Via Phil Weiss at Mondoweiss - From the world of Christian Zionist Fantasyland (well, that'd be insulting Walt Disney) . . . OK, maybe LooneyTunes (no, wait - that'd be dissing Bugs Bunny). Well, whatever . . .
The depth and intensity of the Christian Zionist/Likudnik lobby's hatred for Barack Hussein Obama would be almost comical, it that hatred wasn't so scary - and didn't proceed from some self-proclaimed love for Jesus.
I cannot recommend highly enough the essay that appears today at Juan Cole's "Informed Comment" site. Yoav Peled and Horit Herman Peled, two Israeli academics, rationally and succinctly conclude that the two-state solution beloved of the Clinton-Bush-Obama foreign-policy establishment (including Dennis Ross, the report of whose departure from the halls of the DoS seems to have been quite premature) is as dead as the proverbial doorknob.
Why? The settlements - and the settlers - of course.
That comes as hardly a surprise - except perhaps to Elliott Abrams, who has never relented in his opinion that the settlements are NOT the problem in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and ought not be the centerpiece in any "peace process." Well, folks, the peace process is going nowhere, and has been a sham in what amounts to living memory for many Palestinians - and I'm hard pressed not to believe that Mr. Abrams' attempts to deflect attention from the settlements was nothing more than a holding action intended to give Netanyahu and his ilk all the time they needed to cement those "facts on the ground." You can bet that whenever Mr. Abrams passes, something nice will be named for him in Israel.
What Peled and Peled recommend is most certainly the only remaining course of action that (1) provides at least some modicum of fairness and justice for the Palestinian people, and (2) might ensure the future viability of a state called "Israel" that might still constitute, to some extent, a Jewish "homeland":
Instead of pursuing the mirage of a two-state solution, would-be peace makers should recognize the fact that Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories in fact constitute one state that has been in existence for nearly forty-five years, the longest lasting political formation in these territories since the Ottoman Empire. (The British Mandate for Palestine lasted thirty years; Israel in its pre-1967 borders lasted only nineteen years). The problem with that state, from a democratic, humanistic perspective, is that forty percent of its residents, the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, are non-citizens deprived of all civil and political rights. The solution to this problem is simple, although deeply controversial: establishing one secular, non-ethnic, democratic state with equal citizenship rights to all in the entire area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.
The stability of the future secular, democratic Israeli-Palestinian state would depend not only on it being truly democratic, but also on the strictest constitutional separation between state and religion. This should not mean forced secularization or placing restrictions on the free exercise of religion, but it does mean that the state will neither sanction nor subsidize religious activities and institutions, nor will it tolerate religious practices that are discriminatory towards women.
Gee. The equality of all citizens, no matter their religious beliefs. Separation of religion and state. No discrimination against women. Kinda sound like ideas that most Americans would think of as distinctly all-American, don't they? And these ideas are being propounded by two citizens of Israel.
So, why do I feel safe and secure in assuming that those red-blooded all-American boys Mitt, Newt, and Rick (and - OK, OK - Barack too) would reject this solution outright?
As reported in the LA Times, the US Navy is now testing a new drone with "capabilities" that raise serious questions, once again, about accountability.
The Navy's new drone being tested near Chesapeake Bay stretches the boundaries of technology: It's designed to land on the deck of an aircraft carrier, one of aviation's most difficult maneuvers.
What's even more remarkable is that it will do that not only without a pilot in the cockpit, but without a pilot at all.
The X-47B marks a paradigm shift in warfare, one that is likely to have far-reaching consequences. With the drone's ability to be flown autonomously by onboard computers, it could usher in an era when death and destruction can be dealt by machines operating semi-independently.
Posted by Issandr el Amrani at The Arabist is an insightful letter from Jon Alterman (director of the Middle East program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS]) that outlines the positions of two opposing camps in DC regarding hoped-for outcomes of Egypt's ever-in-flux political situation. I highly recommend reading the entire piece, but the positions boil down to those who want to see the military dominate the Egyptian government vs. those who favor broader political participation via properly empowering parliament and the army's standing down and returning to the barracks. Alterman places himself in the latter camp, but evidently felt compelled to write the letter to refute el Amrani's accusations that Alterman in fact belongs to the former camp by his alleged affiliation with a so-called SQL (status-quo lobby) that prefers the "stability" that had been ensured by the previous military-based regime of Hosni Mubarak (and presumably by SCAF's retention of power).
