Dec.13 2004
Knives are out
pv vivekanand
IT IS retribution time for the Bush administration against those who pulled the rug from under the feet of its justification for the unprovoked invasion and occupation of Iraq and its plans for action against Iran. That is why people like UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who stood firm against granting UN legitimacy for the war and called it illegal, and Mohammed Al Baradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who certified Iraq did not have an ongoing programme of nuclear weapons, are finding themselves at the receiving end of allegations and targeted for efforts to remove them.
In Annan's case, the UN chief is facing allegations that his son, Kojo, received upto $150,000 from a Swiss company which had benefited Iraq's oil-for-food programme administered by the UN. Seen against the light of revelations that some senior UN officials had also gained from the same programme, which was allegedly misused by Saddam Hussein to divert funds to illegal beneficiaries, the pressure on Annan was immense. Add to that allegations over a sexual harassment case dismissed by Annan, and of exploitation by peacekeepers in Congo.
For the moment, however, the Bush administration is holdings its horses against Annan after it found an overwhelming majority of world leaders, including American allies such as Tony Blair, rallying behind the UN chief and reaffirming confidence in him and his abilities to lead the world body.
It was a clear volte-face when US Ambassador to the UN John C Danforth said on Thursday that the Bush administration did not want Annan to leave the UN.
"Some have suggested to me that it appears what the US wants to do is to force the resignation of the secretary general," Danforth said. "It is important for us, the United States, to clarify our position. We are not suggesting or pushing for the resignation of the secretary general. We have worked well with him in the past. We anticipate working with him very well in the future for the time to come."
Bush's reticence
Danforth's comment had to be seen against President George Bush's reticence, only a week earlier, to support Annan. Bush had repeatedly declined to issue an unambiguous expression of support. Asked whether he believed Annan should resign, Bush said last week "there ought to be a full and fair and open accounting of the oil-for-food programme" so American taxpayers will "feel comfortable about supporting the United Nations."
Danforth had also defended Bush's stand by asserting that a public expression of confidence in Annan might prejudge investigations into alleged irregularities in Iraq's oil-for-food programme. However, he could not offer any explanation why only the US felt so while almost all other members of the UN expressed confidence in Annan. Those expressions came in the one week between Bush's public statement shying away from voicing confidence in Annan and Danforth's outright statement saying the US "anticipated working with him in the future for the time to come."
Obviously, the world majority's stand on Annan persuaded Washington to publicly freeze its drive to get rid of him.
Some suggest that the neocons are going after the UN through Annan, who has two more years of his second term to serve as UN chief.
Edward Luck, a Columbia University professor who specialises in the UN, said in recent comments carried by the Boston Globe:
"On a strategic level, much of the (Bush) administration rejects what the UN stands for. . . . The secretary general has been a Teflon secretary general and has had a relatively high and positive public profile as a vanguard of multilateralism, while looking for an alternative of American dominance. They haven't had a good way of going after him until now."
No doubt, the neoconservatives of Washington are behind the smear campaign against the UN chief for his firm stand against the war against Iraq. Indeed, Annan has given them additional reasons by calling the war illegal and then denouncing the recent American-led assault against Fallujah.
Annan's warning against the assault was strong. He said: "The threat or actual use of force not only risks deepening the sense of alienation of certain communities (in Iraq), but would also reinforce perceptions among the Iraqi population of a continued military occupation."
He also frustrated Washington by refusing to send more than two dozen electoral workers to help with elections in Iraq
The evidence of the neocon drive against Annan is there. The news that Anna's son received payments from the Swiss company that was a contractor in the oil-for-food programme first appeared in The New York Sun, which belongs to Canadian Conrad Black and which is seen to serve as a mouthpiece for the neocons (according to Jude Wanniski, a former associate editor of The Wall Street Journal).
Conrad is a long-time associate of Richard Perle, the most prominent neo-con in the Bush camp and a director of the Jerusalem Post, one of Black`s many media holdings, Wanniski points out.
