By Barry Rubin
Let’s not forget about Lebanon even though the Obama Administration has done so.
Walid Jumblatt, once the lion of the moderate coalition, has now deserted it, thus weakening the anti-Hizballah, anti-Syrian, Lebanese nationalist forces that want to keep Lebanon independent.
There is still no government, but two principles have been established.
First, Hizballah will have one-third of the cabinet seats and a veto blocking the government from doing anything it doesn’t like. This makes Hizballah a co-ruler of the country able to block any effort to:
Weaken its militia, force it out of control of southern Lebanon, reduce its arms smuggling, increase cooperation with UN forces policing the Israel-Lebanon border, investigate Syrian involvement in past murders of moderate political and journalistic figures, improve relations with the United States, or do pretty much anything that Iran or Syria doesn’t like.
So it is possible for the U.S. and French governments to pretend that Lebanon is still in moderate, pro-Western, independent hands but that just isn’t true.
Second, the Lebanese government will endorse the “Resistance” philosophy produced in Syria with help from Iran. In other words, the platform of the next government will be based on the following ideas:
Israel is an evil force which should be wiped off the map (not negotiated with), Western influence in the region must be expelled, Hamas is the best Palestinian group, Iran having nuclear weapons is a good thing, and armed struggle (read: terrorism) is the most appropriate way of responding to the situation, and the best leadership is in Tehran and Damascus.
This will make it harder to hide what’s really going on in Lebanon but no doubt the media and Western governments will find a way. Here’s how:
Rather than saying that Lebanon is being radicalized, they can say that Hizballah is being moderated.
After all, Hizballah has entered politics and even the government. Isn’t this a sign of moderation?
No, not if Hizballah uses this engagement in politics to push through radical policies and gain permissiveness for itself to wage war whenever it chooses and act as a state-within-a state.
And here's a third point. A newspaper which is a front for the Syrians is reporting that Iran is offering to sell Lebanon weapons, including anti-aircraft guns, which would be used to shoot at Israeli reconnaissance planes. The story's importance isn't just what it is saying directly but also the start of a campaign to portray Iran as Lebanon's true ally and protector. This signals the beginning of Lebanon's integration as an Iranian satellite.
Lebanon is a small country and one easy to ignore. But it just happens to be the front at the moment on which Syria and Iran are making the biggest gains, while the West and the United States are taking the biggest losses.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
The Return of Antisemitism and the False Inevitability of Middle East Moderation
By Barry Rubin
The awarding of the Legion d'honneur to Charles Enderlin, the journalist who perpetrated the Muhammad al-Dura fraud, is only the latest example of the fact that promoting hatred of Israel or antisemitism pays very well nowadays. Enderlin, who wasn't present at the time, was the French television journalist who claimed Israeli forces deliberately killed a boy named Muhammad al-Dura in the Gaza Strip. This tale has since been discredited, in fact Enderlin admitted to Professor Richard Landes that he himself thought the story wasn't true.
Eventually, a French court determined that the story was probably false and that Enderlin had acted recklessly. This has not prevented much of the French intelligentsia and most of the journalistic community from rallying to his side. His being honored by the French government despite the fact that he demonstrably propagated a false story--which led to rioting, deaths, and acts of terrorism against Israel--is truly shocking.
But it is hardly an isolated incident.
Fresh off receiving Britain’s appeasing release of a terrorist who helped bomb a civilian airliner and killed 270 people at his personal order, Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi told a meeting of 30 African leaders that Israel is responsible for all that continent’s problems.
Every day, of course, people in the Arabic-speaking world are told that the Jews are responsible for all their problems. And increasingly people in Europe--albeit more subtly and quietly--are being told the same thing. If they face terrorism, they are informed, it is not due to the ambitions of radical Islamism but to Israel's actions making people angry who would otherwise presumably be quiet and happy. Or as one enraged Pole told me, "Why should Poles die because of Israel's policies?"
In Iran, the parliament just unanimously endorsed as defense minister (which means that one day he will control Iran's nuclear weapons) a man who is wanted by Interpol for bombing the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with many people there being killed. There has been no call by Western governments or media to boycott dealings with Iran's regime or even him personally.
Imagine that! A man directly involved in the murder of Jews--not even Israelis!--in a bomb attack and nobody proposes that he should be shunned. No articles in Western newspapers speaking about how the Iranian regime is associating itself with crimes against humanity. No protests in the streets of Western capitals in front of Iranian embassies. Even after all we've been through, seen and heard in recent years, this is truly shocking.
