LCCC NEWS
BULLETIN
May 3/2006
Below news from the Daily
Star for 3/05/06
Aoun calls for government to make way
Beirut asks UN to extend Hariri murder probe
Thousands join anti-reform Labor Day protest
March 14 Forces: Lahoud at heart of crisis
Syria lashes back at UN as France, U.S. warn of
'harsher' resolution
Qabalan says Palestinians need more EU assistance
Nasrallah praises Tehran as unwavering ally
Siniora denies seeking Kuwaiti help in Syria row
Ain al-Hilweh family demands justice
Lebanon's lifeblood: Al-Massaya vineyards hosts Arak
workshop
Lebanese students lag in key subjects
Mallat: Israel's Cabinet undemocratic
The lessons of a predominantly Middle Eastern Turkey.By
Rami G. Khouri
Below news from miscellaneous sources for 3/05/06
Syria Lashes Back at Annan's Report, Refuses to Receive Roed-Larsen-Naharnet
Thousands Protest Government Policies on Labor Day-Naharnet
Clashes Between Palestinian Factions in Ain el Hilweh-Naharnet
Senator John McCain wants to push Israel to withdraw close -IMRA
Three Views on Iraq, Three Years Later-Reason Online
Iran, Syria to expand IT ties-Persian Journal
The Strategic Waves of Iraq's Liberation-World Defense Review
US must destroy Iran's nuclear facilities-NewsByUs
Shiite cleric seen trying to broaden his base of support-San Jose Mercury News
Growing rift splits Islamic radicals-Arizona Daily Star
Syria Lashes Back at Annan's Report, Refuses to
Receive Roed-Larsen
Syria has criticized a report from U.N. chief Kofi Annan on Syrian-Lebanese
ties, charging that it oversteps the mandate of a U.N. Security Council
resolution on the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.
In the letter dated April 24 to Annan and the Security Council released Monday,
Syria's U.N. deputy representative Milad Atieh said the report, that was written
by U.N. special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen, "has exceeded the mandate provided in
Security Council Resolution 1559" passed in 2004. Meanwhile, the London-based al
Hayat newspaper reported Tuesday that Syria has refused to receive Roed Larsen
because "he went beyond his jurisdiction in the report that lacked objectivity,"
according to sources in Damascus.
It quoted the sources as saying that Roed-Larsen, whose mission is to oversee
the execution of Resolution 1559, has told members of the Syrian delegation to
the Security Council that he wishes to visit Damascus to discuss the
implementation of the edict. "Syria has no intention to receive him (Roed-Larsen)
as it has implemented the part of resolution 1559 that applies to it. He has no
more business in Syria," the sources told al Hayat.
Annan's report focused in particular on calls for establishment of formal
diplomatic ties between Beirut and Damascus as well as on the demarcation of
their common border to uphold Lebanon's sovereignty and independence.
"The issue of establishing or not establishing embassies between the two
countries is a matter that falls within the domestic jurisdiction of both
countries, and can be agreed on when the environment prevailing in relations
between the two countries allows such steps," the letter said.
It also warned against adopting new resolutions that would heighten instability
in Lebanon or the region.
"Pushing the Security Council by some parties to adopt new resolutions or
statements will not lead to calming the situation in Lebanon or the region but,
on the contrary, will escalate the situation of instability and tension," the
letter noted.
France said last week it was preparing a draft resolution that would urge Syria
to respond to Lebanon's call for establishment of formal diplomatic ties between
the two neighbors and for a demarcation of the common border.
France's U.N. envoy Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said he was consulting with other
members of the Security Council and hoped to have a text ready early this week.
Syria's letter also dismissed suggestions in the report of "uncertainty about
the withdrawal of the Syrian intelligence apparatus from Lebanon." "Syria
would like to reaffirm once again that all its troops, military assets and
security apparatus withdrew from Lebanon on April 26, 2005" as demanded in
Security Council resolution 1559, it said.(AFP-Naharnet) Beirut, 02 May 06,
09:08
Aoun calls for government to make way
By Leila Hatoum -Daily Star staff
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
BEIRUT: Free Patriotic Movement leaders on Monday called upon the government "to
resign" and make way for a "national consensus Cabinet" that would "rise up to
the level of challenges." The calls came in a statement issued after the FPM's
Monday meeting, in which its leader, MP Michel Aoun, said "This government has
ruined the past; it will not fix the present; and will not save the future."
"The government didn't carry its job properly during the past year ... It
couldn't unify the Lebanese ... and tried several times to monopolize the power
to maintain a role which the former security state, which we got rid off, had,"
Aoun said.
"I don't trust them when they say they will fix things; and I don't advise the
Lebanese people to give them not even one percent of confidence. They work
according to their past and they are utilizing the same methods they did in the
past ... nothing seems promising." Aoun also criticized the national dialogue,
saying the fact that it "has lost its seriousness ... will not make us withdraw
from it, and the government has to comply with its job."He refused the
stipulations set by the economic reform paper "which eliminates the public jobs
and replaces them with contractual jobs."Aoun, who is also a presidential
candidate, said that there are some "20 other presidential candidates ... but
they (the current ruling authority) criticize only me ... its up to people to
believe in them ... and if they do believe in them, then let this government end
their hunger and solve their economic problems."
Aoun had met with Palestine Liberation Organization representative in Lebanon
Brigadier General Sultan Abu al-Aynayn, who said after the meeting that "Aoun
showed understanding for the suffering of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon."
Abu al-Aynayn added that the Palestinian weapons "will be kept" inside the
refugee camps rather than outside them.
Also on Tuesday, Aoun met with General Labor Confederation president Ghassan
Ghosn and another delegation from the Lebanese Democratic Party. "We discussed
the economic reform paper ... which we refuse because it doesn't fulfill the
worker's demands," Ghosn said. "They cannot keep on adding taxes on people with
the minimum wage remaining as it was back in 1996."Shwairi said the Cabinet "has
burned itself, and it hasn't succeeded in any file it has handled so far."
Beirut asks UN to extend Hariri murder probe
Current mandate ends on june 15
By Nafez Qawas -Daily Star correspondent
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
BEIRUT: The government decided on Tuesday to ask the United Nations to extend
the term of the international probe committee investigating the assassination of
former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The 15-member Security Council had already
extended the mandate of the inquiry for six months in mid-December following an
earlier request from the Lebanese government. The mandate of the 11-month
inquiry expires on June 15 but the investigation has run into difficulties,
partly due to Syrian reluctance to cooperate and disputes over the veracity of
witness statements. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora headed an extraordinary Cabinet
session on Tuesday at the Economic and Social Council headquarters in downtown
Beirut. Sources said when the issue of Palestinian rights was raised, one of the
ministers said: "People should not confuse giving the Palestinians their rights
and settling them." The source added that Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros
Sfeir "has concerns that granting the refugees their human rights might pave the
way for settlement." Justice Minister Charles Rizk rejected the minister's
claims, saying that Sfeir "defended the Palestinians' rights and rejected any
step that leads to settlement."
Following the session, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said Siniora informed
the ministers of his one-day visit to Kuwait and his meeting with Emir Sabah
Ahmad Sabah and prominent Kuwaiti officials. He also expressed Sabah's support
for Lebanon.
Aridi announced that the Cabinet decided to ask the UN to extend the term of the
probe committee. He added that the Cabinet discussed the national dialogue's
decisions and would take necessary measures to implement them.
Aridi said that the Cabinet approved the Energy minister's demand that Lebanon
begin digging for oil. Aridi added that Telecommunications Minister Marwan
Hamade announced that the number of international phone calls had increased by
115 percent after the recent reduction in rates. He also said that Acting
Interior Minister Ahmad Fatfat said that 400 people had received compensation so
far for the damage that resulted from the Achrafieh riots on February 5.
Aridi added that a study is being conducted by a foreign expert to determine
losses in the riots, and that it and would be completed by mid-May.
The ministers decided to keep discussions over the National Social Security Fund
open.
Addressing journalists before the beginning of the session, Siniora said
discussions would tackle all the decisions made during the national dialogue.