Moving against UN
Richard Holbrooke, the US ambassador to the United Nations under president Bill Clinton and an Annan backer, has said: "The danger now is that a group of people who want to destroy or paralyse the UN are beginning to pick up support from some of those whose goal is to reform it."
Annan, like his predecessors, is a bitter critic of Israel and that gives the neocons all the more reason to seek to get rid of him. He has repeatedly condemned Israel's brutal crackdown against the Palestinians and its blatant refusal to abide by UN resolutions and international laws.
In Baradei's case, the Egyptian who assumed the helm of the IAEA in 1997 is facing unofficial charges that he somehow helped Iran escape international punitive measures for developing a programme to make nuclear weapons. However, his real "crime" in the neocons' eyes is that he repeatedly reported the truth to the international community that IAEA inspections had failed to find any sign of Saddam developing nuclear weapons since the 1990s at a time when the Bush administration insisted that he had large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
It was reported on Sunday that the administration had secretly recorded Baradei's phone calls with Iranian diplomats and is scrutinising them in search of ammunition to oust him as IAEA director.
According to the Washington Post, which broke the story, "the efforts against Baradei demonstrate the lengths some within the administration are willing to go to replace a top international diplomat who questioned US intelligence on Iraq and is now taking a cautious approach on Iran."
Baradei an obstacle
Obviously, the US sees Baradei as an obstacle in the way of diplomatic as well as military action for "regime change" in Iran -- a priority for Bush in his second term.
While the taped conservations have not produced "any evidence of nefarious conduct" by Baradei, "some within the administration believe they show Baradei lacks impartiality because he tried to help Iran navigate a diplomatic crisis over its nuclear programmes."
Baradei, 62, who used to teach international law at New York University before becoming IAEA chief, is known to be well-respected inside the UN. A majority of the members of the IAEA board is said to favour a third term for him beginning next summer.
Many analysts believe that Washington found it difficult to convince the required number of IAEA board members to vote against a third term for Baradei and therefore is seeking material to strengthen its argument that Baradei should be retired so that he no longer poses a hurdle in the way of American action against Iran in the name of Tehran's nuclear programme.
That the US is planning military action against Iran was made clear by another prominent neoconservative in the Bush administration.
Under-Secretary of Defence for Policy Douglas J. Feith, one of the most hawkish neocons who orchestrated the invasion and occupation of Iraq citing Saddam Hussein's non-existent weapons of mass destruction, shrouded the warning against Iran in diplomatic jargon.
In an interview with Israel's Jerusalem Post, Feith, who will stay on with Bush in the president's second term at the White House, says Washington hopes that Iran will follow Libya's lead in abandoning its nuclear programme, but nobody should rule out the possibility of military action against Teheran's nuclear sites if it does not.
Follow Libya
According to Feith, the US is now concentrating on "a process to try to get the existing international legal mechanisms -- the (Nuclear) Non-Proliferation Treaty (and) the International Atomic Energy Agency -- to work, to bring the kind of pressure to bear on Iran that would induce the Iranians to follow the path that Libya took in deciding that they were actually better off in abandoning their WMD (weapons of mass destruction) programmes."
However, he added, "I don't think that anybody should be ruling in or ruling out anything while we are conducting diplomacy."
Feith is one of the most controversial members of the Bush administration and is a staunch supporter of Israel. He was co-author of a strategy document drafted for the then Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, advising him to "eliminate" the Saddam Hussein regime first if Israel were to gain domination of the Middle East region against Arab resistance.
Israel is campaigning for military action against Iran's nuclear facilities. However, military strategists say, it would take attacks on at least 300 different sites in Iran to destroy what the US claims as that country's nuclear weapons programme. Tehran denies it is working on developing nuclear weapons, and this position is largely endorsed by the IAEA.
Among those anxious to see Baradei go is Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control John R. Bolton, whose declarations on Iran have been contradicted by the IAEA chief.
According to Robert Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of state for non-proliferation, "however this effort (to remove Baradei) is justified by the administration, the assumption internationally will be that the United States was blackballing Baradei because of Iraq and Iran."
The US State Department has already started tapping potential candidates to succeed Baradei and these include, according to the Washington Post, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, two Japanese diplomats, two South Korean officials and a Brazilian disarmament expert.