Being an open antisemite or even preaching genocide is no longer a barrier—as Ahmadinejad, Qadhafi, and others can attest—to being received in polite society. There are many articles and claims--for example by the Obama administration's own counterterrorism advisor--that Hizballah is now a moderate group despite its shocking promotion of antisemitic hatred.
For the British and French governments, Hizballah and possibly Hamas--whose rhetoric resembles what used to come out of Berlin in the 1930s and 1940s--are moving toward moderation and are worth engaging.
Indeed, as many mainstream newspapers are also showing, it isn’t a barrier to being considered a proper journalist either.
The Toronto Globe & Mail, Canada’s leading newspaper, has an editorial which attacks Israel for complaining about the Swedish article claiming Israel murders Palestinians to steal their organs. Israeli demands that Sweden do something about it is a violation of free speech, says the newspaper, equivalent to threatening to kill people for publishing the Danish cartoons.
Clearly, the newspaper doesn’t understand Sweden. First, the Swedish government paid for the book in which the accusations were originally made. So it is responsible for this claim and should not fund such books in future, should it?
Second, Swedish norms are not the same as Canadian ones. The Swedish government did everything it could to stop the publication of the Danish cartoons, to the point of intimidating websites.
So it has two choices, doesn’t it? Give the same treatment to antisemitic materials or not interfere at all. Here’s what it has chosen: to intervene strenuously against anything that offends Muslims and to subsidize things that offend Jews.
In addition, Sweden is not like Canada, where absolute freedom of speech from government control prevails.
Oh, wait! Now Canada has courts which investigate, fine, and possibly send you to prison if you offend some group, which most often means Muslims. So while Canada’s government would never formally dissociate itself from anything appearing in the Canadian media (freedom of speech!) it might put the people who wrote it on trial for alleged hate speech.
Meanwhile, back in the Middle East, Hamas leaders protest—though it isn’t clear if their complaint is true—that UN schools in the Gaza Strip want to teach children there about the Holocaust--isn’t surprising. Hamas leaders deny these events ever happened. Meanwhile, Hamas summer camps are preparing children to be future terrorists, murdering the people who they claim the Nazis didn’t murder.
If you want to get a good sense of mainstream Arabic-language reading material, read Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban’s article in Al-Sharq al-Awsat. She is a minister in the Syrian government with the title of presidential advisor for political and media affairs. In other words, she’s Syria’s chief propagandist.
Here’s a regime which sponsors terrorists, produces television shows claiming that Jews drink blood of people they murder and are trying to seize control of the world. Syria sends out death squads to kill critics in Lebanon so naturally she accuses Israel of sending out death squads to murder anyone who criticizes it.
What makes this especially ironic right now is the exposure of a plot, with real evidence, by Syrian-backed Hizballah to assassinate Israeli leaders. If such an attempt had been made it would have set off another war between Israel and Hizballah, with the deaths of thousands and international blame being directed at Israel for daring to retaliate to defend itself.
Back to Shaaban. What bothers me is not that she wrote this—I expect it—but Al-Sharq al-Awsat is the best newspaper in the Arab world today and about the freest despite being owned by a Saudi prince. Read this article and then remember this is the norm for what’s appearing daily in the Egyptian, Palestinian, Saudi, Syrian, and various other medias with almost nothing being written on the other side.
Finally, something typical of the Western media. The Los Angeles Times has a long piece on the “comeback” of Muhammad Dahlan as an important trend in Fatah leadership. This is absurd. Dahlan remains the Fatah leader in the Gaza Strip and thus represents that lost region in the Fatah and Palestinian Authority hierarchy.
The real big story is the rise of Abd al-Mahir Ghanem to be the new Fatah leader.
Why is Dahlan being covered so much? Because he’s relatively moderate while Ghanem is a radical. The assumption of the Western media and intelligentsia is that moderation must inevitably triumph and that extremism can be safely ignored.
In the Middle East nowadays, the opposite seems true.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
The awarding of the Legion d'honneur to Charles Enderlin, the journalist who perpetrated the Muhammad al-Dura fraud, is only the latest example of the fact that promoting hatred of Israel or antisemitism pays very well nowadays. Enderlin, who wasn't present at the time, was the French television journalist who claimed Israeli forces deliberately killed a boy named Muhammad al-Dura in the Gaza Strip. This tale has since been discredited, in fact Enderlin admitted to Professor Richard Landes that he himself thought the story wasn't true.