Asked about the assignment of audit companies for the National Social Security
Fund, he said: "The bidding has taken place and one company will win at the
end." Finance Minister Jihad Azour said the government's reform plan would be
discussed "in details."During an interview with Voice of Lebanon radio station
on Tuesday, Rizk said the ministry would be discussing the formation of the
international tribunal with the UN. He added that "after we reach a whole vision
of the tribunal, we will submit it to the Cabinet, which in case it approves it,
will refer it to Parliament to discuss and endorse it."
Thousands join anti-reform Labor Day protest
By Therese Sfeir -Daily Star staff
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
BEIRUT: Labor Day this year was marked by as many different celebrations as
there were opinions on how to solve the country's worsening economic crisis,
with the Reform Paper currently being discussed in the National Dialogue
emerging as the biggest point of contention. The proposed reforms include the
privatization of Electricite du Liban, which currently accounts for one-fifth of
the national debt, as well as a significant increase in the value-added tax
(VAT). Thousands of people marched through Beirut Monday to protest the reforms,
brandishing loaves of bread, Lebanese and red Communist flags and banners
denouncing corruption, the sectarian system and the debt crisis. Demonstrators
also carried portraits of former Communist Party leader George Hawi, who was
killed in a bar bomb last June.
Khaled Hadada, secretary general of the Communist Party, which organized the
rally, said that any economic plan that increases taxes and promotes
privatization goes against the workers and the country.
Hadada urged all leftist movements to work for the achievement of a true
independence and for serious political reform, such as eliminating sectarianism
and creating a new electoral law based on proportional representation.
Hadada said that true economic and social reform should start with fighting
administrative corruption.
The General Labor Confederation held its own massive ceremony at the UNESCO
Palace in Beirut, where GLC president Ghassan Ghosn denounced the government's
reform paper, saying it would lead to a total collapse of the social fabric of
Lebanon if officials "did not rush to adjust their policy."
"We urge the government to stop importing projects and plans that violate the
workers' rights and lead to more poverty," Ghosn said, alluding to the
increasing pressure the World Bank has placed on Lebanon to privatize utilities
and make the country more conducive to foreign investment.
Members of the audience included Speaker Nabih Berri, former Premier Rashid Solh,
Labor Minister Tarrad Hamade (representing Prime Minister Fouad Siniora), Health
Minister Mohammed Khalifeh and delegations of MPs representing different
parliamentary blocs. Berri also spoke at the ceremony, suggesting that the
government create a short-term program to face imminent economic crises and a
long-term project to resolve the country's more entrenched socioeconomic
problems.
"No Lebanese official can disregard the current socioeconomic crisis or deny
that the previous governments did nothing but manage the crisis, without
offering any solutions to resolve it," Berri said. "This deepened the crisis and
led to the increase of the public debt." He said that the resulting economic
stagnation caused educated Lebanese youth to immigrate to foreign countries
seeking better jobs. Berri went on to say that past governments' negligence,
"paved the way for Lebanon to become an arena for conflicts and Israeli wars,"
leading to the destruction of both Lebanon's economic and financial
infrastructure.
Berri called on the Lebanese to defend the resistance in order to face Israel
and to work for shifting from the rule of the powerful to the rule of the state.
Meanwhile, another ceremony to honor the workers was held by the Labor
Liberation Front (LLF). Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt
sponsored the event, which was held at the Beau Rivage Hotel in Beirut.
Information Minister Ghazi Aridi, representing Jumblatt, spoke at the event,
which was also attended by MP Walid Eido, representing Future bloc president MP
Saad Hariri, and the LLF's secretary-general Ismat Abdel-Majid.
Aridi expressed his party's support of the reform plan and its readiness to hold
further discussions with all the parties, accusing some factions of using the
reforms as political leverage rather than seeking a solution.
"Some people are trying to take advantage of the socioeconomic crisis to take
revenge on the government," he said. The minister asked the government to
conduct an objective study of the reform plan and the economy to determine how
best to meet the needs of the majority of Lebanese people. Aridi urged all
workers to unify their efforts to fight exploitation while accusing some
confederations and unions of pretending to be defending the workers while
submitting to the demands of local and foreign intelligence services. President
Emile Lahoud congratulated the Lebanese on the occasion of Labor Day and said he
hoped that the government would meet the demands of the people. Meanwhile,
Phalange Party president Karim Pakradouni said his party would always support
the workers. In a statement issued on Monday, Pakradouni stressed the need to
unify labor confederations and remove obstacles facing the NSSF. - With Agencies
Thousands Protest Government Policies on Labor Day
More than 5,000 people marched through Beirut to celebrate Labor Day, carrying
loaves of bread in protest at government policies in the country that is gripped
by deep economic and political crises. Demonstrators at the rally organized by
the Communist party waved Lebanese and red Communist flags as well as banners
denouncing "corruption, confessionalism and the debt crisis." Lebanon's economy
has still not fully recovered from the devastation of the 1975-1990 civil war.
As political rows continue to stall long-awaited reforms, public debt has
spiraled to 38.6 billion dollars, or about 180 percent of gross domestic
product. Economic growth was almost nil last year with Lebanon still in turmoil
following the February 2005 murder of five-time prime minister Rafik Hariri and
the later withdrawal of Syrian troops after 29 years on Lebanese soil.
Demonstrators also carried portraits of former Communist Party leader George
Hawi who was killed in June last year in one of a series of bomb attacks
targeting anti-Syrian Lebanese figures.(AFP-Naharnet) Beirut, 02 May 06, 08:25
Clashes Between Palestinian Factions in Ain el Hilweh
A Palestinian man was killed and two others were wounded -- one seriously -- in
clashes in the Ain el Hilweh refugee camp between Fatah fighters and militants
of the radical Jund el Sham. A Fatah official in the camp, said the fighting
began Monday when Jund el Sham gunmen tried to assassinate Mahmoud Abdul-Hamid
Issa, a Fatah military official, as he walked with his bodyguards. One of them,
Abu Omra al-Aswad, was seriously wounded, the official said. A bystander,
Mohammed Tayssir Awad, 20, was hit by a stray bullet and died instantly. The two
sides resumed fighting late afternoon after Jund al-Sham rejected a Fatah demand
to hand over the gunman who fired at Issa, a source in the camp said. Jamal
Rumeit, a Jund el Sham member, was wounded in the stomach, he added. Jund el
Sham, which means Soldiers of Syria, is a Sunni Muslim group of Syrian,
Palestinian and Jordanian militants with links to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head
of al-Qaida in Iraq.
The group was founded in Afghanistan and emerged in Ain el Hilweh in 2004. Its
estimated 50 members, who brand Christians and Shiite Muslims as "infidels,"
have had tense relations with guerrillas of the mainstream Fatah group who
control the camp, and have clashed with them in the past. Ain el Hilweh, home to
about 75,000 Palestinian refugees, has been the scene of frequent bombings,
assassinations and shootings among rival Palestinian factions. The camp is also
believed to house many fugitives wanted by Lebanese authorities. The Lebanese
army mans checkpoints outside the camp, but its troops do not enter.
Ain el-Hilweh is the largest of 12 refugee camps in Lebanon, which together
house about 350,000 Palestinians and their descendants, who were displaced by
war since the 1948 creation of Israel.(AP-Naharnet)
Beirut, 02 May 06, 08:00
Senator John McCain wants to push Israel to withdraw
close to Green Line
After Bush, the Green Line-By Amir Oren Haaretz 1 May 2006
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/711310.html
BRUSSELS - Even if it is too soon to anoint him as U.S. President George Bush's
successor, Senator John McCain marks a swing in policy from the Republican right
to the middle of the map, close to the leading candidates in the Democratic
Party. McCain is nearly ready to decide whether to run again in 2008 for the
Republican nomination, which he lost in 2000 to George
W. Bush. However, as long as he is not a declared candidate, his comments to
Haaretz on Saturday, during a weekend break from American politics here in
Brussels, reflect the personal opinion of a senior and influential figure in the
area of defense policy in the United States Senate, rather than an attempt to
formulate policy guidelines for his administration.
The marks of having been wounded and held captivity as a naval combat aviator in
Vietnam are clearly evident in his face and his bearing. His military background
prepared him for his current profession less than did other experiences, and of
his various military duties, he cherishes most of all his year at the National
War College, after his release from captivity and prior to his retirement from
the military with the rank of navy captain. Yes, captivity also taught him a
lot, but then it was clear what his
capabilities were and who the enemy was, which is not the case in politics.