Perhaps CSIS's heaviest hitter, though, and probably CSIS's most recognizable public face, is Anthony Cordesman. Cordesman was indeed an occasional critic of some of the more bone-headed initiatives and outcomes of Bush-era neoconservatism. But customarily he has been of the pragmatist-realist school, most notably, that element of it that tends to perceive Middle Eastern developments through the prism of the necessity of safeguarding American interests by preserving American global military supremacy (a theme he expressed, for example, in this 2008 WaPo piece about how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were still "winnable"). And for decades, of course, American interests and supremacy in the Middle East have been linked umbilically (at least in the eyes of the Beltway establishment - which includes CSIS) with Israel's interests and regional military supremacy.
Many would find it difficult to reconcile that stance with what Alterman says he favors (and I most certainly hope to see) - the Egyptian army standing down and stepping aside in favor of representative democracy - especially when that democracy is to be underpinned by a parliament dominated (as Egypt's now is) by Islamists, many of whom (despite recent statements to the contrary) have little patience with Israel and are going to be accountable to an electorate that likely has even less patience.
It's nice to see Alterman distance himself somewhat from the kind of working assumptions that seem to motivate Cordesman (and for that matter, so many of CSIS's stable of experts).
From Barbara Slavin at IPS comes a report that highlights US self-satisfaction with the EU's newly hardening stance against Iran, which recently culminated in harsher sanctions against Tehran, but that also suggests quite strongly that the EU's harsher approach reflects the extent to which the EU is essentially running scared before the Israelis' persistent threat to take military action and thereby plunge the region - and beyond - into a potentially catastrophic war:
European and U.S. experts on Iran cite the fear of a new war as a key reason for the EU decision.
"The French administration is worried about Israel attacking Iran this year," a French researcher, speaking on condition of anonymity because he advises the French government, told IPS Wednesday.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague, answering questions Tuesday in the House of Commons, said the new sanctions are designed to "to lead us away from any conflict by increasing the pressure for a peaceful settlement of these disputes."
The EU decision reflects Israeli success in pressuring both the United States and Europe. Israeli officials have repeatedly called for "crippling" sanctions against Iran, suggesting that might forestall their use of military force against Iran's nuclear facilities – and collateral damage in terms of sharply higher oil prices and increased regional instability.
There is particular concern that Israel might act in 2012 out of concern that Iran is nearing nuclear weapons capability and in the belief that the Barack Obama administration would be obliged to support Israel in a U.S. presidential election year.
Remarkable, isn't it? The supposed "light unto the nations" is able to hype what remains a non-existent existential threat into its own private casus belli, yet still feel confident enough of the good will (or, perhaps more accurately, domestic political realities) of the so-called "Great Powers" to blackmail them (us) into ramping up what already is amounting to an economic war that, frankly, is taking a much direr toll on the Iranian people than on the decision-makers of the Islamist regime. And all of this, over a nuclear program that the Iranians are, in fact, entitled to develop, as long as there's no proof that said program is being weaponized. As of this moment, there is no such proof. And quite frankly, given their history since 1980, which has included an invasion by Iraq under Saddam Hussein (who was supported by the US, whose navy effectively entered that war on Iraq's side with its actions in the Persian Gulf), followed by an invasion and occupation of Iraq by US-Anglo forces (during which the word in DC's halls of neocon wisdom was that real men go on to Tehran) - - how could anyone possibly blame them for wanting to possess a nuclear deterrent?
I have a proposal. The minute that it becomes plain that the IDF is indeed going to strike Iran and risk plunging us all into the abyss, the United Nations impose, immediately, economic sanctions of the harshest, most stringent kind on the state of Israel - and authorize all needed military action to induce the Israeli government to cease and desist in any military action against Iran.
Think that could ever happen? Naaaah.
But imagine if it did. Might that be just the kind of crisis that might, at long last, create the diplomatic leverage that might truly lead to a result that would benefit us all? I mean, specifically, the outlawing of all nuclear weapons in the Middle East - Israel included. (OK, the entire planet would be nice, but I'm willing to start off small.) Would that mean that the Arab countries would then turn against Israel and try to fulfill the Nasser-era pledges of driving the Israelis into the sea? I think not - and, at any rate, the UN (with the US and its allies) could surely pledge themselves to ensure Israel's security. But losing its nuclear trump card might force the Israelis to make some of those "painful concessions" that Netanyahu and his predecessors have so often talked about, but not make any serious effort to follow through:
Might that mark the end of Israel as a "Jewish state." Perhaps. But might not the creation of a truly binational, or multinational, Israel/Palestine/whatever become a blessing for all involved? The Palestinians restored to their homeland; the Jews of Israel no longer imprisoned by the bunker mentality with which they now are afflicted. Indeed, might not the creation of such an Israel be a true "light unto the nations"?
