Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘foreign policy’ Category

Syria is a bad bet

Posted in foreign policy, Syria, United States on January 27, 2013| Leave a Comment »

This article originally appeared in The Rutland Herald and The Barre Times-Argus. It is the third in a series that began with “Middle East: Cauldron of Conflict” which was published in these papers on December 13, 2012.  The series will consider the Arab Spring, the transfer of democracy to the region and the realities as they evolve in the countries involved.

Like so many countries in the Middle East, before the end of the First World War, Syria was ruled by foreigners.  Canaanites, Phoenicians, Aramaens, Egyptians, Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians and Hittites prevailed in the pre-Christian era, to be followed later by the Persians, Macedonians, Greeks, Romans and Byzantines.

The spread of Islam in the 7th Century brought Syria into the Islamic Empire, only to be followed, inter alia, by Crusader, Mongol and Mamluk rulers.  Some stability was finally achieved when Syria became a part of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th Century and remained there until World War One, whence it emerged under French Mandate.

The French granted Syria independence in 1946.  However, this new Syria lacked political stability, undergoing a series of military coups during its early years.  Coerced stability was finally provided in 1970 when Hafez al-Assad, a member of the minority Alawite sect, seized power in a coup.

Along with its fragmented history and lack of experience with self-government, Syria is afflicted with the three prevalent, negative imperatives of the Middle East:  Nationalism, Sectarianism and Tribalism.

Although tribal and nationality issues have always existed in Syria, they have generally been of lesser consequence.  It is in the sectarian arena that Syrian stability has proven most vulnerable.

Sunni Muslims represent about 74% of the population of 22.5 Million Syrians, with Alawites and Druze (both subgroupings of Shia Islam) at 16% and Christians at 10%.  The problem for Syrians is that the minority Alawites under the Assad family have ruled the majority Sunnis and the Christians with an iron fist, killing whenever they felt it necessary.  In the Hama massacre of 1982, estimates of deaths run from 20-40,000, a figure only to be exceeded in today’s ongoing war of the Alawites against their Sunni enemies.

As the only Alawite (Shia) minority government in the Middle East, the Assad regime has had the full support of Iran.  In fact, Iran has supported all Shia groups in the Middle East, in the Gulf States and Lebanon, for example.  Interestingly, at a time when a Majority Shia population was being repressively ruled by a minority Sunni government in Iraq, the exact opposite was taking place in Syria.

The significance of the friction between Shia and Sunni cannot be overstated.  These two sects are in hot wars wherever the opportunity presents itself, as in Syria and Iraq.  As the primary supporters of Shia Islam (Iran) and Sunni Islam (Saudi Arabia) in the Gulf, and as those two countries in the region that seek regional hegemony at the other’s expense, an ongoing political war exists between them.

Because of demographic realities, the Syrians are in the unfortunate position of being the surrogates for this intra-Islamic conflict.  Iran is most certainly providing broad support to Syria’s Alawite leadership and Saudi Arabia is said to be providing the same to the anti-Assad Syrian rebels.

Perhaps this fact is not, in itself, sufficient cause for major long-term concern.  The problem is that the Syrian conflict, aided and abetted by Iraq’s sectarian carnage, could very easily slip into a regional conflict pitting Iran and her Arab Shia allies against the region’s majority Sunnis.

Whether that happens or not, the major concern facing anyone who is truly concerned about the future of the region, and that should include America, is what will follow the Assad family’s Alawite regime into leadership in Syria. This is the reality that dominates US policy making.

Every entity that serves the Assad regime today has, in doing so, forfeited any conceivable claim to acceptable governance in Syria.  Their hands are simply too bloody and when they do fall, which they most certainly will, they will be lucky to leave Syria on anything other than a slab.  This observation would argue strongly that post-Assad Syria is likely to be chaotic and essentially ungovernable.

At this moment there are reports that myriad anti-Assad rebel forces are in conflict with one another over the considerable booty liberated during the course of the ongoing civil war.  That sad reality offers no viable, desirable candidates for future Syrian governance.

We don’t really know who these people are or what they stand for.  That is almost certainly a contributing factor to the Obama administration’s completely understandable decision to opt for the lightest possible observable footprint in Syria.

Any deeper, more specific commitment to rebel groups that are are essentially unassessable could very well be to a group that will not be able to effectively govern, leaving their more heavily involved backers with a frightful mess on their hands.

Any bet in Syria today is a bad bet.

Read Full Post »

Egypt on cusp of change

Posted in Egypt, foreign policy, Middle East, United States on January 3, 2013| Leave a Comment »

This article originally appeared in The Rutland Herald and The Barre Times-Argus. It is the second in a series that began with “Middle East: Cauldron of Conflict” which was published in these papers on December 13, 2012.  The series will consider the Arab Spring, the transfer of democracy to the region and the realities as they evolve in the countries involved.