McCain does not volunteer his opinions regarding Israel and the Arabs. In a
speech of about 3,500 words that he delivered at the Brussels Forum for
American-European Relations, Israel was mentioned only as being threatened by
Iran. Although he mentioned that the range of Iran's missiles also
extends to European capitals, the main and deciding argument for thwarting the
Iranian nuclear program - via a military operation, if softer means prove to no
avail - is Iran's explicit threat to annihilate Israel. The Pentagon does have
plans in its drawer "for every place on the globe," and in the Iranian context,
he believes that these plans can be implemented -
but only after an assessment is made regarding the second phase of the
operation, the counterattack that the Iranians are no doubt planning.
He is as hostile toward the Hamas government as he is toward its patrons in
Iran. Financial aid must be kept from Hamas, he says, and action must be taken
to isolate it in the international arena. Hamas aspires to topple the government
of Jordan by calling for free elections there and to help Hezbollah gain control
of Lebanon. What should be done? Moderate Palestinian
elements should be encouraged - Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is
"a good man, but not the strongest" - but there is no point in an effort to
topple the Hamas government, because the organization would likely win again in
new elections, for the second time in a row, and this would strengthen it. He
expects Israel to do, more or less, what it is doing:
"Defend itself and keep evacuating."
As president, McCain would "micromanage" U.S. policy toward the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because in his opinion, this is still the source
of the ferment in the region: Every time an Arab leader wants to provide a
distraction, he argues that the problem is due to Israel, and also in the matter
of Iran, "we would not have been so concerned" over its nuclear program had it
not threatened Israel with extinction. He is fed up with the evasiveness of the
Arab states - and most of all with Egypt, which
has not given adequate return for the extensive American aid it has received -
with regard to helping to achieve peace between Israel and Palestine.
A McCain administration, alongside his close supervision from the White House,
would send "the smartest guy I know" to the Middle East. And who is that? "Brent
Scowcroft, or Jim Baker, though I know that you in Israel don't like Baker."
This is a longing for the administration of the first president Bush, or even
for the administration of president Gerald Ford in the
mid-1970s. In both of them, general Scowcroft was the national security adviser.
McCain will act to bring peace, "but having studied what Clinton did at Camp
David, perhaps not in one try, but rather step by step, and I would expect
concessions and sacrifices by both sides." In general, a movement toward the
June 4, 1967 armistice lines, with minor modifications?
McCain nods in the affirmative. Whoever the next American president is, the
overall impression from a conversation with a leading candidate like McCain is
that the government of Israel is deluding itself if it believes that
"convergence" into "settlement
blocs," as opposed to a nearly total withdrawal from the Green Line, will
satisfy the next administration. In 2009, it will be a different show: Neither
Bush nor settlement blocs.
Three Views on Iraq, Three Years Later In May 2003 George W. Bush declared
“mission accomplished” in Iraq. A trio of analysts debates the current state of
the region.
Why I Supported the Iraq War
Michael Young
In the fall of 2002, I went to Syria to interview people there about the looming
Iraq conflict. At the time, I was still skeptical about the success of an
invasion, mainly because of the Bush administration’s convoluted justifications
for it. Each U.S. official, it seemed, had a different reason for going to war,
and while this cacophony meant less concerted opposition to President George W.
Bush’s goal of ousting Saddam Hussein, I thought it could seriously complicate
matters if the postwar situation were mishandled.
Generals err in refighting their last wars, and political analysts are little
different. I was applying the same logic I had after the war for Kuwait in 1991,
when I wrote a paper for a Canadian academic journal arguing that George H.W.
Bush had been lucky in winning so swift a victory against the Iraqis. In the
period leading up to that Gulf War, I recalled, the American public had been
hesitant, the administration’s intentions imprecise, and Congress divided. Had
the fighting dragged on, the absence of a domestic consensus could have turned
into a major headache for the White House. But nothing unifies as well as
success, and the first President Bush dodged a bullet.
I had great ambivalence on the road to Damascus in 2002. War seemed inevitable,
and I knew it could create an opportunity for deep regional change. Having spent
much of my life in a Middle East suffocated by brutal and mediocre regimes, of
which Iraq and Syria were loathsome exemplars; having arrived from a Lebanon
effectively ceded to Syria before the 1991 Gulf War by the Bush administration
in the name of political “realism”; having seen the sanctions regime against
Iraq disintegrate as the tyrant augmented his own people’s suffering to play on
Western guilt—having experienced all that and more, I was becoming less certain
that invading Iraq was such a bad idea, even if I had, in January 2003, signed
onto a statement calling for Saddam Hussein to voluntarily step down and leave
Iraq in order to avoid a war. I was not eager for war, but I was also unwilling
to oppose it if the alternative was leaving Saddam in power.
Among the Syrians I talked to was a prominent intellectual active in his
country’s civil society movement. Sitting with him one evening, I expected
criticism of America similar to what I had heard earlier that day. Instead, what
I got was an account of the latest meeting of my interlocutor’s civil society
group. He told me, “Someone asked, if the U.S. expands the Iraq war to overthrow
the Syrian regime, who among us would defend the regime? No one lifted a finger
to say they would.”
This came as a surprise. I knew I risked overinterpreting the exchange as
reflecting a more general Arab view, but I also saw that in assuming knee-jerk
anti-Americanism, I had underestimated the general disgust with Arab regimes.
The United States could make a difference if it played its cards right. The
domestic American debate over Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was of secondary
importance in the Middle East, where the parameters of discussion were
parochial: Arabs were either for or against war in Iraq for reasons related to
their own affairs. Whether Saddam might use his WMDs against Washington or
London was largely irrelevant.
No less selfishly, I hoped American soldiers in Iraq might help undermine
Syria’s 27-year-old subjugation of my own country, Lebanon, even if there was a
chance that the Syrians would initially react by tightening their grip. Lebanese
self-determination was not high on the Bush administration’s wish list, however,
so my
optimism, like that of comrades who also longed for an end to Syria’s vampiric
embrace, was guarded.
By the time the war started in March 2003, opposition to it seemed meaningless,
since only Arab despots would have benefited if it were aborted; in fact, for
anyone willing to accept the war’s revolutionary potential, opposition seemed
immoral. The Americans were inside the walls, and the only justifiable attitude
was to support the achievement of the invasion’s most desirable outcome: the
establishment, in stages, of a sustainable democratic state that could show
other Arabs what they were missing. Those who doubted this could be done because
Iraqi society was allegedly inoculated against the democratic bug had only to
look at the anxiety in Arab presidential palaces and courts to see their
pessimism was not universal. If the Bush administration was confused about its
goals, as it certainly seemed to be in the run-up to the war, it was up to Arab
liberals to provide guidance.
As Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003, I flipped to Syria’s official satellite
channel. Instead of showing footage from the Iraqi capital, it was, ludicrously,
broadcasting a documentary on Damascus’ Umayyad mosque. I then turned to an
Egyptian station where a retired general, an Arab nationalist, refused to
believe Baghdad had been taken. The U.S. had doctored the footage, he said. If
Syria’s dictatorship and the Arab nationalists were scared, I thought, then
something was right about the invasion. When the statue of Saddam Hussein was
pulled down, I was not particularly concerned by what it said about the
Americans; what interested me was whether Arabs would welcome the obliteration
of their most vicious idol. Mine was an atavistic reaction, one that at first
missed the fact that Baghdad had descended into chaos. I make no excuses for
this, but I quickly saw that the looting that followed Saddam’s fall was
ammunition for those seeking to discredit the invasion—and for those who, more
justifiably, argued that this grand American adventure in the Arab world would
not necessarily be pretty.
The looting was something else as well: a disturbing indication that the U.S.
wasn’t quite sure what to do now that it had occupied Iraq. It would take two
weeks for the first postwar administrator, Jay Garner, to reach Baghdad. But the
Americans enjoyed a grace period, reinforced by Shiite and Kurdish support for
Saddam’s overthrow and an understanding that a U.S. military presence was needed
during a transitional phase.
It was at that point that two separate requirements should have come into play
to buttress democratic dynamics in Iraq. First, the U.S. should have resolved
its own inconsistencies over how to run the country. If democracy was to be the
end product, then it was crucial to hand power over to the Iraqis themselves.