Eventually, a French court determined that the story was probably false and that Enderlin had acted recklessly. This has not prevented much of the French intelligentsia and most of the journalistic community from rallying to his side. His being honored by the French government despite the fact that he demonstrably propagated a false story--which led to rioting, deaths, and acts of terrorism against Israel--is truly shocking.
But it is hardly an isolated incident.
Fresh off receiving Britain’s appeasing release of a terrorist who helped bomb a civilian airliner and killed 270 people at his personal order, Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi told a meeting of 30 African leaders that Israel is responsible for all that continent’s problems.
Every day, of course, people in the Arabic-speaking world are told that the Jews are responsible for all their problems. And increasingly people in Europe--albeit more subtly and quietly--are being told the same thing. If they face terrorism, they are informed, it is not due to the ambitions of radical Islamism but to Israel's actions making people angry who would otherwise presumably be quiet and happy. Or as one enraged Pole told me, "Why should Poles die because of Israel's policies?"
In Iran, the parliament just unanimously endorsed as defense minister (which means that one day he will control Iran's nuclear weapons) a man who is wanted by Interpol for bombing the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with many people there being killed. There has been no call by Western governments or media to boycott dealings with Iran's regime or even him personally.
Imagine that! A man directly involved in the murder of Jews--not even Israelis!--in a bomb attack and nobody proposes that he should be shunned. No articles in Western newspapers speaking about how the Iranian regime is associating itself with crimes against humanity. No protests in the streets of Western capitals in front of Iranian embassies. Even after all we've been through, seen and heard in recent years, this is truly shocking.
Being an open antisemite or even preaching genocide is no longer a barrier—as Ahmadinejad, Qadhafi, and others can attest—to being received in polite society. There are many articles and claims--for example by the Obama administration's own counterterrorism advisor--that Hizballah is now a moderate group despite its shocking promotion of antisemitic hatred.
For the British and French governments, Hizballah and possibly Hamas--whose rhetoric resembles what used to come out of Berlin in the 1930s and 1940s--are moving toward moderation and are worth engaging.
Indeed, as many mainstream newspapers are also showing, it isn’t a barrier to being considered a proper journalist either.
The Toronto Globe & Mail, Canada’s leading newspaper, has an editorial which attacks Israel for complaining about the Swedish article claiming Israel murders Palestinians to steal their organs. Israeli demands that Sweden do something about it is a violation of free speech, says the newspaper, equivalent to threatening to kill people for publishing the Danish cartoons.
Clearly, the newspaper doesn’t understand Sweden. First, the Swedish government paid for the book in which the accusations were originally made. So it is responsible for this claim and should not fund such books in future, should it?
Second, Swedish norms are not the same as Canadian ones. The Swedish government did everything it could to stop the publication of the Danish cartoons, to the point of intimidating websites.
So it has two choices, doesn’t it? Give the same treatment to antisemitic materials or not interfere at all. Here’s what it has chosen: to intervene strenuously against anything that offends Muslims and to subsidize things that offend Jews.
In addition, Sweden is not like Canada, where absolute freedom of speech from government control prevails.
Oh, wait! Now Canada has courts which investigate, fine, and possibly send you to prison if you offend some group, which most often means Muslims. So while Canada’s government would never formally dissociate itself from anything appearing in the Canadian media (freedom of speech!) it might put the people who wrote it on trial for alleged hate speech.
Meanwhile, back in the Middle East, Hamas leaders protest—though it isn’t clear if their complaint is true—that UN schools in the Gaza Strip want to teach children there about the Holocaust--isn’t surprising. Hamas leaders deny these events ever happened. Meanwhile, Hamas summer camps are preparing children to be future terrorists, murdering the people who they claim the Nazis didn’t murder.
If you want to get a good sense of mainstream Arabic-language reading material, read Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban’s article in Al-Sharq al-Awsat. She is a minister in the Syrian government with the title of presidential advisor for political and media affairs. In other words, she’s Syria’s chief propagandist.
Here’s a regime which sponsors terrorists, produces television shows claiming that Jews drink blood of people they murder and are trying to seize control of the world. Syria sends out death squads to kill critics in Lebanon so naturally she accuses Israel of sending out death squads to murder anyone who criticizes it.