Voting on the new Egyptian constitution, which was written almost entirely by the Muslim Brotherhood, shows the Brotherhood won. However, with internal dissent evident in the low overall voter turnout of 32.9 percent, and street protests mounting, it is time to take a closer look at the likely ramifications of that divisive win. To do that, it is critical that we understand more about Egypt’s history, what the Muslim Brotherhood is and what it stands for.

Although Egypt has some of the issues of tribe, sect and nation that affect stability in the “countries” of the Middle East created over the past 150 years by Western imperial powers, what is happening there right now has its own very distinctive Egyptian markings.

Since its beginnings before 3000 B.C., Egypt has not avoided repressive rule. The last native Egyptian dynasty fell to the Persians in the fourth century B.C.. Since then Egypt has been ruled by Greeks, Romans and Byzantines. Arabs have ruled only since the seventh century A.D.

Thus, Egypt has not escaped the one reality that dominates the evolving political scene in the Middle East. Since the seventh century A.D., the Egyptian people have no direct, personal experience with democracy, only with the realities of repression, Islam and Sharia law and military dictatorship.

In 2011, the Egyptian people overthrew the military dictatorship that had been in place since 1952, most recently under General Hosni Mubarak. Since 1952, Egypt has no native experience with governance except through military repression. What makes Egypt different from the many other Arab countries that suffered under military dictatorship is that, since 1928, Egypt has had the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood was founded as an Islamist religious, political and social organization. What has made it unique in the Muslim Middle East is that, despite numerous, often brutal, governmental crackdowns, it has functioned as a disciplined political opposition to Egyptian regimes in power. The point is that it has been involved in governance for over 80 years.

That means that when Mubarak was overthrown, the only two organizations with any kind of practical political experience were the Brotherhood and the Egyptian military. It seemed inevitable that one or the other would grab the reins.

Tahrir Square in 2011 was populated by people of widely differing motivation ranging from the rigid Islamist views of fundamentalist Salafists to the rather fuzzy democratic views of the many secular Egyptians who had had some indirect brush with democracy. Unfortunately, the secular forces are untidy, uncoordinated and disunited. The closest they have come to unification, organization and any hope for power has come with the National Salvation Front headed by Muhammad el-Baradei, former chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

And while el-Baradei was getting his act together, the Brotherhood was in full swing. Through their new political party, the Freedom and Justice Party, it ran in and won the elections of November 2011. Muhammad Morsi, a leading figure in the Brotherhood and chairman of the Brotherhood’s party, ultimately was declared winner of the election and president of Egypt.

Since then, Morsi has acted decisively to consolidate his position. He has, at least for the moment, emasculated whatever hopes the Egyptian military may have had for power. He took over the Constitutional Assembly that wrote Egypt’s future constitution, causing the resignation from that body of virtually all those Egyptians who might have disagreed with the Brotherhood’s position.

Finally, he unsuccessfully tried to arrogate to himself all the powers previously vested in Egypt’s judicial system, effectively neutralizing any possibility that the courts would rule the assembly or its constitution to be illegal. Hardly a democratic process!

The Muslim Brotherhood’s credo was and is, “Allah is our objective; the Quran is our law, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.”

Its principles include the introduction of Sharia law as “the basis for controlling the affairs of state and society”; and to work to unify “Islamic countries and states, mainly among the Arab states, and liberate them from foreign imperialism.” If this represents the true beliefs of President Morsi, then under his rule Egypt would appear to be heading in the direction of sectarian Islamism of an intensity as yet undetermined.

So, the issue is: Will Eqypt be ruled by an ideologically true Muslim Brotherhood, or has Mr. Morsi, only recently a significant player in the Brotherhood, really been able to effect democratic changes as he claims to have done in an organization that for 84 years has been traditionally hostile to the most basic tenets of democracy?

Whatever evolves, Egypt will remain internally divided and difficult to govern until the political needs of all its citizens are more fully considered.

AP FILE PHOTO Thousands of Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square in Cairo to attend the funeral of activist Gaber Salah, who was killed in clashes with security forces in November.

Read Full Post »

Middle East: Cauldron of Conflict

Posted in foreign policy, Middle East on December 13, 2012| Leave a Comment »

This article originally appeared in The Rutland Herald and The Barre Times-Argus.  It is the lead article of a series that will consider the Arab Spring, the transfer of democracy to the region and the realities as they evolve in the countries involved.

For many Americans, the Middle East is a bewildering and confusing place.   Absent a better understanding of the complicated realities in the Middle East, this situation is likely to continue, since the ultimate outcomes of the Arab Spring are and will remain cloudy for a very long time.

In the 19th and 20th Centuries, when the European colonial powers carved out most of the “countries” that exist in the Middle East today, they divided the entire region to suit their own convenience and for their own profit.  In the process of doing so, they set in concrete the realities that now cause most if not all of the friction, anger and bloodshed that is part of life in today’s Middle East.  There are few countries there that are internally content.

