More Hijinks from Those Pesky West Bank Settlers

Settlers  drove up in a car, attacked a young kid, and killed his horse. (Report published via Mondoweiss)

Again, this kind of thing happens virtually everyday: beatings, harassment, occasional murders, poisoning of wells, uprooting or burning of olive trees, damage to houses - to relatively little notice in the US media.  Instead, Pastor Hagee and CUFA (Citizens United for Israel) take up collections to fund thugs such as these, and hail them as heaven-sent to liberate the "Holy Land" and hasten the "End of Days."

Toward a New Middle East

Paul Pillar weighs in with some very sage advice for the US as the Arab revolutions of 2011 unfold:

strategically it should consistently respect democratic outcomes. It should not peremptorily determine who is to be its friend or its enemy, and it should not choose friends just on the basis of their ideologies.

In the new Middle East, it will be even more important than before to expend the necessary effort and political capital to resolve the Palestinian issue. Movement toward popular sovereignty in Arab countries, far from being a distraction from this issue, has made even more glaring the lack of Palestinian popular sovereignty. Indefinite perpetuation of the status quo in the occupied territories would mean being on the wrong side of history.

The shape of the new Middle East, and the extent to which it really will be new and different, will depend on events yet to play out. There will be a tendency to overreact to many of those events. Some will be interpreted as either an end to a wave of democratization or as evidence of the wave's unlimited power. Neither such interpretation is likely to be valid. There will be plenty of material in the months ahead for further analysis and strategizing, but enough has happened already to have a sense of history's direction.

More on the Libyan Crapshoot

The hope-inducing news is that the Libyan government has declared a cease-fire.  What that means, how long it lasts, what happens now - all remain to be seen.  But as to the extent of the gamble that Obama and the UN are taking, Marc Lynch's piece at Foreign Policy (which was also highlighted by Andrew Sullivan)  is very good at laying it out.

The intervention is a high-stakes gamble. If it succeeds quickly, and Qaddafi's regime crumbles as key figures jump ship in the face of its certain demise, then it could reverse the flagging fortunes of the Arab uprisings.  Like the first Security Council resolution on Libya, it could send a powerful message that the use of brutal repression makes regime survival less rather than more likely. It would put real meat on the bones of the "Responsibility to Protect" and help create a new international norm.  And it could align the U.S. and the international community with al-Jazeera and the aspirations of the Arab protest movement.  I have heard from many protest leaders from other Arab countries that success in Libya would galvanize their efforts, and failure might crush their hopes.  

But if it does not succeed quickly, and the intervention degenerates into a long quagmire of air strikes, grinding street battles, and growing pressure for the introduction of outside ground forces, then the impact could be quite different.  Despite the bracing scenes of Benghazi erupting into cheers at the news of the Resolution, Arab support for the intervention is not nearly as deep as it seems and will not likely survive an extended war.  If Libyan civilians are killed in airstrikes, and especially if foreign troops enter Libyan territory, and images of Arabs killed by U.S. forces replace images of brave protestors battered by Qaddafi's forces on al-Jazeera, the narrative could change quickly into an Iraq-like rage against Western imperialism.   What began as an indigenous peaceful Arab uprising against authoritarian rule could collapse into a spectacle of war and intervention. 

The Libya intervention is also complicated by the trends in the rest of the region. There is currently a bloody crackdown going on in U.S.-backed Bahrain, with the support of Saudi Arabia and the GCC.   The Yemeni regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh is currently carrying out some of its bloodiest repression yet.  Will the Responsibility to Protect extend to Bahrain and Yemen?  This is not a tangential point.  One of the strongest reasons to intervene in Libya is the argument that the course of events there will influence the decisions of other despots about the use of force.  If they realize that the international community will not allow the brutalization of their own people, and a robust new norm created, then intervention in Libya will pay off far beyond its borders.  But will ignoring Bahrain and Yemen strangle that new norm in its crib? 

