious faith. But the result is the same. Some South Africans who lived under the system of segregation say that their apartheid was worse. I know South Africans who say that the version in the territories is worse. But neither group can find a significant difference at the root: When two nations share the same piece of land and one has full rights while the other has no rights, that is apartheid. If it looks like apartheid, walks like apartheid and quacks like apartheid, it’s apartheid.</blockquote>
<br />John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-70169692151098325952014-04-18T11:42:00.002-04:002014-04-18T11:42:33.451-04:00The Bible and Oklahoma Public Education<strong>from today's Politico Morning Education</strong><br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<strong>HOBBY LOBBY PRESIDENT PROMOTES BIBLICAL CURRICULUM: </strong>Public
schools in Mustang, Okla., will offer a Bible course next fall
developed by Steve Green, president of the Hobby Lobby craft chain. It's
the start of an ambitious bid by Green to introduce Scripture to public
school students across the U.S. Within a few years, Green hopes
thousands of schools will offer his curriculum - a sequence of four
full-year classes exploring the Bible's content, history and impact on
society. The classes will be electives in Mustang, but Green has said he
hopes districts will one day make them mandatory.<br />- The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that it's legal for schools
to teach the Bible as long as it's presented "objectively" as part of a
"secular program of education." Green himself has said that he wants
students to understand that the Bible is "true" and "good," but it's
unclear if the classes will take that approach. The scholar Green tapped
to run the program, Jerry Pattengale, told Religion News Service that
the courses "may or may not espouse those views." More on the curriculum
from RNS: <a href="http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=94e5d37ee2eca5bf928719d17e2e03232e3150c859f27c7b754326c995653774" target="_blank">http://wapo.st/P9ixbu</a></blockquote>
<br />
That more people don't see the threat that people like Steve Green represents to young Americans, and the US's future, stuns me.John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-9971895612496492582014-02-26T12:20:00.000-05:002014-02-26T12:20:12.835-05:00Thomas Friedman's Simple Boxes<div style="font-size: 14.666658401489258px;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There he goes again. Thomas Friedman <a data-mce-href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/opinion/friedman-dont-just-do-something-sit-there.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140225&tntemail0=y&_r=0" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/opinion/friedman-dont-just-do-something-sit-there.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140225&tntemail0=y&_r=0">reconstructs global politics</a> (for the umpteenth time) with simple boxes. (OK OK, so he calls them categories.) This time it's</span></div>
<blockquote style="font-size: 14.666658401489258px;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first category . . . countries like Russia, Iran and North Korea, whose leaders are focused on building their authority, dignity and influence through powerful states.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The second category, countries focused on building their dignity and influence through prosperous people, includes all the countries in Nafta, the European Union, and the Mercosur trade bloc in Latin America and Asean in Asia.</span></blockquote>
<div style="font-size: 14.666658401489258px;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And of course, he must have an all-the-others third box, lumped as "disorder":</span></div>
<blockquote style="font-size: 14.666658401489258px;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a third and growing category of countries, which can’t project power or build prosperity. They constitute the world of “disorder.” . . . They are actually power and prosperity sinks because they are consumed in internal fights over primal questions like: Who are we? What are our boundaries? Who owns which olive tree? These countries include Syria, Libya, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Congo and other hot spots.</span></blockquote>
<div style="font-size: 14.666658401489258px;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All of this, of course, as an entree for TF to briefly touch upon Ukraine's turmoil, and then conclude by noting that</span></div>
<blockquote style="font-size: 14.666658401489258px;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">we should have learned some lessons from our recent experience in the Middle East: First, how little we understand about the social and political complexities of the countries there; second, that we can — at considerable cost — stop bad things from happening in these countries but cannot, by ourselves, make good things happen; and third, that when we try to make good things happen we run the risk of assuming the responsibility for solving their problems, a responsibility that truly belongs to them.</span></blockquote>
<div style="font-size: 14.666658401489258px;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indeed. Well said. Agreed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14.666658401489258px;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But not a word from TF, of course, about how his cheerleading (remember "suck on this?") in 2002 and 2003 helped rip Iraq from box 1 to dump it into box 3.</span></div>
John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-37444829707312095652014-02-10T13:24:00.001-05:002014-02-10T13:24:37.990-05:00Roger Cohen's Disappointing Essay on BDS<div style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.44444465637207px;">
<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: 12pt;">The NYT's Roger <a data-mce-href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/opinion/cohen-the-bds-threat.html?rref=opinion&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&pgtype=article" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/opinion/cohen-the-bds-threat.html?rref=opinion&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&pgtype=article">Cohen writes </a>this morning that the BDS movement is simply not to be trusted, even if its goal of ending Israeli occupation in the West Bank is laudable. The reason? BDS supporters ultimately wish to see the enforcement of the Palestinians' right to return (in Cohen's words, the "so-called" right to return). For that reason, Cohen comes perilously close to arguing that BDS supporters are anti-Semites. Undoubtedly some are, but Cohen ought to know better than to come as close as he does to tarring the entire movement with that brush. It's not fair, and it doesn't help.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.44444465637207px;">
<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: 12pt;">Cohen goes on to say that the UN gave an "unambiguous mandate" to a Jewish state in 1947. Well, perhaps, although anyone who's read deeply into the history knows how much arm-twisting by the US went into that vote. But if Cohen is going to cite that vote as the ultimate legitimizer of the creation of a Jewish state, he can't be permitted to dismiss at the same time those provisions of international law that state that the ethnic cleansing that was inflicted on Palestinians from 1946 on was illegal and that forbidding expelled Palestinians from returning was likewise illegal.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.44444465637207px;">
<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: 12pt;">As so many commentators have noted, the crux of the issues that continue to separate Israelis and Palestinians is not the events of 1967, but the events of 1947-1948. For Cohen to dismiss the concerns and claims of those Palestinians who were victimized then, even in the interests of securing a Jewish refuge and homeland, is - again - not fair, and it doesn't help.</span></div>
John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-46103562007470340282014-01-10T19:25:00.000-05:002014-01-10T19:25:04.424-05:00About Those US Demands That Maliki Include Sunnis<div style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.44444465637207px;">
At <a data-mce-href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-09/another-iraq-war-here-s-how-to-avoid-it.html" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-09/another-iraq-war-here-s-how-to-avoid-it.html">Bloomberg</a>, former Bushie Meghan O'Sullivan calls upon Mr. Obama and his officials to head off a new Iraq war by making better use of the US's "new leverage" to convince Iraq PM Nuri al-Maliki to make his government more inclusive of Sunni representation.<br /><br />She, of course, is not the only notable former official/expert/pundit calling for this. And anyone who's been paying attention in recent years knows that much of Iraq's malaise post-US pullout stems from Maliki's failure to bring Iraq's Sunnis alongside. Indeed, it's been more than a failure to simply include them. Rather, in dealing with Sunni opposition, Maliki has resorted to the kind of repressive tactics - intimidation, torture, executions - that, even if we've no evidence of mass burials of people killed by the government, could have come from Saddam Hussein's manual of How to Run Iraq.<br /><br />We all know that Iraq's chances of remaining a relatively unitary state (I say relatively because the Kurds have been out that door since even before 2003) hinge upon the ability of the Iraqi leadership, and Iraq's people, to create a political-social contract that will enable them to rise above the sectarian divisiveness that Saddam fostered (despite his supposed Baathist secularism) and that the Coalition Provisional Authority and its aftermath exacerbated and helped solidify, including in the new Iraqi constitution. Many have noted that non-sectarian Iraqi nationalism still runs deep in some elements of Iraqi politics and society. How long that can persist if Iraq's current cacophany of violence persists remains to be seen.<br /><br />But all the American calls for Maliki to change his ways, seems to me, fail to take into account certain realities:<br /><br />Nuri al-Maliki, besides being Iraq's prime minister since 2006, has also been the head of a Shi'ite religious party, al-Da'wa. Members of that party were persecuted and executed, brutally, under Saddam's Sunni-led Baathist regime. Maliki himself was forced into exile during that time. The current members of al-Da'wa, and members of other Shi'ite religious parties, bear deeply seared memories of what they and their families suffered at the hands of a predominantly Sunni government. American politicians like John McCain and Lindsey Graham who so stridently demand that Maliki change his ways cannot possibly understand the extent to which such deeply seated fear, as well as feelings of revenge, might motivate Maliki and those who back him - including millions of Iraqi Arab Shi'ites.</div>