Peter Beinart "pens" at The Daily Beast a superb comment on GOP "amnesia" about the Iraq war, and about media's responsibility to hold to account people like Gingrich, Santorum and Romney, all of whom supported the invasion in 2003, and evidently believe even now that it was the right thing to do.
The extraordinary thing about today’s Iran debate is that being wrong about Iraq has barely undermined the hawks’ influence at all. In 2012, as in 2002, Republicans are driving the political discussion, and in 2012, as in 2002, Democrats are petrified about being seen as too soft. Once again the media, which did not cover itself with glory in the run-up to Iraq, bears part of the blame. To allow Gingrich, Santorum and Romney to saber-rattle on Iran, as they have in debate after debate, without forcing them to confront the consequences of their saber-rattling on Iraq, is professional malpractice. If I were John King—or his equivalent on another network—I’d force Gingrich to answer that question in every foreign-policy segment of every debate. Let’s see Newt demagogue his way out of that one.
(Beinart also mentions something I hadn't known: in a November debate, Gingrich said that if elected, he'd nominate John Bolton as his secretary of state. I can imagine few decisions that would be more damaging to US interests - and international respect for those interests (outside Jerusalem, that is) - than nominating this bullying, tactless, hard-Right neocon.)
That these same men can now bang the drum so insistently for military strikes against Iran and receive such lusty support from the GOP rank-and-file speaks volumes about the sad propensity for the American electorate to dismiss the past and move on to fix their collective gaze on the next shiny bauble that cable TV, You-Tube, or (metaphorically speaking) talk radio dangles before their eyes.
They might not have Iraq to so dangle (not that they care to anymore. "The troops" are outa there now, so what do we care, right?) Iraq's government seems to be well along the path toward dissolving, even as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki fashions the country into a police state (again) (according to a Human Rights Watch report - but reports of abuses by the Maliki regime have been appearing regularly, for months).
Thomas Friedman once noted (during the run-up to the 1991 Gulf war) that, before then, the US considered Saddam Hussein a thug, but at least he was "our thug." Saddam was, of course, no longer in "our" camp as of summer 1990 - and 23 years later (after what future historians - including yours truly in his forthcoming book - will likely term the US's Thirty Years War with Iraq), we invaded his country, got rid of him, and eventually helped install a new Iraqi leader, Nuri al-Maliki, whom George W. Bush sized up and touted as essentially one of "us."
Except now (actually, for a couple of years now), Maliki is likewise becoming a thug: detention, torture, demonization, secret police are all in his playbook. Yet Mr. Obama not cut the cord, nor will he - especially in an election season when GOP'ers who are already hammering him on his supposed weak-kneed response to the mullahs are also eager to label him as the president who "lost Iraq."
So, Maliki - like Saddam once was - is "our thug."
And if Iraq continues to boost its oil production, the US won't touch him.
Paul Rogers (at Open Democracy) has another installment of what's become his "Thirty Year War" series, which he started at the onset of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. He predicted then - even as the neocon/neanderthal warbands were dancing in jubilation around their campfires - that Mr. Bush's Mesopotamian adventure might not pan out, and that its consequences might linger ominously and long , perhaps as long as 30 years.
Boy, was Rogers right. The US's military adventure went bust, and Iraq seems to be well along the road to busting itself up. Its government and politics are in turmoil. Even with oil production inching upward, its economy is in shambles, with no real prospects for a recovery rapid enough to alleviate the destitution and psychological trauma that the US occupation inflicted on tens of thousands of its people - most notably, perhaps, its young people. A recent WaPo report featuring the current research of Iraq historian Eric Davis details much of this, along with consequences that bode very ill indeed for the future of Iraq as a unitary nation-state:
Some young Iraqis say they are glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein but feel less safe — and therefore less free — than before 2003, a sentiment reflected in dozens of interviews in eight provinces.