 And Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama poses many of the same questions I did yesterday - including the "Petraeus question." 

What happens if Gadhafi pulls back? Do we continue to try and press the advantage of the rebels until his government falls? Do we have the authorization to do that? Do we expect a civil war in Libya to drag out, and if so, how will we take sides? If Gadhafi falls, what comes next? What will the new Libyan government look like? Will they be friendly to U.S. interests? Someone please tell me how this ends.

The Libya Crapshoot Begins

Paul Woodward at War in Context  furnishes the numbers:

10 in favour, zero against, five abstentions.

Voting for the resolution:
Permanent members: United States, Britain, France
Non-permanent members:: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Gabon, Lebanon, Nigeria, Portugal, South Africa

Abstentions:
Permanent members: Russia, China
Non-permanent members: Germany, Brazil, India

The Resolution authorizes member states “to take all necessary measures… to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamhariya, including Benghazi, while excluding an occupation force.”

As Simon Tisdall writes for The Guardian (h/t to Paul again),

With a boldness that the world had begun to believe he lacked, Barack Obama has gone for broke. The US wants Muammar Gaddafi's head. It will not rest until he is deposed and there is regime change in Libya. And it will fight to get it.

The debate had been mostly about whether to impose a no-fly zone in order to deter Qaddafi and perhaps rescue the rebels whom his forces were pressing in Benghazi.  But as it was apparent that it was likely too late for a no-fly zone to have the desired effect, the decision is to up the ante. A no-fly zone is in itself an act of war. How much more so, the airstrikes that, some are saying, may come within hours.

Obama will not be going it alone.  As Leon Hadar argued for so forcefully in the CSM, the Europeans (who share with Mr. Qaddafi the same Mediterranean neighborhood) have at least as much at stake in the outcome of Libya's civil war.  Tisdall's piece makes it plain that the British and French have already engaged in contingency planning for their own military involvement; and in a statement that must be especially galling not just to Qaddafi, but to many Libyans (including perhaps the rebels), Italy, who under Mussolini brutally colonized Libya, has offered the use of its airbases.  How soon the European air forces will be ready (indeed, if they are truly ready at all) remains to be seen.  Will Qaddafi's forces stick with him?  Will his air defenses take some toll on British and French bombers?  Will they need to call for help from an already overburdened US?

And if Qaddafi decides to stand and fight, what if he is able even partially to follow through on what he now threatens his foreign enemies with?  As the NYT reports, Libya has asserted:

 “Any foreign military act against Libya will expose all air and maritime traffic in the Mediterranean Sea to danger and civilian and military facilities will become targets of Libya’s counterattack. . . .  The Mediterranean basin will face danger not just in the short term, but also in the long term.

Tisdall lays out many more of the what-ifs.  Some of them are truly daunting.

The longer term impact of the intervention is immeasurable – but disaster is certainly one possible outcome. Like the first Gulf war, the involvement and support of Arab countries means the Libyan war will not be defined, except by hardline jihadis and al-Qaida, as another western assault on Muslim lands. But if the fighting is prolonged, if Gaddafi does not quit and run, if his more able sons take up his cause, if the intervention makes things worse not better for ordinary people (as in Iraq), if there is no clear-cut win but ongoing low level conflict and resistance (as in Afghanistan), then Arab opinion will turn against the westerners once more. The post-9/11 nightmare of the Pentagon's long war without end will reproduce on the shores of the Mediterranean.

 And let's not forget that any war brings a multitude of unpredictable contingencies - including collateral damage from the "precision weapons" and "surgical strikes" that the US has used so profligately in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, at the cost of hundreds of innocent lives taken and hearts and minds lost.  And what if the struggle does devolve into an ongoing civil conflict?  What if Qaddafi (who likely is intent on, more than anything, surviving at this point) reaches out to enlist jihadists and "al-Qaeda" in the struggle against the Western neo-Crusaders and Zionists?  Libyan jihadists flocked to Afghanistan in the 1980s to take on the godless Communists - with our help.  And it's not as if Qaddafi won't have rhetorical ammunition with which to lure them.  America's perpetual campaign to ensure its influence in the Middle East is obvious to one and all throughout the region; and American boots are still on the ground in Iraq.  British boots were on the ground in Libya only 70 years ago during World War II. As for France: Mr. Sarkozy has hardly proven himself a friend of France's Muslims, much less those outre mer.