Taking Iraq as an example, and recognizing that it is simply symptomatic of conditions that exist almost everywhere else in the region, we find the following very real sources of domestic conflict in that country of roughly 31 million souls:

Nationalism: Iraq is comprised of 75%-80% Arabs, 15%-20% Kurds, and 5% Turkmen, Assyrian, or “others”.  In this context, it is important to realize that with a total population of about 30 million spread throughout the Middle East, Kurds comprise the largest national group in the world without a country of their own.

Sectarianism: 97% Muslim, Iraq is comprised of 60-65% Shia Muslims and 32-37% Sunni Muslims, with a smattering of “others”.  Again, it is important to understand that although they are the majority and now in charge in Iraq, the Shia before the 2003 US invasion were often brutally ruled by Saddam Hussein’s Sunni Iron fist.

Tribalism:  Tribes have long played a critical role in Iraq. The Albu Nasir tribal group, of which Saddam’s “Tikrit” tribe was a member, is one of many tribal groups that played extremely important roles in pre-Arab Spring Iraq and will continue to do so in the future as individual tribal groupings within Albu Nasir contest for power and influence.  In addition to Albu Nasr, there are at least 150 tribes in existence in Iraq, each advocating for the wellbeing of its members.

But those realities aside, who are we to say that our  democracy should override what we think of as the shortcomings of the Koran in which they so devoutly believe?

All of the countries in the Middle East are affected to one degree or another by these three realities of Tribe, Sect and Nation.  These have led both foreign and native governors of the inherently fractious Middle East to maintain order by repressing those conflicts with iron-fisted rule.  During the post World War II period, American policy, dictated largely by our perceived demands of the Cold War, has been to support those repressive regimes, opting for stability in favor of the rights of the governed.

In this respect, one has to wonder why a succession of American administrations has insisted that we are there, “bringing Democracy to the Middle East”.  What could conceivably be more laughable?  Of course the real reason for such pronouncements by Democrats and Republicans alike is that they are trying to reassure an ill-informed American public that the fruits of our American Exceptionalism – Democracy – will somehow make the world right again.

Where it is possible in the very long run, at least many decades from now, that some or all of these countries may somehow evolve into democratic rule, it seems unlikely.  With millions of people who are totally unfamiliar with Democracy and possess few if any of the necessary preconditions for the establishment of Democracy (pluralism, the general right to vote, fair elections, the rule of law, guaranteed human tights for all, separation of powers, freedom of speech, press and religion, good governance and the absence of corruption), it seems highly unlikely that democracy will find fertile ground there.

Instead, we might hope for self-determination; that the people get to select the kind of governance they want.  We will not see democracy flourish.  We will see halting and imperfect steps taken by some good people who seek power for their people and some bad people who seek it for themselves or their causes.  It is likely to be painful and often violent and perhaps brutal, but it will be their own.

Given our recent activities and policies, we have little credibility in the Middle East.  We cannot hope successfully to impose any sort of system on them.

We can only hope to polish up our own rather tarnished “Shining City” to the point where others might want to emulate it.

Read Full Post »

The CIA and Paramilitary Ops

Posted in CIA, foreign policy, Middle East, Pakistan on December 11, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Originally published in Sic Semper Tyrannis

 

The Central Intelligence Agency was born out of American experiences in the Second World War and our anxiety over Soviet intentions and activities in the post war period.

 

Having had no formal intelligence organization prior to World War Two, the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, was put together under the Joint Chiefs of Staff to meet the needs of the war itself.  That meant that the origins of the American intelligence were paramilitary.  The OSS was there, in effect, to fight the war from a paramilitary perspective.  OSS parachuted into occupied Europe and contacted indigenous partisan groups there.  They blew up bridges and dams and other important pieces of European infrastructure.  They were, quite simply, heroes running the unconventional part of our war against the Axis powers.

 

We came out of that hot war into the Cold War.  Many of the people who had run OSS during the hot war were tapped for leadership roles in the new CIA.  And that was what we got, a management structure whose primary experience was in paramilitary, hot war operations.  And we were facing the entirely new requirement that we produce intelligence on the capabilities and intentions of our enemies in a peaceful environment, a task that was essentially alien to a majority of our managers.

 

The CIA headed into the Cold War largely unprepared to run the kinds of operations that would be required of it.  The Cold War was an intelligence war of subtleties.  No more hand grenades or parachute drops.  No more paramilitary operations.  No more hot war.  Just the difficult and demanding job of recruiting spies in the Soviet empire and running them in place in hostile environments characterized by pervasive 24/7 surveillance.  We did this with no experienced leadership.  We felt our way, had our share of failures, but ultimately got to the point where we could recruit the kinds of assets we needed and then run them in place in their homelands.

 

The Cold War ended.  A decade later, we were suddenly post-9/11.  And where did that put us?   Right back in a paramilitary environment without the guidance and experience of all those Second World War OSS veterans who actually knew how to run the needed operations!