But it was also important to give a leg up to the disadvantaged democrats who
were timidly reemerging, not to rely on armed religious groups, particularly
those with ties to Iran.
Instead, Bush sent in Paul Bremer. At first he seemed to fancy himself a new
Percy Cox, the British civil servant who first ran Iraq under a British mandate.
To many Iraqis, Bremer’s power seemed absolute, and the U.S. looked increasingly
hypocritical for talking about democracy and the rule of law—a suspicion only
reinforced by the Abu Ghraib outrage.
A second requirement, which never gained a foothold in the public imagination,
was a consensus on what Iraq had turned into. As the “insurgency” gained
momentum, as civilians were randomly slaughtered by a so-called re-sistance, it
became obvious there was one assortment of forces, both inside and outside the
country, that wanted Iraq to succeed, and one that did not. The solution was not
to marginalize Arab Sunnis, the backbone of opposition to the new Iraq, but it
was to use both force and cooptation to bring the community into the new order.
Only the U.S. could do so. As a result, demanding a prompt U.S. withdrawal while
Iraq remained unstable made little sense; yet this was the irresponsible
rallying cry of the war’s opponents.
This is where Iraq proved to be a failure for a large number of Arab and Western
liberals. Most of them had blithely tolerated Saddam Hussein in his genocidal
heyday; only when America got involved did they sharpen their quills to angrily
denounce Bush’s war. Rare were those who, like Paul Berman, Kanan Makiya, and
Christopher Hitchens, saw Iraq as a new chapter in that persistent conflict that
had resumed on September 11, 2001: an ideological war pitting liberal humanism
against totalitarianism, disguised as murderous Islamism or Arab nationalism.
Rare were those who interpreted the Iraqi endeavor as anything more than a crude
bid for power in which ideas served only to conceal American perfidy.
Even if predictions of postwar mismanagement in Iraq proved to be correct, the
stakes required rising above recrimination. Arab liberals in particular missed
an exceptional opportunity to advance their cause. They needn’t have applauded
the U.S., but they could have supported its efforts to bring Iraq normality, for
the Iraqis’ sake. They could have backed the emergence of a pluralist Arab
country from which they might later draw sustenance. They could have admitted
that a strengthened Iraq was better able to push the Americans out than a weak
and divided one. But they could never see beyond America. America became their
obsession. In April 2003, one of their leading lights, Edward Said, wrote: “What
seems so monumentally criminal is that good, useful words like ‘democracy’ and
‘freedom’ have been hijacked, pressed into service as [an American] mask for
pillage, muscling in on territory, and the settling of scores.” Like many of his
peers, Said missed the deeper issue: whether Arabs could shape a durable,
tolerant, democratic system to replace the appalling, failed kleptocracies
pullulating in the region, the very regimes that oppressed them on a daily
basis. They couldn’t grasp that America’s failure in this regard was also
theirs.
Like any war, Iraq has become a graveyard for certainties. Those arguing that
the country could become a regional bastion of democratic transformation have a
duty to consider contrary arguments; this goes for opponents of the assertion as
well. Maybe it was inevitable that the strongest forces to emerge in postwar
Iraq would be religious or ethnic parties; but maybe, too, the American delay in
giving secular Iraqi representatives more power after the military victory
ensured that the mullahs and leaders of armed militias would fill the vacuum
when Bremer, under pressure from Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, agreed to a
transitional political process in which secular liberals were at a decisive
disadvantage. But that’s different from stating that democracy has failed in
Iraq; if anything, it may have succeeded too well.
Last year something happened that proved Iraq could bolster freedom elsewhere in
the region: Lebanon finally rid itself of Syrian rule, after weeks of massive
popular demonstrations following the murder of a former prime minister. Critics
of the Bush administration denied this development was a response to the January
2005 Iraqi elections or part of a regional democratic groundswell. But the
Lebanese undoubtedly drew confidence from the courage of the Iraqis, the
presence of American forces on Syria’s border, and the fact that this presence
pushed Lebanon higher up on Washington’s agenda.
Democracy in the Middle East will not simultaneously break out in different
places, as it did in Eastern Europe. It can only advance if the U.S. makes it a
top foreign policy priority, shows a willingness to use a combination of
incentives and coercion to bring it about, and consolidates and defends
democracy in specific countries, before using these as platforms to push for
transformation elsewhere. The effort requires patience, subtlety, and a
willingness to accept that American foes may also profit from more liberty. Why
should Arab democracy matter to the U.S.? Because of 9/11. Berman was right when
he wrote, in his 2003 essay Terror and Liberalism: “In the anti-nihilist system,
freedom for others means safety for ourselves. Let us be for the freedom of
others.”
What’s next for Iraq? I feel no confidence making predictions from Beirut. Iraqi
society has shown more resilience than it has been given credit for, and it is
keen to avoid the wasteland of full-scale civil war. Inter-sectarian killings
will continue, which may make it seem like civil war has already started. But
war is more than killing; it requires a vast leviathan that can sustain the
carnage, fund it, and mobilize society while keeping the unhappy in line. Such
machinery is not fully in place in Iraq, which is, provisionally, good news. As
for the U.S., the question is no longer whether it must leave Iraq, but whether
the administration has the will to stay and defend its gains there. As talk of
civil war escalates, would Americans agree to send more troops to avert
disaster? No. Psychologically, no matter how many soldiers remain in Iraq, many
in the U.S. have already headed for the exits. This doesn’t bode well for open
societies in the Middle East.
**Contributing Editor Michael Young is opinion editor of the Daily Star
newspaper in Lebanon.
You Can’t Bring Order to the Middle East
Leon Hadar
After a storm, be it political or meteorological, passes over the Middle East,
the region returns to its eternal stillness. The people come out of hiding,
remove the sand from their faces, and return to the desert’s routine: the daily
struggle over water wells and grazing spaces. The desert’s tribes go back to the
ritual of signing and breaking alliances, and their leaders meet at night before
the fire to contemplate the next raid against their hostile neighbors.
If an American guest is there, he’ll be treated to another ritual of Middle
Eastern hospitality. The tribe’s elders listen to his advice and nod with polite
approval as the foreigner, the child of some faraway green pasture land,
suggests that the time has come to replace despotic rule with liberal government
and primal desert hatred with eternal peace. As the American guest outlines his
vision of a new Middle Eastern order in a Power Point presentation, the Arab
elders recall the foreigners who have passed through the region: the Greeks, the
Romans, the Crusaders, the British, the French, and now the Americans.
Those foreigners hoped to recreate the Middle East in their own image, only to
retreat from the region humiliated and exhausted, leaving nothing more than
their imprint on the archaeological record. (“And this is a relic of Baghdad’s
Green Zone, which the Americans had constructed around 200 years ago, several
decades before the start of the Chinese Era.…”)
Washington is finding that notwithstanding all the great expectations, the
post-Saddam Middle East looks quite familiar. The stable, democratic Iraq that
would serve as a shining model for the entire Middle East and its peripheries
has failed to materialize.
Following the end of the Gulf War in 1991, Washington also expected a new
American-led order would arise in the region. The Madrid Peace Conference and
the ensuing Oslo peace process were supposed to lay the foundations for a New
Middle East, in which Israelis and Palestinians would make peace and the region
would be integrated into the expanding and prosperous global economy, with young
and hip Israelis and Palestinians making money, surfing the Internet, watching
MTV, and launching high-tech start-ups in Israel’s Silicon Wadi. That was the
vision promoted by Shimon Peres and echoed by America’s leading fan of
globalization and Oslo, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.
Ten years later it is mostly the same old Middle East. Notwithstanding the
neoconservative dreams of unleashing a democratic revolution in Iran, the
ayatollahs are still in power in Teheran and the radicals there seem to be
strengthening their grip. The Hashemites are still in control in Jordan with its
Palestinian majority, and their traditional rivals, the Saudis, remain firmly in
control of their oil-rich country. The military is still in charge in Egypt, and
authoritarian regimes, “soft” and “hard,” are in power all over the Arab world.
The ouster of Saddam was supposed to usher in a new era of political freedom in
Iraq, where the country and its people would be united behind a pro-American,
democratically elected government. Iraq would be pluralistic, secular, and
committed to women’s rights, and it would help spread political and economic
freedom all over the Middle East.