They view their government as a pseudo-regime that deprives them of basic rights, and they worry that their peers are being lured into the ethnic, sectarian and partisan traps of their elders. They think the world is fixating on revolutions in other Arab countries while ignoring a rotting democracy in Baghdad and their generation’s struggle to live the freedom that was promised to them 81 / 2 years ago.
“Our generation has seen enough,” said Baghdad resident Mustafa Hamza el-Ebadi, 21, who will graduate this spring with a degree in communication and engineering and wants to move to the United States. “When we were kids, there were economic sanctions. When we were teenagers, there were bodies in the street. And now there is no space to live.”
About half of Iraq’s 33 million people are 19 or younger, and no Iraqi born since Saddam came to power in 1979 has known the country to be without war or dictatorship.
Iraqis in their late teens and 20s “grew up in a very dangerous climate” that did not foster a “civilian mentality,” according to Abduljabbar Ahmad Abdullah, dean of the political science college at the University of Baghdad.
“The political socialization of that individual is not correct,” Abdullah said over tea in his campus office in October. “Every student belongs to his clan, not his country.”
When Iraqis talk about the fate of the younger generation, they use expressions similar to “crossroads” and “tipping point.”
“We are at a very critical period, with the deterioration of security and the elevation of corruption,” activist Hanaa Edwar said at a September peace festival in Baghdad’s Zawra Park. “Elections are not enough. We need active participation from young people. They are not yet polluted by politicians. They need more than hope. They need to be empowered.”
Over the past year, Rutgers University political science professor Eric Davis has conducted multiple focus groups of hundreds of Iraqis between the ages of 12 and 30. Broadly speaking, they said that they view sectarianism as damaging to their future and that they prefer not to belong to a political party. Most said that their lives have improved “somewhat” or “not much” since the U.S.-led invasion but indicated that they would not leave the country if given the opportunity, according to discussions compiled by Davis, a former director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers.
The problem, according to Davis, is that the economic and political structures are rigged to exclude most Iraqis, especially the young. Iraq ranks No. 175 of 178 as one of the world’s most corrupt countries on a list compiled by Transparency International.
Young Iraqis “have strong scores for civic motivation but no institutional outlet for that — that’s very damning,” said Davis, who will publish his findings next year in a special report for the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Iraq is just beginning to grapple with the repeated traumas it has suffered. Of the 8,000 clients at the Kirkuk Center for Torture Victims — which opened in 2005 to serve victims of Hussein’s regime — one-quarter are now dealing with psychological issues related to trauma since the American-led invasion.
“Some teenagers have a kind of phobia of going out because they’ve been raised in an environment of car explosions and kidnappings,” said Yousif Abdulmuhsin Salih, the center’s project manager. “And if parents are not treated, they can transfer their psychological condition to their children.”
Violence and dysfunction are part of growing up in Iraq and, as a result, people fend for themselves, said a 29-year-old named Mohamed, who insisted his last name be withheld because he has worked for the U.S. military and fears reprisal.
Unfortunately, as Rogers' essay makes clear, the violence and dysfunction inside Iraq may well extend into the foreseeable future. As the American military presence has wound down, bombings have been increasing, and are being perpetrated all over the country - from Basra to Mosul. There's absolutely no reason to believe that's going to stop, even with Iraqi PM al-Maliki detaining (and reportedly torturing) dozens of "Baathist terrorists" (read: Sunni Arab political opposition).
And it's not exactly as if the threat of further destabilization at the hands of the US has evaporated. As Rogers makes plain, American boots are no longer on Iraq's ground (save those of those lovable, ubiquitous contractor/mercenaries) - but the US Navy has ramped up its nearby presence:
The carrier battle-group (that is, an aircraft-carrier supported by a flotilla) headed by the USS John C Stennis has now departed to Singapore and thence back to the United States, to be replaced by the Carl Vinson carrier-battle group. In addition, though, yet another such group headed by the USS Abraham Lincoln has joined the fifth fleet in the region. While described as a "routine" deployment, this means that the Pentagon plans to keep two carrier battle-groups in the region for at least until April 2012.
The target, of course, is Iran. Even though the Israelis are backing away a bit from their attack-Iran rhetoric, and the Obama people are downplaying the Iranian nuclear threat, many in the US are trying to counteract that by banging their drums even louder. The novelist Mark Helprin recently wrote (in the WSJ - surprise!) of Iran as a "mortal threat" to the US; and the GOP presidential candidates (with the exception of Ron Paul, who likely won't be staying in the race much longer) are vying to see who can sound the toughest on the mullahs.