 

So, the twenty-first century edition of the CIA rushed back headlong into paramilitary operations.  Having cut our teeth in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, we now found ourselves back in a kind of role reversal.

 

According to press reports, that has now morphed into the lead role in the drone business.  CIA, the organization that had to work its tail off to get out of the paramilitary business, is now back in that business in spades.  The real question here is not the alleged validity of the drone program.  It is to question the appropriateness of having it vested in the CIA.

 

This is not the first time this discussion has emerged.  In the early years of the CIA, two completely separate organizations within the Agency ran intelligence operations.  OSO conducted intelligence collection operations, where OPC was responsible for what remained of the OSS’s psychological and paramilitary operations.  The ultimate decision was that they would be combined with the result that an uneasy relationship existed between them throughout the Cold War.

 

Those who conducted intelligence collection operations always felt there was a real incompatibility in being lodged in the same organization with those who ran our propaganda and paramilitary operations.

 

Since its inception, the CIA has been charged with producing intelligence on the capabilities and intentions of its enemies.  To have propaganda operations, and, even more, paramilitary operations, woven into the same organization is not good thinking, however “convenient” it may be.  At best the relationship is uneasy, at worst it is competitive and self-destructive.

 

An excellent example of this is Pakistan today where, given the realities of Pakistan’s perpetual and dangerous rivalry with a nuclear India, the organization that allegedly flies the hated drones hamstrings itself when it is the same one that is responsible for securing the covert cooperation of important people who are our best hope for learning what’s really going on in that important, nuclear country.

 

If the US Government must have a paramilitary drone capability, then it should be lodged somewhere in the military establishment or in an organization completely separate from our CIA and its human collection operations.  To put it anywhere in the CIA is risky, foolhardy and ultimately counterproductive, serving neither our covert human collection nor our paramilitary operations.

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Fuse is short in the Middle East

Posted in foreign policy, Middle East, terrorism, tagged on October 7, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Originally published in The Rutland Herald and the Barre Times Argus

 
Normally, an armed attack on an American diplomatic installation abroad and the death of four American officials in that attack would evoke unanimity in our domestic political structure. This time in Libya it has not.

But, wait, it’s election time, and anything that either party can do between now and the November elections to humiliate or undermine the opposition is fair game for the politicos.

When the matter of the anti-Muslim film produced in America and the general Arab and Muslim reaction to it hit the press, it was portrayed as exactly what it really was: a series of attacks on U.S. installations in the Middle East by a wide variety of angry Arab groupings unleashed by a nasty film in countries where such attacks would not have been permitted under the regimes in power prior to the Arab Spring.

A good starting point in trying to understand this issue comes with acknowledging what the Arabs/Muslims think of us. A Pew Research Center poll in July 2011 reported that “Muslim and Western publics continue to see relations between them as generally bad, with both sides holding negative stereotypes of the other. Many in the West see Muslims as fanatical and violent, while few say Muslims are tolerant or respectful of women. Meanwhile, Muslims in the Middle East and Asia generally see Westerners as selfish, immoral and greedy — as well as violent and fanatical.”

In short, Arabs/Muslims, because they are firsthand observers of more than a decade of U.S. foreign policy that has relied primarily on military intervention, have good reason to dislike Americans, if not for who we are, then certainly for what we have done to them.

Once American politicians had enough time to decide how to react to the attacks on our installations abroad, the political decision was apparently made by the Romney campaign to use it to attack the White House. And so they did. Where the White House had reacted initially by going after the filmmakers on the grounds of bad taste and bad ethics, the Romney campaign decided to castigate the White House for not dealing with the event as a terrorist attack.

To the amazement of some, the White House immediately reversed course and bought into the “terrorist” appellation. All this really did was to take off the table an examination of who really profited from the event and could therefore have had reason to precipitate it.

Much has been made of the premise that the attackers were affiliated with al-Qaida or that they were members of some other jihadi group wishing to attack U.S. interests. Whether or not that is true is irrelevant.

The only thing that is relevant is that the United States and its Western allies are now in a position in the Middle East where the local population can be provoked against us at will and on a moment’s notice. That means that when such a provocation exists, whether in the form of a film of highly dubious origin, a Salman Rushdie “Satanic Verses” or a Danish newspaper cartoon, we can logically expect retaliation.

Whether that retaliation comes in the form of peaceful demonstrations or violent attacks, we can and must be sure that we are prepared for the kind of focused violence that we experienced in Benghazi from jihadis who are not given to peaceful activities.

It is a simple fact that given the sort of cover provided by the recent demonstrations over the American film or any other activity deemed sacrilegious under the Quran, violent, fundamentalist jihadi groups will be prepared to take advantage of the situation with the most violent tactics they can think up. The simple fact of suddenly calling them “terrorists,” however that may resonate with a terrorist-punch-drunk America, will change nothing.