One can only hope that Qaddafi will (improbably) give up or flee, or can be "disappeared"; that his eldest son, Seif al-Islam, would then stand down (again, improbable); and that the leaders who might emerge from among the rebels can then produce a new government that can re-unify the country.  As was argued by Ali Abdullatif Ahmida in the NYT recently,

About 80 percent of Libyans now live in urban areas, towns and cities. Libya today has a modern economy and a high literacy rate. The leaders of the uprising include lawyers, judges, journalists, writers, scholars, women’s rights activists, former army officers and diplomats — a sizable urban elite that is battered and restive.

Promising raw material.  But let's also not forget that the country of Libya is hardly a "nation" - but comprises three separate, vast regions (most prominently Tripolitania in the west and Cyrenaica in the east) that were forced into unification under a very reluctant king in 1951, have labored under tribal divisiveness for centuries, and have no tradition of strong, enduring civil institutions, courtesy largely of Mr. Qaddafi's "visionary" politics.

So . . . even if this Euro-American gamble pays off and Qaddafi is eliminated quickly and with a minimum of further bloodshed and damage to infrastructure, what then?  Do Obama, Sarkozy, and Cameron simply dust off their hands, intone "our work is done here," and back away?

I've too often fallen back on the Petraeus query, but I'll nonetheless pose it again, and will hope that Mr. Obama has posed it to himself, and his advisors: Tell me how this ends.

Iraq to Allow Iranian Security Contractors?

You can hear them screaming in the Pentagon - and at DoS.  As reported in The National:

If true, the move would be highly contentious. The presence of US private security firms, such as Blackwater, which has been barred from working in Iraq and since rebranded itself as Xe to operate in Afghanistan, has long been controversial. A series of fatal shootings involving private contractors since the US-led invasion of 2003 led to their being widely viewed in Iraq as trigger-happy mercenaries.

With sectarian tensions still simmering, the arrival of Iranian security firms would not be welcomed by Iraqi nationalists who remember the eight-year war the two countries fought during the 1980s. In particular, hard-line Sunni factions have accused Mr al Maliki's Shiite-dominated government of being too closely allied with Tehran, and have resented the rise in Iranian influence over Iraq since Saddam Hussein was overthrown.

Israel Has the Right to Attack Iran's Nuclear Reactors Now

More fear-monge­ring by Dershowitz­. Please note:(1) He wants to tar Iran with the Itamar murders, even when there's absolutely no evidence of a connection­; (2) He claims that Iran wants to "wipe Israel off the map." As Prof. Juan Cole and others have noted repeatedly­, this supposed quote is a mistransla­tion; (3) Not even Israel's intelligen­ce people believe that Iran is currently capable of producing a nuclear weapon; (4) There is absolutely no hard proof that Iran is developing one - as opposed, by the way, to the "ideologic­al zealots" (to borrow D's characteri­zation of Iran's leaders) among Israel's leadership (I defy anyone to deny that Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman qualifies as such), who have one of the largest nuclear arsenals on the planet, as well as the hardware to deliver it. And finally, at a time when most of us are aghast at the prospect of a radiation catastroph­e in Japan because of the damage to several nuclear reactors, it is appalling that a supposedly ethically enlightene­d figure such Dershowitz would be so blithe as to wish such a catastroph­e on the people of Iran.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Saudi Intervention in Bahrain Highlights US Irrelevance

It's difficult to remember a time when so many crises beset the globe - or when a US president had so much on his plate.  The terrifying possibility of nuclear catastrophe that now faces Japan has everyone's attention (except at ESPN, where the NFL labor controversy is being pitched as the real doomsday), so much so that it might be easy to forget that the resistance fighters in Libya are facing defeat, and the fate of the revolution in Egypt may be hanging on the outcome of Saturday's referendum on proposed changes to the constitution (with many of the pro-reform groups urging a "no" vote).