What makes this especially ironic right now is the exposure of a plot, with real evidence, by Syrian-backed Hizballah to assassinate Israeli leaders. If such an attempt had been made it would have set off another war between Israel and Hizballah, with the deaths of thousands and international blame being directed at Israel for daring to retaliate to defend itself.
Back to Shaaban. What bothers me is not that she wrote this—I expect it—but Al-Sharq al-Awsat is the best newspaper in the Arab world today and about the freest despite being owned by a Saudi prince. Read this article and then remember this is the norm for what’s appearing daily in the Egyptian, Palestinian, Saudi, Syrian, and various other medias with almost nothing being written on the other side.
Finally, something typical of the Western media. The Los Angeles Times has a long piece on the “comeback” of Muhammad Dahlan as an important trend in Fatah leadership. This is absurd. Dahlan remains the Fatah leader in the Gaza Strip and thus represents that lost region in the Fatah and Palestinian Authority hierarchy.
The real big story is the rise of Abd al-Mahir Ghanem to be the new Fatah leader.
Why is Dahlan being covered so much? Because he’s relatively moderate while Ghanem is a radical. The assumption of the Western media and intelligentsia is that moderation must inevitably triumph and that extremism can be safely ignored.
In the Middle East nowadays, the opposite seems true.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
A Day in the Life of the Middle East
By Barry Rubin
I’ve never been so discouraged, a courageous Arab intellectual writes to me. Understandably so. There are three fronts really in the battle of the Middle East, and none of them are going so well.
What are these three fronts? First and most important are the actions of the countries, leaders, and forces in the region themselves.
Second, is the understanding of these actions and developments as conveyed to the minds of participants and observers both in the region and internationally. Here, the role of the media, academia, and other conveyer belts of information are critical in shaping policymaker and public opinion.
Third, there is the response of governments outside the region, which means primarily in the West.
If we take one day in the region, we can see the interaction of these factors. Briefly, dangerous and outrageous developments happen in the region; they are misinterpreted—important things ignored, marginal ones obsessed about; enemies made to seem moderate and threats defused only in theory. Western responses are also misconceived and inadequate.
Eventually the pressure builds up to the point of crises. But what’s worse, an outbreak of crisis or a slow erosion of interests and a deepening of tyranny? Clearly, from the Western government standpoint, the latter is preferable. With no violent major crisis in play it is easy to do little or nothing, to avoid risks, to portray policies as successful.
In this framework, the region’s countries and societies have three main states of existence when it comes to degree of freedom and quality of life for the people: to advance (which only happens in rare places), to stand still (which is a prevalent condition), or actually to move backward.
I will leave it to you to categorize different places in this regard. Right now, I think Iran, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and Turkey are moving backward. Generally, I’ll leave the categorization to you.
Ironically, the one country that is clearly moving forward is Israel. It is stable within and relatively secure (whatever prospects for the future may seem worrisome). The economy is doing well despite the international slump, and feelings of well-being are remarkably high. This is a point that should always be kept in mind. And yes this does relate to having a democratic system and a largely free enterprise but regulated economy.
But enough background, let’s go to the headlines:
--Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States are meeting in Germany to offer Iran even more trade if it stops nuclear fuel production and stronger sanctions if it doesn’t. Sounds good. But two of those six—China and Russia—are going to fight against making sanctions much higher and will help Iran violate whatever sanctions are set.
And even then the sanctions will be insufficient to alter the Iranian regime’s course.
By the time the Western states have got around to being tougher, it’s too late. The Iranian government has become so extreme it won’t listen. What might have been effective two years ago is something of a joke now.
After all, the regime just got unanimous approval in parliament for appointing a wanted terrorist as the minister of defense who will control the nuclear weapons. Guess everyone’s too busy to notice this might be a significant statement. It is carrying on trials of oppositionists which are targeting not just those running the demonstrations but even regime loyalists like the two former presidents Muhammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani.
Oh, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose instinct is for the offensive just as that of his Western counterparts is for the defensive, is reportedly going to come to New York and speak at the UN General Assembly, September 25. He and the Iranian regime have learned—under the tutelage of European and U.S. leaders--that being aggressive always pays.
They also know, as they have recently bragged, that there are plenty of people willing to do business with them no matter what sanctions are applied.
But there are growing hints that Iran is signaling a readiness to negotiate with the West on nuclear issues. Tehran thinks, and it might be right, that by just talking it can buy months during which sanctions are postponed and it continues to advance on its nuclear program. After all, since Obama said he’d engage Iran how can he refuse if Tehran offers to chat? Will Ahmadinejad outsmart Obama? It is certainly possible. Watch this closely.