This situation will not change until we find a way to change our foreign policy for the area in a way that makes us far less concerned with pre-emptive war and far less threatening to Muslims in general. Only under those circumstances will truly radical Muslim jihadis lose what little support they have in Islam and moderate Muslims find the active support they will need to govern in their countries.

Absent that change, we can look forward to a period where the hostility felt by Muslims against America and the West will cause continuing problems of the kind we have just witnessed in Benghazi. And starting them up will be a simple matter for the jihadis or anyone else who believes they will profit from fanning hatred between Muslims and the West.

 

Read Full Post »

Both extremes benefit from film

Posted in foreign policy, Middle East, terrorism, United States on September 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Originally published in the Rutland Herald and the Barre Times-Argus

  Barely a week into what is becoming Islam-wide rioting against America, we have learned that the authors of the film that started the troubles are: Egyptian Coptic Christians, fundamentalist American Christians, an Israeli-American, assorted Israelis, fundamentalist Muslim terrorists and God knows what else. The fact remains that we have no idea of the true origins of this provocative film. Any of the purported authors could be guilty. Any real author could be well hidden behind a wall of obfuscation.

Yet we are faced with the issue of increasing attacks on our embassies in the Muslim world. Worst of all, we have seen the deaths of our ambassador and three other staff members in Libya. To understand what has happened, we need to identify the results of the event and determine who gains from it.

We have a dead American ambassador, an initially unrepentant Egyptian leader, ambivalent Libyan and Yemeni leadership and wildly anti-American mobs throughout the region. Who gains from that?

The United States, despite the periodic resistance of both Palestinian and Israeli leaders, has consistently sought a peaceful, two-state solution to the now more than 60-year-old struggle over Palestine. We have almost always been castigated by Arabs for our positions, however, only in the recent past, under Israel’s Likud leadership, have we seen the Israelis ramp up their rhetoric and their pressure on the U.S. government. Most recently, this has peaked over the reluctance of the Obama administration to succumb to Israeli pressure to join in an attack on Iran.

And this has not been a problem for the Likud only in America, where the vast majority of Americans have no interest in a further military involvement in the Middle East. It is also a problem in Israel, where important past and present Israeli leaders have shown no interest in or seen no reason for attacking Iran, a view shared by a healthy portion of the Israeli Jewish population.

The attacks in Egypt and Libya were provoked by a nasty amateur film portraying Muhammad in a most incredibly unfavorable light. Media outlets reported that a man calling himself Sam Bacile claimed he was the film’s director and producer, that he was an Israeli American real estate developer and that 100 Jewish businessmen had backed the venture.

The results of the showing of that film, which was translated into Arabic for local television, were riots and death. Who openly promotes that? Muslim fundamentalists who seek to stay in permanent conflict with America.

Who can benefit from that is a far more complicated matter. Clearly, Muslim fundamentalists benefit, but so do those Israelis who have struggled against Palestinian interests and for American support for an attack on Iran. Anything they can do to turn America against Palestine, against Arabs and Muslims in general, and against a two-state solution, as well as toward stronger support of their causes is, by definition, a good thing. In that context, a Muslim attack on U.S. interests abroad might be just the thing to move U.S. public opinion further toward the more extreme Israeli positions that we have so far managed to avoid, such as a military attack on Iran.

It is painfully clear that there are groups of people in the Arab world that are eager to commit violence against American interests. The provocative and negative actions of anti-Muslim individuals and groups here in America play right into their hands. Such Americans, whether they commit spontaneous acts or are motivated and guided by foreign influence, can precipitate anti-American violence at will through their anti-Muslim provocations. This simply creates more anti-Muslim Americans, which happens to be a good thing in the eyes of not only fundamentalist Muslims, but the Likud as well.

The frightening fact is that anyone who wishes to enrage the “Arab street” can do so with ease and great effect. That fact remains a thorn in the side of any person, group or country that would like to see peace and quiet in the area. This will always be a potential trigger for trouble, a trigger that can be directly and openly pulled or that can hide and obfuscate the identity and motives of the hunter.

Read Full Post »

Mideast Is Unpromising Region for U.S.-Style Democracy

Posted in foreign policy, Middle East, United States on September 8, 2012| 1 Comment »