But the Saudi/GCC intervention on the island of Bahrain may wind up becoming the most serious of all these crises. The NYT provides an excellent report full of insight into the potential implications; and, IMO, a must-read is the essay at Foreign Policy by Jean-Francois Seznec.  He concludes: 

 the future appears bleak. The Saudi intervention will no doubt provoke a reaction from Iran, which will argue that their Shiite brothers are being systematically oppressed. Any troubles caused by Bahraini Shiites will only provoke further Saudi intervention. Ultimately, the island risks falling under de facto, if not de jure, Saudi control.

The Saudi intervention, however small, is therefore a major step backward for the region. It represents a major slap in the face to the United States, a defeat for the liberal Shiite and Sunni elements in Bahrain, and ultimately a catastrophe for the entire Khalifa family, both the liberal and conservative wings, who may have just surrendered their power to the giant next door.

Again, this intervention by the Saudis (which, Seznec argues, came likely at the invitation of Bahrain's prime minister) comes only a few days after US SecDef Robert Gates' visit to Bahrain, where he urged the government to undertake significant reforms, and soon. Thus, the implied slap in the face of a United States that, thanks to the crippling military failures launched by Mr. Bush (and, unfortunately, continued in Afghanistan by Mr. Obama), can no longer afford to even entertain notions of military intervention that might destabilize things even further, as well as deplete America's already much-diminished coffers. (The WaPo also reports a new survey indicating that fully2/3 of the American public believes that the Afghanistan war is no longer worth fighting.)

Despite the assumptions of neocons like Fouad Ajami and Paul Wolfowitz, the US does not have the power - nor did it ever have the power - to change destinies and determine outcomes in the Middle East. And because of the costs of its ill-considered interventions, it is rapidly losing the ability even to influence them: in Libya, in the Persian Gulf, or even between Israelis and Palestinians.

Mr. Obama might be well advised to consider stepping away from Afghanistan, rolling back the American empire of miltary bases across the planet, and applying America's still considerable economic machine to rebuilding American infrastructure, education, and confidence.  In the process he might just be saving democracy, which is now imperilled in some states (for example, in Michigan, where the new Republican governor is about to sign legislation authorizing him to appoint "emergency managers" empowered to step in and take over the fiscal management of selected cities and towns. So much for self-government.)

And America's wealth might be employed just as fruitfully to assist the recovery and rebuilding so necessary for our allies and friends, the people of Japan. 

Bahrain: Is It Decision Time for Iran?

George Friedman at Stratfor with an interesting laying-out of scenarios now that the Saudis (evidently, as apart of a coalition) have sent forces across the causeway to Bahrain, to bolster the Sunni monarchy against the current uprising, which stems in part from discontent among the Shii-majority population.

As the report makes clear, the potential implications for Iraq are significant.  Add to that this disturbing comment:

If Iran simply does nothing, then the wave that has been moving in its favor might be stopped and reversed. They could lose a historic opportunity. At the same time, the door remains open in Iraq, and that is the main prize here. They might simply accept the reversal and pursue their main line. But even there things are murky. There are rumors in Washington that U.S. President Barack Obama has decided to slow down, halt or even reverse the withdrawal from Iraq. Rumors are merely rumors, but these make sense. Completing the withdrawal now would tilt the balance in Iraq to Iran, a strategic disaster.