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<br />Although the US has professed to be a friend and ally of Maliki, much more important - and potentially much more useful - to him is the support of the friend and ally next door: the Shi'ite Islamic Republic of Iran. That, of course, is the same Shi'ite republic that Saddam attacked in 1980, launching an eight-year war during which the Sunni-led Baathist regime of Iraq was supported by the U.S. under Ronald Reagan. And with U.S. backing, Saddam's forces inflicted hundreds of thousands of deaths and maimed lives on Iranian soldiers and civilians, using poison gas as well as more "conventional" weapons of mass destruction. But the more important point here is that, given the awfulness of that war, the very last thing the Iranian leadership can countenance is the re-empowerment of Sunni parties or politicians in Iraq.</div>
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<br />All of this means that Mr. Maliki is going to be inclined to turn a very tinnish ear to U.S. entreaties and demands that he bring Sunni elements within anything close to striking distance of effective power in Iraqi politics. Given Iraq's history over the last several decades, this ought to be obvious. McCain, Graham, Boehner - all of those now demanding more of Maliki, as well as more of Obama - need to wise up.</div>
John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-46867331139216330512014-01-04T12:36:00.001-05:002014-01-04T12:36:48.654-05:00McCain and Graham Pave Path to New Intifada<p><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times; font-size: 12pt;">Disturbing report <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/mccain-in-israel-voices-skepticism-about-kerrys-middle-east-peace-push/2014/01/03/850e0502-7493-11e3-bc6b-712d770c3715_story.html">from WashPo</a> about how Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham have lined up with Mr. Netanyahu in expressing grave reservations about proposals emerging from the recent John Kerry-led "peace process." Per usual for the vast majority of US congressmen, their concerns hinge almost entirely on Israel's security needs - which, in their minds (and, of course, Bibi's), can only be served by an agreement that permits the IDF almost unhindered access to the West Bank.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times; font-size: 12pt;">Graham's comments are especially worrying:</span></p><blockquote><p><em><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times; font-size: medium;">Graham said that despite detailed security proposals for the West Bank developed by a special U.S. envoy, retired Marine Gen. John R. Allen, senior Israelis remain unconvinced. “Here’s the one thing that I think dominates the thinking in Israel: that once you withdraw, then the ability to go back is almost impossible,” Graham said. “Look at Gaza. What’s the chance of going back into Gaza militarily?”</span></em></p><p><em><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times; font-size: medium;"> </span></em></p><p><em><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times; font-size: medium;">Israel can defend itself against rocket attacks from that formerly Israeli-occupied territory, but withdrawal meant giving up the “ability to chart your own destiny,” Graham said.</span></em></p><p><em><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times; font-size: medium;"> </span></em></p><p> </p><p><em><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times; font-size: medium;">“I really do believe that the idea of withdrawing has to be considered in light of Gaza,” Graham said.</span></em></p><p> </p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times; font-size: medium;">None of the above indicates that Graham and his ilk are going to accept any kind of Palestinian state that would also be acceptable to Mr. Abbas or any other of the more moderate Palestinian political leaders, not to mention those of a more militant stripe - i.e., a return to pre-1967 borders (with suitable land swaps) and a Palestinian government with responsibility for maintaining security with its own security forces. That others in Netanyahu's govermnent are also insisting on Israeli control of the Jordan Valley - something that, I'd bet, McCain and Graham are prefectly okay with - further dims the prospects for Kerry's success.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times; font-size: medium;">I'm also struck by Graham's focus on Gaza as the template for what Israel ought not to do in the West Bank. Implicit in his comments is the assumption that Israel had been justified in occupying and colonizing Gaza in the first place, and that Israel ought never to have left Gaza, but instead ought to have ramped up the number of settlements there as well as the degree of military occupation.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times; font-size: medium;">All of this, of course, plays into the established and well-justified perception that the US political leadership as a whole will accept a Palestinian state only if such a state remains completely under the security domination of Israel. Equally justifiably, most Palestinians will view Kerry's efforts as little better than a smokescreen while Netanyahu and his right-wing government cement the creation of "Greater Israel." </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times; font-size: medium;">And that, of course, feeds a growing probability of another intifada - something that the WashPo report likewise points out. </span></p>John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-6676579026212434752013-11-13T14:41:00.001-05:002013-11-13T14:41:18.767-05:00Time for a Deal with Iran is Now<p><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">Kudos to Thomas Friedman for <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/13/opinion/friedman-what-about-us.html?emc=edit_tnt_20131112&tntemail0=y&pagewanted=print">his piece</a> in today's NY Times (quoted, in full, below). With all the boo-hooing about how such a deal would be a betrayal of our Israeli and Saudi "allies," as Friedman notes, a deal that might lead to a detente with Iran would be a huge boon to US interests across the Middle East. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">On the other hand, the imposing of a new, crippling round of sanctions on Iran - one that might completely eliminate Iran's ability to export its oil - could very likely stop negotiations in their tracks and in so doing, deal a potential death-blow to any chance of averting war with Iran or securing Iran's help in bringing an end to the holocaust that is Syria (and that threatens to engulf Lebanon and Iraq as well). Yet the GOP-dominated House of Representatives is aching to impose those sanctions, as are some of the usual suspects in the Senate. (I'm looking at you, Lindsey Graham - and you ought to be embarrassed by your bogus comments that if we do it just "right", sanctions can work even better. Ask the people of Iran about that. For that matter, ask the people of Iraq about how that worked out for them. Or just go read some of Joy Gordon's reports on how wonderfully sanctions have worked, in both countries.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">The NYT reports that AIPAC and its ilk are wearing out the carpets in Congressional offices, insisting that harsher sanctions go forward. Other of the usual suspects have hastened to the dailies to pound the same point: WINEP honcho Patrick Clawson (in t<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/iran-is-unlikely-to-take-the-path-the-west-hopes-it-will/2013/11/12/2eb713be-4b27-11e3-be6b-d3d28122e6d4_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions">he WashPo</a>) hastens to remind us that "</span><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">Israel, the Gulf states and Iranian democrats will be reassured only by vigorous U.S. actions to address their concerns" - and that besides, and despite evidence to the contrary, all that Iranians really want is regional "hegemony" (not, of course, that the US and Israel have ever aspired to that). The ever-pesky Elliott Abrams, hoping to drive his own nail into the coffin into which Bibi's amen chorus wants to put the negotiations, also chimes in (likewise i<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-oppression-of-bahais-continues-in-iran/2013/11/12/4b5dcf34-4b0f-11e3-be6b-d3d28122e6d4_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions">n the WashPo</a>) with a reminder of how nasty the Iranian government has been to the Baha'is. No argument; they have been brutal; but, gee, why did Abrams pick this particular time to make that point?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">To my mind, none of this carping is enough to override Friedman's point: detente with Iran can serve US interests much better than would ratcheting up sanctions. And along the waym detente just might lead to a more stable, more peaceful Middle East. So . . .