Originally published in the “Valley News” of New Hampshire and Vermont
There is a persistent call here in the United States, particularly in today’s
politically charged campaign season, for democracy to take over in the Middle
East. We hear it from virtually every quarter — from the White House, from Republicans of almost every hue, and from pundits who write on Middle Eastern affairs.
Clearly, America wants democracy to prosper in that region.
And it certainly would be nice. But just how likely is that to happen?
Today’s Middle East and North African national borders were established or codified
under European colonial rule in the 19th and 20th centuries for the advantage,
convenience and profit of those colonial powers. Those borders ignored or
cynically exacerbated many sectarian, tribal and ethnic differences that were
of major importance to local populations.
The virtual ignoring of tribal and sectarian issues, particularly in Afghanistan
and Pakistan, and the discounting of the importance of ethnic-identity issues
for Kurds, Persians, Arabs, Central Asians and Turks in virtually all of the
post-World War II states that emerged out of the European colonial era, stand
as examples of the indifference of the colonial powers to issues that
ultimately would create the major divisions and difficulties that exist today.
Much of America has long believed that we have the world’s best existing economic
(market) and governmental (liberal democracy) systems. This belief has been
often been the cornerstone of our foreign policy. Coupled with an inherent American
tendency to evangelize, we have often sought to spread our systems around the
world and to combat those systems that were not compatible with it.
The problem with this approach is that it does not sufficiently take into account
already existing governmental, economic and belief structures. It never asks,
as can be seen in our recent Middle East policy, whether the ground
abroad is sufficiently fertile for the cultivation and establishment of
democracy.
The unfortunate fact is that the region has virtually no experience with liberal
democracy. The region is mired in tribalism, sectarianism, brutally imposed
secularism or Islamic law, dictatorships and monarchies. None of these are
steppingstones to liberal democratic governance. We have tribes almost everywhere,
significant military power in Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran and Jordan, to
name but a few, and Islam everywhere.
Democracy doesn’t simply spring up, particularly in populations with little to no history
of self-rule. Democracy has certain preconditions: It must have the active,
unfettered participation of the people as citizens in politics and civic life;
national and regional tolerance of pluralism; a general and equal right to
vote; free and fair elections; the rule of law;and a guarantee of basic human
rights vis-a-vis the state and its authorities, not just for individuals but also for
all social groups, particularly religious ones. Not least of all, it must have a
constitution to codify all these preconditions.
Muslims tend to believe in and be content with Islam. Islam may have glaring
deficiencies from our point of view, but by and large our view is not shared by
Muslims. Islam provides the believer with a complete blueprint for life. An
essentially content group of Muslim believers cannot be viewed as ripe for
conversion to democracy as many of democracy’s basic tenets are diametrically
opposed to the teachings of the Koran.
In this regard, the Koran states “Men are the protectors and maintainers of women,
because Allah has made one of them to excel the other, and because they spend
from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient and guard
in the husband’s absence what Allah orders them to guard”.
Issues involving women’s rights, violence against women, divorce, dress code,
education, employment, rape, sexuality, etc, etc, although they do vary from
country to country, do not recognize women as even vaguely equal to men or
deserving of the same rights.  On the issue of women alone, democracy and Islam
have little in common.
Almost all of our politicians and pundits, both past and present, speak glowingly of a
transition in the Middle East to democracy. However, there is nothing in past
history or contemporary reality that could logically argue that the region is
ready for such a transition. Unfortunately, when American politicians speak of
democracy this way, their American audience assumes this to mean that we will
see a democratic Middle East in the near future.
There is no magic democratic wand for the Middle East. The absolute best we can hope
for are moderate Islamist regimes. The worst result will be fundamentalist
regimes of the type supported by the Salafis and Wahhabis, or any other group
that a calls for a return to the fundamentalist practices of the early Muslims, or for
renewed dictatorships. We need to get the notion of a democratic Islam in the
short term out of our heads and focus on supporting moderate Islamists. Only
they have any possibility of successfully confronting Islamic extremists and
ultimately evolving into liberal democracies. The timelines for that kind of
change are likely to be measured in decades at best and centuries at worst.
In the interim, we might want to concentrate on proving to a skeptical Middle East
and greater world that our systems work for us Americans, let alone anyone
else. What has happened to John Winthrop’s “shining city upon a hill”?

Read Full Post »

Off target: Israeli Iran propaganda

Posted in foreign policy, Iraq, United States on August 26, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Originally published in The Rutland Herald and The Barre Times Argus

Today’s Internet is increasingly carrying articles from both American and foreign sources to the effect that Israel is pulling out the stops trying to get the United States involved in military action against Iran.

During the past few months, we have been told in the press by the Israelis that all the previous estimates by the U.S. intelligence community have been wrong and that Iran is, in fact, working assiduously on building an atomic weapon. It should be noted here that this assessment is not shared either by the International Atomic Energy Agency or the U.S. intelligence community .

Further, this allegation has come in spite of the fact that three former chiefs of Israeli intelligence services have said not only that they did not believe the allegation to be true, but that Iran does not represent any sort of existential threat to Israel.

It has been reported that the recent rise in gasoline prices here at home is the result of fears of an Israeli strike on Iran and that that fear is in turn based in a large measure on statements by the Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Barak has “leaked” what he alleges to be a U.S. national intelligence estimate, normally a sensitive, classified document, which he claimed says the U.S. intelligence community is changing its view and getting closer to the Likud view.

Given the thrust of this Israeli activity, it would appear that there are elements in both Israel and the United States who would like to see the U.S. involved in such military action.

There are two likely purposes in this campaign. First, a poll last week by Israel Channel 10 shows that 46 percent of Israelis are against a unilateral attack on Iran and only 26 percent in favor. According to a recent poll published by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University, a majority of Jewish Israelis (60.7 percent) oppose an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities without U.S. cooperation.