--The Obama administration is running an “optimism offensive” on Israel-Palestinian peace to suggest that it’s doing a great job and making wonderful progress. The more immediate purpose is, in its mind, to give it an “excuse” to raise sanctions against Iran with hopes of gaining more Arab support. Of course, it won’t get any material Arab support and there won’t be any progress toward peace. But in a situation this bad, I guess one needs a bit of feel-good rhetoric.
Now, what can I write my colleague to make him feel better about the regional situation? I’ll try to get back to you on that one as soon as possible.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
I’ve never been so discouraged, a courageous Arab intellectual writes to me. Understandably so. There are three fronts really in the battle of the Middle East, and none of them are going so well.
What are these three fronts? First and most important are the actions of the countries, leaders, and forces in the region themselves.
Second, is the understanding of these actions and developments as conveyed to the minds of participants and observers both in the region and internationally. Here, the role of the media, academia, and other conveyer belts of information are critical in shaping policymaker and public opinion.
Third, there is the response of governments outside the region, which means primarily in the West.
If we take one day in the region, we can see the interaction of these factors. Briefly, dangerous and outrageous developments happen in the region; they are misinterpreted—important things ignored, marginal ones obsessed about; enemies made to seem moderate and threats defused only in theory. Western responses are also misconceived and inadequate.
Eventually the pressure builds up to the point of crises. But what’s worse, an outbreak of crisis or a slow erosion of interests and a deepening of tyranny? Clearly, from the Western government standpoint, the latter is preferable. With no violent major crisis in play it is easy to do little or nothing, to avoid risks, to portray policies as successful.
In this framework, the region’s countries and societies have three main states of existence when it comes to degree of freedom and quality of life for the people: to advance (which only happens in rare places), to stand still (which is a prevalent condition), or actually to move backward.
I will leave it to you to categorize different places in this regard. Right now, I think Iran, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and Turkey are moving backward. Generally, I’ll leave the categorization to you.
Ironically, the one country that is clearly moving forward is Israel. It is stable within and relatively secure (whatever prospects for the future may seem worrisome). The economy is doing well despite the international slump, and feelings of well-being are remarkably high. This is a point that should always be kept in mind. And yes this does relate to having a democratic system and a largely free enterprise but regulated economy.
But enough background, let’s go to the headlines:
--Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States are meeting in Germany to offer Iran even more trade if it stops nuclear fuel production and stronger sanctions if it doesn’t. Sounds good. But two of those six—China and Russia—are going to fight against making sanctions much higher and will help Iran violate whatever sanctions are set.
And even then the sanctions will be insufficient to alter the Iranian regime’s course.
By the time the Western states have got around to being tougher, it’s too late. The Iranian government has become so extreme it won’t listen. What might have been effective two years ago is something of a joke now.
After all, the regime just got unanimous approval in parliament for appointing a wanted terrorist as the minister of defense who will control the nuclear weapons. Guess everyone’s too busy to notice this might be a significant statement. It is carrying on trials of oppositionists which are targeting not just those running the demonstrations but even regime loyalists like the two former presidents Muhammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani.
Oh, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose instinct is for the offensive just as that of his Western counterparts is for the defensive, is reportedly going to come to New York and speak at the UN General Assembly, September 25. He and the Iranian regime have learned—under the tutelage of European and U.S. leaders--that being aggressive always pays.
They also know, as they have recently bragged, that there are plenty of people willing to do business with them no matter what sanctions are applied.
But there are growing hints that Iran is signaling a readiness to negotiate with the West on nuclear issues. Tehran thinks, and it might be right, that by just talking it can buy months during which sanctions are postponed and it continues to advance on its nuclear program. After all, since Obama said he’d engage Iran how can he refuse if Tehran offers to chat? Will Ahmadinejad outsmart Obama? It is certainly possible. Watch this closely.
--The Obama administration is running an “optimism offensive” on Israel-Palestinian peace to suggest that it’s doing a great job and making wonderful progress. The more immediate purpose is, in its mind, to give it an “excuse” to raise sanctions against Iran with hopes of gaining more Arab support. Of course, it won’t get any material Arab support and there won’t be any progress toward peace. But in a situation this bad, I guess one needs a bit of feel-good rhetoric.
