By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Dec 14 2015 (IPS)

When, in June 2006, former US National Security adviser and, later on, Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, spelled out the George W. Bush administration new, magic doctrine for the Middle East, tons of ink was poured and millions of words said in a harsh attempt to speculate with what she really did mean by what she called “Creative Chaos.”

Baher Kamal

Most Middle East analysts concluded then that the new doctrine would lead to or build upon a new wave of conflicts and violence in the region.

Whether they were right or not, this is at least what has been happening. No Need to recall what is now going on in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya and even Tunisia and Egypt-–the so-called “Arab Spring” countries.

Now another U.S. neo-liberal, neo-conservative Republican “hawk,” John R. Bolton, has just come out with a new vision that might explain the rational behind that “Creative Chaos” doctrine.

“Create a New State”

In his recent article in the New York Times, published on 25 November 2015 under the eloquent header “To Defeat ISIS, Create a Sunni State” this scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and former US ambassador to the United Nations (August 2005 to December 2006), poses this question: “What comes after the Islamic State?”
Bolton then explains that “Before transforming Mr. Obama’s ineffective efforts into a vigorous military campaign to destroy the Islamic State, we need a clear view, shared with NATO allies and others, about what will replace it. It is critical to resolve this issue before considering any operational plans…”

Iraq and Syria Are Gone!

According to Bolton -who could hold a key post in the US coming administration should a Republican like Donald Trump be elected- “Today’s reality is that Iraq and Syria as we have known them are gone…”

He then says that defeating the Islamic State means restoring to power President Bashar Assad in Syria and Iran’s puppets in Iraq, and “that outcome is neither feasible nor desirable… Rather than striving to recreate the post-World War I map, Washington should recognize the new geopolitics.”

“The best alternative to the Islamic State in northeastern Syria and western Iraq is a new, independent Sunni state.”

An Oil Producer “Sunni-stan”

Bolton explains further: This “Sunni-stan” has economic potential as an oil producer (subject to negotiation with the Kurds, to be sure), and could be a bulwark against both Mr. Assad and Iran-allied Baghdad. The rulers of the Arab Gulf states, who should by now have learned the risk to their own security of funding Islamist extremism, could provide significant financing. And Turkey — still a NATO ally, don’t forget — would enjoy greater stability on its southern border, making the existence of a new state at least tolerable.”

He believes that the Arab monarchies like Saudi Arabia “must not only fund much of the new state’s early needs, but also ensure its stability and resistance to radical forces. Once, we might have declared a Jordanian “protectorate” in an American “sphere of influence” for now, a new state will do.”

Bolton’s visionary plan for the new Middle East would then explain what has been behind the “Creative Chaos” doctrine. And it would clearly revamp the nearly 100-year-old Sykes-Picot map (link to Middle East Part II – 99.5 Years of (Imposed) Solitude https://www.ipsnews.net/2015/12/middle-east-part-ii-99-5-years-of-imposed-solitude/.

Such vision would be just another step on the successive US-West roadmaps for the region. In fact, in addition to the “Creative Chaos” doctrine, the George W. Bush second term administration came out with a new name for the region: the “Greater Middle East,” which would include Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Cyprus, Somalia, and eventually also Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

The Middle East Is “Served”, the “Creative Chaos” Has Worked

The “Creative Chaos” has turned to be a reality. The whole region has been boiling specially over the last five years. Violence, death and terrorism have been rapidly growing everywhere: Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, even in Tunisia. Tensions between Arabian Peninsula kingdoms and principalities and Iran,all of them oil producers, have been ramping.

Mercenary groups, under a more than doubtful religious flag have been gradually dominating the region and tragically though sporadically also some Western countries.

In short, the scenario could not be more “chaotic”. The new Middle East has been served.

The Doors of Hell Are All Open

Though Bolton’s vision should not be taken for “biblical,” things could well go in that direction.

For now, (Shii-ruled) Iraq has warned (Sunni) Turkey against deploying its troops in the DAESH-controlled Mosul area; Washington paves the ground for further military actions in conjunction with the axis Paris-London; (Sunni Wahhabi Saudi Arabia works intensively with (Sunni) Egypt for setting up a joint Army/military intervention force to fight terrorism, and (Shii) Iran warns that any attempt to remove Assad in (Alaui) Syria is a “red line”, etc.

One last question, for now: where would DAESH go once it has been militarily defeated? Libya would appear to be the next DAESH stronghold. After all, this country lacks stability, is full of weapons (up to 25 million arms) out of the government’s control, it is a big oil producer, and DAESH has an active operational branch there.

And, should this be the case, would DAESH further expand its deadly operations from Libya to neighbouring countries like Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, in addition to some Africans countries in conjunction with Nigerian Boko-Haram?

(End)

Excerpt:

Workers start to dismember a fin whale at the whaling station in Hvalfjordur, about 45 km north of Reykjavik. Credit: Lowana Veal/IPS.

By Lowana Veal
REYKJAVIK, Apr 14 2014 (IPS)

Posters with the words “Do you know who caught your seafood?” are now appearing on buses, trains and other venues in Boston. They are part of a campaign organised by a coalition of U.S. environmental groups called Whales Need Us, to draw attention to the links between Icelandic whalers and fish sold in the U.S.

A picture of a whale appears on the poster, together with the name of the website where those interested can find more information.“The campaign has contacted retailers, wholesalers and the food service industry across the U.S. to let them know that American consumers do not want to buy seafood from whalers."

The groups decided to focus on Boston because the launch of the campaign mid-March coincided with the opening of the North American Seafood Expo at the Boston Convention Centre.  Supporters picketed the stall of HB Grandi, one of Iceland’s largest fishing companies, asking onlookers to stop trading with the company because of its links with whaling.

The expo is the largest seafood trade event in North America.

At the start of the protest, fish consumers were requested to ask their local food retailers and restaurants to verify that their seafood products did not come from a source linked to Icelandic whaling.

“The campaign has contacted retailers, wholesalers and the food service industry across the U.S. to let them know that American consumers do not want to buy seafood from whalers, and asking for their help,” says Susan Millward, executive director of the Animal Welfare Institute, one of the organisations behind the Whales Need Us campaign.

On Mar. 18, the last day of the three-day expo, Canadian-U.S. seafood company High Liner Foods (HLF) announced it would discontinue trading with HB Grandi because of its whaling connections. It had been trading with the Icelandic company since October 2013.

Since the end of the expo, U.S. companies Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods Market have severed ties with Rhode Island-based Legacy Seafoods, another company that imports substantial quantities of fish from HB Grandi.

HLF say they do not have any existing contracts outstanding with HB Grandi, and are committed not to enter into any new contracts with them until they have fully divested their involvement and interest in whaling.

“Even though HLF’s policy is strict on not doing business with suppliers directly involved in whaling, it has nothing to do with individuals or shareholders of HB Grandi. We have no control over the ownership of privately or publicly owned companies in HLF’s supplier base,” Elvar Einarsson from High Liner’s procurement division tells IPS.

At the end of 2011, High Liner bought Icelandic Group’s U.S. and Asian operations. Icelandic Group also agreed to a seven-year licensing agreement with HLF for the use of the Icelandic Seafood brand in North American countries until 2018.

“For HLF the marketing and sales of seafood from Iceland under the brand Icelandic Seafood is an important part of our business. There will be no change on HLF’s procurement from its other Icelandic suppliers and hopefully HB Grandi’s circumstances will change so they will be able to become one of HLF’s suppliers again,” says Einarsson.

Last September, Kristjan Loftsson from the whaling company Hvalur increased his family’s shares in HB Grandi from 10.2 percent to 14.9 percent. On the HB Grandi website, Loftsson is listed as chairman of the board.

At the time, there was obviously some concern over the repercussions that this could have. The fishing website Undercurrent reported “an Icelandic industry player” as saying: “Hvalur is Iceland’s only whaling company, and it’s increasingly a controversial activity. It’s obviously a risk to a company selling wild fish that their ownership is closely connected to whaling.”

Vilhjalmur Vilhjalmsson, CEO for HB Grandi, has stated publicly that he will not speak to the press on the company’s trade with High Liner Foods. In a short press release issued by his company, he is quoted as saying: “We agree with the government’s policy on sensible utilisation of natural resources and have nothing to do with what operations individual shareholders choose to practise or not practise.”

But Millward emphasises that they are not trying to attack Icelandic fisheries as such. “The campaign is in no way meant as an attack on Iceland’s economy and is geared only at those companies linked to the Hvalur whaling company,” she says.

In 2011, President Barack Obama issued diplomatic sanctions on Iceland as part of the Pelly Amendment. The Whales Need Us coalition has once again made use of this.