Instead, open elections have made Iraq and Palestine safe not for liberal
democracy but for nationalism and other atavistic and combative forms of
identity—religious fundamentalism, ethnicity, and tribalism. In Iraq, the power
of Kurdish separatists and Shiite clerics with ties to Iran has been
consolidated while the Sunni minority has been “Al Qaedicized.” The rise of
Hamas in Palestine has made it even less likely that Israelis and Palestinians
will find peace anytime soon.
The history of “great power” intervention in the Mideast should have warned Bush
and his advisers to proceed with caution and humility. The Greater Middle East
that stretches from the Balkans to the borders of India is what political
scientists would describe as the most “penetrated” area of the world—one where
numerous tribal, religious, ethnic, national, regional, and extra-regional
political players combine and divide in a shifting pattern of alliances. Chaos
and instability have been the rule, not the exception, since the fall of the
Ottoman Empire. Outsiders who want to play the Middle East game should expect to
become part of this chaotic system, not vehicles to stabilize it.
In the old imperial movie, the British created Iraq. They put the Hashemites and
the Saudis in power. They maintained influence in Egypt. They tried to end this
or that cycle of violence between Arabs and Jews in the Holy Land. We know how
that movie ended. Resistance from regional players (including terrorism),
challenges from global powers (including their U.S. ally), economic decline, and
opposition at home led eventually to a long and painful British withdrawal from
the region, culminating in the 1956 Suez debacle.
“Our armies do not come to your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but
as liberators,” General F. S. Maud, the British commander who occupied Baghdad
in 1917, pledged to the people of Mesopotamia back then. The U.S. said the same
thing in 2003. The name of the movie is now The American Unilateral Moment in
the Middle East. The actors are different, but the script is familiar: The
Americans are trying to recreate Iraq, navigate between the Saudis and the
Hashemites, preserve influence in Egypt, and bring an end to another cycle of
Arab-Jewish violence.
The neoconservatives driving this imperial project have added a Wilsonian
soundtrack to the old realpolitik script and raised the costs of the American
production by suggesting that the United States has the power and the will to
create an Iraqi federation of Arabs, both Sunni and Shiite, and Kurds based on
liberal principles and trickle-down democracy, secularism, and pro-Americanism.
Once we accomplish this, all the dominos of Middle Eastern instability,
including rogue regimes and terrorist gangs and centuries of tribal and
religious strife, will smoothly fall.
History has shown that outside powers may indeed tilt the Middle East
kaleidoscope. But the many tiny pieces of colored glass promptly fall into a new
configuration that looks very different from what the tilter expected. The
ousting of Saddam Hussein from power, for example, is creating an environment in
the Middle East in which nationalism, religious extremism, and tribal warfare
are becoming the central driving forces. Consider the dilemmas the U.S. faces in
finding the right balance in its relations with Israelis and Palestinians, and
multiply that again and again, and you will get a sense of the enormous problems
Washington will be facing in Iraq and its peripheries in the coming years.
Americans should recognize that their interests in the Middle East are not only
not being advanced; they are actually harmed by pursuing a hegemonic policy
there. Americans should regard the Islamic Green Crescent of Instability ranging
from the Balkans to the borders of China with a sense of benign neglect coupled
with effective security measures to contain the destructive effects of the
political chaos and violence that will probably dominate that region for years
to come. Constructive disengagement from the Middle East—“We’ll leave, and
you’ll let us live”—needn’t be seen as a sign of weakness. Not if it’s bolstered
by an active containment policy that makes it clear that those who dare harm us
will be punished.
Those involved in the formulation and implementation of U.S. policy in the
Middle East assume that people in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Afghanistan think like
them and want the same things they do. At a 2004 conference at the Pentagon, a
U.S. Army colonel asked Thomas Barnett, a strategic thinker at the U.S. Naval
War College who was trying to convince a group of military officers that
American power could be used to democratize the Middle East, whether that
assumption was justified. “Everyone wants a better future for their kids,”
Barnett said. “I’ve been around a lot of people who don’t think like us,” the
colonel replied.
In the Middle East, Americans are encountering a lot of people who don’t think
like us and who see U.S. power as an obstacle to achieving their goals or as a
tool to advance their own tribal, ethnic, religious, and national interests. We
should—for our good, not theirs—remove that obstacle, reclaim that tool, and
advance our own interests.
Leon Hadar, a Washington-based journalist and a research fellow at the Cato
Institute, is author of Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2005). He blogs at globalparadigms.blogspot.com.
Six Facts About Iraq
Tom G. Palmer
I’ve been to Iraq three times since the fall of Baghdad, and I expect to be back
soon. I’ve learned a few things there that I probably wouldn’t have learned had
I not gone. Based on those lessons and the kind of information that’s available
to anyone who takes the time to read, here are six theses about the future of
Iraq.
1. Anyone who is certain about how things are going to turn out doesn’t know
what he’s talking about. The number of variables is simply too great to foresee
the outcome, even in broad terms. The political and military conflicts take
place along religious fault lines (Sunni, Shiite, secular); ethnic fault lines
(Arab, Kurd, Turkmen); tribal fault lines (too numerous to mention); the fault
lines of personal ambition (Moqtada al Sadr vs. Abdel Aziz al Hakim for
leadership of the religious Shiite bloc, for example); and regional fault lines
(with oil-poor western Iraq pitted against relatively oil-rich northern and
southern Iraq). The international situation complicates matters further, with
Turkey ready to intervene (with at least tacit Iranian and Syrian support) if
the Kurdish autonomous area declares its independence, and with Iranian agents
spreading walking-around money throughout the country, but especially among the
Shia factions in the south.
Further, as the recent bombing of the Golden Mosque of Samarra shows, the role
of contingency and accident is enormous. A gap in security that allows in a
suicide bomber or the direction of a single mortar shell could completely change
the direction of events. For example, were the Sunni insurgents or Shiite rivals
able to assassinate Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, it’s impossible to predict
the consequences, other than to say that they likely would be horrific, since
al-Sistani has been a prominent voice for restraint among the Shiites.
In short, it’s impossible to predict Iraq’s future.
2. The war being fought in Iraq is unlike any other. Parallels with Vietnam are
of limited use for the simple reason that the Communists were seeking to kick
out the Saigon government and replace it, not to create a firestorm that would
engulf the region. For Al Qaeda in Iraq, it won’t be over if the U.S. and allied
forces withdraw, or the U.S.-backed government falls. In fact, many of those
fighting the U.S. and the elected government don’t want the U.S. to withdraw.
They want to draw us in further, hoping, as Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri
recently put it, to “make the West bleed for years.” Nor is World War II a
useful comparison: Once the Fascists and Nazis were beaten, they were beaten.
They didn’t go underground and wage a war of destruction; their ideology was
effectively defeated with their armies.
The goal of at least a large faction among the insurgents is to create maximum
chaos and maximum bloodshed. They account for a tiny fraction of the Iraqi
population, and no one really knows what percentage of them are foreigners, but
they are ruthless and determined. They will also be very difficult to defeat. No
accommodation is possible with them. The existence of an armed faction that is
dedicated to destruction per se makes the job of defeating the insurgency all
the more difficult.
3. Kurdistan is radically unlike the rest of Iraq. When I drove around Suleimani,
the major city in eastern Kurdistan, I saw new buildings with plenty of plate
glass windows. That’s a sign of a city that has little fear of suicide bombers
or random gunfire. The feeling of relative freedom you get in Kurdish cities is
remarkable. The security checkpoints around every city are efficient, and the
security forces arrive promptly when they’re called.
The Kurdish region presents an interesting case for political scientists,
because it offers a chance to test the relative significance of intentions and
of institutions. On the one hand, most everyone seems intent on having a
liberal, at least quasi-capitalist democracy. On the other hand, the Kurds have
weak civil society institutions and a history of one-party rule; they suffer
from the curse of oil (which has been shown time and time again to make the
emergence of liberal democracy and free markets improbable, since efforts are
devoted to dividing up resource rents rather than to productive activities); and
they are surrounded by hostile or potentially hostile parties (a situation that
tends to produce an atmosphere of groupthink).
Politics in Kurdistan is dominated by two parties, the Kurdistan Democratic
Party (PDK) in the west and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in the east.