</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">I'm reminded of the oft-used expression about how one should "lead, follow, or get out of the way." Congress is both too divided and too discredited (shut-down, anyone?) to lead. As Bibi knows, though, they're good at following. But where Bibi wants to take them, American interests - and, I should think, those of the planet - won't be well served. </span><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">That leaves only one option. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">Get out of the way. Please.</span></p><p> </p><blockquote><p style="padding-left: 60px;"><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">November 12, 2013</span></p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">What About US?</span></p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN</span></p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">It goes without saying that the only near-term deal with Iran worth partially lifting sanctions for would be a deal that freezes all the key components of Iran’s nuclear weapons development program, and the only deal worth lifting all sanctions for is one that verifiably restricts Iran’s ability to breakout and build a nuclear bomb.</span></p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">But there is something else that goes without saying, but still needs to be said loudly: We, America, are not just hired lawyers negotiating a deal for Israel and the Sunni Gulf Arabs, which they alone get the final say on. We, America, have our own interests in not only seeing Iran’s nuclear weapons capability curtailed, but in ending the 34-year-old Iran-U.S. cold war, which has harmed our interests and those of our Israeli and Arab friends.</span></p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">Hence, we must not be reluctant about articulating and asserting our interests in the face of Israeli and Arab efforts to block a deal that we think would be good for us and them. America’s interests today lie in an airtight interim nuclear deal with Iran that also opens the way for addressing a whole set of other issues between Washington and Tehran.</span></p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">Some of our allies don’t share those “other” interests and believe the only acceptable outcome is bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities and keeping Iran an isolated, weak, pariah state. They don’t trust this Iranian regime — and not without reason. I don’t begrudge their skepticism. Without pressure from Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and the global sanctions on Iran they helped to spur, Iran would not be offering to scale back its nuclear program today.</span></p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">But that pressure was never meant to be an end itself. It was meant to bring Iran in from the cold, provided it verifiably relinquished the ability to breakout with a nuclear weapon. “Just because regional actors see diplomacy with Iran as a zero-sum game — vanquish or be vanquished — doesn’t mean America should,” said Karim Sadjadpour, the expert on Iran at the Carnegie Endowment.</span></p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">Why? Let’s start with the fact that Iran has sizable influence over several of America’s most critical national security concerns, including Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, terrorism, energy security, and nuclear proliferation. Whereas tension with Iran has served to exacerbate these issues, détente with Tehran could help ameliorate them. Iran played a vital role in helping us to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 and can help us get out without the Taliban completely taking over again.</span></p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;"> “Iran has at least as much at stake in a stable Iraq, and a stable Afghanistan, as we do — and as an immediate neighbor has a far greater ability to influence them, for good or ill,” said Nader Mousavizadeh, the Iranian-American co-founder of Macro Advisory Partners and a former top aide to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.</span></p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">There is a struggle in Tehran today between those who want Iran to behave as a nation, looking out for its interests, and those who want it to continue behaving as a permanent revolution in a permanent struggle with America and its allies. What’s at stake in the Geneva nuclear negotiations — in part — “is which Iranian foreign policy prevails,” argued Mousavizadeh. A mutually beneficial deal there could open the way for cooperation on other fronts.</span></p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">Moreover, there is nothing that threatens the future of the Middle East today more than the sectarian rift between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. This rift is being used by President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Hezbollah and some Arab leaders to distract their people from fundamental questions of economic growth, unemployment, corruption and political legitimacy. It is also being used to keep Iran isolated and unable to fully exploit its rich oil and gas reserves, which could challenge some Arab producers. But our interest is in quelling these sectarian passions, not taking one side.</span></p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">The Iran-U.S. cold war has prevented us from acting productively on all these interests. It is easy to say we should just walk away from talks if we don’t get what we want, but isolating Iran won’t be as easy as it once was. China, Russia, India and Japan have different interests than us vis-à-vis Iran. The only man who could unite them all behind this tough sanctions regime was Iran’s despicable previous president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The new president, Hassan Rouhani, is much more deft. “Our sanctions leverage may have peaked,” said Sadjadpour. “Countries like China won’t indefinitely forsake their own commercial and strategic interests vis-à-vis Iran simply to please the U.S. Congress.”</span></p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;">All this is why the deal the Obama team is trying to forge now that begins to defuse Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and tests whether more is possible, is fundamentally in the U.S. interest. “The prize of détente with Iran is critical to allowing the U.S. a sensibly balanced future foreign policy that aligns interests with commitments, and allows us to rebuild at home at the same time,” said Mousavizadeh. There are those in the Middle East who prefer “a war without end for the same tribal, sectarian, backward-looking reasons that are stunting their own domestic development as open, integrated, pluralist societies,” he added. “They can have it. But it can’t be our war. It’s not who we are — at home or abroad.”</span></p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"><span style="font-family: 'andale mono', times;"> </span></p></blockquote>John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-92049296845152619362013-11-08T14:49:00.001-05:002013-11-08T14:49:18.578-05:00Bibi Pissing in the Geneva Punchbowl<p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">With <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/09/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-talks.html?emc=edit_tnt_20131108&tntemail0=y&_r=0&pagewanted=print">growing signs</a> (John Kerry has flown to Geneva to take part) that a deal between Iran and the US-led P5+1 is steadily being pieced together, Mr. Netanyahu's attempts to demean and trash the process are becoming more insistent. As reported <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/09/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-talks.html?emc=edit_tnt_20131108&tntemail0=y&_r=0&pagewanted=print">at WashPo</a>, Bibi "utterly rejects" the deal that seems to be emerging. (Of course, we <em>hoi poloi</em> are not privy to the details, but we can assume that Bibi is being kept abreast of where things stand.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Kerry, however, seems content to fob him off with some comments to the effect that the US is going into any deal with its "eyes open" and is looking for results, not just words. He has gone a step further by putting Bibi on notice that the Israelis need to give ground in the current negotiations with the Palestinians, or else, as Kerry warned, face a "third intifada." Such an eventuality seems a bit less remote now, what with Palestinians' patience running out, West Bank settlers' shameless destruction of Palestinian olive groves increasingly exposed, and troubling new evidence suggesting that former PA president Yasser Arafat's death was the result of massive polonium poisoning. At this point, the Israelis are the only logical perpetrator - especially in light of recent reminders of how much former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon hated Arafat and would have loved to have had him liquidated.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">What Netanyahu means by "utterly rejects" will become clear very soon. What we all ought to fear, though, is that the troops at AIPAC, the brain trust at WINEP (and, of course, Elliott Abrams at the Council on Foreign Relations), and the pastors aligned with the Rev. John Hagee and the useful idiots of CUFI will be rallied to the halls of Congress, websites at Foreign Policy, and pulpits of Christian Zionist congregations across the land in a crusade to stop the negotiations in their tracks.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Mr. Obama will likely need to play all the cards in his grasp, and any new ones he can draw, to win this hand. The stakes are enormous. If Bibi and pals succeed in derailing this train, they may also succeed in blowing up the tracks leading to any peaceful and timely resolution, not only of the issue of Iran's nuclear program, but also the issue of the horrific war in Syria, and the rekindled civil war in Iraq.