It would appear that the Likud leadership is trying, through an internal Israeli propaganda operation, to sway the Israeli people to support an attack on Iran. This campaign has not only involved the purported NIE “leaks”, but has traded on Israeli concerns about the Holocaust and nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, fueled by a Netanyahu article inHaaretz.

The major concern here is that Israelis believe, probably correctly, that Israel does not have the military capability to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities successfully.

It might be said parenthetically that there is serious doubt in American military circles that the U.S. military establishment would be any more successful in such an attack.

So the obvious next step for Netanyahu and Barak, frustrated by the disinclination of their countrymen to support such an attack, has been to turn their propaganda guns on the U.S.

This campaign has not worked on the Obama administration and would be less likely to be successful if Obama were elected to a second term in which he would have no concerns about re-election and could really act in the American national interest.

The wild card comes in a Romney presidential victory. Romney has consistently said that “Israel policy will be our policy.” In addition, his foreign policy advisers are heavily populated with the same neoconservatives who got us militarily involved in Afghanistan and Iraq and who continue to favor U.S. military intervention in the Middle East. Who knows what a President Romney would do in the face of such Israeli pressures?

And all of this comes at a time when American polling shows that only small numbers (under 15 percent) of Americans support a pre-emptive attack on Iran absent an existential threat to Israel. Yet Netanyahu and his Likud followers persist in trying to get the U.S. to attack Iran. If this persists, this will do nothing but threaten long-term U.S.-Israeli relations.

Do normally pro-Israel groups here in America want Israel to declare war in the hope of American military support? Do they wish to strongly influence U.S. policy in that direction? Are they not aware of flagging American public enthusiasm for U.S. military activity in the Middle East in the wake of Afghanistan and Iraq? And do any of them consider what such a conflict would mean in economic terms to the United States?

It is really difficult to see that any attack on Iran, ab sent any Iranian attack on us or our allies, is consistent with the U.S. national interest.

Read Full Post »

Letting Iran Go Nuclear Might Be Best

Posted in foreign policy, Iran, Middle East, Uncategorized on July 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »

First Published in the Valley News
Foreign Affairs Magazine has recently published an article arguing
that Iran should get the bomb. This is, to say the least, a
revolutionary and provocative statement. Nevertheless, it is worth
serious examination.
No one really knows Iran’s nuclear intentions. For the sake of the
discussion, however, let’s assume a worst-case scenario — that it really
is intent on getting the bomb.
Figuring out the best way the U.S. should respond is quite a challenge.
For starters, the country is now sharply divided on virtually every
contentious foreign policy issue, at least at the political fringes of
right and left. On the left, we have a vast array of Democrats who
simply are unprepared to consider that additional military action in the
Middle East makes any sense under any conditions. The right appears to
favor military action in Syria and Iran.
Further, AIPAC, the dominant pro-Israel lobbying organization, has
proudly reported that 32 senators from both parties have said that they
would reject “any United States policy that would rely on efforts to
contain a nuclear weapons-capable Iran.” This underlines the Israeli
position that it will not accept Iranian possession of nuclear weapons.
It also supports the assessment that Israel really wants to attack
Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Yet, aggressive military action by us or Israel, which our experts say
can at best only briefly slow down an Iranian quest for these weapons,
is the only thing that will unite a viscerally pro-Western Iranian
population against us and create massive problems for us in the Middle East.
Are there any good foreign policy options regarding Iran?
During the Cold War, we managed a highly competitive, tense,
nuclear-armed world with a policy called “nuclear deterrence.” Nuclear
deterrence was the doctrine that assumed that an enemy would be deterred
from using nuclear weapons as long as it recognized that it would be
destroyed as a consequence. In other words, the threat of nuclear
annihilation as a response to the use of nuclear weapons was sufficient
to keep all parties from using those weapons. Everyone with nuclear
weapons in the Cold War knew the facts. Those weapons were never used.
There are two critical issues involved in this doctrine of nuclear
deterrence. First, all concerned have to realize that nuclear weapons
are a powerful tool only as long as they are not used. For once they are
used, deterrence is irrelevant and the combatants are literally consumed
by their own stupidity.
And that brings the second critical point. Despite their incredibly
contrasting sets of values and interests, the Soviet Union and its
allies and the U.S. and its allies were not stupid enough to use the
bomb. If they had, most of us would not be here today.
And there’s the hooker. Those who cannot abide the notion of nuclear
deterrence as the foundation of our Iran policy say that the Iranians
would use the bomb, probably against Israel. Of course, what they are
implying is that the Iranians are a bunch of know-nothing rag heads,
prone to self-destruction.
How far from the truth can that be? The ancient Persians — the forbears
of modern-day Iranians — were in the process of working out a viable
alphabet when Europe’s ancestors were scuttling about in their caves
dressed in bearskins. Organized communities first existed in Iran around
8,000 B.C. The first Persian kingdom began around 2800 BC. Those
Persians ruled from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River until about
the sixth century B.C. It was the first great kingdom to exist in the
world and was certainly the greatest empire of its time.
The Persian cultural contribution to the world has ranged from art
through architecture, music, technology (underground aqueducts; some
close to 3,000 years old, some 1,000 feet deep and some dozens of miles
long) and science to literature.
Modern-day Persians are educated (77 percent literate), nationalistic
and anything but stupid. Despite the stupidly ugly rhetoric employed by
some of their political leaders since 1979, they are anything but the
wild-eyed fanatics that some in the West portray them to be. They are in
no way suicidal. They have the requisite characteristics to participate
successfully in “nuclear deterrence.”
Purely objectively, Persia is smart enough to avoid self-destruction and
enough aware of its history to believe it has a major role to play in
the Middle East. With Iran possessing a land mass of over 630,000 square
miles, a military establishment over 500,000, an educated population of
over 75 million, two-thirds of the world’s crude oil reserve and
potential control over the Arabian Gulf, it is time we recognized that
Iran has a role to play in its region and that we can help that role to
be either positive or negative.
There is no reason to believe that Iran will not respond positively to
respectful negotiations. They are worthy candidates for “nuclear
deterrence.”
In many ways, Iran’s future is really up to us.
 