None of these people seem to be taking into account what would be pottentially catastrophic consequences of an attack on Iran: the thousands of Iranian (mostly Shii) refugees who might stream out of the country, likely into the southern (mostly Shii) region of Iraq. Tens of thousands of Iranians make religious pilgrimages to Najaf and Karbala every year. If they returned as refugees, one might predict that they would be welcomed at first, but as they became a drain on southern Iraq's already struggling economy and governance - and people - the Iraq "democracy" that neocons continue to tout as what Fouad Ajami called the "foreigners' gift") might crumble into complete chaos.
In which, Prof. Rogers' prediction of a Thirty Years War might prove to have been much too conservative.
The NYT on Israel's widening "seismic rift" between seculars and Ultra-Orthodox over the issue of women's public roles and rights.
And to this, Americans contribute how much of their tax dollars?
And for this, they get - what exactly - in return?
Vanity Fair has just published a lengthy, searing piece titled "Guantánamo: An Oral History." It ought to be read - and spread - by any American who cares about what we still like to think of as "American values."
The introduction sets the tone:
Camp X-Ray, where the first detainees at Guantánamo were imprisoned and interrogated, is today an abandoned site. The guard towers are empty, the weeds waist high. Banana-rat droppings litter the rotting floors. Newer prisons miles away hold the detainees who remain. And “remain” is the operative word. Although Barack Obama vowed to shut the facility down, the administration’s attempts to do so have been blocked by Congress, which refuses to authorize funds to transfer detainees to prisons on the U.S. mainland.
It has been an ugly, damaging experiment. The whole point of Guantánamo was to create a regime of incarceration and interrogation—including torture—that the law could not reach: a “legal black hole,” as the English court of appeal put it. Although the 45-square-mile naval base on the southern shore of Cuba is fully subject to U.S. writ—federal environmental laws even extend to iguanas, and killing one can bring a heavy fine—the Bush administration argued from the outset that Guantánamo was outside American legal jurisdiction, and that, in essence, its personnel could treat detainees as they wished. And they did, making the name “Guantánamo” a rallying cry throughout the Islamic world.
Quickly, the piece brings us to those early days post-9/11, when "American values" were held to the fire, and unfortunately emerged scorched and tattered. Witness this exchange between Bush-administration Dept of Justice people (including Alberto Gonzales):
January 12, 2002: A team of lawyers from the White House, the vice president’s office, the Defense Department, and the Justice Department flies to Guantánamo to observe the opening of Camp X-Ray. Manuel Supervielle (jag lawyer) About a half an hour or 45 minutes into the flight, Mr. Haynes calls me up to the front. He just said, Hey, Manny, do you have a minute? So I went up to the very front. Mr. Haynes was standing up, kind of crouching over because the plane was small. I went over next to him, basically facing towards the back of the plane with him to my left, and Mr. Gonzales is directly in front of me, and Mr. Thompson was to his left, and then Mr. Addington, and then Mr. Taft, and behind them were other folks. John Yoo and some others. Mr. Haynes says, Hey, Manny, we understand that you’ve invited the I.C.R.C. [International Committee of the Red Cross] to Guantánamo. Would you care to explain why you did that? And they said, You need to turn it off. I said, I don’t think I can do that. They all looked at each other, and Mr. Haynes says, Well, you made the call. You call and tell them that it’s not an option, it’s not possible. I said, If we cancel, it’s going to look bad. It’s going to look like we’re trying to hide something. At one point Mr. Gonzales said to me, he goes, Manny, by having the I.C.R.C. there, they’re going to report on everything they see. That stunned me, really. I said, Sir, first of all, the I.C.R.C. doesn’t report publicly on what they find. They report back to the detaining power. He says, How do you know that? I said, They have a 150-year history of doing that, a pretty well-established record. The entire article oozes with this stuff. That Mr. Obama has yet to close down Guantanamo has put a huge hole through the armor of shniy-bright virtue in which he clad himself in 2008. Shame on him. But that Mr. Bush and his cohort can now live out their buffered, sweet lives, and not be daily shunned and cursed by the public they claimed to serve - or prosecuted for the war crimes that they most surely did spawn - speaks volumes about the myth that we still call "American values."