Now, what can I write my colleague to make him feel better about the regional situation? I’ll try to get back to you on that one as soon as possible.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
Obama's "Certain Defeat"? The No-Violence Administration Fights the Afghan War
By Barry Rubin
If Iraq became Bush’s war, the Obama Administration is making Afghanistan its war. Except for the size and visibility of the conflict—which are huge factors—Bush got the better of the deal.
Iraq has been easier than Afghanistan in two very significant ways: it is more strategically important and it has been conceivably winnable. The mission in Iraq was to buy enough time so that a viable government could come to power, stabilize the situation at least to a minimum, and then defend itself. The U.S. presence could be reduced. This has happened.
In contrast, Afghanistan is unwinnable. There will never be a viable government that can exist without major foreign military presence (or, at least, it wouldn’t be a government governing anything), and the strategic value of the real estate is pretty low. On the military level, the terrain is extremely difficult and, if anything, the local population is less supportive of a U.S. presence.
Now the administration and the military are discussing whether to send more troops to roll back the Taliban’s recent advances, which belied the U.S. generals’ optimism from earlier in this year. The.number of U.S. soldiers is set to rise from 63,000 to 68,000 by the end of 2009, when there will be a total of 110,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan. As units withdraw from Iraq, some may be sent to Afghanistan.
Public support for the mission is falling and members of Congress from the president’s Democratic party are pushing for a timetable to pull out.
Tony Cordesman of Georgetown CSIS, who is about the most serious military analyst you’re ever going to meet and is usually a pretty cautious guy, wrote in the Washington Post that if Obama doesn’t send more troops he “will be as much a failed wartime president as George W. Bush," condemning the United States to "certain defeat."
Those are pretty tough words. How can the Obama administration, which seems so pacifistically inclined, gird its loins for a war that may be objectively tougher than Iraq or Vietnam? And what will happen if it doesn’t?
Perhaps the defeat can be kept relatively invisible. The Taliban and warlords might control the countryside and regional towns but in Kabul the central government would still function. With a supportive media and an extremely remote country possibly everything could be made to seem ok. Casualties would continue to be low compared to Iraq.
Meanwhile, though, the Obama Administration faces all the classic traps which entangled predecessors. There was apparently significant fraud in the recent elections so the United States is supporting a regime which has dictatorial aspects. Civilians are regularly killed unintentionally in military operations so U.S. forces can be accused of brutality and war crimes, even if this is done unfairly and for propagandistic purposes.
The president has a clear political-strategic plan for dealing with the war but like most of his other foreign policy plans it makes no sense in terms of the actual issue, as soothing as it might sound to American listeners.
His plan is:
--Pour money into Afghanistan to make the government effective and provide good services to Afghans. Ha, on that one.
--To pour money into Afghanistan to produce a strong reliable Afghan army. Ha, again.
--And to pour money into Pakistan to secure that country’s help in controlling the border area. They’ll take the money and not help much. The only thing the Pakistan military and intelligence units seem capable of doing well nowadays is to organize terrorist attacks against India.
So here it is once again: An endless commitment to battle an unsolvable problem in the Middle East (Arab-Israeli, Israeli-Palestinian). The United States must spend large amounts of money and lives to help those unwilling or unable to pull their own weight and who certainly have no intention of showing gratitude in real terms (Palestinians, Gulf Arabs). The policy will be used to stir up anti-Americanism amongst Muslims (all of the above); in its performance the United States will have to help shore up an unpopular regime (Pakistan, etc.).
What? You can’t solve the problem by making a speech to show people you want to be their friends, win a total military victory, bring democracy and higher living standards to make everyone content, engage the radicals into moderation, or find the perfect compromise?
No. And remember, Afghanistan has all the negative aspects of the Middle East and then some. Watch the Afghanistan issue. The only reason it won’t become a very important problem for the Obama Administration is that not enough others are watching it.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/
If Iraq became Bush’s war, the Obama Administration is making Afghanistan its war. Except for the size and visibility of the conflict—which are huge factors—Bush got the better of the deal.
Iraq has been easier than Afghanistan in two very significant ways: it is more strategically important and it has been conceivably winnable. The mission in Iraq was to buy enough time so that a viable government could come to power, stabilize the situation at least to a minimum, and then defend itself. The U.S. presence could be reduced. This has happened.
In contrast, Afghanistan is unwinnable. There will never be a viable government that can exist without major foreign military presence (or, at least, it wouldn’t be a government governing anything), and the strategic value of the real estate is pretty low. On the military level, the terrain is extremely difficult and, if anything, the local population is less supportive of a U.S. presence.