Neocons Rise to the Bait - a New Country to Save

I've been away from internet access for more than a week (visiting family and then conventioneering - American Oriental Society in Chicago), which has kinda knocked me off stride as regards keeping up with this blog. My handy iPhone at least kept me tuned in enough to be shocked by the damage the recent earthquake and tsunami did to Japan - and fretful about the potential for nuclear disaster if the problems with the reactors at several of Japan's nuclear power plants are contained.

And it's also evident that Japan's troubles have sucked much of the air out of the reporting on the civil war in Libya, where Mr. Qaddafi has regained his footing and his armed forces are inexorably driving back the rebel forces.  That is now confronting Mr. Obama with a major dilemma as to the appropriate US response: isolate Qaddafi (which provides no real help to the now reeling rebel forces), or intervene militarily via a US-led no-fly zone over Libya (which, as SecDef Robert Gates made very plain, would have to begin by attacking Libya's air-defense systems - i.e., with an overt act of war).

But as if Mr. Obama already didn't have enough to deal with, now a cast of infamous characters have re-emerged to heap opprobrium upon his graying head for not jumping into the Libyan fray with both feet. I speak, of course, of those pesky neocons - those heroic, lusty cheerleaders and armchair generals of the US's recent military adventure in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Fox News, of course, has no shame in calling upon such worthies.  But I find it especially galling that others of the MSM are calling upon people like Fouad Ajami and Paul Wolfowitz to plumb their "expertise."  CNN recently pitted Ajami against Gen. Wesley Clark in re the merits of a no-fly zone.  Clark sensibly spoke of costs vs. benefits; Ajami, on the other hand, spoke of America's tradition of "rescuing" countries in trouble, and the shame that, in his view, Obama deserves for holding off.

Prof. Ajami, of course, has become the media's favorite pet Arab, a supposedly authentic Middle Eastern voice whose accent, eloquence, and academic pedigree are supposed to reassure us that he somehow speaks for the intelligent people of the Middle East.  This is, however, the same Fouad Ajami who cheered so loudly for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, which he described - and still touts - as (in his book of the same name) "The Foreigner's Gift."  As millions of Iraqis have learned, it's a gift that keeps on giving, even if many of them at this point would likely opt to return it for a refund if that were possible.

And as for Wolfowitz? Maureen Dowd's essay in today's NYT says it all. She reminds us up front of Mr. Gates' comment on the advice that Wolfowitz's former boss gave to W.:

as Defense Secretary Robert Gates told West Point cadets last month, “In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.”

Turning then to Wolfowitz himself, Dowd notes: 

 Wolfowitz, Rummy’s No. 2 in W.’s War Department, pushed to divert attention from Afghanistan and move on to Iraq; he pressed the canards that Saddam and Osama were linked and that we were in danger from Saddam’s phantom W.M.D.s; he promised that the Iraq invasion would end quickly and gleefully; he slapped back Gen. Eric Shinseki when he said securing Iraq would require several hundred thousand troops; and he claimed that rebuilding Iraq would be paid for with Iraqi oil revenues.

How wrong, deceptive and deadly can you be and still get to lecture President Obama on his moral obligations?

 

End of Pan-Arabism?

Leon Hadar (Cato Institute) has a nice essay at the National Interest site, about the "burying" of pan-Arabism and the emergence instead of local nationalisms largely rooted in the 20th-century state system in the Middle East, though with overtones of ethnic, sub-regional nationalism in (for example) Iran and Turkey, as well as among the Kurds.

The Arab Middle East and its peripheries will not evolve into a unified Islamist empire that will try to obliterate Israel. Instead, the Arab and non-Arab Middle East will take the shape of a colorful mosaic of nations, religious and ethnic groups, and a new regional balance of power under which one should expect growing tensions among Egypt, Iran, and Turkey. Israel and other regional players—including neighboring Europe that shares historical, geographical, economic, and demographic ties with the region— will probably look to exploit this tension.

And the appropriate role for the US? Stop supporting the autocrats, and allow the peoples of the region to shape their own futures.  All good, although . . .