</span></p>John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-71143676020922892572013-11-08T14:15:00.001-05:002013-11-08T14:15:33.618-05:00Elliott Abrams and Hasan Rouhani's siren song<p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">My latest a<a href="http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/opinion/elliott-abrams-and-hasan-rouhanis-siren-song_19249">t Your Middle East</a>. Here's the tease:</span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Elliott Abrams' intention – as is Mr. Netanyahu's – is to do whatever he can to sabotage any chance of a diplomatic accommodation with Iran that might leave that country any shred of a nuclear program - and, for that matter, any shred of dignity on the international stage, writes John Robertson.</span></p></blockquote>John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-64932824313062114182013-11-06T16:11:00.001-05:002013-11-06T16:11:32.321-05:00On the Hubris of American Syria Hawks<p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Conor Friedersdorf at <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/11/the-stunning-hubris-of-syria-hawks/281190/#comments">the Atlanti</a>c - with an assist from <a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/another-terrible-idea-for-u-s-meddling-in-syria/?utm_source=feedly">Dan Larison </a>at American Conservative - excoriates Michael Totten for his <a href="http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/no-exit-why-us-can%E2%80%99t-leave-middle-east">recent essa</a>y proposing that the US first align itself with the Syria jihadists against Assad, then once Assad is out, turn on the jihadists.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Totten and other Syria hawks predictably ignore the deaths of thousands and the misery of millions of Syrians. His entire argument smacks too much of the atrocity of Condi Rice's "birth pangs of a new Middle East" comment in 2006. As long as Arabs dying serves the ends of preserving American and Israeli pre-eminence in the Middle East, no problem. Except in this case, Totten is recommending a most cynical and brutal inducing of that birth at a time and pace purely to suit US interests. The whole thing reminds me of why I stopped taking Totten seriously years ago.</span></p>John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-27235967547563419172013-10-25T14:59:00.001-04:002013-10-25T14:59:17.270-04:00Negotiations with Iran<p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Nicholas Burns (in the Boston Globe) provides his <a href="http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/23530/balancing_act_for_iran_end_game.html">assessment</a> of US negotiations with Iran (including a rather chest-thumping thumbs-up for devastating of Iran's economy via sanctions), and concludes with the following:</span></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Wouldn’t it be extraordinary if Republicans as well as Democrats stood by the president as he executed this very challenging diplomatic endgame on the most critical war and peace issue of 2014? Or is that too much to expect in the hyper-partisan Washington that brought us the shutdown?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Uh huh, it would be extraordinary - and I wouldn't count on it. The GOP-controlled House wants to take down Obama any way it can, and I can only imagine how much the Tea Partiers want payback for their humiliating defeat over ACA/"Obamacare." Just for those reasons, stymying Obama's attempts to work with Iran would be, if nothing else, wicked fun.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Meanwhile, if any more promising signs emerge after negotiations resume, Mr. Netanyahu will surely pull out a fire-hose to drench it all in very cold water. That dozens of senators and Congressmen - especially GOP, but including some powerful Dems like Chuck Schumer - have sworn fealty to Bibi over the issue of Iran's nuclear program (not to mention Israel's strategic domination of the Middle East in general) can only mean that Obama is likely to find it impossible to get Congress's support for any deal that Iran could accept - or should even be asked to accept. And, of course, even if Congress can be convinced to hold off on imposing new sanctions (which Bibi wants), it probably will not agree to significant sanctions relief - which by itself could deep-six any chance of a meaningful deal with Iran.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">All of which is a shame . . . and shameful . . . because without some major compromise and breakthrough in these negotiations, the odds of war with Iran will increase almost exponentially. That spells disaster, and ruin, any way you look at it. . . . for Iran certainly, but Israel, and the US, will pay a huge price as well.</span></p>John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-6831880727226496252013-10-23T12:20:00.001-04:002013-10-23T12:20:03.094-04:00New Strategic Realities in the Middle East<p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Jim <a href="http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/10/for-u-s-in-the-mideast-the-ice-is-getting-thinner/">Lobe (IPS) </a>provides nicely researched overview of the new strategic realities facing the US in the Middle East. And it's especially nice to see him quote Chas Freeman, an experienced and well-informed former diplomat whose views on US-Israeli relations and on US Middle East policy in general got him into hot water with the D.C. establishment. Both Lobe and Freeman point out that the US ties with two long-term allies - Turkey and Saudi Arabia - are on the skids. The Saudis are more than irritated by the US's attempts at detente with Shi'ite rival Iran; Erdogan's Turkey has decided to buy its new missile-defense system from China, even though its technology doesn't jive with the ordnance of NATO - of which, of course, Turkey is one of the militarily more powerful members.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Freeman sums it up very well indeed:</span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">“The simple world of colonial and superpower rivalries is long vanished. . . . The notion that one is either ‘with us or against us’ has lost all resonance in the modern Middle East. No government in the region is prepared now to entrust its future to foreigners, still less to a single foreign power. So the role of great external powers is becoming variable, complex, dynamic, and asymmetric, rather than comprehensive, exclusive, static or uniform.”</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">On the other hand, one of the people whose views REALLY count - because he forks over huge sums of money to support politicians who actually influence policy decisions - continues to speak of the US's evidently rightful prerogative to throw its weight around in the Middle East as it pleases, especially when it comes to Israel. I speak of Sheldon Adelson, Newt Gingrich's sugar-daddy and political life-support during the 2012 campaign. <a href="http://mondoweiss.net/2013/10/adelson-nuclear-negotiate.html">Mondoweiss reports </a>(with video) on Adelson's comments at a forum at Yeshiva University after the moderator (Rabbi Shmuley Boteach) raised the issue of US negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program:<a href="http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/10/for-u-s-in-the-mideast-the-ice-is-getting-thinner/" target="_blank"><br /></a></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">What are we going to negotiate about? What I would say is, ‘Listen, you see that desert out there, I want to show you something.’ You pick up your cell phone, even at traveling rates. You pick up your cell phone, and– what are they called– [Boteach: roaming charges] Roaming charges. You pick up your cell phone and you call somewhere in Nebraska and you say, ‘OK let it go.’ So there’s an atomic weapon, goes over ballistic missiles, the middle of the desert, that doesn’t hurt a soul. Maybe a couple of rattlesnakes, and scorpions, or whatever.</span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">And then you say, ‘See! The next one is in the middle of Tehran. So, we mean business. You want to be wiped out? Go ahead and take a tough position and continue with your nuclear development. [Applause] You want to be peaceful? Just reverse it all, and we will guarantee you that you can have a nuclear power plant for electricity purposes, energy purposes.’</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Adelson goes on to say that American strength "is the only thing they understand."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">That, of course, is the same kind of assumption of US military omnipotence that brought us Afghanistan, Iraq, and the knee-capping of America's economic future and global credibility.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">On the other hand, Adelson's comments reportedly received fulsome applause.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Betcha Bibi would have been clapping right along, had he been there.</span></p>John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-70812467201650898772013-10-17T16:41:00.001-04:002013-10-17T16:41:03.209-04:00Tea Party's Obamaphobia<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I don't generally post comments I've seen from other sources - in this instance, a comment appended to an article in today's WashPo. But this one was too good to pass up:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To Tea Party Republicans: Please note that the Community Organizer; the Tan Man in the Black House; the wet-behind-the-ears innocent who has never worked a day in his life; the illegal alien who is ineligible for the presidency; the crook who lied about his educational background since he actually flunked out of college and only squeaked through law school on Affirmative Action; the happy-go-lucky boy who just wants to have a good time riding around on Air Force One while white people run the country; the Monkey Man who lives only to take goods from hard-working white people and hand it over to the darkies; Buckwheat, who should be cleaning the Oval Office and not sitting in it:</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">WON. </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">PS: Every one of my descriptions above was taken from an online post about the President of the United States, who, it turns out, has earned a descriptor you-all Tea Party folks forgot: statesman.