“The campaign has also urged the public to contact President Obama, and ask that he take targeted action against Icelandic companies connected to whaling by invoking the Pelly Amendment, a tool promulgated by the U.S. Congress as a means of compelling compliance with international conservation treaties,” Millward told IPS.

To an extent, this policy worked. Obama has said that he would invoke the Pelly Amendment and instigate a number of measures aimed at Iceland. But once again, these measures appear to be diplomatic rather than trade sanctions, although they are more extensive than before.

Coincidentally, Icelandic Social Democratic MP Sigridur Ingibjorg Ingadottir has just put forward a parliamentary proposal that calls for an investigation into the economic and trade repercussions for Iceland of whaling.

“The investigation will take into account both minke whales and fin whales,” she told IPS. “Are we prepared to sacrifice more for less, when there is growing opposition to whaling and Iceland is catching more whales than are deemed sustainable by the IWC [International Whaling Commission]?”

The IWC says that the annual sustainable catch for fin whales in the North Atlantic is 46, whereas Iceland has set a quota of 154.

Meanwhile, Loftsson and other Hvalur employees are becoming increasingly sensitive to outside criticism and have now removed the company phone numbers from ja.is, the Internet listing of Icelandic phone numbers.

A Kremlin compromise on nuclear disarmament looks as far away as ever as Russian president Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama use their countries’ strained relations to bolster their own domestic political agendas, experts say.

Obama’s call, during a speech in Berlin in June, for a dramatic reduction in the world’s nuclear weapons had led to hopes that there would be cuts in world nuclear arsenals on the agenda of a potential nuclear summit in 2016, and gave extra impetus to what will be the first-ever high level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on nuclear disarmament this month.

But following Russia’s granting of asylum to U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden and Washington’s subsequent cancelling of a summit meeting between Obama and Putin, some critics say the U.S. may use the political rift between the two states as a pretext to fail to make progress on disarmament.

And the Kremlin is more than happy to do the same.“What drives nuclear disarmament in both countries is domestic, not foreign policy."

Nikolai Sokov, a fellow at the Vienna Centre for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, told IPS: “What drives nuclear disarmament in both countries is domestic, not foreign policy. Confrontation serves the Russian domestic political agenda, just as it does for U.S. politicians with the U.S. domestic political agenda. The current impasse satisfies both sides.

“Russia has no need to change its position on nuclear weapons and President Putin is under no pressure whatsoever at home to change the stance. Even with the political administration there is no one in the Russian administration who is against the current stance, not even in private.”

Russia and the U.S. control 90 percent of the world’s nuclear arsenal and since the end of the Cold War there have been various agreements on reducing the number of warheads on both sides.

The recent call by Obama would see both Washington and Moscow reduce their arsenals by a third.

But even under the best circumstances the Kremlin has historically been reluctant to agree to drastic cuts due to the differences in weapons delivery capabilities between the two countries, fearing that it would be left at a military disadvantage by dramatic blanket cuts.

It has also been wary of U.S. missile defence plans and without assurances that they would not be used against Russia, the Kremlin is reluctant to agree to concessions on nuclear weapons.

Speaking on Russian television foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said that nuclear weapons reductions should only be considered if they involved all countries – a view repeated by Putin.

But the recent strains in the countries’ relationship mean that the Kremlin has a chance to further entrench its position and win political points with the electorate.

“The Russian public is not against the current anti-American stance. The image of the U.S. at the moment is not good in Russia. People see the situation with Syria and think to themselves ‘we can’t deal with the Americans, all they want to do is drop bombs’.

“The Russian public likes the tough tone being taken with the U.S.,” Sokov told IPS.

Recent opinion polls show that the majority of Russians supported what Snowden did and back the decision to grant him asylum.

They also show attitudes towards Obama changing negatively.

Some political commentators in Russia argue that the Kremlin’s stance on disarmament is not even anti-American but simply a normal protection of the country’s interests.

Tatiana Gomozova, political editor at Kommersant FM radio in Moscow, told IPS: “I don’t really think that Russia is actually against the U.S. on the issue – it’s just for itself. The truth is that what Mr. Obama called for [in Berlin] was something over the long term. It’s a goal he himself can’t reach so it was more a political statement than a specific plan. It was also more a speech for his allies than for Russia.

“But while it’s not on today’s Russia-U.S. agenda, I wouldn’t say that Moscow won’t support this idea [of a drastic cut in nuclear weapons] one day.”

But while much of the major media in Russia toes the Kremlin line on many matters, there have been some voices calling for a more conciliatory approach from both sides.

In a long editorial earlier this month the Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily newspaper urged both the White House and the Kremlin to work together on the issue of global security, including nuclear disarmament, and lead the way in helping to form a new, safer, international community.

It said: “The issues of nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation and the prevention of nuclear terrorism fall mainly on the shoulders of our two nations…. Common sense dictates that sooner or later Russia and the United States will become partners in the construction of a new system of international politics of the 21st century. It is hoped that this will happen sooner rather than later – the price of delay may be too high.”

But experts remain pessimistic of any progress on disarmament between the two nations in the near future.

Sokov told IPS: “While it would be good for both sides to agree something on disarmament, concessions are unlikely and I’m not hopeful that anything positive will happen soon.”

After a year of intense diplomatic standoff and territorial brinkmanship among disputing states in the South and East China Seas, the U.S. military ‘pivot’ to the region appears to be in full swing – a move that could further aggravate an already combustible regional dynamic.

Against the backdrop of Chinese territorial assertiveness, the year started off with the bang of big-ticket U.S. arms sales to treaty allies and strategic partners across the region, including an expanded package of sophisticated military hardware featuring state-of-the-art anti-missile systems and warplanes. On top of this, Washington has also stepped-up its joint military exercises with Asian allies perched on the forefront of ongoing territorial spats.

Building on its earlier promise of greater commitment to the freedom of navigation in the Western Pacific, an artery for global trade and energy transport, Washington aims to improve its allies’ military capabilities in a bid to rein in Beijing’s strong-willed territorial posturing.

Facing a stubborn economic downturn at home, the dramatic boost in U.S. defence sales to the region underlines Washington’s growing emphasis on a primarily military-oriented (as opposed to trade-and-investment-driven) approach to re-asserting its position as an ‘anchor of peace and stability’ in the region.

Among the biggest beneficiaries of growing U.S. military commitment to the region is the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), a massive trade group that includes top Pentagon suppliers such as Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co and Northrop Grumman Corp. It underscores the extent to which the U.S. ‘pivot’ has energised the American industrial-military complex, further dimming the prospects for a peaceful resolution of the ongoing disputes.

“(The pivot) will result in growing opportunities for our industry to help equip our friends,” says Fred Downey, vice-president for national security at the AIA.

Since the formal commencement of the U.S. pivot, after U.S. President Barack Obama’s fateful speech to the Australian Parliament in November 2011, Washington has come under tremendous pressure to reassure troubled allies such as Japan and the Philippines against Beijing’s assertiveness. In response, the U.S. has beefed up its rotational military presence across the Pacific, while expanding joint exercises – focusing on maritime defence – with and military aid to Pacific partners.

To calm China’s fears of a U.S.-led regional containment strategy, Washington has also focused on deepening economic integration within the Pacific Rim, specifically through the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trading agreement, which aims to facilitate the flow of investments and goods among partner-nations. In addition, the U.S. has also – at least in principle – underlined its support for diplomatic resolution of ongoing territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas.

However, the U.S. pronouncements have failed to appease regional partners and deter Chinese assertiveness. Beijing continues to accuse Washington of staging a concerted effort to deny China its (perceived) legitimate interests, while allies have raised doubts as to Washington’s ability – given its dire fiscal woes – to maintain regional ascendancy.

Reflecting on fragile U.S. finances, Ken Lieberthal, director of the Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institute and former president Bill Clinton’s top China adviser, has stated, “The most important single element to our (U.S.) success in Asia will be whether domestically we get our house in order, whether domestically we’re able to adopt and integrate a set of policies that will effectively address our fiscal problems over time.”

Given TPP’s failure to gain traction among major Pacific economies, and in the absence of any substantial American investments and economic aid to strategic partners, Washington seems to have instead opted for a full military pivot. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) inability to forge ahead with an effective diplomatic mechanism to settle the disputes has only encouraged this trend.

Since 2011, the U.S. worldwide military sales have hovered above 60 billion dollars.  In 2011, India alone accounted for a 6.9 billion dollar acquisition deal, underscoring New Delhi’s growing anxieties with China’s massive naval buildup, especially in light of its substantial energy-related investments in South China Sea. Last year, overall sales to Pacific partners topped 13.7 billion dollars.

Building on its earlier arms bonanza, the U.S. defence industry has started off the year with a large package of flashy, cutting-edge arms sales to key partners in Northeast Asia: a 5 billion dollar Lockheed Martin radar-evading F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft deal with Japan, a 1.85 billion dollar Lockheed Martin-led retrofitting of Taiwan’s 145 F-16A/B fighters with advanced radars and electronic warfare suits, and a 1.2 billion dollar Northrop Grumman high-flying RQ-4 “Global Hawk” spy drone deal with South Korea.

Beyond propping up allies’ military capabilities to deal with a wide array of challenges, including China, Washington has also encouraged further self-reliance and inter-operability among regional allies, creating a so-called “inversed wall of China” across the Western Pacific.

As a result, the newly-elected Japanese government, under the hawkish Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, has supported Washington’s call for a more assertive Japanese regional role. Mr. Abe has pushed for revitalised defence ties with Asian partners, enhanced inter-operability with major naval powers in the Pacific such as Australia and India, and expanded military aid to countries such as the Philippines. He has also pushed for a so-called Asian “security diamond”, bringing together likeminded Pacific powers concerned with a perceived Chinese “threat”.

With Japan locked in a brewing conflict with China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea, Washington has conducted a series of high-profile joint naval exercises with Tokyo. In November, 47,000 Japanese and American military personnel took part in the biennial Keen Sword exercise off Okinawa islands, which was originally planned to act out the re-capture of disputed islands off the southern coast of Japan. This was followed by a five-day joint air exercise in January, just days after Japanese jets fended off Chinese aircraft surveying the disputed islands.

Overall, the U.S. seems to be gradually passing the buck to Asian partners, prodding them to bear a growing share of defense costs vis-à-vis China’s perceived expansionism. Meanwhile, there is little indication of a renewed push for a diplomatic resolution of the territorial disputes.

By Johan Galtung
LIVERPOOL, Feb 4 2013 (IPS)

The Middle East-North Africa – MENA — is Arab-Muslim with a growing Jewish island in its midst. It was colonised for over four centuries by the Sunni Ottoman Turks, then the secular West, United Kingdom-France-Italy — for half a century and is now under Israeli colonialism and U.S. imperialism.

Johan Galtung

The latter two have controlled MENA through dictatorships, condoning violence and corruption as long as they support U.S.-Israel policies in the area. The Arab awakening is against the violence in favour of democracy, against corruption in favour of growth and jobs, and against U.S.-Israel domination. There is also a Muslim awakening — to believe that Islam tolerates imposed secularism is incredibly naive. But there are many Islams, like there are multiple Christianities and Judaisms.

How does the U.S.-Israel react, and what would be a positive reaction to their reaction — keeping in mind that this is old colonial territory?

U.S. policy is, by and large, state building – with U.S. as model, with multi-party national elections and “free” markets controlled by multinationals in general, private banks and finance banking in particular, also controlling elections. On maps states have one colour, so states are seen as unitary, with one market for the economy, one state for multi-party elections, and one political focus: the capital. Multicoloured maps showing the nations and fault-lines inside might be enlightening.

That reality is used to fragment states that stand in the way: the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were divided into 15 and seven states, some now members of NATO or the European Union.

States seen as Islamist-terrorist are in for the same: Sudan-Somalia broken into two and three parts. They are both on the list of seven countries the White House ordered the Pentagon to “take out” right after 9/11 (general Wesley Clark, Democracy Now, Mar. 2, 2007): Iraq, Iran, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, Somalia; seen as hostile, with state, not private central banks, blocking market globalisation.

For Israel what matters most are the neighbours. From the early beginning this is the usual story of violence and counter-violence read two ways. The Israeli reading is violence against a Jewish homeland becoming a state, legitimised by the Shoa in general; and counter-violence to defend that emerging state. The Arab reading is an Israel established by violence, the Nakba, and counter-violence to contain the expansion of that state. A typical example of two truths that do not add up to one Truth. The result is an endless, fruitless, angry exchange of accusations about who started what, where, and when. A Truth would go beyond fruitless quarrels, identifying a stop. An end to escalation, acceptable to both: like Jun. 4, 1967, with swaps.

However, that symmetry breaks down when Israel still expands – invades-occupies-lays siege – on ever more Arab-Palestinian territory. And even more so when visions of a Greater Israel take shape:

Scenario 1: from the Mediterranean to Jordan;

Scenario 2: from the Nile to the Euphrates (Genesis 15:18), where nine countries are located. Both scenarios are for Jews only, Jewish states.

In search of recognised and secure borders? Only by forcing Arab-Muslim states into submission, dissolving them into mini-states, using internal fault-lines. The list would certainly include Pakistan, a doubly artificial construct, and a nuclear power. Israel’s Mossad and the Indian army’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) cooperate against Pakistan.

Assuming that Lebanon and Iraq – like Palestine – are fragmented, that Jordan is kept for a possible Scenario 1, that Libya is steeped in internal provincial-clan-racial-religious fights, what remains of the seven countries are Syria and Iran. Israeli press mentions a partition of Syria into four states: Shia Alawite, Sunni, Druze and Kurdish (in the Northeast). Egypt, Tunisia are resilient.

The approach to Iran — no colonial construct, fault-lines (Kurds, Azeris, Arabs in Khuzistan) but less vulnerable – is bombing, based on U.S.-Israeli division of labour, the shared accusation that Iran is close to their status as nuclear powers, and the shared, fabricated lie that president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech in Tehran on Oct. 25, 2005: “Israel must be wiped off the map”. He never said that, but quoted imam Ruhollah Khomeini: “The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time”. And mentioned three examples of such regimes: the Shah of Iran, the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein. History tells us that regimes come and go; countries, even states, remain.

The U.S. strategy in the region, to use existing states and bend them to their economic purposes – like imposing private central banks in all seven — is doomed to fail because of inner fault-lines. The Israeli strategy is more intelligent, using fault-lines to fragment states.

In all these cases how much fragmentation is by U.S.-Israeli design and how much by inner tensions will sooner or later be better known.

What would be the Arab-Muslim counter-strategy?

(1) Federations. Fault-lines are real and most people want to be governed by their own kind in autonomous sub-states with common foreign-security-finance-logistics policies. Forty percent of humanity lives in 25 federations, and there is much to learn from Mother Switzerland.

(2) Confederations-communities. Tie them together in strong solidarity communities resisting divide and rule policies.

Do both, and the Arab-Muslim world is more resilient than today.

(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

The wave of unrest in the Middle East caused by blasphemous depictions of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad last month – and events near the U.S. embassy in Cairo in particular – does not appear to have impaired Egypt’s longstanding ‘strategic partnership’ with Washington, say local analysts.

“Recent demonstrations and clashes near the U.S. embassy, and the reaction of Egypt’s new Islamist leadership to those events, has not led to a dramatic shift in Egypt-U.S. relations as had been initially feared,” Tarek Fahmi, political science professor at Cairo University told IPS.

“The relationship is a very deep one and has many dimensions: political, economic, military and otherwise,” Fahmi added. “It won’t be seriously impacted by embassy rallies or one-off statements by officials from either side.”

On Sep. 11, thousands of Egyptian protesters converged on the U.S. embassy in Cairo following the appearance online of a short film mocking Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. At one point, angry demonstrators breached the embassy grounds from which they tore down an American flag.

On the same day, the U.S. ambassador to Libya was killed along with three colleagues during a similar anti-film demonstration outside the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

In Cairo, no members of the U.S. embassy staff were hurt – or threatened with harm – by protesters. Nevertheless, for the next three days, Egyptian demonstrators skirmished with security forces in the area around the embassy, adjacent to Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

On Sep. 12, in a move that many saw as a possible sign of shifting regional policy, U.S. President Barack Obama contentiously described Egypt as neither ally nor enemy.

“I don’t think that we would consider them (Egypt) an ally, but we don’t consider them an enemy…We are going to have to see how they respond to this incident, how they respond to, for example, maintaining the peace treaty with Israel,” Obama said in a televised interview.

The following day, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) – from which Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi hails – issued a statement urging demonstrators to “exercise self-restraint”, and said protection of foreign diplomatic missions in Egypt is “both an Islamic and legal obligation.”

The party went on to voice “total rejection” of any aggression against the U.S. embassy or its staff, while strongly condemning the violence against U.S. diplomats in next door Libya.

While some U.S. officials criticised the FJP for issuing its statement a full two days after the protests began, leading party member Hamdi Hassan defended the move.

“From the outset, the government immediately issued orders forbidding violence against the U.S. embassy,” Hassan told IPS. “The Muslim Brotherhood, for its part, also urged the government to pre-empt any aggression against diplomatic missions.”

He went on to blame the embassy clashes on “counter-revolutionary forces that continue to work behind the scenes in Egypt.” These forces, he asserted, “never miss an opportunity to turn peaceful rallies into violent confrontations with the aim of destabilising the country and causing problems for Egypt’s new democratically elected leadership.”

Counter-revolutionary elements, Hassan added, which he said include figures loyal to the former regime, “want to tarnish the image of Egypt’s revolution by making it look like an anti-Western phenomenon, which it is not.” He went on to point out that peaceful anti-film protesters had largely remained in Tahrir Square, “while those clashing with security forces outside the nearby embassy were incited to do so by as-yet-unidentified instigators.”

On Sep. 16, Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil stated that several of those arrested during the clashes had confessed to having received money for attacking security forces deployed outside the embassy. Investigations aimed at identifying the instigators, he said, were “ongoing”.

Yet, despite U.S. criticism about the Egyptian government’s handling of the crisis, Fahmi says both countries remain keen to maintain solid bilateral relations.

“Regardless of the recent leadership change in Cairo, Washington still sees Egypt as its principle regional ally,” he said. “The U.S. does not want to see Egypt slip out of its sphere of influence. It would be an enormous blow to U.S. strategic interests in the region if Egypt were to ally itself with other international powers, such as Russia or China. ”

Egypt, for its part, Fahmi added, would be hard pressed to forsake its longstanding military-to-military cooperation with the U.S. – now more than three decades old – since the Egyptian armed forces remain “heavily dependant” on U.S. military hardware. In the event of a serious rupture in relations, he said, “Egypt would be forced to replace its entire military inventory.”

One week after the U.S. embassy debacle, following the publication of offensive depictions of Islam’s prophet in a popular French magazine, Egypt’s main Islamist parties – including the FJP – rejected calls to protest outside the French embassy in Cairo, opting instead to initiate legal action against the publishers of the offensive images.

“Islamist forces learned from their earlier mistake at the U.S. embassy,” said Hassan. “With the knowledge that counter-revolutionary elements are waiting for any opportunity to tarnish the image of Islam and Muslims in the eyes of the West, we’re currently studying alternative means of expressing our opposition besides street rallies and demonstrations.”

According to Fahmi, Washington and Cairo each drew important lessons from the episode.

“The Morsi administration learned that it must take a clear position vis-à-vis Israel and the (Egypt-Israel) Camp David peace treaty, because Egypt-U.S. relations are largely founded on the agreement,” he said.

While Morsi has frequently reiterated Egypt’s commitment to all international treaties to which it is signatory, he has also hinted that the terms of Camp David – which tightly restrict Egypt’s ability to make military deployments in the Sinai Peninsula – could eventually be put before a popular referendum.

Washington, for its part, Fahmi said, “has learned that if it wants to communicate with Egypt, it must deal with the new president, the government and a host of post-revolution political forces.” He added: “The time is over when the U.S. simply issued directives to (ousted president Hosni) Mubarak, who would implement them regardless of the Egyptian popular will.”

In a sign that relations had weathered the storm, Obama reportedly sent a letter to his Egyptian counterpart on Sep. 23 thanking him for securing the U.S. embassy and stressing his desire to maintain Washington’s “strategic partnership” with Cairo.

Rights groups denounced the decision not to pursue prosecutions of CIA officers who may have been responsible for the deaths of two prisoners in their custody. Credit: Fahim Siddiqi/IPS

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Sep 1 2012 (IPS)

U.S. human rights groups have roundly condemned Thursday’s announcement by Attorney General Eric Holder that the Justice Department will not pursue prosecutions of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers who may have been responsible for the deaths of two prisoners in their custody.

The announcement appeared to mark the end of all efforts by the U.S. government to hold CIA interrogators accountable for torture and mistreating prisoners detained during the so-called “Global War on Terror” launched shortly after the Al Qaeda attacks on Sep. 11, 2001.

For rights activists and for supporters of President Barack Obama, it was the latest in a series of disappointing decisions, including the failure to close the detention facility at the U.S. base in Guantanamo, Cuba. They had hoped Obama would not only end the excesses of President George W. Bush’s prosecution of the war, but also conduct a full investigation of those excesses, if not prosecute those responsible.

“This is truly a disastrous development,” said Laura Pitter, counter-terrorism advisor at Human Rights Watch (HRW). “To now have no accountability whatsoever for any of the CIA abuses for which there are now mountains of evidence is just appalling.”

“It completely undermines the U.S.’s ability to have any credibility on any of these issues in other countries, even as it calls for other countries to account for abuses and prosecute cases of torture and mistreatment,” she told IPS.

“Continuing impunity threatens to undermine the universally recognised prohibition on torture and other abusive treatment and sends the dangerous signal to government officials that there will be no consequences for their use of torture and other cruelty,” noted Jameel Jaffar, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

“Today’s decision not to file charges against individuals who tortured prisoners to death is yet another entry in what is already a shameful record.”

In his announcement, Holder suggested that crimes were indeed committed in the two cases that were being investigated by Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham but that convictions were unlikely.

“Based on the fully developed factual record concerning the two deaths, the department has declined prosecution because the admissible evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.

The two deaths took place at a secret CIA detention facility known as the Salt Pit in Afghanistan in 2002 and at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison the following year. The victims have been identified as Gul Rahman, a suspected Taliban militant, and Manadel Al-Jamadi, an alleged Iraqi insurgent.

The two were the last reviewed by Durham, who had originally been tasked by Bush’s attorney general, Michael Mukasey, in 2008 with conducting a criminal investigation into CIA interrogators’ use of “waterboarding” against detainees and the apparently intentional destruction of interrogation videotapes that recorded those sessions.

In August 2009, Holder expanded Durham’s mandate to include 101 cases of alleged mistreatment by CIA interrogators of detainees held abroad to determine whether any of them may be liable to prosecution.

At the time, he also stressed that he would not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the controversial legal guidance given by the Bush administration regarding possible “enhanced interrogation” techniques that could be used against detainees.

Such techniques, which include waterboarding, the use of stress positions and extreme heat and cold, are widely considered torture by human rights groups and international legal experts. As such, they violate the U.N. Convention Against Torture (CAT), as well as the Geneva Conventions and a 1996 U.S. federal law against torture.

Holder’s position was consistent with Obama’s statement, which human rights groups also strongly criticised, shortly after taking office in 2009 that he did not want CIA officials to “suddenly feel like they’ve got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering” to escape prosecution and that he preferred “to look forward as opposed to…backwards”.

In his first days in office, Obama ordered all secret CIA detention facilities closed and banned the enhanced techniques authorised by his predecessor.

In late 2010, Durham announced that he would not pursue criminal charges related to the destruction of the CIA videotapes. Seven months later, he recommended that, of the 101 cases of alleged CIA abuse referred to him, only two warranted full criminal investigations in which CIA officers had allegedly exceeded the Bush administration’s guidelines for permissible interrogation techniques.

Now that Holder and Durham have concluded that prosecutions of the individuals involved are unlikely to result in convictions, it appears certain that no CIA officer will be prosecuted in a U.S. jurisdiction. Prosecutions of Bush officials responsible for authorising the “enhanced interrogation” techniques have also been ruled out.

In 2006, a private contractor for the CIA was successfully prosecuted and sentenced to six years in prison for beating an Afghan detainee to death three years before.

Some commentators suggested that these decisions, including the dropping of the two remaining cases, have been motivated primarily by political considerations. Indeed, HRW director Kenneth Roth wrote in an op-ed last year that “dredging up the crimes of the previous administration was seen as too distracting and too antagonistic an enterprise when Republican votes were needed”.

In a statement Thursday, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee praised Holder’s decision. Republicans protested Holder’s referral of the 101 cases to Durham in 2009.

But rights activists expressed great frustration. Holder’s announcement “is disappointing because it’s well documented that in the aftermath of 9/11, torture and abuse were widespread and systematic,” said Melina Milazzo of Human Rights First (HRF), which has been one of the most aggressive groups in investigating and publicising torture and abuse by U.S. intelligence and military personnel.

“It’s shocking that the department’s review of hundreds of instances of torture and abuse will fail to hold even one person accountable.”

Similarly, the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR) noted that Holder’s announcement “belies U.S. claims that it can be trusted to hold accountable Americans who have perpetrated torture and other human rights abuses”.

It said the decision “underscores the need for independent investigations elsewhere, such as the investigation in Spain, to continue”. Victims and rights groups including CCR filed criminal complaints against former Bush officials in Spanish courts in 2009, launching two separate investigations by judges there.

Following Monday’s announcement of the death of long-time Ethiopian leader Meles Zenawi, Ethiopian civil society leaders and Western rights groups are characterising the turn of events as an opportunity to heal decades of increasingly stark sectarianism.

Many are also pointing to the U.S. government’s potential role as key.

The late Ethiopian leader Meles Zenawi. Credit: Ragnhild H. Simenstad, Utenriksdepartementet/ CC by 2.0

“Meles’s death has created an opportunity for peace in Ethiopia, meaning that this transition should not be business as usual,” Getachew Begashaw, a professor of economics at Harper College here in the U.S., told IPS.

“This process needs to be something…that can put the country on the road to national reconciliation. It is important for the United States to realise that its long-term interests would be served best if we can resolve the internal conflicts of Ethiopia.”

The potential for sectarian violence has been a top concern for those attempting to plan for the death of the Ethiopian leader, who had been sick for several months. Meles ruled with an increasingly authoritarian fist for more than two decades, and many worry that his absence could leave a political vacuum.

Still undetermined is the impact that Meles’s death will have on ongoing negotiations between Sudan and South Sudan, as well as in Somalia, talks in which the Ethiopian leader has provided leadership. Currently, however, the focus for many is on more immediate concerns.

“I am afraid that a missed opportunity at this crucial point will lead to the total failure of the Ethiopian state,” Begashaw said. “Once the situation turns violent, it will be extremely difficult to turn around – we will have another Somalia. And if Ethiopia were to fail, the whole region would be massively affected.”

For all the talk about Ethiopia’s recent economic revival, many warn that this development has yet to reach the vast majority of the country’s population. Instead, much of this wealth – and political power – has been retained by the ruling party and, particularly, by the tiny Tigrayan minority community to which Meles belonged.

Already Meles’s deputy prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, has been put forward to rule until elections can be held in 2015, although a meeting of Parliament to make this move official, slated for Wednesday, was suddenly called off.

No puppet

“Meles Zenawi’s whole policy was based on short-term interest – what’s good for him, not what’s good for his nation. Today, Ethiopia is more divided today by ethnicity than ever, and that is his fault,” Obang Metho, executive director of the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia, based here in Washington, told IPS.

“The U.S. in particular used Meles as puppet. For the last 20 years, they’ve put their eggs in one basket, and that basket is now gone. So, it’s time to start a new plan, one that supports the Ethiopian people and is based on mutual national interest.”

Metho and others particularly emphasise the role of the United States in the upcoming transition. The two have a long and contested relationship, as Washington has funnelled huge amounts of military and development aid to the Meles regime, particularly following the start of the US-led “war on terror”.

Today, the United States continues to run unmanned aerial “drone” flights out of a base in Ethiopia. The U.S. also continues to provide significant humanitarian aid to Ethiopia, which currently brings in more foreign aid than any other country in Africa.

“The United States must seize this opportunity to recalibrate its relationship with Ethiopia and help to build strong, accountable institutions and respect for the rule of law, lest it risk…a relationship with yet another ‘strongman’ and depend on the luck of the draw over his longevity,” Amnesty International said in a statement Tuesday.

The International Crisis Group, in a report released Wednesday, similarly called on the United States, in concert with the U.K. and E.U., to “seek to play a significant role in preparing for and shaping the transition”, especially by working to strengthen capacity within the opposition.

While the initial U.S. response , including condolences from President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, merely commended Meles for his role in strengthening Ethiopia’s democracy and economy while also noting his efforts in the civil war in Sudan, subsequent days have seen a slight shift in tone.

“We have not been shy about expressing concern … with regard to journalists’ freedom, human rights, etcetera,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said Wednesday. “We would always look for further improvements that can strengthen the system and support for people across Ethiopia.”

Going together

Strengthening the opposition and loosening the reins on civil society generally is particularly important, Begashaw said, in turning away from the spectre of potential ethnic strife in a post-Meles Ethiopia.

He said the United States needs to play a role as a “credible peace broker between the opposition and the ruling party”, ensuring that the country’s politics open up, that political prisoners are released, and that organisations outlawed by Meles on grounds of “terrorism” are reinstated.

“These groups must be given the legitimate right to peacefully to participate in the political life of the country,” Begashaw said. “We can only have peace when we are trying to accommodate everyone, so long as they are peaceful – and as far as I know, all opposition groups would like to participate peacefully.”

Doing so, he explained, will buy time, allowing civil-society leaders and community opinion-makers to “go out and start talking to political activists, encouraging them to give a chance to peaceful resolution rather than armed conflict.”

A dominant ruling party

Still, others suggest that the remnants of Meles’s regime remain so strong that there is little reason to expect an outbreak of violence anytime soon.

“The ruling party is so dominant that I seriously doubt that there will be internal turmoil. They control 99 percent of the seats at the federal, regional and local levels,” a former U.S. official and Horn of Africa expert told IPS on condition of anonymity.

“Look at the restructuring that has gone on in the past several years – the removal of the old senior leadership, bringing in a new generation of leaders, including the deputy prime minister. I think Meles knew how important a smooth transition was and saw this as the process of handing power to the next generation.”

Metho hinted that incorporating the ruling regime could well prove to be an important part of the opposition’s strategy.

“We need to make the ruling minority realise that this is a new chapter: you have nothing to be afraid of; there’s room for you in the new Ethiopia,” he said. “The old system has to be torn down, but they can be part of this.”

He continues: “We have an old proverb: If you want to go faster, go alone; if you want to go further, go together. Now’s the time to go together with all Ethiopians.”

The crisis that started a few years ago with the collapse of major financial institutions in the United States is now centred in Europe and threatens other parts of the world. Many emerging countries in Asia and Latin America that had thus far avoided contamination because of their sound economic and fiscal policies and their timely adoption of domestic consumption stimulus packages are now beginning to experience secondary effects.

Despite the current financial turmoil and uncertainty, hundreds of millions of dollars continue to be spent each day on military operations without any apparent success in solving the problems they were supposed to. Other disquieting signs loom large. Although combat operations in some troubled areas are being discontinued, the root causes of tension remain unaddressed, with unpredictable consequences. As formerly all-powerful war-bent nations feel constrained to pull back into their own territories, new financial resources are nevertheless earmarked in their budgets for designing, testing, and eventually producing and deploying new generations of deadly weapons in the name of maintaining their national security. By the same token, a few others seem determined to devote a considerable percentage of their scarce national resources to achieve means of destruction to counter real or imagined threats from abroad.

The “contagious doctrine of deterrence”, as Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon once described it, is no longer an exclusive feature of the two antagonists of the Cold War. If some nations feel entitled to possess a nuclear “insurance policy” ­ as a former prime minister described his country’s atomic arsenal- there is no reason to expect that others will not follow suit if they deem it necessary.

Sergio Duarte

It is unfortunate that the days when international conferences could succeed in hammering out bilateral or multilateral arms control agreements seem to be over. Even if past agreements did not bring about effective disarmament, at least they preserved a degree of sanity by curbing some of the most dangerous aspects of the arms race and by signalling the possibility of further progress toward disarmament. For over fifteen years now the multilateral machinery put together by the United Nations over many decades has been unable to achieve the slightest headway towards any significant agreement on both nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Mankind seems to have lost the ability or the will to follow up on the progress previously achieved in banning other types of weapons of mass destruction, namely chemical and biological arms.

Despite important reductions in the number of nuclear weapons since Cold War peaks, there has been little, if any, progress towards their actual elimination or even the reduction of their importance in the military doctrines of the countries that hold them. The world continues to devote increasing resources to the production of conventional weapons, a large number of which find their way to illegal brokers to feed conflicts in the least developed areas, severely jeopardising chances of improving the lot of their populations.

At last count, world expenditures on armaments reached some 1.7 trillion dollars ­ possibly as much as the industrialised nations have already spent to prop up their financial situation.

All is not lost, however – at least not yet. Analysts have remarked that every real advance in the interaction among nations has been the product a deep crisis in international relations. In recent history, landmark international achievements have been preceded by major conflicts, immense destruction, and severe strife. That was the case of the Hague Conferences, the creation of the ill-fated League of Nations, and the successful establishment of the United Nations.

But mankind does not have to wait for a major war or a similar catastrophe to occur. Whatever progress has been achieved in the past few decades came as a result of the timely perception that something had to be done before real disaster struck. That was the case of the realisation that the insane buildup of ever more deadly nuclear arsenals by the two superpowers had to cease, that proliferation had to be curbed, that at least the most harmful and indiscriminate conventional weapons had to be banned, and that ways must be found to ensure that the power of the atom is used exclusively for peaceful purposes ­ to name just a few examples.

The combined effect of the current financial crisis and of the deadlock in international structures dealing with security, disarmament, development, and the environment can yet lead to new realisations. Wealthy nations, for instance, are already well aware that their own prosperity and well-being, just like natural resources, may not last forever. They should therefore join forces with poorer ones to find wise solutions for the benefit of all. The most heavily armed nations should realise that converting their territories into fortresses while building ever more sophisticated means of destruction will not enhance their security but rather endanger it.

Sterner fiscal policies could trigger significant reductions in military budgets worldwide. Perhaps most importantly, all nations, regardless of their wealth and political or military might, should finally understand that any crisis can be defused if they are able to work together in an international system that recognises that World War II and the Cold War are definitively over. It is not too late. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

* Sergio Duarte, Brasilian ambassador and former United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.

This column is available for visitors to the IPS website only for reading. Reproduction in print or electronic media is prohibited. Media interested in republishing may contact romacol@ips.org

We are currently witnessing the worst features of the state system: trading insults and threats, sanctions, readiness to use extreme violence, forward deployment of U.S. troops in Israel as hostages to guarantee U.S. involvement in a possible war, disregard for common people and the effects of warfare in the Middle East and the world.

Stories of polarisation and escalation, the materials with which wars are made, fill the media. Absent is the far better option of sitting down, with mediators, talking and searching for solutions.

There are indeed multiple underlying conflicts. The U.S. and Israel, both nuclear weapons powers, are concerned that Iran might develop its own. But the U.S. lived with Soviet and Chinese nuclear bombs for a long time before they learnt to talk. Israel has lived with Pakistani nuclear options. So why Iran, with no proof of Iranian nuclear arms capability?

One answer was given by Egypt’s Mohamed El Baradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency: the West wants regime change, and uses the nuclear issue as a pretext. Iran (and its president Ahmadinejad), also wants regime change – in Israel, a “world without zionism”, likening it to the regime change in Iran after the Shah, in the Soviet Union, in Iraq after Saddam Hussein.

He never said “wipe Israel off the map”, and signed the Riyadh declaration about recognising Israel if Israel recognises the Jun. 4 1967 borders.

These two issues are used to justify sanctions “to create popular discontent and hate so that the Iranian leaders realise that they need to change their ways”, according to some U.S. intelligence officials. But this has failed again and again: people suffer, but turn more against the direct sources – Israel, the U.S., the EU, the United Nations – than their own rulers; even the opposition leader Hussein Mussawi is under house arrest (Der Spiegel, 6/2012).

U.S.-Israel may wish to return to the days when Iran under the Shah was the U.S.-appointed custodian for the Middle East, intervening in Oman, and other places. To use a Shia country for order in a Sunni region says much about the level of intelligence. The people of Iran, Shia as well as communist, have rejected the Shah regime and the CIA-MI6 coup that brought it into power in 1953, for 25 years.

For Anglo-America, this may be a routine matter, left to the intelligence boys with their contempt for Arab and Muslin regimes. But for Iranians – left, centre, right – it is a deep, traumatising humiliation. To believe it is forgotten speaks badly of the perpetrators. An apology might work wonders.

Then comes the third issue: Israel’s general conflict with Arab-Muslims, with its conflict with the Palestinians being only a part. For Israel – the only nuclear power in the region, neither Arab nor Muslim – to pose as a regional superpower is a clear nonstarter. But they do.

What are the scenarios being discussed? Iran, one of the world’s biggest oil exporters, threatens to close the Strait of Hormuz. This would have severe consequences, also for food supply if biodiesel is the alternative. The West should not underestimate Islamic solidarity across the Shia-Sunni divide. An attack may even unite Syria with Hezbollah, Hamas and others. Not even the Saudi position should be taken for granted.

Regime change in Iran and continued Israeli expansion as the Middle East hegemon is not a viable future. It will produce strong anti-Israeli forces who will find the point of ultimate vulnerability. Any victory for precise bombing before Iran becomes “invincible” will be very short-lived.

With issues such as these, is there any way out?

Of course there is. Remember the horror scenarios of nuclear war during the Cold War in Europe and how the Helsinki conference of 1973-75 pointed to a viable course of action. It was sabotaged by the U.S., which wanted to deploy medium range missiles in Europe. Still, it dampened tensions, and prepared the end of the Cold War in 1989.

The first step for mutual accommodation is a Conference for Security and Cooperation in the Middle East, modeled on Helsinki, starting with the U.N. conference for a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East planned for 2012.

Who could be the Finland of the region? The new and the old forces in Egypt, if the entrenched military are not too afraid of any peace that might block the Camp David flow of money? Taking on this task would guarantee centrality in the region for a long time.

All three issues would be on the agenda, with possibilities:

* a Middle East nuclear free zone, with Israel and Iran included;

* joint supervision for fair and free elections, so that the people decide the regime;

* for the Israel vs Arab-Muslim states issue: a Middle East Community of Israel with neighbour countries, modeled on the 1958 Treaty of Rome for Europe, with an Organisation for Security and Cooperation. All of this would be consistent with the spirit of the Arab spring, which also briefly touched Israel. Economic cooperation for shared development could be added.

When Israelis were asked, Wwhat would be better, for both Israel and Iran to have the bomb, or for neither to have it, 65 percent of Israeli Jews said neither. And a remarkable 64 percent favoured the idea of a nuclear-free zone, even when it was explained that this would mean Israel giving up its nuclear weapons.”

Would Iranians answer the same? Probably. Maybe they all want to survive? Let them decide!

(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Johan Galtung, Rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University, is author of ‘50 Years – 100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives’ (www.transcend.org).

This column is available for visitors to the IPS website only for reading. Reproduction in print or electronic media is prohibited. Media interested in republishing may contact romacol@ips.org

As the Syrian army has stepped up its attacks against opposition strongholds in Homs and elsewhere, the U.S. and its allies have achieved little consensus in choosing a course of action to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

Though Washington has severely criticised the Assad regime in Syria for the scale of violence being used against the Syrian opposition – Human Rights Watch estimates the death toll in Homs from this past month alone at over 700 – policymakers have yet to agree on a path forward beyond the existing sanctions policies and the coordination of humanitarian aid.

Many figures have explicitly called for foreign military intervention by U.S. forces, or at a minimum, the provision of U.S. arms to the fledgling Free Syrian Army, a loose assortment of anti-regime fighters that have changed the nature of the anti-Assad opposition from non-violent demonstrations to armed counter-attacks and firefights.

On Monday, John McCain became the first U.S. senator to openly call for U.S.-led airstrikes on President Bashar al-Assad’s military forces.

“The ultimate goal of airstrikes should be to establish and defend safe havens in Syria, especially in the north, in which opposition forces can organise and plan their political and military activities against Assad,” he is reported as saying in remarks on the Senate floor.

A congressional briefing last Friday featured a presentation by Dr. James Smith, founding director of the controversial military contracting firm Blackwater, who laid out a plan for the establishment of a “Benghazi-like” zone in northeastern Syria to use as a staging ground against the Syrian government.

Smith proposed that U.S. military and intelligence agencies coordinate with the existing Syrian opposition and the restive Kurdish population to establish a safe zone from which international military forces and humanitarian agencies would operate.

Smith, along with a significant portion of the neoconservative establishment, has called for intervention in Syria as a means to “confront Iran and Hezbollah by proxy”, by eliminating Syria’s role in the so-called “axis of resistance”.

Others who supported military action in Libya but have until recently expressed reservations about intervening in Syria have also been reconsidering their positions.

In a Washington Post op-ed, Anne-Marie Slaughter, the former director of policy planning for the U.S. State Department who is close to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, called last week for “foreign military intervention” as “the best hope for curtailing a long, bloody destabilizing civil war”. She advocated the establishment of “no-kill zones” and “humanitarian corridors”, which she said could be enforced by internationally-armed local forces and unmanned aerial drones.

Such plans, however, are unlikely to gain significant traction until Washington is assured that its involvement would not further exacerbate the many problems facing the Syrian uprising and the rise of radical Islamist groups within it.

At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Thursday, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Jeffrey Feltman made the case for the Syrian National Council’s “clear, credible opposition plan”, supported by “Arab leadership on the issue”, but also admitted that the opposition remains marred by “competing divisions, including an Islamist element”.

These fears have led many in Washington into the uncomfortable position of supporting opposition organisations such as the Syrian National Council and the Free Syrian Army, while simultaneously expressing concern over their viability in a post-Assad era.