I got a sense of their influence when I went to one of the universities to give
some lectures. I was told that no weapons could be taken in. This did not sit
well with some of my friends, who demanded to know who had decided that. They
were told, “It’s been decided by the party.” They didn’t like that, either, and
we kept our weapons. What was remarkable was that the answer wasn’t “the dean
decided it” or “the city council decided it” but “the party decided it.” Still,
the PDK and the PUK have agreed to allow offices of each party (and of other
Iraqi parties) to exist throughout Kurdistan, and there is real debate in
Kurdish political life and institutions. There are independent media outlets,
and in the libraries of the universities one can find newspapers for every
political party. The general direction is promising, but it’s hard to overcome
years of clan rule, which has been solidified by the organization of parties.
I am optimistic about Kurdistan, but the obstacles to a free society there are
still enormous.
4. The police are substantially unreliable, whereas the army may be the only
authentically Iraqi institution in the country. During a recent briefing with
some senior Pentagon officers about the progress of the war in Iraq, I asked
about the problem of the infiltration of many police forces by militias, most
important among them Moqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army, which has made inroads in the
south. The response was that Sadr is now a part of the political landscape of
Iraq and that he will have to be accommodated, as was shown by the renomination
of Ibrahim Jafari for the post of prime minister by one vote, which was
undoubtedly due to Sadr’s influence.
More interesting has been the contrast in training and performance between the
police forces and the army. The police forces have been largely ineffectual at
stopping the insurgents and are, it seems, often controlled or intimidated by
sectarian militias; even the security forces from the Ministry of the Interior
are substantially controlled by sectarian forces, notably the Badr Brigades
allied with Abdel Aziz al Hakim’s Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq
party. Meanwhile, the army increasingly has been taking on greater
responsibility, accompanied by U.S. advisers, for combat operations in crucial
areas of Iraq.
If the insurgents are defeated, it will probably be thanks to the Iraqi Army,
not the local police or other security forces (at least outside of Kurdistan),
which are perceived by many (often quite rightly) as enforcement arms of
sectarian groups. That said, it should be emphasized that some units of the army
are perceived as dominated by non-Sunnis and therefore hostile to Sunni
interests; creating a nonsectarian national army is a daunting task in a country
that has for so long been dominated by sectarian powers.
5. It is hard for people in liberal democracies to understand the mentality of
most Iraqis. Iraqis live in a society that was long dominated by lies and
propaganda. Rather than the clash of views in a free press, they are accustomed
to relying on rumors. With the advent of a free press, that has changed
somewhat, and people are less likely to believe everything they hear, but
rational discourse is still in limited supply. Many Iraqis are convinced that
foreign forces are there to steal their oil (which the world is “stealing” at
more than $60 a barrel), that the country is wealthy and only requires a good
leader to share that wealth (a refrain I heard from many and which I took great
pains to explain was a deadly error; Iraq is not a rich society but a
desperately poor one), and so on. Moreover, conspiracy theories are the most
common form of political understanding. (That is a problem throughout the Middle
East, but it is especially pronounced in Iraq.)
The neoconservative assumption that the default condition when you eliminate a
dictatorship is liberal democracy has been shown to be false. It is not the
default position of mankind but a rare achievement, one that is often won only
at a high price.
Adopting the habit of listening to others, of testing claims against evidence,
of comparing different sources of news and information, and the other elements
of the Enlightenment mentality is proving very difficult. It is not impossible,
but it is harder than many expected.
6. If the U.S. were to withdraw tomorrow, the country would be plunged into a
bloodbath. But if the U.S. does not make it clear that foreign forces will
withdraw, it is unlikely that Iraqis will be able to unite to defeat the
terrorists. The prospect of an indefinite substantial military presence in Iraq
will provide a ready scapegoat for all of the country’s problems (including the
havoc wreaked by the insurgency). Only the credible prospect of a departure is
likely to bring the parties to the table to create a relatively (and I stress
relatively) liberal and stable regime for Iraq. And even that might not suffice.
The country could break apart. That might not be the worst outcome, but the
fighting to determine the borders of the resulting states could be fierce.
If the Bush administration is serious about defeating the insurgents, it has to
realize that the Iraqis are better placed to do so and that they will have more
incentive to do so if they know that the U.S. will be leaving.
There is a chance that things will turn out well in Iraq, or at least not badly.
Whatever the outcome, libertarians should be eager to assist the Iraqis in
creating a free society. That’s why my Arab friends and I have established the
Lamp of Liberty (misbahalhurriyya.org) to bring the message of liberty to both
Iraqis and the wider Arab world. I am working with Iraqi libertarians who are
trying to do the best they can under very difficult circumstances to combat
fanaticism, terrorism, and statism. It’s a hard slog, but we have no choice.
Tom G. Palmer is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a founder of the Lamp
of Liberty site, which presents libertarian ideas in Arabic.
The Strategic Waves of Iraq's Liberation
by Walid Phares, Ph.D.World Defense Review columnist
In a previous analysis of the War in Iraq, I argued that in the middle of a
conflict, one cannot pronounce the final verdict yet, but detect the trends of
successes and failures.
Between 2003 and 2006, the U.S. led coalition, was winning by points while al
Qaida wasn't able to reverse the process, yet. The ending of Saddam's regime,
the rise of a political consensus, the deployment of new Iraqi forces and the
three popular votes is a string of coalition victories. The Salafists and
Khumeinists weren't yet able to crumble the Sistani-backed Iraqi consensus.
Hence in Iraq itself, and despite the all-out war by the Jihadists and the
omnipresence of Iranian heavy influence, fact is that the equation hasn't been
reversed yet. That alone is telling: Until the Iraqi Government is forced to
break down, the Iraqi army to divide and disperse, and the Salafis and
Khumeinists forces take over in their areas of influence, the Iraq supported by
the Coalition is still up and running.
We'll judge on the long-term outcome as we are watching the regional context
evolving. For we do not negate the possibility of a general crumbling of the
U.S.-led efforts in the Middle East, if Washington's current strategic
objectives are changed, or are not well prosecuted. But until this happen,
America and the democracy forces are winning, point-by-point.
However, these waves of geopolitical changes have bypassed the borders of Iraq.
Three years after the fall of Saddam, let's contemplate the bigger picture for
US efforts in the region:
1. Iraq: The Baathist army of 2003 and its projected re-armament for the decade
are gone. In a zero sum game the defunct dictatorship won't be able to throw
divisions in future battlefields of its choice, nor use restructured
non-conventional weapons against neighbors and beyond. More important, as I
argue in my book Future Jihad, any projected axis of terror in the region will
operate without a surviving Saddam. In today's analytical terms, Iran's
Ahmedinijad and Syrian's Assad can't factor Iraq as a regional power that can
converge against "common enemies" anymore. Even better, with patience a "new
Iraq" will fight along with the alliance and against the axis of
Baathism-Jihadism. That alone is an undisputed change in the map setting.
2. Removing the Syrian army from Lebanon, even partially, would have been hard,
had five layers of radicals, Hezbollah, and the four regimes of Lahoud, Assad,
Saddam and Ahmedinijad, have been able to form a continuum from the
Mediterranean to Pakistan. But with the Baath removed from Iraq, Iran got
surrounded, and Assad lost his eastern strategic depth to face off with the US
sixth fleet. Hence, without one single shot, he had to pull his forces out of
Lebanon. The mere presence of the US forces in Iraq liberated not one, but two
countries, though partially still.
3. The US move in Iraq alienated the French Government. But the Lebanese issue,
moved back Paris to the Western alliance against Syria's regime, Hezbollah and
Iran. Without that Iraq-generated Lebanon opportunity, France and its European
partners wouldn't have put their weight in the balance. Ironically, the march of
US Marines towards Baghdad, paved the way for France's diplomats to follow
(along with their US counterparts) the road to UNSCR 1559 in New York.
4. With Lebanon slowly emerging from decades of Syrian occupation, a new balance
of power is in the making in that small but strategic country: Hezbollah is not
the sole power anymore. With the Syrian forces out, the Iran-dominated terror
organization has to keep an eye on its rear-guard pressed by the one million
marchers of the Cedars Revolution. Thus, without the change in Iraq, that
revolution wasn't expected to happen soon, or even to happen at all bloodlessly.
The weight of US presence in Iraq, freed the energies of another civil society
in the region: Lebanon. Evidently, Hezbollah and its regional backers are
counter attacking the Cedars Revolution. It is all up to Lebanon's civil society
and the international community not to let Lebanon be left to the slaughter
again. Meanwhile, and in contrast with the 1990s, today there is a space to
widen freedom out of Lebanon.
5. The domino effect reached Iran: With US forces in Afghanistan protecting a
rising democracy, coalition forces in Iraq, coaching an expanding democracy, and
a UN backed civil revolution struggling in Beirut, Tehran's environment has been
altered: Its strategists are attempting to accommodate evolving situations to
their east (Afghanistan), west (Syria) and far west (Lebanon). US soldiers
taking back Fallujah and training Iraqis are changing the strategic landscape of
the Mullahs threat.
6. The cataclysmic changes in Iraq caused yet remote developments: Gaddafi's
regime surrendered his designs on nuclear weapons, affecting the threat of rogue
regimes; Sudan's Islamist regime moderated its stance on the South, and began to
deal with an international initiative in Darfur. Absent of the Iraq campaign, it
would have been less likely to see Tripoli offering concessions and a window for
international attempts to stop the Genocide in Sudan.
7. In the war of ideas, the change in Iraq, mobilized the region's dissident
forces. Watching the rise of 120 political parties in Iraq, women voting in
Afghanistan, demonstrators in Beirut, thousands of democracy activists have
spread online and in many Arab countries. Another indirect consequence of the
sacrifices consented by young men and women from America's little towns and
mega-cities.
The ripple effects of the US campaign, is amazingly wider quantitatively and
qualitatively than the Iraq-only results. The seven effects above mentioned are
only a limited version of the earthquake striking the region and awakening its
underdogs to freedom. In the final analysis all perception depends on the
understanding of this conflict by average Americans and soon to be by Europeans
and Middle Eastern alike. It is about to be or not to be conscious about it. The
ability of the reader, viewer, and student in the United States to understand
the far meaning of Iraq's geopolitical changes can insure these changes are for
real and the Middle East chances for greater freedoms possible.
— Walid Phares holds degrees in law and political science from Saint Joseph
University and the Lebanese University in Beirut, a Masters in international law
from the Universite de Lyons in France and a Ph.D. in international relations
and strategic studies from the University of Miami.
He has taught and lectured at numerous universities worldwide, practiced law in
Beirut, and served as publisher of Sawt el-Mashreq and Mashrek International. He
currently teaches Middle East political issues, ethnic and religious conflict,
and comparative politics at Florida Atlantic University.
Dr. Phares has written seven books on the Middle East and published hundreds of
articles in newspapers and scholarly publications such as Global Affairs, Middle
East Quarterly, and Journal of South Asian and Middle East Studies. He has
appeared on CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, and BBC as well as on radio
broadcasts.
Aside from serving on the boards of several national and international think
tanks and human rights associations, Dr. Phares has testified before the US
Senate Subcommittee on the Middle East and South East Asia and regularly
conducts congressional and State Department briefings.
Dr. Phares is a senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
in Washington, D.C.
**Visit Dr. Phares on the web at walidphares.com and defenddemocracy.org.
© 2006 Walid Phares
Iran, Syria to expand IT ties
May 1, 2006
Visiting Syrian Communications and Technology Minister Amr Nazir Salem met with
his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Soleimani here Saturday. At the meeting,
Soleimani pointed to the fact that eight million persons have registered for
mobile phone SIM cards and said the capacity of Iran's mobile phone network in
the current year has grown and expanded as much as in the last 12 years. He
disclosed that Iran's national Internet Network also will be commissioned in the
next two years and concurrently the postal and communications facilities will be
developed as well.
Turning to relations between Iran and Syria, Soleimani said that mutual
cooperation is strongly rooted and he hoped the two ministries can increase
their cooperation in the field of communications and information technology.
Nazir Salem, for his part, said that the Syrian government will develop its
information dissemination network and land-based as well as mobile phone
services through 'NGN' network and in this connection consultations between the
two sides can be fruitful . © Iranian.ws
News By Us, not news bias Updated daily
U.S. must destroy Iran's nuclear facilities
By Ayn Rand Institute: David Holcberg on May 01, 2006
No amount of negotiation or international pressure will persuade the Iranian
theocrats to give up their longtime quest for nuclear bombs. To ensure Iran will
not produce--or use--nuclear bombs, the United States and its allies must
destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities and wipe out its regime--and must do so
without delay.
Iran presents a much greater danger to the United States’ security than did Iraq
and Afghanistan combined. Once Iran gets hold of nuclear bombs, the United
States will be an easy target for blackmail and a likely target for mass
destruction. As one of the principal ideological sources of Islamist
totalitarianism, Iran is an avowed enemy of the United States and a leading
state sponsor of terrorism. Iran finances, trains, shelters and equips
terrorists from organizations like al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.
Iran is currently waging a proxy war against the United States in Iraq and
killing American soldiers by the dozens (if not by the hundreds). Under those
circumstances the United States has a moral right--indeed, a moral
obligation--to defend its people from Iran’s threats and preempt future
terrorist attacks.
The Iranian regime has repeatedly threatened to use its soon-to-be-produced
nuclear weapons to wipe Israel off the map. It has repeatedly called for “Death
to America.” These threats must be taken seriously. We did not take Osama bin
Laden’s threats seriously, and lost thousands of lives in the Twin Towers. We do
not want to make the same mistake with Iran, and lose many thousands more.
Copyright © 2006 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Shiite cleric seen trying to broaden his base of support
By Nancy A. Youssef-Knight Ridder Newspapers
TRAVIS HEYING, Wichita Eagle
Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr listens to a question during a press conference in
Najaf, Iraq in 2003. BAGHDAD, Iraq - Firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is working
behind the scenes to maintain his armed militant wing and portray it as a social
movement, a step that would make him one of Iraq's most powerful figures if it
succeeds, U.S. officials and Iraqi politicians say. American officials think
that al-Sadr, who already controls the largest bloc of votes in the National
Assembly, is modeling himself after Lebanon's Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed
Shiite Muslim movement born during that country's civil war in the 1980s.
Although it began largely as an armed group, it eventually became a powerful
political force with a large social-service component. Some U.S. and Iraq
officials think that al-Sadr's shift is a symptom of a growing rift within the
powerful Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, which has dominated Iraq's two
parliamentary elections. That split pits al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia
against members of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq to be the
voice of all Iraqi Shiites.
"It's a struggle for power," said Adnan Pachachi, a secularist and member of
parliament.
A successful move by al-Sadr would be a major transformation for the
30-something scion of a clan of revered Shiite religious figures. Once derided
as ill educated and undisciplined, al-Sadr has been on the verge of defeat twice
at the hands of the American military and once was charged by an Iraqi court
with murdering two prominent Shiite clerics.
But he's maintained his role in Iraq, joining the United Iraqi Alliance while
maintaining his Mahdi Army, which controls Sadr City, Baghdad's largest Shiite
neighborhood, named for al-Sadr's father.
Now al-Sadr is working to expand his influence, building regional offices in
major Shiite communities to help widows, workers, children and the sick with
services the Iraqi government can't yet provide, such as health care and potable
water.
Al-Sadr also is insisting in talks to form a new government that his followers,
who hold 32 of the assembly's 275 seats, lead key service ministries such as
education and health.
At the same time, U.S. officials think al-Sadr is trying to better organize and
train the Mahdi Army, expanding his reach by placing fighters in Shiite
communities beyond Sadr City.
"I think he is now trying to work a parallel program and make (the Mahdi Army)
more professional while also developing these organizations throughout the
districts that ensure religious outreach, education, social advantage and
opportunity," said a top U.S. intelligence official who agreed to speak only if
granted anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject. "All the
things that the government doesn't fill in, he will."
Sheik Yousif al-Nasseri, an al-Sadr supporter and the head of al-Shaheedin, an
al-Sadr-oriented research center, embraced the comparison between al-Sadr's
movement and Lebanon's Hezbollah, particularly if it means that the populace
sees al-Sadr as representing the people.