 

Read Full Post »

Iran Revisited

Posted in foreign policy, Iran, Middle East, Military Polilcy, United States on May 18, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Originally published in The Herald of Randolph

Let’s stop kidding ourselves.  If America attacks Iran or can legitimately be accused of approving such an attack by Israel, the results will be a disaster for us.  Even if Israel goes ahead with such an attack without our approval, the world will be in deep trouble.

It is an unfortunate fact that in matters like this, US foreign policy is normally made on the basis of the domestic political needs and objectives of the party in power.  What that means today is that the Democrats probably believe that it would be political suicide in the face of the upcoming national elections to do anything that would appear to be contrary to the Israeli government’s needs or wishes.

That reality has given the Republicans conservatives the opportunity to attack the Democrats if they do not take on Iran, either through Israel or unilaterally.  In fact, the war cries from the far right are increasingly strident.

Yet, in Israel, relative calm and prudence remain.

Current and former Israeli military and intelligence chiefs continue to maintain that they do not support a strike on Iran and that Iran is not an existential threat to Israel.

A recent Tel Aviv University poll found that 62.9 percent of Israelis strongly or moderately oppose Unilateral Israeli attack on Iran.  That same poll found that 70% of Israelis believe such an attack would be ineffective in “stopping Iran’s nuclearization for a substantial time”.

The International Atomic Energy Agency and the US intelligence Community have both said that Iran has not yet decided whether or not to build a bomb.  In addition, Michael Hayden, the former CIA Director said recently that the CIA under President Bush II determined that an attack on Iran was a bad idea and strongly advised against such an attack today.

Further, American intelligence and military estimates say that at best an air attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would only delay their nuclear program and could “carry unforeseen risks”.

Consensus in the US intelligence and military communities, including former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates concludes that damage would not be great and that Iran would rebuild. “The regime’s resolve to build a weapon, if it so chooses, may only be hardened” and that “If Iran did attempt to restart its nuclear program after an attack, it would be much more difficult for the United States to stop it.”

The more practical military question is whether or not either the US or Israel actually has the weapons needed to have any real impact on the Iraqi nuclear program.  Largely as a result of perceived threats from the United States and Israel, Iran long ago decided the put that program as far out of reach as possible.  That decision lead to burying the program far under ground in locations that are extremely difficult to attack.  That fact makes the construction of an effective weapon technically difficult and requires extraordinary precision in delivery and aim.  It is unclear whether either of these criteria can be met and whether there is any hope of materially damaging the Iranian program.

What would a post-attack world look like? The first danger would be to all US military and civilian personnel and interests in the Middle East.  Acting through Shia allies throughout the region, as well as Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran would certainly move to make our lives as untenable as possible.  In addition, they would likely close the Straits of Hormuz, shutting down the movement of one fifth of the world’s crude oil to its western markets and creating western economic chaos

In the longer term, an attack on Iran, whether by Israel, the US, or both, is about the only thing that can unite the essentially pro-Western, anti-regime population in Iran against us.  That bodes really ill for the future.  Along with that would come the virtual guarantee that Iran, irrespective of what we think they are doing, or not doing today, will undertake a nuclear weapons program in the future.

There certainly doesn’t seem too much in it for the United States in an attack on Iran.  In fact, it looks like a disaster waiting to happen.  In return for an attack of highly dubious efficacy, we get in return Iranian and Iranian-sponsored attacks on us and our interests, international economic instability and regional chaos.  And we would be a part of this without conclusive proof that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon?

When does America get to define her own national interests?


Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »