Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Job half done, but other half is the key

February 27, 2007

Job half done, but other half is the key

'Inad Khairallah

THE US notched a key landmark in its goals in Iraq on Monday when the cabinet of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki endorsed the draft of new legislation on the country's energy reserves. Waiting in line to benefit from the draft bill, which is expected to be ratified by the Iraqi parliament in March, are international oil majors like ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, BP and Shell, with the US companies staking a claim to the lion's share while the European firms would get a relatively smaller share of the pie. Russians and Chinese might get bits and pieces for good behaviour.
Indeed, it cost the US more than $360 billion and 3,200 American lives — not to mention the more than 25,000 crippled and maimed US service personnel or the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives — to arrive at this point. The US administration had expected the cost of war to be a few billion dollars, but it had no option but to continue to keep the war machine fuelled in the face of the unexpected intensity of the post-war insurgency. The result today is that the cost has now shot through the roof, making it all the more important for the US to "stay the course" in order not only to serve its strategic interests in the region but also to benefit US oil corporates with direct and indirect links with senior administration officials and the Republican camp.
That the original language of the draft law on oil is in English — and not Arabic, the national language of Iraq — shows that it was US-drafted and forced down on the Iraqi government, which was a willing recipient anyway.
According to some accounts, those involved in drafting the bill included
a American consultancy firm hired by Washington and representatives of oil giants, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank which is headed by former US deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and the US Agency for International Development.
It does not need more substantiation that control of Iraq's rich oil resources was one of the several key US objectives than a 1999 statement made in London by Dick Cheney, the now US vice-president and then chief executive of Halliburton:
"By 2010 we will need (an additional) 50 million barrels a day. The Middle East, with two-thirds of the oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize lies."
The draft law calls for oil revenue throughout the country to be deposited in a central government account and redistributed to Iraq's 18 provinces, most likely on a per capita basis. A secondary bill will address in more detail the mechanisms of revenue distribution.
In the final form of distribution arrangements, both the Kurds and Shiites would have a strong say in negotiating production agreements and allocation of the oil proceeds. The Kurds, who have been aligned with the US since the 1991 war over Kuwait, have an edge over the Shiites in this matter. The Kurds could sign oil contracts with whatever companies they want while the Shi'ites enjoy limited privileges in this context, but they are rulers of the country anyway,
The Sunnis in central Iraq — which does not have much of hydrocarbon deposits — have to depend on the central government's oil ministry for any share of whatever oil cake is available.
Well, the arrangement appears the suit the geopolitical realities in Iraq.
However, there is a major catch: The Federal Oil and Gas Council — described as a panel made up of Iraqis and non-Iraqis — retains the final say in granting any oil concession to anyone.
Inevitably, the "non-Iraqi" members of the council will be top executives from the international oil giants who, along with other "US-friendly" Iraqi members, would ensure that only those who toe the US line would get to make money from Iraq's oil resources — 110 billion barrels proven, and unproven estimates running up to 280 billion barrels, more than world number one Saudi Arabia.
It follows then that the US and its proxies would have absolute control of Iraq's oil wealth granted to it by the government and legislative authority of the country.
The international oil giants would make money from Iraq's oil resources mainly through production-sharing agreements which industry experts say are outdated in principle and do not work to the benefit of the host country. But then, that argument is a non-starter because no foreign country is going to raise it and no one in Iraq has any clout to challenge any US-enforced decisions.
Independent experts say that it costs about @2 to produce a barrel of oil in the Kurdish areas of Iraq compared with $7 to $11 in the southern Shiite areas. With the oil price around $60 per barrel, no one is complaining, least of all the oil giants who could be expected to negotiate production sharing agreements based on the colonial-era parameters, including heavily inflated cost of production.
Well, the US has accomplished half the job in Iraq, but the other half — containing the insurgency, taking care of security and making sure the US-friendly credentials of any group that ever comes to power — has already turned out to be its undoing. Without successfully completing this half of the job, the first half would mean nothing.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

No room for family vendetta

February 25, 2007

No room for family vendetta


IT seems that Fatah-Hamas rivalry has taken a backseat and personal vendetta rules the day in the Palestinian territories. In a society like that of the Palestinians, family and clan loyalties run high, and this has emerged as the key factor in the latest eruption of intra-Palestinian violence in the Gaza Strip.
The leaderships of both Fatah and Hamas have accepted that they do not have a real blood feud and it is in the best interest of their common cause of liberation from Israeli occupation to join hands instead of taking up guns against each other in a senseless war that benefits no one but Israel.
The latest flare-up of violence is seen to be the result of families seeking revenge for the killing of their loved ones, whether Hamas or Fatah or any other group. The political leaders of the various groups do not really have a dominating role to put an end to the trend where a brother or cousin takes up arms and seeks to exact revenge from the group suspected of having killed a member of the family.
This is what is emerging in the latest clashes, which killed at least three Palestinians and wounded 15 others on Friday and Saturday, threatening to quash the calm in the occupied territories and undermining the power-sharing agreement that Fatah and Hamas agreed in Makkah this month.
A case in point is that of Mohammed Ghelban, a 28-year-old commander from Hamas' military wing, who was killed in a drive-by shooting outside of his home apparently in revenge the murder of a family member. Hamas accused "suspect figures hiding behind the cover of Karouah family" of executing Ghelban. The group called on the Karouah family "to stop protecting the killers" and said Hamas fighters reserved the right to punish the killers. Several hours later, a 22-year-old man from a Fatah family, Hazem Karouah, was killed, along with a bystander, and the cycle of killings does not seem to have ended there either.
Similar tales of family vendettas are becoming the order of the day in the Palestinian territories.
Parallel to the killings and violence, the political leaders of Fatah and Hamas are pursuing their efforts to form a Palestinian national unity government and pressure the West to accept it as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. They could do without the cycle of killings and counter-killings. Preventing emotionally driven individuals from seeking revenge for the killing of a loved one is beyond the political realm of the Fatah and Hamas leader, and that is the danger confronting their efforts to produce a national unity government.
The Makkah agreement was seen as the only way to avert a Palestinian civil war, because of what was feared to be an unbridgeable chasm between Fatah and Hamas. Having heaved a sigh of relief over the Makkah agreement, the world now sees that the cycle of vendetta killings casting a dark cloud over hopes that the Palestinians have found a common platform to fight their cause.
Until the Makkah agreement was worked out, it was the political responsibility of the leaders of Fatah and Hamas to bury their differences. Now it is the individual responsibility of every Palestinians to understand and accept that family vendettas could prove to be deadly for their cause and struggle for liberation from foreign occupation.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

The Iraq 'game' turns deadlier

February 24, 2007

The Iraq 'game' turns deadlier

THE recent attacks in Iraq targeting trucks carrying chlorine gas prove that the insurgency has taken a worse turn — if that term is applicable, given the already high intensity of violence in the strife-torn country.
The international media have aptly termed them "dirty" chemical attacks, which highlight the reality that the insurgents are remarkably adaptable and have learnt to switch tactics.
The "chemical" attacks, when seen coupled with the increasing firepower and expertise of the insurgents — as seen in the use of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft rockets and heavy machine guns — strengthen the conviction that the US would never be able to "contain" Iraq through military means.
The "dirty" chemical attacks have raised fears that the insurgents could be turning to possible new and co-ordinated assaults using deadly toxics if they could lay their hands on them. Chlorine bombs are only just one threat on a long list of possible attacks that Iraqi insurgents may try to carry out.
No doubt, whoever is pulling the strings behind the insurgency, whether Iraqis — who account for an overwhelming majority in the groups waging the anti-US guerrilla war or the so-called international jihadists affiliated with Al Qaeda — should be aware of the turn that use of toxic material would signal. They could be expected to — and indeed they would be doing so even at this moment — to improvise on the "dirty" chemicals and come up with deadlier material that could inflict higher casualties, whether US or Iraqi soldiers or innocent bystanders.
We are not short of comments from US military commanders that the "success" of the three attacks against trucks carrying chlorine gas since Jan.28 would encourage copycats, and that reflects a "maliciousness, a desire to injure and kill innocent people in the vicinity."
Granted that it is indeed so. However, the US bears the sole responsibility to having turned Iraq into the deadliest spot on earth today. It was a unilateral (but Israeli-engineered) US decision to invade and occupy Iraq and to target other "rogue" states in the region despite, Arab and international warnings that it would not be able to finish what it started. The US military has proven itself incapable of offering the ordinary people of the security and protection that they rightfully deserve.
Instead of owning up its responsibility, accepting that it is part of the problem and not the solution, setting a definite timeframe for ending its military presence in Iraq and seeking alternative means to find an equitable solution, Washington is pursuing a non-existent military answer.
The emergence of new insurgent tactics and increasing intensity of attacks could be seen directly linked to US President George W Bush's "troop surge" plan for Iraq. We have repeatedly seen that the number of insurgent attacks go up whenever and wherever the US beefs up its military strength in Iraq. It has turned the insurgency into a deadly catch-me-if-you-can game with new players replacing the dead ones at every point.
It is not a new finding. We in this region have always known that the US drive in Iraq is going nowhere but disaster for itself. However, it is not a US affair on its own because it is the people of Iraq who are paying the price. Washington has no room to manoeuvre around the reality that it the US has to answer for the death and injury of every innocent Iraqi caught in the crossfire of the insurgency or sectarian blooshed. The US started it and it could not escape from its responsibility to end it, but not at the cost of innocent Iraqi lives.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Deserting a sinking ship

February 23, 2007

Deserting a sinking ship

THE US-led coalition in Iraq is definitely crumbling. Britain has announced it would reduce its troop mumbers by 1,600 in the coming months although it qualified itself by saying it would maintain its military presence in the strife-torn country
Denmark has said that it would withdraw its ground troops serving under British command in Basra. Lithuania, which has 53 soldiers in Iraq serving alongside the Danish battalion, has said it considering a pull-out.
A Romanian decision is expected in the next few days on the presence of its 600 soldiers in Iraq, mostly serving under British command.
Poland has already announced that it will bring home its 900 troops by the end of the year. Italy, Spain, Ukraine, Japan and New Zealand have already withdrawn their troops.
South Korea intends to withdraw half of its 1,300 soldiers by April, and its parliament is demanding a complete pull-out by the end of the year.
On the other side, Australia has said it will keep 1,400 soldiers in and around Iraq, and Bulgaria will keep its 155 troops beyond the expiry of their current mandate next month.
However, the US administration, typical of its self-denials, insists that the coalition is as strong as ever.
Of course, we could not expect the US administration to admit that it is facing major crises in Iraq, not the least the obvious failure of the "security crackdown" that was launched recently as part of President George W Bush's "new" plan involving a "troop surge."
It will be a useless exercise to try to make the point that the Bush administration is facing more disasters in Iraq, particularly at a time when the US military is preparing itself to launch yet another misadventure in the Gulf by striking at Iran. However, that does not negate the reality that the region would have also to face the negative consequences of the US continuing its belligerent approach to the issues of the Middle East.
Washington is ignoring advices from its own military commanders that it would not be wise to continue to believe in military might as the answer to its problems in Iraq and not to invite another catastrophe by sparking an armed conflict with Iran.
Administration officials argue that Iran is "threatening" to close the Strait of Hormuz and block the export of oil from the Gulf, but they are sidestepping the reality that Tehran's "threats" have come in response to unmistakeble signs that the US would launch military action as an answer in the nuclear stand-off with Iran.
One thing is clear: The consequences of a US-Iranian military conflict are unpredictable.
No one in the region wants Iran to develop nuclear weapons or to cause nuclear fallouts. The region's governments have made clear their concerns over the crisis but the US should remember that it does not have a carte blanche to take whatever action it deems fit in the stand-off.
Washington would be better off to focus on its efforts to address the crisis in Iraq through peaceful means. It should accept that it does not have a military answer to the problem there. Once it makes that wise acceptance, then it follows that misadventures in Iran would be much more disasterous than the imbroglio the US faces in Iraq.
The coalition partners have woken up to the reality in Iraq — and what could happen if the US launches military action against Iran — and hence their decision not to expose their soldiers to further danger. The UK has no option but to stick with its trans-Atlantic ally, but most others do not need much persuasion to quit the coalition. That is what is happening now regardless of how Washington tends to explain it.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Real test has yet to come

February 18, 2007


Real test has yet to come

The White House's firm position that it would not feel deterred from pursuing its own course in Iraq by any congressional resolution has cast a dark cloud on the US's image as a democracy. After all, Congress represents the elected representatives of the people of the country, the administration's refusal to abide by its decision — although in the form of a non-abiding resolution — takes the substance out of the democratic principles that it should respect. Constitutional procedures and loopholes might favour the administration's stand, but questions are cast on the moral authorit of the White House when it refuses even to consider the decisions of Congress.
It was reported that President George W Bush would not even bother to watch the House of Representatives vote in favour of a resolution on Friday rebuking his strategy in Iraq. If true — and that it was revealed by the White House itself — it shows how indifferent the president could get towards positions adopted by the US Congress.
The Democrats, who claimed control of the House of Representatives as well as the Senate of the US Congress in November elections, adopted the resolution with a 246-182 vote. Eight Republican representatives opted to go along with the Democrats in what a clear sign of a growing restlessness in the Republican camp that something is seriously wrong in the administration's conduct of the war.
A similar motion was to go before the Senate in a rare Saturday meeting. Regardless of whether the Senate succumbs to Republican tactics and does not take a vote on the issue, the Democrats could claim a moral victory. They could point out that they had brought the issue to the public arena and spoke their mind, but that the administration would not listen.
However, the real test has not been taken. The only way the US Congress could bring the US military's involvement in Iraq to an end is through refusing funds to finance the US-led war there. That is indeed a minefield for many US senators and representatives, whether Republican or Democrat. Any more to cut funds for the military could be interpreted as unpatrotic since it, in principle, would place US soldiers in a dangerous situation.
At the same time, denial of funds would not have an immediate impact on the US military since the administration has already appropriated the money for the immediate phase. A cut-off in funding would make its impact felt only after several months.
In the meantime, some Democratic strategists argue that denying funds for the war should be accompanied by another resolution demanding the recall of the US military from Iraq. Such a move would be dramatic and would raise serious questions about the powers of the president in his capacity as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. That would be fought teeth and nail by the administration.
There are indeed Democratic represenatives and senators who are determined not only to pursue the effort to end the US involvement in Iraq but also to hold the administration to account for having launched the deceptive war against that country and expose the political forces which led the US into the disasterous conflict with little regard for US national interests. The Democrats "will demand the truth and accountability from this administration, about the costs of the war, about the reality of the war strategy and about the impact of the war on our larger national security," accordng to Representative Chris Carney, a Pennsylvania Democrat.
Indeed, that goes far beyond the immediate question of taking effective and practical action in order to block the continuation of the US war in Iraq beyond the timeline presented by budgetary requirements. That poses the real test: Will the Democrats and a few likeminded Republicans have the courage to deny funds for the neoconserative-designed war and also block their government from pursuing its misadventurism in the Middle East?

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Faith in people of Lebanon

February 14, 2007

Faith in people to do the right thing

THE EXPLOSIONS on Tuesday in Bikfaya, a mainly Christian town in the hills north of Beirut, come at a time of acute political tension in Lebanon, and a day before the second anniversary of the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Even before the blasts, fears were running high that violent clashes could erupt between supporters of the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and opposition activists led by Hizbollah who have been staging a sit-in in the heart of Beirut since Dec.1
Organisers of a mass rally planned in downtown Beirut on Wednesday to mark the Hariri assassination are going ahead with the event. Pro-government activists are accusing Syria for the blasts saying Damascus wants a destabilised Lebanon so that it could exploit the situation for political purposes. However, one fails to see how Syria would want to stir up trouble in Lebanon when it knows well that the slightest slip-up on its part could be disasterous for itself. The US is waiting on the wings for the right opportunity to advance its effort for "regime change" in Damascus, and the government of Syrian President Bashar Al Asad could ill-afford any development that could lead to accusing fingers against Damascus as a force of destabilisation of the region.
The Bikfaya bombings have all halmarks of a deliberate operation designed and timed to trigger sectarian violence, possibly leading to a new civil war in the country, which is yet to recover from the blows it received during the 1975-1992 civil strife pitting sectarian militia forces.
Bikfaya is a Christian town and therefore the immediate assumption is that it could be none other than a Muslim group — Hizbollah is the ideal candidate — which carried out the bombing.
However, it should be noted that Hizbollah has emerged as a strong political force and it has become part and parcel of the political life in Lebanon. It has gained additional strength from last year's 34-day war waged by Israel and this is what emboldened the movement to launch the campaign in December to topple the Siniora government and form a new government where the group and its allies could somehow secure enough clout to call the shots in the country. A civil war in Lebanon would be disastrous for Hizbollah as any other group in the country because it would bring in external forces to play havoc with the situation. With Hizbollah remaining as strong as ever — notwithstanding the setbacks it received as a result of its welcome of the hanging of Saddam Hussein by Iraqi Shiites — and the group would receive the brunt of the political and military impact of the situation sliding into civil war.
Therefore, the perpetrators of Tuesday's boming have to be some quarters which would gain from chaos in Lebanon at the expense of Hizbollah, and the finger would automatically point southwards across the border.
It is the lesson that the Lebanese should learn from the bombings and should refrain themselves from being driven by emotions rather than calculated thinking.
A Lebanese woman cried out after Tuesday's bombing: "I am of neither political party in Lebanon, because I don't really care what is going to happen with seats and titles anymore, like most of the Lebanese population. All we want is to have peace of mind - to be able to go to work, earn a living and live our lives. I only have faith in my fellow Lebanese to stop this, and no one else."
Indeed, the responsibility not to let the situation generate into a revived civil war rests with the people of Lebanon. It is the world's fervent hope that they would live true to the faith — as highlighted by the woman from Bikfaya — that their compatriots have placed in them.

United against external pressure

February 14, 2007

United against external pressure


It was unfortunate that last-minute hitches delayed the announcement of a formation of Palestinian national unity government on Thursday.
It might not be accurate to describe the snags as simple power politics. Differences over who should occupy key cabinet are only a feature of coalition politics anywhere in the world, but not so simple in Palestine. A case in point is the post of interior minister in the proposed Palestinian cabinet. Hamas has named two candidates and insists Fatah leader and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas commit himself to one of them. Abbas wants to review more candidates.
Obviously, whoever exerts control over the interior ministry also controls the security forces, and the Fatah-Hamas wrangle reveals that the two groups still retain deep suspicion about each other.
There are of course other differences that Abbas and Hamas leader and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh need to resolve before they could announce a cabinet agreement.
Forming a new national unity goverment is the first step on a long away. Israel has to accept that the government's actions, including recognition of the Jewish state, represent the Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has sensed that he is facing a critical moment in history. That is what he appears to have meant when he told a meeting with top ministers and intelligence chiefs:
"The agreement on the establishment of a unity government in the Palestinian Authority places the region at a juncture of a strategic decision of enormous significance, no less dramatic than what happened after Hamas' victory in the PA elections a year ago."
Signs so far after Hamas and Fatah worked out the Makkah agreement under Saudi auspices this month had been that Israel would not budge from the demands that Hamas should explicitly state that it recognises the Jewish state, renounces armed resistance and accepts the agreements signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). It is not enough for Olmert that Hamas has moved towards this demands by agreeing to form a unity cabinet with Fatah and accept that the unity government could negotiate peace with Israel.
Obviously, Olmert believes that he could pressure Abbas into forcing Hamas to be very explicit in its position. That might not be the case at all.
As far as Hamas leaders are concerned, by coming so far with Fatah the Islamist movement has already compromised a lot and any further move should be reciprocated by Israel. It is not an area where Abbas could do much. He is caught in the middle of historic tug-of-war which would determine the future of Palestine and everyone involved knows it only too well.
What the Palestinians need today is absolute unity without reservations. Their failure to do so would be Israel's advantage.
Abbas and Haniyeh should be able to see through the situation and come up with a more unified position that would deny Israel the opportunity to exploit their differences.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

The hidden war is unfolding

February 13, 2007

The hidden war is unfolding

THE US is steadily moving towards military action against Iran regardless of the consequences of such action for the countries in the region, which can ill-afford yet another conflict even as the Iraqi crisis is spinning out of control.
Recent actions such as detaining Iranians in Iraq and accusing Tehran of arming insurgents in Iraq to carry out attacks against US and allied coalition soliders there seem designed to provoke Tehran into doing something that would tip the scales for immediate US military strikes.
It could even be an Israeli-engineered false flag operation that would conveniently leave accusing fingers pointed at Iran. The world has seen how the US built a non-existent case for the invasion and occupation of Iraq through fabricated intelligence reports and then bypassing the UN when it became clear that the world body would not approve of its plans. Today, the US administration continues to wave away evidence that it had plotted and carried out the invasion of Iraq after misleading the American people as well as many in the international community. We are living through similar times now in the context of Iran, which is for sure targeted for "regime change."
By no means are the Iranians angels. They have their vested interests in Iraq and the rest of the region and are acting accordingly. Their moves and rhetoric appear as if designed to invite American military action. They appear to be conviced that they would be able to wage a "defensive" war that would be very costly for the US.
Is is as if US President George W. Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who deeply mistrust the intentions of each other, have decided that they could not live with each other and want a confrontation.
While Tehran insists that US policy is aimed at toppling the theocratic regime and subjugating Iran, Washington contents that the Iranians are violently undermining US efforts to stabilise the region and also seeking to develop nuclear weapons in order to pose a threat to the US's "strategic partner" in the region — Israel.
It is known that one of the re-election promises that Bush made to his hardline supporters in late 2005 was that there would be a "regime change" in Iran before he leaves office. As such, Tehran's fears might be justified to a certain extent.
On the other hand, there are contradictions in the US charges against Iran.
Isn't it in Shiite Iran's interests to see a stable Iraq since Shiites closely linked to Tehran are in power in Baghdad? Why should it fuel the insurgency, knowing well that its friends in power would be undermined?
Another contradiction is that if we go by the US accounts of how Iran-made explosive devices are being used in Iraq it would be clear that the recipient of the weapons are Sunni insurgents rather than Iraqi Shiites. Would Iran be interested in supplying the Sunnis, knowing well that the weapons would be used against Shiites as much as against the US-led coalition soldiers?
A possible explanation is that Tehran does not want the US to stabilise Iraq because that would mean the American gunsights being trained against the next target — Iran. Tehran could be seeking to force the US to withdraw from Iraq by making the strife-torn country a hotplate for the US military and thus allow the majority Shiites to rule the country without interference after the sought-for US departure.
In the meantime, the hidden war is unfolding Iraq while the drumbeats of an open war are gaining in pitch every day. We in the Gulf are caught in between, with not-very-realistic hopes that something would happen somewhere sometime to spare the region the fallout of yet another military conflict.

Monday, February 12, 2007

How far would 'new' Russia go?

February 12, 2007


How far would 'new' Russia go?

Russian President Vladimir Putin is said to have surprised the West on Saturday when he accused the US of destabilising the world by launching conflicts but being unable to solve them. The reason for the surprise was not that Putin had levelled fabricated or unfounded charges against the US — the reality is there for the world to see how US actions have indeed made the world a more dangerous place than it was before George W Bush became the president of the United States in 2001. Putin surprised the West because it was not expected of him to criticise the US in so blunt terms because Russia is deemed to depend on the US for support on many fronts.
According to Russian analysts, domestic political considerations and US military moves near Russia's borders could be behind Putin's outburst, which came after a series of US-led events that undermined Russia's status as one of the big powers.
Putin has watched how the US ignored Russian protests against military action in former Yugoslavia and again in Iraq.
He was forced to swallow Russia's pride when the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) expanded into Eastern Europe and took in former Soviet republics in the Baltic as members in 2004.
Mosow has sharp differences with Washington in the Middle East. Putin advoates constructive engagement with Iran and Syria to help solve the Iraqi crisis and Palestinian problem, and he had indeed been speaking out in recent months, although in relatively mild tones.
It is argued that record earnings from Russia's oil, gas and metal exports in the last three years have made Putin confident enough to say that Russia reserves the right to say "yes" and "no" on issues of international concern.
A combination of these factors might have prompted Putin to hit out at the US. However, that has little bearing on the reality that Putin spoke for a majority of the international community when he accused
Washington of fuelling world instability by pursuing unilateralist
policies.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates tried to put up up a brave front against the stinging broadside, but he could not come up with any defendable argument. The reason: He knew that he could not respond with a logical and factual rebuttal since the charge levelled by Putin was based on strong grounds.
Gates could only counter that the US did not want another "cold war" with Russia. All other points he made at the Munich security conference were rehashed versions of the Bush administration's policy statements that are seen to have lost credibility with the American people themselves not to speak of a foreign audience.
In any even, it is time for the Middle East to watch Putin more closely and figure out whether he could be a strong counterbalance to the US weight behind Israel.
Putin's ongoing visit to the Middle East offers an excellent opportunity for regional leaders to sound him out further with a view to determining how far the "new" Russia could be of help for the Arab causes, including the quest for a fair and just settlement of the Palestinian problem and Israel's conflict with Syria and Lebanon.
As far as Iraq is concerned, the Bush administration is determined to learn its lessons only the hard way and there does not seem to be any room for anyone to manouvre.

Friday, February 09, 2007

Make-or-break point for casue

February 9. 2007

Make-or-break point for casue

REPORTS coming out of the Makkah talks between Fatah and Hamas leaders have so far been very encouraging since they indicate a realisation on both sides that the current phase could make or break the Palestinian struggle for independence and statehood.
Fatah leader and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal, who are heading the talks under Saudi auspices, have vowed that they would not leave Makkah without a deal.
The two sides have reached agreeement on the composition of a Palestinian national unity cabinet. The next issue is to what degree the new Islamist-nationalist government would recognise previous peace agreements with Israel.
An accord on these issues is hoped to have an immediate impact. It would end the deadly fighting that has killed more than 90 Palestinians since December.
Hopes are also heard that it could also lead to lifting of an international blockade of the current Hamas-led government. The blockade has led to untold suffering for the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and West Bank and they are anxiously looking forward to a Hamas-Fatah compromise that would see the resumption of the flow of aid, both Arab and international, as well as Israel releasing hundreds of millions of dollars of Palestinian tax money it has kept in abeyance since early 2006.
The composition of a unity cabinet should not pose a problem at all, but only if enough trust and confidence is built in each other by Fatah and Hamas.
If Hamas adopts a suspicious view that Fatah would seek to use cabinet positions to undermine the Islamists — or vice-versa — then things would not work out. In order to sort this out, there has to be a firm foundation for the two groups to work with each other and invite other Palestinian factions to join the coalition.
The second question that was being addressed on Thursday was the extent to which Hamas would agree to respect the agreements signed with Israel by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). This issue is central to prospects for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations (that is, if the Jewish state is willing to let go of its demand that Hamas should immediately recognise it and renounce armed resistance).
As both sides indicated on Thursday, a compromise was being worked out in this respect.
So far so good.
However, the crucial question is whether a Palestinian national unity government that emerges from the Makkah negotiations will be accepted by the United States and Israel.
Fatah has dealt with Israel and the Jewish state should but be aware that the collapse of earlier peace talks was its own making because of refusal by its political leaders to steer away from seeking to impose their own version of a peace accord that falls far short of the minimum demands of the Palestinians. Therefore, Israel should not have a serious problem dealing with Fatah.
Israel is deeply suspicious of Hamas, which in turn does not believe that the Israeli political establishment is prepared to enter a fair and just peace agreement with the Palestinians. Hamas will continue to hold out with the demand that Israel should ndertake that it is ready to accept the legitimate demands of the Palestinians and this undertaking is guaranteed by the international community.
Israel, which has never considered the Palestinians as equal negotiating partners, is highly unlikely to offer any undertaking. It would argue that this would be pre-determining the outcome of negotiations at a stage when there is little sign even of resumption of peace talks. In any event, Israel could not be expected to make any gesture that deviates from its campaign to exact a deal from the Palestinians that would serve its interests of expansionism and regional domination.
That is where Fatah and Hamas face the biggest challenge. They have to come up with a unified Palestinian strategy that pre-empts all Israeli arguments. Forcing the Jewish state into a corner might not be possible, given the staunch alliance it has with the US and the support it enjoys among some of the key European countries.
Indeed, the Makkah meeting is a make-or-break point for the Palestinian struggle, and it is up to Abbas and Meshaal to ensure that they take the bull by the horns and subdue it in a manner that serves the central Palestinian cause and interests. The whole world is waiting for them to straighten out the Palestinian cause of liberation from occupation, independent statehood and life in dignity.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Self-denial? Ignorance?

February 4, 2007

Self-denial? Ignorance?
Or secret strategy?

The consensus view of all 16 US spy agencies that even if US President George W. Bush's new Iraq plan succeeds militarily by quelling violence in Baghdad, the country's political leaders may fail to avert disaster places the finger right on the pulse of the crisis facing the US. The truth is that the situation is beyond salvation for the US and it has to blame only itself for the debacle. Any US effort to disengage itself from Iraq should start from the realisation that Washington has miserably failed to realise its objectives in post-war Iraq and it is too late for it to launch a fresh effort.
However, the Bush administration is not yet willing to do so. It still argues that the battle against insurgency in Iraq could be won and it could jump back to a position where it could have a US/Israeli-friendly government in Baghdad (never mind even if it is not acceptable to the people of the country) which will sign away lucrative oil contracts with US companies and act as a US proxy in the Arab World. In order to arrive at that point, the US has to pacify the Iraqis and hand over key control of the country to them. Washington still believes this could be done.
That is not a view shared by the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), although it does buttress Bush's position by cautioning against a hasty US withdrawal -- but challenges some of the basic underpinnings of the president's plan for Iraq.
The NIE predicts that Iraqi security forces would not be in a position to take over control from the US military by this November as called for in Bush's latest Iraq plan.
And "even if violence is diminished, given the current winner-take-all attitude and sectarian animosities infecting the political scene, Iraqi leaders will be hard pressed to achieve sustained political reconciliation," says the NIE.
The NIE also rejected the White House's efforts to pin the blame for the Iraq crisis on Iran.
The report agreed that "Iranian lethal support for select groups of Iraqi Shia militants clearly intensifies the conflict in Iraq." However, the involvement of Iran or Syria in Iraq "is not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability because of the self-sustaining character of Iraq's internal sectarian dynamics," it said.
It is precisely the "internal sectarian dynamics" that spells failure for all American hopes and efforts to stabilise Iraq and advance Washington's objectives there.
Instead of acknowledging this reality and accepting the wisdom of the entire publicly known intelligence community of the US , the White House applied a selective approach. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley grabbed and used the NIS's warning of "spiralling violence and political disarray" in Iraq if US forces stage a hasty withdrawal to argue in favour of continued American presence in the country.
Withdrawal from Iraq would mean giving Al Qaeda a safe haven in Iraq and result in risk and threats to the United States, Hadley said, echoing Bush and others.
Defence Secretary Robert Gates enaged in semantics to argue against the term "civil war" to describe the ongoing Sunni-Shiite conflict there. Again, no matter how Washington might want to describe it, the conflict is nothing but civil war.
The NIE report was emphatic. It said "the term 'civil war' accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict, including the hardening of ethno-sectarian identities, a sea change in the character of the violence, ethno-sectarian mobilisation, and population displacements."
The NIE report was not prepared by critics or enemies of the Bush administration. It was drawn up by experts after closely studying the developments and situation in Iraq with strong intelligence inputs. The White House's dismissal of its key observations consolidates the conviction that it is dead bent upon following a disastrous course in Iraq. Is it self-denial? Is it ignorance? Or is it a secret strategy? It could be any of the three or a combination of all, but it would make little difference to the catastrophe that awaits the US plans in Iraq, heralding with it more agony, grief and suffering for the people of that strife-torn country.

Saving troubles for all concerned

February 8, 2007

Saving troubles for all concerned


THE CASE OF 17 Sri Lankan migrant workers who paid $2,000 each for lucrative jobs in the Gulf but taken to Iraq instead is only the tip of an iceberg. There are thousands of Asian workers trapped in Iraq and forced to work for US military contractors at the risk of losing their lives in the strife-torn country.
Most Asian governments have imposed bans on their nationals taking up employment in Iraq. However, that has not really checked the flow of Asian workers who are enticed by offers of monthly salaries amounting to 10 times that they make at home.
In the case of the 17 Sri Lankans, the official version is that they believed they were being taken to a Gulf country to work and it was only when they were exposed to the bitter cold after landing that they realised it was Iraq. "It was up to two weeks before they actually realised that they were not in a country in the Gulf but actually in Iraq," according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which rescued them and flew them back home.
The 17 were fortunate to have been able to contact the UN and through it the IOM. As long as they remained in Iraq, their life was at risk. There are thousands like them who were not as lucky as them.
A US investigation conducted two years ago established that many Asian workers were forced to work for US contractors at US military camps in Iraq. They were threatened and intimidated into continuing there, with the US authorities taking little or no action despite being aware of what was going on. In some cases, the US commanders of the camps knew that the contractors were not even paying the workers their salaries but did nothing arguing that it was an affair that involved only the contractors and workers.
Only a dozen or so cases have been reported so far of Asian workers getting caught in the crossfire between the US forces and insurgents and getting killed, but that is only a scratch on the surface. Such cases get reported only when the identity of the deceased has been established and the death reported to the concerned diplomatic mission.
In a country where dozens of tortured and mutilated bodies turn up every day, establishing the identities of the dead is a difficult task. Since morgues perennially out of space, bodies are kept for a day or two for families to identify. Unidentified bodies are buried without ceremony, with little or no documentation for any follow-up if ever it happens. Such is the chaos that prevails in Iraq today.
The irony is that there seems to be little that Asian governments could do to block the flow of workers to Iraq. We do come across reports once in a while of Asian workers being prevented from boarding Iraq-bound planes from Gulf airports. Again these are odd cases that are exposed, while the bulk of the flow goes unchecked and unreported.
Indeed, the main reasons are poverty and unemployment that drive Asians to seek unemployment abroad. And the culprits are unscrupulous "employment agents" who exploit them and the exploitation is not limited to Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, the Philippines, India or Pakistan.
In most cases where exploitation of workers is exposed, corruption and political influence take the central stage, and the "agents" walk away without punishment. The governments of the countries involved bear the bulk of responsibility because they maintain a loose system.
The UAE has taken the lead in entering into bilateral agreements with Asian countries in order to prevent the exploitation of workers and check the unorganised flow of migrant labourers across borders. Such agreements benefit everyone concerned because loopholes in the system are plugged. Countries which host foreign workers remain updated of the flow and the countries of origin of workers could make sure that their nationals would not be taken for a ride. Workers themselves are spared the agony of having to pay hefty amounts for employment and then finding themselves left high and dry once they land in a foreign country dreaming of a better life ahead.
As such, the system looks and sounds ideal. However, the governments of countries of origin of workers have to live up to their side of the bargain by not only enacting tough rules and regulations but also enforcing them without compromise. Indeed, it could not be done overnight, but that does not mean the governments should give up or slacken their determination to stamp out exploitation.
Strengthening the pace and enforcement of rules and regulations would save everyone a lot of trouble on all sides.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

The cause is at stake

February 7, 2007

The cause is at stake


TUESDAY's meeting in the Holy City of Makkah between Palestinian President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Meshaal was portrayed by many was an effort to end the Hamas-Fatah struggle for power and the immediate focus is formation of a Palestinian national unity government to replace the Hamas-led administration. Indeed, these issues were in focus, but to limit the scope of the talks to them would be a narrow vision.
It was not as much as a deal to stop fighting with each other that was important as an agreement that addresses the deep roots of conflict between the two Palestinian streams represented by Hamas and Fatah.
At stake is the future of the Palestinian struggle for independence.
In a wider perspective, Fatah, which has adopted a secular platform, is ready to negotiate peace with Israel. The group is willing to accept compromises based on ground realities as long as the Palestinian right to set up an independent state in the territories that Israel occupied in the 1967 war with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital is recognised, respected and upheld as the basis for peace. Fatah is aware that the precise borders of the proposed state would have to take into consideration the Israeli insistence that it would not dismantle some of the largest Jewish settlements that dot the West Bank. Some form a trade-off would have to be agreed upon in order to solve the thorny issue of the future of the settlements. The status of Arab East Jerusalem and the right of the Palestinian refugees also pose serious problems in view of Israel's firm refusal to accept the Palestinian demands that Arab East Jerusalem should be their capital and the Palestinian refugees should be allowed to exercise their right to return to their ancestral land or to receive compensation for the properties they lost when Israel was created there in 1948.
On the other hand, Hamas, which bases itself of a strictly Islamist platform, want to set up an Islamic state in all of Palestine as it existed before the state of Israel was created. It argues that all those Jews who migrated to Israel should return to where they came from and the entire pre-1948 territory be handed over to the Palestinians to set up the proposed Islamic state. It is not willing to recognise Israel, renounce armed resistance and accept past agreements signed by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Israel.
Hamas leaders are not naive to believe that these demands could be met. They have laid down these conditions as their opening gambit. Clear signals have come from various Hamas quarters that the group would be willing to accept a state within the 1967 lines, but it wants that state to be an Islamist caliphate, which Israel fears would continue to wage the quest for entire pre-1948 Palestine.
As such, the compromise that Fatah and Hamas needed to make in Makkah was clearly spelt out. They might or might not produce a breakthrough in Makkah, but they have to take the bull by the horns and come up with a common platform for the liberation of Palestine through negotiations with Israel. They need to remove their fundamental differences in approach. Forming a national unity government would indeed prove to be the soundest move but only as long as it is supported by a clear understanding of how to take forward the struggle for independence. It should not be a stop-gap tactic that would only put off to a future date a bitter fight to the finish.
The entire Arab World is appealing to the Fatah and Hamas leaders: The fate of the Palestinian people is in your hands, and do not play games with it. If you prove yourselves to be incapable of settling your differences for the sake of your people, then it also means that you are incapable of leading the Palestinian struggle. You have to clean up your act and put it together. You would be failing your own cause and your own people if you don't rise to the challenge.

Monday, February 05, 2007

Old tracks lead nowhere

February 5, 2007

Old tracks lead nowhere

THE ONGOING visit to the Middle East of German Chancellor Angela Merkel represents the strongest European Union (EU) effort at preparing the ground for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Obviously, the Europeans, who have had much longer experience with the Middle East than the Americans, have been prompted by the finding by the Iraq Study Group of the US that the prime issue that needs to be addressed in the Middle East is the Palestinian problem.
Althogh the recommendation by the group was directed at the administration of US President George W Bush, the EU realised its importance and relevance.
Of course, solving the Palestinian problem does not guarantee a solution to the other crises in the region, including the problem in Lebanon and the Israeli-Syrian conflict over the Golan Heights. However, Western goodwill in ensuring that Israel does not get away with its effort to impose its own version of a "peace agreement" on the Palestinians would go a long way in improving prospects for cooler heads to prevail while dealing with the other crises.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose country bears the bulk of the responsibility for having created the Palestinian problem in the first place, did try his hand at bringing the Israelis and Palestinians together, but did not really get anywhere, what with the divisions within the Palestinian ranks not to mention Israel's insistence on the Palestinians meeting its demands even before talks begin.
Merkel, whose country occupies the rotating EU presidency, reiterated the same conditions on Saturday as she began her visit to the Middle East in Cairo. Hamas has to recognise Israel's right to exist, renounce armed resistance and accept past agreements with the Jewish state, she said.
The German leader and most other EU leaders are overlooking or sidestepping the reality that Israel is imposing these demands even as it has pre-determined the outcome of peace talks: No return of occupied Arab East Jerusalem and no acceptance of the right of the Palestinian refugees. In the face of such a position, how could it be possible for Hamas to abandon what it considers as its trump card of refusing to recognise the Jewish state?
Instead of pressuring the Palestinians into compromises that undermine their legitimate rights, Merkel and other EU leaders should consider pressing Israel into accepting international conventions and the UN Charter as the basis for a settlement with the Palestinians.
In the meantime, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel for hopes for an end to the Hamas-Fatah fighting.
In Cairo, Merkel stressed the importance of an end to the Hamas-Fatah fighting. Palestinian President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas and exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal are expected to meet in Makkah on Tuesday in a bid to iron out their differences. Hopefully, Merkel would be hearing this week that the two leaders have agreed to settle their differences and to adopt a common platform to advance the Palestinian struggle for independence.
However, that does not solve the root problem.
Without Israel explictly moving away from its transigence and blatant rejection of recognising and respecting Palestinian rights, there is little hope of anyone making any realistic progress for peace in Palestine. That is what the German chancellor would find out, and we hope it would be sooner than later so that the EU could consider accepting realities as realities in Palestine and act accordingly.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Anti-war hopes: Height of naiveté

February 3, 2007


Anti-war hopes: Height of naiveté



TO criticise and oppose US President George W Bush's new plan for Iraq is treason in the US because it means undercutting the US military and help enemies of the country. To advocate any other course in Iraq is also treason because it means inviting international jihadists to wage a war terror inside the US.
This is the prevailing argument in Washington today. Bush himself, Vice-President Dick Cheney and their trusted aides and spokesman do not waste any opportunity to hammer home this theories when the Iraq crisis draws criticism.
Surprisingly, the ploy is working. Senior Democrat leaders are slowly backtracking from their threats of cutting off funds for the war. They have switched to a track where the US Congress would pass non-binding resolution criticising the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war but not calling for cutting off funds.
House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had talked about how the Democrats were determined to see an end to the war, signalled the shift last week upon her return from a trip to Iraq. She skirted a question about her opposition to the war and particularly the administration's plan to increase the number of US troops in Iraq, and said there was a possibility that the US would succeed in Iraq. There was a "last chance" for US victory in Iraq, she stated.
Earlier, Pelosi had indicated that she had seen through the administration's approach when she said: "The president knows that because the troops are in harm's way that we won't cut off the resources. That's why he's moving so quickly to put them in harm's way" by sending more of them to Iraq.
Several other Democrat leaders also have indicated that they have shifted postures. Most of them are now saying that they would only be favouring a bipartisan, symbolic resolution opposing the so-called "troop surge."
Bush, Cheney and others in the administration have already said that they would not be bound by such resolutions.
A compromise resolution being planned says that while the US legislature "disagrees with the 'plan' to augment" US troops, it should not cut off or reduce funding for the US military in Iraq.
The shift in Democrats' approach comes ahead of on a request Bush is likely to submit to Congress for an estimated $100 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The request will be presented in the form of a non-budgetary bill that excludes the mandatory requirements linked to the national budget. An earlier Democratic demand was that the US Congress make it mandatory for the administration to present funding requirements for the war through the regular budget, and this would have deprived the White House of the option of easy funding that it enjoyed with the Republican majority in both chambers of the legislature.
It is not as if the US soldiers would be denied food or arms and ammunition the day after the US Congress votes to cut funding for the war. The military has already been allocated funds to sustain itself in Iraq for several months more. Therefore the impact of suspending funding would be felt several months down the line during which the administration and military could plan an orderly withdrawal from Iraq.
As such, the argument becomes hollow that any member of congress voting to cut off funding for the war is abandoning US soldiers in a foreign land.
Hollow indeed is also the contention that "cutting and running" from Iraq means inviting international jihadist (like Al Qaeda and others) to wage a war of terrorism in the US. It sounds as if there is a breed in Iraq which churns out "terrorists" by the hundreds every day ready to wage a war of terror against Americans living in their homes and working in their offices in the US mainland.
The paradox is that the US is breeding anti-US extremism and militancy in Iraq by virtue of its military occupation of Iraq and high-handed action against the people of Iraq.
It should not take politicians who make it to the US Congress much to realise that they are being held hostage to their patriotism and political imperatives by the administration. When then are they not waking up?
The answer to the question is in the US media. Here are some of the typical comments that appeared in US newspapers in recent days:
"It's irresponsible in the extreme to reject Bush's last ditch attempt to stabilize Iraq out of hand without suggesting a better way to win."
Democratic legislators are "favouring defeat over victory in the Iraqi theater."
"The Democrats do not wish to win in Iraq and will do nothing to further the cause of victory."
Congressional resolutions of disapproval as intended "to undercut the war, endanger the troops and weaken the presidency."
Clearly, it was a wrong notion the US mainstream media that had championed the invasion and occupation of Iraq had mellowed in the wake of the collapse of the US approach to post-war Iraq.
The morale of the story: Those who pull the real strings in Washington are still powerful and influential enough to swing things their way no matter what, and anyone who expected otherwise was basing those expectations at the height of naiveté.

Friday, February 02, 2007

False flags or true signals?

February 28, 2007

False flags or true signals?


STRANGE as it may sound, the expectation propagated by many in the international media is that there would soon be an attack targeting American individuals/interests that would be traced to Tehran. The attack, which has to be of a scale and nature that would make an immediate international impact, would be used as the pretext for the US to launch military action against Iran along the same lines as the Sept.11 2001 suicide hijackings set the ground for the invasion of Afghanistan and then Iraq.
Israel is an expert in false-flag operations. We have seen over the decades how Israeli agents have carried out deceptive operations in Arab countries, Europe and indeed the US, leaving accusing fingers pointing at Arabs. It could be the Israelis who would carry out the false-flag operation to set the ground for military action against Iraq. It could be American agents. Or it could be a group or groups whose strings are pulled from behind the scene by Israel or the US. This is the expert opinion making the rounds through the media today.
There could be an added sense of urgency for American/Israeli military action against Iran because there is a possibility that the theological Iranian leadership headed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could step in to defuse the nuclear crisis by offering to suspend nuclear enrichment and engage in dialogue to solve the dispute despite opposition by President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and his hard-line supporters. If that happens, then the rug is pulled from under the feet of the American/Israeli argument for military action against Iran.
While the US invasion of Iraq was indeed expected, the launch of the US-led war against that country came at a time when the world was getting increasingly worried about the strength of Washington's contention that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was producing more by the tonnes. At that point, the US had to act fast lest it would be established that it did not have a real cause for war against Iraq, and we saw how the Bush administration withdrew all motions presented to the UN and launched the war against Iraq in 72 hours.
Somewhere along similar lines, powers from within Iran could foil the Israeli-engineered American plans for military action against Iran.
Reports from Tehran indicate a growing restlessness against Ahmedinejdad's rhetoric that seems designed to invite military action against the country in the name of its controversial nuclear programme.
Critics of the Iranian president have taken up particular issue with his recent comment that "the train of the Iranian nation is without brakes and a rear gear ... We dismantled the reverse gear and brakes of the train and threw them away some time ago."
The comment has drawn criticism not only from reformists who have long opposed Ahmadinejad, but also from conservatives who once backed the president but who now fear that he is provoking the West into military confrontation.
Indicative of the trend was a comment by the reformist daily Etemad-e-Melli, which asked:
"Why are you speaking a language that causes a person to be ashamed? A train's brakes are needed to reach its destination safely. You represent the voters of the great Iranian nation. Speak equal to the name and dignity of this nation."
Another was the conservative daily Resalat, which chided Ahmadinejad, saying "neither weakness nor unnecessarily offensive language is acceptable in foreign policy."
"Our foreign policy must reflect the ancient Iranian civilisation and rich Islamic culture of the Iranian nation. Therefore, delicacy ... rich diplomatic language and non-primitive policies must be part of a calculated combination to work," it said.
These comments should be seen coupled with the criticism levelled against Ahmedinejad by none other than Khamenei himself although in the context of government performance.
The overall picture that is gaining contours is that of an unexpected Iranian move to defuse the nuclear crisis and remove all justifications for any military action. We in this region would definitely welcome that development since it could also be used in a different context to address some of the other basic concerns of the Gulf region.
The key questions here are several:
What are the points that the Bush administration has taken from the criticism levelled against Ahmedinejad?
Do those points include optimism for a non-military solution to the nuclear crisis?
Is Washington prepared — in a long-term strategical context — to accept a peaceful resolution of the crisis with Iran, which the US sees as its worst opponent in the Middle East?
Will Israel keep to itself and watch from the sidelines as its grand designs for military action against Iran fade away?

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Hopes for Bangladesh

February 2, 2007

Hopes for Bangladesh

HOPES of a peaceful and credible parliamentary elections in Bangladesh have brightened with the resignation on Wednesday of the country's five top election officials who had been the centre of a row over alleged vote-rigging ahead of the polls that were originally scheduled to be held on Jan.22.
The international community has signalled it is ready to help the country.
European and UN election monitors who quit the country due to pre-poll violence are preparing to return to Bangladesh and the UN is said to be considering resumption of assistance. The European Commission is sending an advance observation team to Bangladesh this month to see whether a free and fair election could be held.
Casting a cloud over the democratic environment for elections is the imposition of severe restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly and the state of emergency that was imposed by the caretaker government last month.
It could indeed be argued that such constraints, coupled with warnings that anyone who breaks new media restrictions or a ban on political rallies imposed under emergency rule faces five years in jail, were central to the caretaker government's efforts to end the crisis over elections. Another justification for the curbs could be seen in the argument that the very politics of Bangladesh is so peculiar that it warrants such measures.
The government says it enacted the rules to “maintain security, peace and safety of the people and the state.”
However, restrictions of such basic freedoms run contrary to the very spirit of democracy. Hopefully, now that there crisis seems to be on the way to solution, the caretaker government would remove the measures and allow the people to exercise their democratic and constitutional rights.
In the meantime, however, the basic problems confronting Bangladesh remain unaddressed.
It is no secret that the country is inevitably held hostage to the personal enemity between two women — Sheikh Hasina Wajed, president of the Awami League and daughter of the late Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the nationalist leader and the first president of Bangladesh, and Begum Khaleda Zia, the widow of the late general Ziaur Rahman. They have a running blood fued between linked to the killings of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Ziaur Rahman.
The two women have ruled the country as prime ministers since 1991.
Khaleda Zia led the BNP to parliamentary victories in 1991 and 2001 and was prime minister from 1991 to 1996 and again from 2001 to end of 2006. Sheikh Hasina was in power from 1996 to 2001.
Indeed, it is a distinction for Bangladesh that it has two female politicians leading national politics, but the crises besetting the country have only worsened in the last 16 years. Extensive corruption, disorder and political violence are the main features that characterise Bangladesh today, and local, regional and international experts and observers place the blame right at the doors of Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia. Both women have their interpretations of democracy and governance and they have led their impoverished country towards more crises than solutions. The two women are accused of allowing politics-oriented favouritism rather than efficiency-oriented governance to guide their terms at the helm of power in the country. And their priority, according to insiders, is to inflict as much harm against each other rather than administration of the country aimed at helping it recover from crises and economic problems.
Many Bangladeshis are resigned to the conclusion that one of the two women leaders would emerge as victor in the next elections and assume office as prime minister, and the cycle of recrimination against each other starts all over again.
Against that prospect, it is difficult to envisage Bangladesh being placed on the right path any soon. The option is left to the people of Bangladesh to opt for a third front led by an efficient technocrat supported by administrators who could rise to the challenge of rescuing their country from further disasters. None fitting that discription has turned up so far. Hopefully, someone would turn up sooner than later to lead the Bangladeshis in the right direction towards an end to the chronic problems facing the country.