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">These clowns have wasted billions of dollars, slowed down the economy, deprived thousands of federal workers of badly needed paychecks. They claim to have done all of this as a matter of reclaiming some sort of high ground, in defense of regular Americans. For some of them, perhaps such considerations reflect their true motives. But for many of them, and for thousands of their Confederate-flag waving, race-baiting, gay-hating, Jesus-is-my-strength supporters, it was all about an irrational, visceral hatred of a black president with an Arab middle name.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Shame on all of them. And shame on us as a nation if we permit people of their ilk ever again to bring this country to such a low point. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-46532511345477733902013-09-29T11:13:00.001-04:002013-09-29T11:13:20.963-04:00Thomas Friedman Misses the Elephant in the Room<p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Thomas Friedman's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/opinion/sunday/friedman-hassan-does-manhattan.html?ref=international" target="_blank">column</a> "Hassan Does Manhattan" (catchy title, no? Whoever created it seems intent on reminding us that Tommy has always been the brightest boy in the room) is all about Iran's politics, Tommy's chats with members of Mr. Rouhani's entourage, and what "we should do." And what he suggests - in terms of what kind of deal Obama should offer Iran - is fine --- well within the mainstream of ideas that various onlookers have suggested. But it what's Friedman leaves out that blows me away.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Not once - nowhere - in his essay does Friedman mention either of two words: "Israel" and "Netanyahu." Yet anybody who's been paying attention (and I want to assume that Friedman numbers himself among that crowd) knows that Mr. Netanyahu is going to have a lot to say about all of this, and that what he's likely to say is not going to jive well with what Friedman thinks "we should do." The last thing Netanyahu wants is a rapprochement between the US and Iran that leaves Iran with any semblance of political stature and respect on the world stage, and especially in the Middle East - which, in Bibi's mind and in the minds of Israel's hard-right establishment, is rightfully and properly Israel's stage, if not Israel's court.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Recently, Daniel Levy wrote a <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/09/27/the_obstructionist_benjamin_netanyahu_israel_iran?page=full" target="_blank">brilliant piece</a> that Friedman really ought to read - or ought to have read before writing his latest. I quote:</span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">At the moment . . . Netanyahu is signaling that there is no realistic deal that would be acceptable to Israel. For instance, a consensus exists among experts and Western officials that Iran's right to enrich uranium -- in a limited manner and under international supervision -- for its civilian nuclear energy program will be a necessary part of any agreement. Netanyahu rejects this.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">If Iran is willing to cut a deal that effectively provides a guarantee against a weaponization of its nuclear program, and that deal is acceptable to the president of the United States of America, why would Netanyahu not take yes for an answer?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">The reason lies in Netanyahu's broader view of Israel's place in the region: The Israeli premier simply does not want an Islamic Republic of Iran that is a relatively independent and powerful actor. Israel has gotten used to a degree of regional hegemony and freedom of action -- notably military action -- that is almost unparalleled globally, especially for what is, after all, a rather small power. Israelis are understandably reluctant to give up any of that.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Israel's leadership seeks to maintain the convenient reality of a neighboring region populated by only two types of regimes. The first type is regimes with a degree of dependence on the United States, which necessitates severe limitations on challenging Israel (including diplomatically). The second type is regimes that are considered beyond the pale by the United States and as many other global actors as possible, and therefore unable to do serious damage to Israeli interests.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Israel's leadership would consider the emergence of a third type of regional actor -- one that is not overly deferential to Washington but also is not boycotted, and that even boasts a degree of economic, political, and military weight -- a deeply undesirable development. What's more, this threatens to become a not-uncommon feature of the Middle East: Just look at Turkey under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, or Egypt before the July 3 coup, or an Iran that gets beyond its nuclear dispute and starts to normalize its relations with the West.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">There are other reasons for Netanyahu to oppose any developments that would allow Iran to break free of its isolation and win acceptance as an important regional actor with which the West engages. The current standoff is an extremely useful way of distracting attention from the Palestinian issue, and a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran would likely shine more of a spotlight on Israel's own nuclear weapons capacity. But the key point to understand in interpreting Netanyahu's policy is this: While Obama has put aside changing the nature of the Islamic Republic's political system, Israel's leader is all about a commitment to regime change -- or failing that, regime isolation -- in Tehran. And he will pursue that goal even at the expense of a workable deal on the nuclear file.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Netanyahu's maximalism does not represent a wall-to-wall consensus within the Israeli establishment. There is another Israeli strand of thinking -- notably among retired security elites like former Mossad chiefs Meir Dagan and Efraim Halevy and former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin -- that holds that the challenges posed by Iran can be managed in different ways at different times. Others inside Israel's establishment acknowledge that the current period of unchallenged hegemony is unsustainable and that adjustments will have to be made. Some understand the efficacy of having an Iran more tied into the international system rather than isolated from it -- a deal on Iran's nuclear program, for instance, could also have its uses in limiting the maneuver room of groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">But Netanyahu has rejected these positions. The prime minister is nothing if not consistent: He was similarly intractable when the Palestinian leadership and the Arab League put forth pragmatic proposals. While the PLO's leadership accepts Israel's existence, the 1967 lines, and an accommodation on Israeli settlements (including in East Jerusalem) by way of land swaps, Netanyahu has shifted the goal posts -- rejecting the 1967 lines and refusing to take yes for an answer. With the Arab League's "Arab Peace Initiative" offering recognition of Israel and comprehensive peace in exchange for withdrawal from the occupied territories, Netanyahu is again following this pattern of rejectionism.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Netanyahu is a deeply ideological leader with an unshakeable belief in a Greater Israel and regional hegemony. If this reading of him is accurate, it bodes ill for Israel's reaction to the nascent diplomacy between the United States and Iran. In the coming weeks and months, Netanyahu will likely dedicate himself to derailing any prospect for a diplomatic breakthrough.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">In that mission he is, of course, not alone. He will be joined by American hawks and neoconservatives, Republicans who will oppose Obama on anything, and some Democrats with a more Israel-centric bent. Their efforts will be concentrated on escalating threats against Iran, increasing sanctions, and raising the bar to an impossibly high place on the terms of a nuclear deal. All this will serve -- intentionally, one has to assume -- to strengthen hard-liners in Tehran who are equally opposed to a deal.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;"> </span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Of course, the Iranian forces ranged against Rouhani's pragmatism do not need encouragement from Washington. But absent encouragement, they are not in the ascendancy -- and crucially, Rouhani appears to have the backing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei for his diplomatic outreach. Currently, the difference among the three capitals -- Washington, Tehran, and Jerusalem -- is that only in Jerusalem does a representative of the hard-line faction, rather than the pragmatic camp, hold the most senior political office.</span></p></blockquote><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">None of these considerations receive any mention in Friedman's wide-eyed prattling about democracy breaking out in Iran. Yet it beggars belief to assume that none of them occurred to him. The fact of the matter is that Netanyahu may indeed want to bully Obama into backing away from Iran - at least far enough, and for long enough, that Khamenei and Iran's still-powerful hard-liners </span><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">get fed up and decide to rein in Rouhani. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">And Bibi has a bunch of bullies lined up alongside him. I speak, of course - and Levy mentions them as well - of the Obama-baiting, Iran-hating GOP congressmen in his back-pocket. They are already poised to bring the federal government to a shut-down and heap the blame on Barack Hussein Obama.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: terminal, monaco;">Bibi would be glad to give them a two-fer.</span></p>John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-72631860300970593502013-09-02T12:39:00.005-04:002013-09-02T12:39:38.400-04:00Stabilizing Syria Means Engaging Iran<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Both <a data-mce-href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/08/week-in-review-chemical-weapons-possible-us-strike-on-syria.html?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=8083" href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/08/week-in-review-chemical-weapons-possible-us-strike-on-syria.html?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=8083" target="_blank">al-Monitor</a> and B<a data-mce-href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/8/31/hitting-syria-todeteriran.html" href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/8/31/hitting-syria-todeteriran.html" target="_blank">arbara Slavin (at al-Jazeera America)</a> have published analyses that make it clear: In the absence of any effective military option, the only possible path to calming the situation in Syria is negotiations. And those negotiations must include Iran. As al-Monitor notes, </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Unless the US commits all-out to regime change in Syria, which Obama said he has no intention of doing, a strategy to end the war necessarily involves diplomacy with adversaries as well as allies. The NATO air campaigns in Bosnia and Kosovo, often and rightly considered successes for US policy, included intensive direct diplomacy with all parties, including Yugoslav dictator and war criminal Slobodan Milosevic. You need a cease-fire by all sides to stop the killing. It was the Yugoslav government, after the Kosovo war, which arrested Milosevic and transferred him to the International Criminal Tribunal of the former Yugoslavia. There should be several lessons here for Syria.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Terrorism in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and maybe even Egypt would likely continue to surge even after a US strike absent a diplomatic strategy to end the war and address the now-rejuvenated terrorist threat in Syria.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It is the continuation of the war, the destruction of Syria, the rise of jihadists, the spread of terrorism to Syria’s neighbors and the waves of refugees that are the threats to US interests, and these are best handled by an immediate cease-fire and the start of negotiations — not by taking sides in the war. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The administration could seize the opportunity of the congressional debate to lay out the endgame in Syria with some clear benchmarks, beyond missile strikes in response to chemical weapons use, including: a channel with Iran; calling out both the Assad regime and the opposition, and especially their respective regional patrons, to enact a cease-fire immediately; urgently convening the Geneva II conference to include both the Syrian government and non-jihadist opposition forces, no exceptions; and a crackdown and some accountability on those US allies which directly or indirectly support the flow of jihadists to Syria. . . .</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Iran, more than any other power in the region, is the “dynamo” and broker of either war or peace. It is time to put Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to the test and bring the Syria war to a close.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But bringing Rouhani (and, by extension, of course, Khamenei) into a negotiation can happen only if Mr. Netanyahu is willing to give Mr. Obama the political space to reach out to Iran. As the two reports note above make clear, some of that outreach has already begun. But it can only go as far as Netanyahu and his confederates - both in Jerusalem and in D.C. - will let it. Bibi has invested enormous energy and cubic-yards of hot air in demonizing Iran (even referring to Rouhani recently as a "wolf in sheep's clothing") and its "existential threat" to Israel. Any attempt by Obama to bring Iran into putative cease-fire negotiations over Syria automatically lends respectability and legitimacy to the Iranian regime. It also undercuts not only Bibi's demonizing of Iran, but also his insistence that the threat of a military strike against Iran needs to remain unholstered.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yet, as is becoming clear, damping down Syria's violence and refugee flow - both of which have destabilized the countries bordering Israel and threaten thereby to impact Israel itself - is going to require Iran's acquiescence at the very least. That means reaching out and offering Iran some kind of role partnering with other countries that are interested in restoring some modicum of stability within which Syria - or whatever "Syria" is to become - can be sorted out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Is Bibi up to keeping his finger off the bash-Iran button? Giving Iran a chance to help restore some peace to the heart of the Arab world just might win Israel a few friends therein.</span>John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-48536605510222924792013-08-31T11:22:00.003-04:002013-08-31T11:24:19.515-04:00Syria Needs a Political Solution, Not John Wayne<div style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.666658401489258px;">
<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: 12pt;">Excellent post, with links, at Qifa Nabki<a href="http://qifanabki.com/2013/08/31/syria-the-political-solution/" target="_blank">http://qifanabki.com/2013/08/31/syria-the-political-solution/</a> on the uselessness of trying to use military force to impose a settlement in Syria. I might add:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: 12pt;">1. Obama needs to walk back his "red line" misspeak . . . and the commentariat needs to let him, even encourage him, to walk it back. He screwed up, and I'll bet he knows (and has been reminded umpteen times by his staff) that he screwed up. That a lot of innocent Syrian people are likely to be made collateral damage just because a president chose his words poorly is a war crime in itself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: 12pt;">2. John McCain and any putative <em>nuevos amigos</em> need to get it through their heads: this is no longer a John Wayne America. The US has no duty or prerogative - or, as Iraq and Afghanistan showed, capacity - to "get into the fight" and make the world right. Too many of my generation still have their heads shrink-wrapped around the heroic World War II America of "Sands of Iwo Jima" or the crusading (early) Vietnam War America of "The Green Berets." Asad is neither Tojo nor Ho Chi Minh (nor are Asad's backers - Vladimir Putin and the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - Leonid Brezhnev). The US can't "fix" Syria with military might. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: 12pt;">But what it could do - if certain parties would allow Obama the domestic political space - is lead an effort to get all parties to come together and make some hard deals. That means Iran, and Russia, and the Saudis, as well as Asad's people and representatives from the Syrian opposition, both Arabs and Kurds, both Islamists and not. It means the UN. It means the Arab League. Optimally, it ought not mean hard-line jihadists like Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS/ISIL (what exactly IS the appropriate acronym?), but with their presence now so firmly entrenched it would be difficult to shut them out completely.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;"><span style="font-size: 15.999991416931152px;">And especially, it means the neighboring countries (Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, including reps from the KRG) that are now straining under the humanitarian burden and responsibility of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugess. </span></span><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: 12pt;">Syria's fragmentation is probably too far along for even the most skilled political negotiations and daring compromises to patch together a unitary country. Notwithstanding, the focus now needs to be on ending the violence, from all sides, damping down sectarian anger, and healing devastated bodies, spirits, and communities.</span></div>