"If this is their vision, that we resemble Hezbollah, then God willing we are
going to be stronger than Hezbollah and move the people and the nation," al-Nasseri
said.
Hezbollah began as a militant group that opposed the Israeli presence in
southern Lebanon, but it began to provide services such as clinics and clean
water with the help of financial backing from Iran. In the most recent Lebanese
elections, Hezbollah won 23 of the 128 seats in the Lebanese Parliament, and it
holds two ministerial posts.
The State Department lists Hezbollah as among the Middle East's "active
extremist and terrorist groups."
American officials also take a dim view of al-Sadr, whom they hold chiefly
responsible for attacks on Sunni Muslim mosques after the Feb. 22 bombing of the
Askariya shrine, a Shiite holy site, in the mostly Sunni city of Samarra. In the
aftermath of those attacks, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said militias were
a greater threat to Iraq than the country's Sunni insurgency.
Al-Sadr publicly says his Mahdi Army isn't a militia but an unorganized group of
street fighters who take up arms only when needed. "There is no party
organization, no salaries paid out, no bases and they use only their personal
weapons," Sadr said at a rare news conference last week.
Officials say al-Sadr's effort to establish the Mahdi Army as a provider of
essential services also highlights his disagreement with other key members of
the United Iraqi Alliance, particularly the Supreme Council for Islamic
Revolution in Iraq. Al-Sadr views the Supreme Council's militia, the Badr
Organization, as too close to Iran, which gave shelter to many Supreme Council
leaders during Saddam Hussein's rule.
Al-Sadr also rejects calls for allowing Iraqi regions a great deal of autonomy,
which is known here as federalism. The Supreme Council supports the idea.
U.S. officials think al-Sadr is trying to broaden his base of support so that he
can challenge the Supreme Council for prominence. Not everyone thinks he'll be
successful. They note that in contrast to Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan
Nasralla, who's considered one of the most charismatic figures in the Middle
East, al-Sadr often appears awkward and indecisive in his public appearances.
In addition, they argue, he can't win over the majority of Shiites, particularly
since most are loyal first to Iraq's No. 1 Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani. "He is trying, but I don't think he can," said Saad al-Janabi, a
former Sunni negotiator who joined the National Assembly as a secularist. "There
is no one voice of the Shiites."
Pachachi noted Hezbollah's close ties to Iran, an important element in its
survival and something that al-Sadr could be lacking.
But they agree that there's a vacuum for someone to fill, because the government
remains weak and residents are frustrated by the religious and ethnic discord
and the lack of services. "In a strange way, he has emerged as a nationalist
leader," said James Denselow, an Iraq specialist at the London-based Chatham
House, an international research center. "Whether he can do it or not is
something else."
Growing rift splits Islamic radicals
By Alfred de Montesquiou
The Associated Press
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 04.30.2006
advertisementCAIRO, Egypt — When terrorists blew themselves up in Egypt's Sinai
Peninsula this week, the radical Palestinian group Hamas quickly joined Arab
governments and Western leaders in condemning a "criminal attack against all
human values." Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood called the bombings "aggression
on human souls created by God."
The denunciations were unexpectedly harsh from the Islamic fundamentalist groups
— Hamas has killed hundreds of Israeli civilians in suicide bombings, and the
Brotherhood is determined to impose an Islamic government — but experts agree
that radical Muslim organizations want to distance themselves from al-Qaida.
The widening rift largely has not been acknowledged by Western powers, which
tend to lump Islamic radicals together. The U.S. list of Foreign Terrorist
Organizations, for example, puts al-Qaida with Hamas and the Lebanon-based
Hezbollah.
But scholars of Islamic movements and some Western policy-makers say
distinctions now must be made between hard-line Islamist organizations and "holy
warrior" groups such as Osama bin Laden's terror network.
Reformers, extremists
"There is a fundamental difference between Islamic groups: Most are
sociopolitical reformists, others are religious extremists," said Dia'a Rashwan,
an Egyptian expert on radical groups.
Hamas and Hezbollah, for example, have national agendas, he said. They want to
reorganize society according to Sharia, or Islamic law.
Extremist religious movements such as al-Qaida are international revolutionaries
who excoriate not only non-Muslims but also Muslims who fail to follow their
views. Theirs is a holy war to spread their views among Muslims and to repel any
"infidel invasion" of Islamic lands. "Branding these two branches of radicalism
the same way, as terrorist organizations, reflects a complete misunderstanding
of the issue," he said, and the confusion was a "fatal mistake" of the Bush
administration in its war on terror. He said that to fight an enemy, one had to
define it correctly: "America doesn't, and this is why it is losing the war on
terrorism."
U.S. policy-makers and the State Department did not respond to requests by The
Associated Press for comment.
Leaders from both branches of radical Islam frequently join in a call to destroy
Israel and form an Islamic superstate of all Muslim countries. But the
similarities are mostly rhetorical, said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle
East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a
Washington-based think tank.
"The rift is widening, partly because most governments have become more open to
engaging in a dialogue with hard-line Islamic voices if they give up violence,"
he said. And in most Muslim countries, he said, the population has been more
willing to engage with national radicals than with "millennial" movements that
view Israel and the West as apocalyptic enemies. In Lebanon, for example, al-Qaida-style
groups had little support, but Hezbollah became the leading political force
among Shiite Muslims, he said. By cracking down on al-Qaida but allowing more
freedom to political groups like the Muslim Brotherhood — a rising force in
Egypt with more than 80 lawmakers in Parliament — Arab states were in effect
"creating more daylight" between revolutionary and reformist radicals, he said.
Aye Photog / Arizona Daily Star Here goes the cutline that will give the reader
more information about the story and photo they are spending their precious
time. Here goes the cutline that will give the reader more information about.
● Al-Qaida prods troops / A17
16th World Press Freedom Day
3 May 2006: Reporters Without Borders has been working daily for more than 20
years to defend press freedom around the world. It will mark World Press Freedom
Day on 3 May to remind people that democracy suffers every time the right to
inform the public and to be informed is undermined in any country.
The Annual Report on press freedom - Under Embargo until 3 May at 00.01 AM
(Paris time) 2005 was the deadliest year for a decade for the media, with 63
journalists and five media assistants killed, at least 807 media workers
arrested, more
than 1,300 physically attacked or threatened and at least 1,006 media outlets
censored. More than a third of the world's population lives in countries where
press freedom is minimal.
The 2006 Annual Report on press freedom (in 105 countries) is available on 3 May
in three languages and can be downloaded from the Reporters Without Borders
website: www.rsf.org The press freedom
barometer in 2006 (up to 2 May)
So far this year, 16 journalists and 6 media assistants have been killed and 120
journalists and 56 cyber-dissidents are in prison worldwide for simply wanting
to do their job.
Reporters Without Borders exposes 37 predators of press freedom The media has
enemies, and they all have faces. Reporters Without Borders has shown them to
the world each year since 2001. They include presidents, cabinet ministers,
kings, "supreme guides," guerrilla chieftains and bosses of criminal
organisations. Each has the power to imprison, kidnap,
torture and sometimes murder journalists. Their position usually ensures they
are never punished and never tried for their violations of human rights.
The 37 are presented in Gilles Caron for Press Freedom book of photos
and also from 3 May on our website: www.rsf.org
Publication of a new book of photographs, "Gilles Caron for Press
Freedom" After last year's book about the work of French photographer
Jean-Philippe
Charbonnier, we now present one devoted to the pictures of Gilles Caron, a
French photographer who disappeared in Cambodia when he was only 30, >leaving a
body of work that was rich and varied and done in the space of only a few years.
The book includes includes his most powerful and representative photos taken
between 1965 and 1970.
The 152-page book is on sale from 3 May for 8.90 euros and all the proceeds go
to helping the 120 journalists currently in prison around the world.
Press pack, copyright-free photos and other material can be downloaded from:
www.rsf.org/espace_presse
Contact: Reporters Without Borders press department: (33) 1 4483-84 84 /
presse@rsf.org
News of all attacks on press freedom around the world day by day: www.rsf.org
Maghreb & Middle-East Desk
Lynn TEHINI
Reporters Without Borders
5 rue Geoffroy-Marie
F - 75009 Paris
33 1 44 83 84 84
33 1 45 23 11 51 (fax)
middle-east@rsf.org
www.rsf.org