Now the administration and the military are discussing whether to send more troops to roll back the Taliban’s recent advances, which belied the U.S. generals’ optimism from earlier in this year. The.number of U.S. soldiers is set to rise from 63,000 to 68,000 by the end of 2009, when there will be a total of 110,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan. As units withdraw from Iraq, some may be sent to Afghanistan.
Public support for the mission is falling and members of Congress from the president’s Democratic party are pushing for a timetable to pull out.
Tony Cordesman of Georgetown CSIS, who is about the most serious military analyst you’re ever going to meet and is usually a pretty cautious guy, wrote in the Washington Post that if Obama doesn’t send more troops he “will be as much a failed wartime president as George W. Bush," condemning the United States to "certain defeat."
Those are pretty tough words. How can the Obama administration, which seems so pacifistically inclined, gird its loins for a war that may be objectively tougher than Iraq or Vietnam? And what will happen if it doesn’t?
Perhaps the defeat can be kept relatively invisible. The Taliban and warlords might control the countryside and regional towns but in Kabul the central government would still function. With a supportive media and an extremely remote country possibly everything could be made to seem ok. Casualties would continue to be low compared to Iraq.
Meanwhile, though, the Obama Administration faces all the classic traps which entangled predecessors. There was apparently significant fraud in the recent elections so the United States is supporting a regime which has dictatorial aspects. Civilians are regularly killed unintentionally in military operations so U.S. forces can be accused of brutality and war crimes, even if this is done unfairly and for propagandistic purposes.
The president has a clear political-strategic plan for dealing with the war but like most of his other foreign policy plans it makes no sense in terms of the actual issue, as soothing as it might sound to American listeners.
His plan is:
--Pour money into Afghanistan to make the government effective and provide good services to Afghans. Ha, on that one.
--To pour money into Afghanistan to produce a strong reliable Afghan army. Ha, again.
--And to pour money into Pakistan to secure that country’s help in controlling the border area. They’ll take the money and not help much. The only thing the Pakistan military and intelligence units seem capable of doing well nowadays is to organize terrorist attacks against India.
So here it is once again: An endless commitment to battle an unsolvable problem in the Middle East (Arab-Israeli, Israeli-Palestinian). The United States must spend large amounts of money and lives to help those unwilling or unable to pull their own weight and who certainly have no intention of showing gratitude in real terms (Palestinians, Gulf Arabs). The policy will be used to stir up anti-Americanism amongst Muslims (all of the above); in its performance the United States will have to help shore up an unpopular regime (Pakistan, etc.).
What? You can’t solve the problem by making a speech to show people you want to be their friends, win a total military victory, bring democracy and higher living standards to make everyone content, engage the radicals into moderation, or find the perfect compromise?
No. And remember, Afghanistan has all the negative aspects of the Middle East and then some. Watch the Afghanistan issue. The only reason it won’t become a very important problem for the Obama Administration is that not enough others are watching it.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/
Blood for Oil: Yes, Britain Did Release a Mass-Murdering Terrorist in Exchange for an Oil Deal
By Barry Rubin
On the face of it, growing evidence that the British government released a terrorist who murdered 270 people in exchange for an oil deal is shockingly loathsome.
But that’s not the worst of it.
Here’s the worst of it: Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was not a free-lance terrorist but a Libyan intelligence officer. And the bombing of the Lockerbie plane was a large-scale operation, ordered and organized by the Libyan government and, first and foremost, its madcap dictator Muammar Qadhafi.
So Britain didn’t just release a murderer in exchange for a good oil deal, it released a murderer who had shielded his Mafia kingpin—Qadhafi—so that London could make a deal with the chief terrorist himself, who is soon to arrive at the UN as an honored speaker. Moreover, Megrahi, far from deserving any compassion, had refused to cooperate with the investigation all along. He “took the rap” but then helped make it impossible to catch and punish those most responsible.
Or to put it another way, Britain released a foot soldier who was a cog in the terrorist implementation team in order to make a deal with the man directly responsible for ordering the murders of 270 passengers and many other acts of terrorism, too.
True, it can be pointed out that lots of countries deal with Libya and that Qadhafi's decision to abandon his secret nuclear weapons' program was an element in ending the sanctions against Libya. But part of the price for Libya's escape from isolation was the turning over of Megrahi. So the message is consistent with other Western actions: In the end, we will give you what you want without your having to give up anything (or much).