John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-23712551206643291382013-08-22T19:43:00.001-04:002013-08-22T19:43:53.896-04:00On the Destruction and Revival of the Egyptian Revolution<p><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">At Pandaemonium, <a href="http://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/on-the-destruction-of-the-egyptian-revolution/" target="_blank">Kenan Malik publishe</a>s a superb piece that locates the 3 July military coup that overthrew the government of Muhammad Morsi, and Al-Sisi's crushing of the Muslim Brotherhood, within the long history of the Muslim Brotherhood's treatment at the hands of Egypt's series of military-backed regimes since Gamal Abdul Nasser. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">He sums up:</span></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: x-small;">So what of the future for Egypt? What the past few weeks have revealed is the weakness of all sides. The Muslim Brotherhood is being crushed without too much resistance, exposing its lack of popular support. Liberal secularists, organizationally weak and politically incoherent, having failed to topple on Morsi on their own, have put faith in the military to do the job for them. The USA, and other Western powers, have discovered that they no longer possess much leverage over Cairo. The power of the Egyptian military has certainly been entrenched, but largely because of the weakness of other social forces.</span></span></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: x-small;">The revolution might have been strangled, but the yearning for democracy and freedom remains. If that yearning is eventually to be harnessed to help create a new, democratic Egypt, revolutionaries must learn the lessons of the current debacle. The real destruction of the Egyptian revolution did not come when the military seized power. It came when liberals and secularists backed the coup and justified the repression that followed. Democracy and freedom cannot be wielded in a sectarian fashion. And no one but the people themselves – not the military, not a foreign power – can be the harbinger of change.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: x-small;">Indeed. But it has been well noted that Hosni Mubarak's overthrow by "the people" in 2011 was "allowed" by the military, who were concerned that he was grooming as his successor his son Gamal, whose penchant for neo-liberal economic reforms would have imperilled their well-entrenched domination of parts of the Egyptian economy. Now "the people" need to regroup if they are to have any hope of reviving their revolution. Yet the Islamist element of "the people" have been labelled "terrorists" and are being systematically crushed by al-Sisi and his junta - as Malik notes, largely courtesy of liberals/secularists who'd two years ago been their compatriots in Tahrir Square. It stands to reason, does it not, that if they now - very belatedly - try to organize against the junta, the liberals/secularists will in their turn be smacked down.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: x-small;">So much for that "harbinger of change"?</span></span></p><p> </p>John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-87764072384648473122013-08-03T14:22:00.001-04:002013-08-03T14:22:26.881-04:00John Robertson: Why Kerry's "peace talks" will go nowhere<p>My <a href="http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/opinion/john-robertson-why-kerrys-peace-talks-will-go-nowhere_16784" target="_blank">latest essay</a> for <em>Your Middle East . . .</em></p><p> </p><div class="heading4" style="font-family: 'Roboto Condensed', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; color: #212a3a; word-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 5px; background-color: #ffffff;">John Robertson: Why Kerry's "peace talks" will go nowhere</div><h1 class="red" style="font-family: 'Roboto Condensed', sans-serif; font-size: 50px; color: #212a3a; word-wrap: break-word; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px; line-height: 55px; background-color: #ffffff;">"There's no way Kerry/Obama can insist on halting the settlement/colonization enterprise"</h1><div id="article_content" class="content" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; background-color: #ffffff;"><div class="theme_flag" style="float: left; display: inline-block; margin-right: 5px;"><img style="border: none;" src="http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/images/icon_banner.png" alt="Banner Icon" width="10" height="13" align="absmiddle" /> <span class="introblock3" style="font-family: 'Roboto Condensed', sans-serif; font-weight: bold; color: #cd0000; font-size: 14px; text-transform: uppercase; line-height: 12px;"><a style="text-decoration: none; color: #cd0000; font-size: 14px; line-height: 12px;" href="http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/hot-topics/israelpalestine_67">ISRAEL-PALESTINE</a></span></div><p style="margin-top: 0px;"><strong> </strong>Daniel Kurtzer and Gilead Sher have co-authored in LA Times an essay subtitled "<a style="text-decoration: none; color: #cd0000;" href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kurtzer-sher-peace-kerry-20130730,0,4218432.story">It's hard to resolve Israeli-Palestinian disagreements without the U.S. defining a path."</a></p><p style="margin-top: 0px;">You know what's driving me nuts about this entire enterprise? The fact that they're absolutely right, but also that there's no way the US can (or rather, will) do that at this point. Why? Because, at the very least, if this "peace process" is to have any chance to succeed, Israel has to stop - COMPLETELY - its ongoing colonization of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. (And in a truly just and righteous world - a world that actually abided by…what do you call it? Oh, yeah, international law - it would also uproot every Jewish settlement, including the massive settlements blocs, from the West Bank and bring all those settlers inside the 1967 borders. But let's not go any farther down that path right now.) <br /><br />But there's no way Kerry/Obama can insist on halting the settlement/colonization enterprise, because they know that the Republican-dominated House of Representatives - as well as a large portion of the US Senate - would stand by it. Remember, this is the same US Congress that only a few years ago practically led Netanyahu into its august halls on the back of a donkey and strewing palm fronds and hosannas in his path. And the Israel lobby, AIPAC, CUFI, the Washington Post editorial board, the Council on Foreign Relations (well, Elliott Abrams for sure) would scream bloody murderer and label Obama, Kerry, et al. anti-Semites, mullah-lovers, new-Holocaust mongers . . . any and every of the multitude of awful names and characterizations that people have come up with for people perceived not to "stand with Israel."</p><p class="quote" style="margin-top: 0px; float: right; width: 147.296875px; margin-left: 20px; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 10px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 6px; border-top-color: #000000; font-family: Roboto, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-style: italic; color: #000000;">Kerry's peace talks are a charade</p><p style="margin-top: 0px;">And this, despite the fact that many of Israel's leaders - perhaps even Bibi himself - recognize that without the creation of a viable, prosperous Palestinian state, Israel itself has no chance of remaining a truly democratic, Jewish-majority unless it either simply forces West Bank Palestinian Arabs into apartheid status or else forcibly expels them.<br /><br />The White House is facing a GOP-controlled House of Representatives whose members (especially those of the Tea Party extreme) nurture almost exuberantly an entrenched hatred of the president and the person that is Barack Hussein Obama, who must deal with their opposition - and must try to find a way forward - on issues ranging from health care, to immigration, to combating climate change. Obama is not about to wave before their eyes the new matador's cape that a demand for complete stop to Israel's creeping annexation of the West Bank would be.<br /><br />As part of his legacy, Obama will be able to say years from now that at least, via his secretary of state, he "tried" to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Perhaps some of the Democratic faithful will even believe him.<br /><br />But Kerry's peace talks are a charade. If he's lucky, the participants will close their talks with an announcement of some new "principles" or "understandings" for future discussion. </p><p style="margin-top: 0px;">Smiles, handshakes, expressions of gratitude and hope all around. But the beat(-down) for the Palestinians will go on. And the settlers will continue to grab their land.</p></div>John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-54389508488717899502013-07-06T11:49:00.001-04:002013-07-30T11:09:48.638-04:00Thoughts on Egypt's Coup, David Brooks, and Egypt's Countryside<p><span style="color: #800000;">This essay appeared in <em>Your Middle East </em>several days ago . . .</span></p><p>Egypt's Coup, David Brooks, and Egypt's Countryside</p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">This <a href="http://m.guardiannews.com/world/2013/jul/05/mohamed-morsi-downfall-egypt-rebels?CMP=twt_gu" target="_blank">Guardian piece </a>(co-authored by the superb Martin Chulov) about the ouster of Muhammad Morsi and the crucial role of the Tamarod petition drive in bringing it about leaves me with more questions about what's happened. It mentions that the Tamarod "coffee-shop" organizers were able to put on-line a petition calling for Morsi's removal. People could then print it out, sign it, and then hand it over to a Tamarod volunteer. Wonderful idea, no doubt.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">But, what about the thousands of Egyptians with no access to a computer, or a printer? I have to assume that many such people would have learned about Tamarod and then somehow found a way to have a copy printed for them. But what about the hundreds of rural villages where, I assume, computer access - not to mention basic literacy - is in short supply? Aren't these generally very traditional and conservative villagers among Morsi's - and the Muslim Brotherhood's - biggest supporters? In all the euphoric coverage of Morsi's removal, are their voices being heard, their wishes accounted for? Are any of those admittedly brave and intrepid reporters whose accounts and tweets have been sustaining us all getting any feedback from what the city-dwellers who are getting all the coverage might think of as the boondocks? If I'm not mistaken, during the overthrow of Mubarak in 2011, Islamist groups were bussing such people into Cairo, and they made their voices heard. What about now?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">And speaking of Islamists . . . . David Brooks' ill-considered <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/05/opinion/brooks-defending-the-coup.