Many analysts have been quick to respond to calls for Western intervention by raising the spectre of Libya, where readily-available weapons and leadership divisions appear to have contributed to a rise in post-civil war violence and the new government’s inability to exert control over the scores of militias that participated in the war.

At a panel sponsored by the Century Foundation in New York last week, Michael Hanna, a fellow at the Century Foundation, warned that “Dumping arms into this conflict in an unorganised fashion is clearly going to make this conflict bloodier, and clearly going to prolong it.”

Those advocating a more direct international role in the Syrian uprising have been working to increase coordination and leadership within the disparate elements of the opposition, which remains divided not only between the various organisations but within them as well.

Hanna described the Free Syrian army as a “moniker for a local insurgency” that still lacks effective command and control.

The Syrian National Council has also faced growing divisions after a number of prominent members announced they were resigning from the group, citing a lack of progress and insufficient coordination with protestors on the ground.

The “Friends of Syria” meeting convened in Tunis last week exemplified many of these organisational contradictions. While representatives from some 70 countries and international organisations met to discuss ways to coordinate efforts to oust the Assad regime, they were unable to gain meaningful consensus on specific steps beyond the continuing application of diplomatic and economic sanctions.

Though there appeared to be widespread agreement over the need to coordinate humanitarian aid to Syria’s growing refugee population and the countless Syrians living with daily food and heating shortages, the scope of additional involvement proved to be a highly divisive issue.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal is reported to have stormed out of the meeting, angered by the unwillingness of the members to take stronger measures – he has explicitly endorsed arming the opposition.

Russia and China declined to participate in the Friends of Syria meeting, but many policymakers have reluctantly acknowledged that Russia is likely to a play a significant role in the outcome of the conflict despite its apparent intransigence.

“The only way to resolve this is through the Russians,” said former U.S. ambassador to Turkey Morton Abramowitz, speaking at the Century Foundation. He argued that perhaps Vladimir Putin will be more amenable to compromise after Sunday’s Russian election in which the Russian prime minister regained the presidency.

A new report issued Monday by the International Crisis Group warned that Russian cooperation would be essential to a properly managed transition.

The report suggests that “If Moscow can be convinced that its current course maximises the risk of producing the outcome it professes to fear most: chaos” then it could create a situation in which “the (Syrian) regime would be confronted with the choice of either agreeing to negotiate in good faith or facing near-total isolation through loss of a key ally.”

Feltman, who recently returned from a trip to Moscow to discuss a way forward on the Syria issue, reported that “contact with Russia on all levels is continuing.”

Given the degree to which the Kremlin has invested in defending Assad over the past year, however, finding common ground with Russia will be a daunting task.

“The quiet before the storm” is how Israeli pundits describe the countdown – not to Israel going solo on Iran’s nuclear and military installations, but to the meeting between due Monday next week between U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Following last week’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem by top U.S. envoys, it’s the turn of Israeli leaders to come to Washington. The Prime Minister is expected at the White house on Mar. 5, two days after Israeli President Shimon Peres.

Repeated U.S. warnings prior the presidential meetings couldn’t be more blunt. “It’s not prudent at this point to decide to attack Iran,” chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey told CNN.

“The U.S. government is confident that the Israelis understand our concerns,” added Gen. Dempsey. For Israeli decision-makers, not U.S. “concerns”, but confidence is their main concern.

They appreciate the U.S.-led international effort to contain Iran’s nuclear effort – privately, they’re even prepared to say the sanctions go beyond their initial expectations. Then, why stubbornly keeping the timing of a would-be pre-emptive attack on Iran shrouded in ambiguity, if not for tactical purposes.

It seems the Israeli quandary ‘to attack Iran or not to attack Iran soon’ stems from the perception that U.S. decision-making with respect to the Islamic Republic is uncertain.

Dempsey has been heard loud and clear. “Iran is a rational actor… (It) has not decided to make a nuclear weapon”.

According to the New York Times on Saturday, Dempsey’s assessment was corroborated by 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, even though the International Atomic Energy Agency reported the day before that Iran has accelerated its uranium enrichment programme since its Nov. 2011 report.

The message that comes across here is that the U.S. approach is to entice Tehran to consider potentially even harsher sanctions lest the Islamic Republic chooses not to adopt a reasonable course of action regarding its nuclear programme.

Netanyahu only says time and again that a nuclear Iran poses an “existential threat” not just to Israel but to the world, and therefore it cannot be tolerated. His statements conform to Washington’s conduct. “All options are on the table”.

But on Thursday, he issued a warning of his own: “Stop this chatter. It causes damage,” he instructed his cabinet ministers. “We shouldn’t be providing too much information on this issue.”

The question is who’s provided with “too much information”. Was his “stop talking” talk a veiled advice directed at the same U.S. officials who publicly urge his government to stop talking about attacking Iran?

In any case, it’s not what Netanyahu says but what he doesn’t say that’s a source of U.S. concern.

Keeping all key players double guessing whether an Israeli attack on Iran is imminent (for this spring – if to believe what U.S. Secretary of State Leon Panetta reportedly told David Ignatius in the Washington Post earlier this month) serves one purpose.

There’s no illusion that an Israeli threat of attack will deter Iran from pursuing its nuclear quest. It might at least prevent the international front against Tehran to lower its guard.

“As of now, the military option proves to be a diplomatic success,” ascertains columnist Ari Shavit. “It’s managed to shake the international community out of its apathy and made a definitive contribution to the tightening of the diplomatic and economic siege on Iran.”

So, what can be expected at the important White House meeting?

What’s sure is that Obama doesn’t want to create the impression that the U.S. risks being dragged by Israel into an attack on Iran.

But the level of coordination between the two allied countries is such that were Israel to attack Iran, it would be extremely difficult for the U.S. to convince the international community – especially post-revolutionary Arab states with which it’s engaged in rebuilding trust – that it didn’t know Israel would, or didn’t want Israel to, act unilaterally.

Worse, no one’s really sure how such a unilateral attack would impact on an ever more volatile Middle East. The U.S. could easily lose control of events and be embroiled militarily anyway.

For U.S. opposition to an Israeli attack to be credible, it would have to be accompanied by more than words, something inconceivable during an election campaign. Obama’s only resort will be to have Netanyahu pledge, albeit in private, that Israel defers the option of a military strike on Iran.

In return, Netanyahu will undoubtedly obtain a reiteration of the customary U.S. “unconditional support” to Israel’s security. But that’s barely enough. Netanyahu doesn’t trust Obama entirely to say the least.

Shavit, who often likes to impersonate the prime minister, wrote ominously in the weekend edition of Haaretz, “If the President wants to prevent a disaster, he must give Netanyahu iron-clad guarantees that the U.S. will stop Iran in any way necessary and at any price, after the elections. If Obama doesn’t do this, he will obligate Netanyahu to act before the 2012 elections.”

If so, the debate within U.S.-Israeli diplomatic and defence circles is narrowing. An attack on Iran – without but, if possible, with the U.S. – is rapidly developing in a discussion of timing, not of probability.

The closer the calendar draws near November, the lesser the odds are of an Israeli attack. Not because of weather conditions but because of the U.S. electoral climate. Pre-emptive war would be perceived as gross interference in U.S. domestic affairs. This isn’t a risk Netanyahu, prudent and well-versed in U.S. politics, will be inclined to take.

If it becomes clear that action on Iran will be postponed until November, why would Israel not assuage U.S. worries now?

Netanyahu will want to see Obama make the right choices (as far as Israel is concerned) on his own and to have him call the shots – if needs be militarily beside Israel. Preferably, before an Israel strike.

So far, the prospect of a unilateral attack on Iran, even after November, is Israel’s greatest diplomatic weapon. (END/IPS/MM/NA/IP/HD/PI/NU/IR/PK/SS/12)

By Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON, Feb 23 2012 (IPS)

The failure of a mission by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to get Iranian permission to visit a military testing site mentioned in its latest report has been interpreted in media coverage as a stall to avoid the discovery of confirming evidence of past work on nuclear weapons.

But the history of Iranian cooperation with the IAEA on carrying out inspections at the Parchin military testing centre, as well as a previous IAEA-Iran work programme agreement, suggests that Iran is keeping permission for such a visit as bargaining leverage to negotiate a better deal with the agency.

The IAEA statement Wednesday emphasised the fact that the mission to Tehran had been denied permission to visit the site at Parchin. That prompted Associated Press correspondent in Vienna George Jahn to call Iran’s refusal to agree to an IAEA visit to Parchin “stonewalling” and evidence of “hard line resistance” to international pressure on its nuclear programme.

IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria. Credit: Sarajevo-x.com/publix domain

International Herald Tribune blogger Harvey Morris wrote that Iran’s strategy was to “play for time”.

But access to Parchin was discussed as part of broader negotiations on what the IAEA statement called a “document facilitating the clarification of unresolved issues” in regard to “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program. The negotiations were focused on what cooperation the IAEA is demanding and what the agency is ready to offer in return for that cooperation.

Judging from past negotiations between Iran and the IAEA, Iran is ready to offer access to Parchin as well as other sites requested by the agency as part of an agreement under which the IAEA would stop accusing Iran of carrying out covert nuclear weapons experiments.

The IAEA’s position in the negotiations was revealed by the AP’s Jahn, who reported that the agency mission had hoped to get Iranian agreement to meetings with “scientists suspected of working on the alleged weapons program” and to “inspect documents related to nuclear weapons work”.

The September 2008 IAEA report said the agency had “proposed discussions with Iranian experts on the contents of the engineering reports (on the Shahab-3 missile) examining in detail modeling studies….”

Iran has rejected such demands as threatening its legitimate national security interests, in violation of the IAEA statute.

The scientists that the agency is demanding to see are publicly known officials of Iran’s military research institutions. Even before Israel had begun assassinating Iranian scientists, Iran had made it clear it will not give the IAEA physical access to any individual scientists.

The IAEA wants to visit a specific site at Parchin because of information from an unnamed member state, cited in its November 2011 report, that Iran had “constructed a large explosives containment vessel in which to conduct hydrodynamic experiments” – tests of nuclear weapons designs without the use of fissile material.

The report said the construction had been carried out at Parchin military complex in 2000 and that the IAEA had satellite imagery that was “consistent with” that information, meaning only that there were structures that could have housed such a vessel at Parchin in 2000.

The previous history of IAEA inspections at Parchin make it clear, however, that Iran knew it had nothing to hide at Parchin after 2000.

In 2004, John Bolton, the point man in the George W. Bush administration on Iran, who coordinated closely with Israel, charged that satellite imagery showed a bunker at Parchin appropriate for large-scale explosives tests such as those needed to detonate a bomb that would use a neutron trigger.

Bolton put heavy pressure on the IAEA to carry out an investigation at Parchin. A few months later, Tehran agreed to allow the agency to select any five buildings and their surroundings to investigate freely.

That gave U.S. and Israeli intelligence, as well as IAEA experts, an opportunity for which they would not have dreamed of asking: they could scan satellite imagery of the entire Parchin complex for anything that could possibly suggest work on a nuclear weapon, including a containment vessel for hydrodynamic testing, and demand to inspect that building and the grounds around it at their leisure.

In January 2005, an IAEA team visited Parchin and investigated the five areas they had chosen, taking environmental samples, but found nothing suspicious. In November 2005, Iran allowed the IAEA to do the same thing all over again on five more buildings of its own choice.

The Iranian military and nuclear establishment would never have agreed to such terms for IAEA inspection missions at Parchin – not once but twice – if they had been concealing a hydrodynamic test facility at the base.

Other information suggests that no such vessel ever existed at Parchin. The November report claimed the IAEA had obtained information on the dimensions of the containment vessel from the publication of a foreign expert identified as someone who worked “in the nuclear weapons program of the country of his origin”.

That was a reference to Vlachyslav Danilenko, a Ukrainian scientist who has acknowledged having lectured in Iran on theoretical physics and having helped the country build a cylinder for production of nano-diamonds, which was his research specialty. However, Danilenko has firmly denied ever having done any work related to nuclear weapons.

The claim that the dimensions of the putative bomb test chamber at Parchin could be gleaned from a publication by Danilenko is implausible.

The report said the bomb containment chamber at Parchin was “designed to contain the detonation of 70 kilograms of high explosives”. Danilenko’s patented 1992 design for a cylinder for nano-diamond production, however, was built to contain only 10 kg of explosives.

Former IAEA weapons inspector and nuclear weapons expert Robert Kelley has pointed out, moreover, that a container for only 70 kg of explosives could not possibly have been used for hydrodynamic testing of a nuclear weapon design.

The negotiations on a “framework” for Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA recall the negotiation of a “work programme” in August 2007 aimed at resolving a series of issues on which the IAEA Safeguards Department suspected links to nuclear weapons. The issues included experiments involving the extraction of polonium-210, plutonium experiments and possible military control of the Gchine uranium mine.

In previous years, Iran had failed to provide sufficient information to overcome those suspicions. But after the negotiation of the “work programme”, Iran began to move with dispatch to provide documentation aimed at clearing up the six remaining issues.

The IAEA acknowledged that all six of the issues had been effectively resolved in two reports in late 2007 and early 2008.

The reason for the dramatic change in cooperation was simple: the IAEA had pledged that, in return for Iran’s resolving the six issues, “the implementation of safeguards in Iran will be conducted in a routine manner.” That was seen as a significant step toward finally getting a clean bill of health from the agency.

But the IAEA instead then began focusing its questioning entirely on the purported Iranian documents of unknown origin and doubtful authenticity which the IAEA called the “alleged studies”.

*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, “Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam”, was published in 2006.

Excerpt:

A year ago the fall of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt was greeted with general satisfaction and considerable relief. Was it already possible to glimpse (for example, in the spectacle of the Egyptian leader being judged bedridden in a cage) the difficulties that lay ahead for North Africa and the Middle East fulfilling the promise of the “Arab Spring”?

The cruel end of Gaddafi, trapped and lynched on nearly live television, and his anonymous burial, was a foretaste of what lay ahead and would cause discomfort to the European powers and the United States, whose intelligence services had already warned of the precariousness of the process of change.

After a prolonged period of relative stability of the Israeli-Palestinian situation, thanks to the cooperation of Cairo, which received as much military aid as Tel Aviv, the alarms went off when the Palestinian government decided to go to the United Nations asking for admission.

The next blow came, as feared, from Iran, which confirmed its rejection of the inspectors’ demands and its refusal to stop its project to develop nuclear energy, which was suspected of being a cover for a nuclear weapons programme.

If London, Paris, and Washington do not succeed in changing Teheran’s path, Israel would be willing and ready to bomb the country’s nuclear sites. The U.S. and Iran find themselves at historical loggerheads. The regime of the ayatollahs cannot forgive Washington’s long support of the Shah, while Washington still smarts at the humiliation of the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, which contributed significantly to making Jimmy Carter a one-term president. Both sides reserve the right to revile and spar with the other.

Iranian president Ahmadinejad recently took advantage of an opportunistic alliance with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez to annoy the United States in its own “backyard”, paying visits to Caracas, Quito, and Havana. But this did not greatly displease Washington, as it isn’t clear whether the Iranian president has a clear strategy or whether this is simply theatre for his bosses, to whom he must give the impression of being a global player.

This may be also the case with his threat to close the Gulf of Hormuz, which the US has stated it would react to with force. It is the only case in which Obama has gone this far, moreover, in a year in which he would be best served by stability before the elections next November.

Closing the straits would mean economic ruin for Teheran, which would lose the income from its oil exports. Moreover, Ahmadinejad’s threat provoked Saudi Arabia to warn that it would follow the U.S.’ lead in terms of using force. The terror that this Hormuz eventuality has provoked in Washington is striking.

In this complex scenario, there is another awkward contestant and a humanitarian situation that has seized world attention: Syria, which since the explosion last spring has shown all signs of being the next domino to fall, became a central object of concern when domestic protests sparked systematic repression by the Assad regime and the detonation of “asymmetric” civil war much along the lines of that in Libya.

The other factor was the predictable surge in Islamism as a political force both in the transition of certain countries already in the grips of change (Tunisia, Egypt) and others where predictions see Islam as an essential character on the political stage. What we have yet to see is whether this Islamism will be compatible with the U.S.’s and Europe’s expectations of democracy.

While the dramatic developments above do not necessarily have direct effects on neighbouring countries, it is clear that Turkey is a reference point and essential protagonist, passively and actively. Given the doubtfulness of its entry into the European Union, Ankara needs to explore other areas in which to assert itself as a regional player. Erdogan has presented the Turkish model -with possible adjustments to the ideology of his Islamically-inclined party along the lines of Europe’s Christian democratic parties – as a formula for regimes seeking their own political-religious compromise.

Though plagued by internal problems, including the eternal challenge of the Kurds and the still unresolved face-off with the military – who resist any change to the system put in place by Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey – Erdogan faces the dilemma of looking across his border and seeing a crisis build in Syria and having to decide whether or not to intervene.

(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Joaquin Roy is ‘Jean Monnet’ Professor and Director of the European Union Centre of the University of Miami. jroy@Miami.edu

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