(My scenario: Tell Megrahi he will never get out and will die in prison unless he spills the beans on the involvement of Qadhafi and other Libyan leaders in the attack. Even then, though, he probably wouldn't say anything. Why, ideological loyalty? No, probably the fact that his family back in Libya would face a pretty grim fate if he told the truth.)
Basically, the release took place after negotiations between Libya and British Petroleum because, said documents from the prime minister’s office, it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom.” Obviously, a humanitarian decision to release a dying man in order to make his last days more comfortable is not going to be described as in the overwhelming national interest.
Apparently what happened, based on the leaked documents, is that the Libyan government made it clear that unless he was released there would be no deal. Qadhafi was showing gratitude to the man who had protected him from being subjected to charges on the Lockerbie business.
Once the British backed down and agreed to release him, Libya quickly ratified the oil deal.
There are various unconvincing denials that this was a real blood for oil arrangement.
Even approaching this issue from a cynical Middle East perspective, the British government’s behavior is despicable. This follows close on a decision to stop an investigation of a case--BAE Systems
(British Aerospace)--where high-up Saudis were involved in bribery lest this damage UK-Saudi economic relations.
And of course there is the obsessive anti-Israel stances taken (though more by other European states than by Britain) which relate to profits as well. Upcoming is the decision on commercial profits versus higher sanctions on Iran.
Rather than the West—as some rather naively dreamed—spreading democracy, free speech, and tolerance to the Middle East, the Middle East seems to be spreading undemocratic practices, a muzzling of speech, and intolerance to the West.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
On the face of it, growing evidence that the British government released a terrorist who murdered 270 people in exchange for an oil deal is shockingly loathsome.
But that’s not the worst of it.
Here’s the worst of it: Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was not a free-lance terrorist but a Libyan intelligence officer. And the bombing of the Lockerbie plane was a large-scale operation, ordered and organized by the Libyan government and, first and foremost, its madcap dictator Muammar Qadhafi.
So Britain didn’t just release a murderer in exchange for a good oil deal, it released a murderer who had shielded his Mafia kingpin—Qadhafi—so that London could make a deal with the chief terrorist himself, who is soon to arrive at the UN as an honored speaker. Moreover, Megrahi, far from deserving any compassion, had refused to cooperate with the investigation all along. He “took the rap” but then helped make it impossible to catch and punish those most responsible.
Or to put it another way, Britain released a foot soldier who was a cog in the terrorist implementation team in order to make a deal with the man directly responsible for ordering the murders of 270 passengers and many other acts of terrorism, too.
True, it can be pointed out that lots of countries deal with Libya and that Qadhafi's decision to abandon his secret nuclear weapons' program was an element in ending the sanctions against Libya. But part of the price for Libya's escape from isolation was the turning over of Megrahi. So the message is consistent with other Western actions: In the end, we will give you what you want without your having to give up anything (or much).
(My scenario: Tell Megrahi he will never get out and will die in prison unless he spills the beans on the involvement of Qadhafi and other Libyan leaders in the attack. Even then, though, he probably wouldn't say anything. Why, ideological loyalty? No, probably the fact that his family back in Libya would face a pretty grim fate if he told the truth.)
Basically, the release took place after negotiations between Libya and British Petroleum because, said documents from the prime minister’s office, it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom.” Obviously, a humanitarian decision to release a dying man in order to make his last days more comfortable is not going to be described as in the overwhelming national interest.
Apparently what happened, based on the leaked documents, is that the Libyan government made it clear that unless he was released there would be no deal. Qadhafi was showing gratitude to the man who had protected him from being subjected to charges on the Lockerbie business.
Once the British backed down and agreed to release him, Libya quickly ratified the oil deal.
There are various unconvincing denials that this was a real blood for oil arrangement.
Even approaching this issue from a cynical Middle East perspective, the British government’s behavior is despicable. This follows close on a decision to stop an investigation of a case--BAE Systems
(British Aerospace)--where high-up Saudis were involved in bribery lest this damage UK-Saudi economic relations.
And of course there is the obsessive anti-Israel stances taken (though more by other European states than by Britain) which relate to profits as well. Upcoming is the decision on commercial profits versus higher sanctions on Iran.
Rather than the West—as some rather naively dreamed—spreading democracy, free speech, and tolerance to the Middle East, the Middle East seems to be spreading undemocratic practices, a muzzling of speech, and intolerance to the West.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
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