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss" target="_blank">NYT diatribe</a> against political Islamists leading governments has drawn lots of attention, much of it deservedly negative. To assert that Turkey is among those cases that supposedly prove that "radical Islamists" cannot run a government is absurd; Erdogan is hardly a radical (if Brooks thinks so, he needs to get out more), and his base of support in the AKP consists largely of pious, God-fearing, middle-class businessmen - the same kind of people whom Brooks customarily identifies in an American context as the rock-ribbed foundation of our glorious republic. But for Brooks to have taken it further and stated that Islamists don't have the "mental equipment" to run a government?! That's just stupid (again, see Mr. Erdogan) - and, as some have noted, could be construed as racist. Brooks might also note that some of the worthies currently serving in Congress are every bit as "Christianist" as Morsi is Islamist." Some of them - Louie Gohmert and James Inhofe spring to mind - to my way of thinking lack the "mental equipment" to run a government, largely because they're "Christianist." But could you imagine Brooks or his ilk lying down if someone said so in print?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">Finally, the more I read, the more I'm inclined to conclude that the obituaries for Islamism - and the Muslim Brotherhood - as a political force, and for Islamists as potential leaders of a modern government, are decidedly premature. Morsi's downfall seems to me largely the product of his own inexperience and political obtuseness - which add up to incompetence - and to the shambles of an economy and infrastructure that he inherited. Egyptians have fallen on extremely hard times in recent decades. Morsi and his people did nothing to make that better, but I don't see anyone waiting in the wings ready to sweep in and craft the brilliant policies and make the tough calls needed to resurrect the economy. Egypt now has to import a major proportion of its all-important wheat supply; its educational system, especially at the university level, teeters on the brink; and its population is choked with millions of young people with inferior education and correspondingly dismal prospects.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">Whoever might be elected president next will likely be permitted to come to power only if he can secure the generals' stamp of approval. Nonetheless, he will be confronted with the same harsh realities, will be expected to fix them, will likely find the challenge insurmountable, and will fail to make much (if any) progress. As recent events have made crystal-clear, the Egyptian people have run out of patience. They know how to organize protests and make their presence felt in the streets and on the blogosphere. But will the generals take kindly to their rising up against their approved man?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">At times like this, I've become fond of channeling General David Petraeus' famous question. I'll do it again. </span><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: 14px;">Tell me how this ends.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: 14px;">But I'd beware of anyone who says they know.</span></p>John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-27796208636110220722013-06-09T14:59:00.001-04:002013-06-09T14:59:41.724-04:00Why is Libya Considered a Win in Obama-Land?<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">Paul Pillar's <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/never-say-never-again-8566?page=show" target="_blank">take </a>on the elevations of Susan Rice and Samantha Power (inside whose head James Mann tries to crawl in this WaPo<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/inside-the-mind-of-samantha-power/2013/06/07/aebf2a32-cef0-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html" target="_blank"> piece</a>) raises a point that has dropped off Americans' collective radar: Why have we chalked up the Libya intervention as a win?</span></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: small;">The notion that this intervention [which both Rice and Power supported] was wise appears to rest on the idea that the target was a dictator nobody particularly liked and that in the civil war that was then ongoing people were getting hurt, as is always the case in civil wars. The notion also rested on the myth, unsupported by evidence to this day, that Qadhafi was planning some sort of genocidal bloodbath in eastern Libya and that failure to intervene would mean Rwanda all over again. The dictator was swept aside with U.S. and Western help, at minimal material cost to the United States, and so the episode gets casually put in the win column.</span></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: small;"><br /></span></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: small;">The actual balance sheet on Libya is far more extensive than that. The disliked dictator had already, through an enforceable agreement with the United States and Britain, given up his unconventional weapons programs and gotten out of international terrorism. He was still a quixotically inconvenient and sometimes disagreeable cuss, but he was not a threat. What we have had since he was ousted is extremist-infested disorder in Libya that has given rise to a flow of arms to radicals in the Sahel and incidents like the fatal encounter at a U.S. compound in Benghazi. (If Rice were being nominated for a position requiring Senate confirmation, this is the aspect of the Benghazi incident she ought to be grilled about, not some manufactured silliness about talking points.) We also have sent a very unhelpful message to the likes of the Iranians and North Koreans and have perversely affected their motivations regarding the possibility of reaching their own agreements with the United States.</span></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: small;"><br /></span></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: small;">It is remarkable that the Libyan intervention is so often considered a success. Let us hope that in the future when lessons are drawn from this episode—by either advocates or opponents of some future intervention—they will be drawn carefully, rather than in the simplistic manner that seems to have become respectable even among presidential appointees.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: small;">Pillar's take on the silliness of the (mostly GOP) hazing of Rice, Hillary Clinton, etc., in the wake of the Benghazi "scandal" is spot-on, and dovetails well with this Daily Beast <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/09/the-gop-s-gaping-growing-modernity-gap.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_morning&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet" target="_blank">report </a>about how the GOP's stance on modernity - and its unending, give-no-quarter hectoring of the Obama administration - are costing it its future with the young, educated College Republican types whose support it surely needs to keep. When a new GOP governor of Mississippi blames working mothers for illiteracy, and a GOP senator from Georgia attributes the US military's rape problem to hormones, can you blame the CR's for seeing what supposedly is their party as the party of stupid?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: small;"><br /></span></p>John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-16555192149038627982013-06-08T20:59:00.001-04:002013-06-08T20:59:04.074-04:00Stephen Walt on Obama and NSA<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">Stephen Walt at <a href="http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/06/07/the_tangled_web_of_empire" target="_blank">Foreign Policy</a> nails it:</span></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: small;">This situation gives those in power an obvious incentive to inflate threats. When no significant dangers are apparent, they will conjure them up; when real dangers do emerge, they will blow them out of all proportion. And having assembled a vast clandestine intelligence apparatus to go trolling for threats in every conceivable location, they can quell skeptics with that familiar trump card: "Ah, but if you knew what I know, you'd agree with me."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: small;">Boy George and his crew played this to the hilt after 9-11. It gave us the disaster that was (and truly still is) Iraq, the slow-motion defeat that is Afghanistan, and a blow to American credibility overseas that will likely not be repaired in our lifetimes.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: small;">We also hoped for better - indeed, were promised better - by the shiny-bright Mr. Obama in 2008. Instead, he has proved himself to be largely cast in the same mold as Mr. Bush, if not cut from the same faux-rawhide. And to embellish the "if you knew what I know" trope to which Walt refers, Obama played the "gee, when I'm done as president, everyone's gonna want to see my emails - but do you see me whining."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: small;">Seriously?!</span></p>John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752984089633542385.post-86061384762740886072013-06-08T14:06:00.001-04:002013-06-08T14:06:22.012-04:00Afghan Soldier Kills 3 Americans - and They Won't Be the Last<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">As <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/world/asia/4-soldiers-killed-in-afghanistan.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print" target="_blank">reported</a> via NY Times. ISAF spokesman says they expect more such attacks to come. Constantly puts me in mind of John Kerry's famous statement to Congress during Vietnam War - about no one wanting to be the last soldier to die in a lost war.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">And for any service vets or hyper-patriot chest-thumpers who might want to comment otherwise: yes, it is indeed a lost war. Sorry.</span></p>John Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05407496484937768135noreply@blogger.com0