The issue of the Arabs of Gaza/West Bank/Palestine still hangs out there. And as long as Israel refuses to make what they will surely see as "painful concession" - but which much of the rest of the world sees as conforming to the tenets of established international law - extremist/jihadist Islamists are going to have a tool with which to attack and isolate Israel and its economy.

Afghanistan: Winning more Hearts and Minds

The NYT reports that NATO helicopters yesterday killed 9 boys collecting firewood to heat their homes.  Petraeus has apologized.  But in the village where the boys were from:

More than 200 people gathered in Nanglam on Wednesday to protest the boys’ deaths, witnesses said. Waving white flags, they shouted “Death, death to America” and “Death to Obama and his colleagues and associates.”

This has happened too many times - in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Iraq - for Americans (including the McCain-Lieberman-Graham faction in the US Senate) to shrug and glibly remark, 'Hey, it's too bad, but it's war.  And after all, we're fighting to win these folks THEIR freedom."

I'm sure they're all going to thank us someday.

No Anchors Aweigh for the 5th Fleet - U.S. Backs Bahrain Royalty

As the WSJ reports this evening, "The U.S. is stepping up its support for Bahrain's beleaguered ruling family, throwing a lifeline to a key ally and signaling Washington's willingness to vary its approach depending on its strategic interests and the willingness of autocratic leaders to respond to popular protests."

Anthony Cordesman elaborates further on the logic, saying that  

the Obama administration understood that it can't respond to the unrest sweeping the region with a "one-size-fits-all" approach. "These pressures occur in very different regimes with very different social and economic situations, and the administration has to be pragmatic," he said. While Mr. Mubarak in Egypt and Col. Gadhafi in Libya showed a "systemic resistance to reform," the royal family of Bahrain has made "serious promises of change."

I've often valued Mr. Cordesman's pragmatic, no-nonsense approach, but at least in what's quoted by the WSJ, he avoids mention of some of the principal imperatives underlying Mr. Obama's pragmatic willingness to give Bahrain's monarchy a second chance after its security forces brutally murdered demonstrators:

• the US Fifth Fleet - the guardian of the oil-tanker routes upon which so much of the global - and US - economy depends - anchors in Manama's harbor
• the Saudi monarchy is desperate to ensure that the lid be kept on on Bahrain, (a) where a Sunni monarchy rules over a Shia-dominant population, and (b) which is separated only by a causeway from the Shia-dominated eastern province of Saudi Arabia - which also happens to be where much of the Kingdom's oil lies.  It was also widely reported today that the Saudis were shipping tanks (not the oil kind; the kind with treads and big guns) to Bahrain, presumably to bolster the Bahraini military against any possible surge in protests.

You can bet that Obama-Clinton are watching Bahrain (and, for that matter, Oman, where protests are cranking up) carefully, and nervously.  The US has come down decisively on the side of most of the anti-autocrat, pro-democracy protests across the Middle East - in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya (not so much in Yemen though, where Mr. al-Saleh today accused the US and Israel of mounting a conspiracy against him, but where the US probably fears that his overthrow will open space for al-Qaeda extremists to become stronger) - and Mr. Obama has mostly positioned himself as a staunch supporter of democratic reform throughout the region.

But how far will Obama go as Defender of Democracy if the safety of the Persian Gulf petroleum routes comes into play?  The recent confusion surrounding oil supply from Libya has already played havoc with US gasoline prices.  A real crisis in the Gulf could send oil futures - and those gas prices - sky high, and wreck the economic recovery that has begun to position Mr. Obama very nicely as the 2012 election season approaches.  But if, to preserve access to oil, Obama decides to play the stability/pro-autocrat card against a ratcheted-up pro-democracy movement on Bahrain, he could imperil US influence with pro-democracy, mostly young (read: the future) Arabs across the region.

And that could affect attitudes toward other US clients in the region: Jordan, Iraq . . . and Israel.