However, Downer is in the shortlist of one, but he is reportedly unwilling to challenge Baradei. The deadline for submitting alternative candidates is Dec. 31.
It is clear that the neoconservatives have pulled out their knives now that Bush has been re-elected, and they are going after anyone and everyone of significance who stand in the way of their designs for American supremacy of the globe in a manner best suited to serve Israeli interests in the bargain.
Monday, December 13, 2004
Sunday, December 12, 2004
Annan, Baradei targeted
by pv vivekanand
IT IS retribution time for the Bush administration against those who pulled the rug from under the feet of its justification for the unprovoked invasion and occupation of Iraq and its plans for action against Iran. That is why people like UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who stood firm against granting UN legitimacy for the war and called it illegal, and Mohammed Al Baradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who certified Iraq did not have an ongoing programme of nuclear weapons, are finding themselves at the receiving end of allegations and targeted for efforts to remove them.
In Annan's case, the UN chief is facing allegations that his son, Kojo, received upto $150,000 from a Swiss company which had benefited Iraq's oil-for-food programme administered by the UN. Seen against the light of revelations that some senior UN officials had also gained from the same programme, which was allegedly misused by Saddam Hussein to divert funds to illegal beneficiaries, the pressure on Annan was immense. Add to that allegations over a sexual harassment case dismissed by Annan, and of exploitation by peacekeepers in the Congo.
For the moment, however, the Bush administration is holdings its horses against Annan after it found an overwhelming majority of world leaders, including American allies such as Tony Blair, rallying behind the UN chief and reaffirming confidence in him and his abilities to lead the world body.
It was a clear volte-face when US Ambassador to the UN John C Danforth said on Thursday that the Bush administration did not want Annan to leave the UN.
"Some have suggested to me that it appears what the US. wants to do is to force the resignation of the secretary general," Danforth said on Thursday. "It is important for us, the United States, to clarify our position. We are not suggesting or pushing for the resignation of the secretary general. We have worked well with him in the past. We anticipate working with him very well in the future for the time to come."
Danforth's comment had to been seen against President George Bush's reticence, only a week earlier, to support Annan. Bush had repeatedly declined to issue an unambiguous expression of support. Asked whether he believed Annan should resign, Bush said last week "there ought to be a full and fair and open accounting of the oil-for-food programme" so American taxpayers will "feel comfortable about supporting the United Nations."
Danforth had also defended Bush's stand by asserting that a public expression of confidence in Annan might prejudge investigations into alleged irregularities in Iraq's oil-for-food programme. However, he could not offer any explanation why only the US felt so while almost all other members of the UN expressed confidence in Annan. Those expressions came in the one week between Bush's public statement shying away from voicing confidence in Annan and Danforth's outright statement saying the US "anticipated working with him in the future for the time to come."
Obviously, the world majority's stand on Annan persuaded Washington to publicly freeze its drive to get rid of Annan.
Some suggest that the neocons are going after the UN through Annan, who has two more years of his second term to serve as UN chief.
Edward Luck, a Columbia University professor who specialises in the UN, said in recent comments carried by the Boston Globe:
"On a strategic level, much of the (Bush) administration rejects what the UN stands for. . . . The secretary general has been a Teflon secretary general and has had a relatively high and positive public profile as a vanguard of multilateralism, while looking for an alternative of American dominance. They haven't had a good way of going after him until now."
No doubt, the neoconservatives of Washington are behind the smear campaign against the UN chief for his firm stand against the war against Iraq. Indeed, Annan has given them additional reasons by calling the war illegal and then denouncing the recent American-led assault against Fallujah.
Annan's warning against the assault was strong. He said: "The threat or actual use of force not only risks deepening the sense of alienation of certain communities (in Iraq), but would also reinforce perceptions among the Iraqi population of a continued military occupation."
He also frustrated Washington by refusing to send more than two dozen electoral workers to help with elections in Iraq
The evidence of the neocon drive against Annan is there. The news that Anna's son received payments from the Swiss company that was a contractor in the oil-for-food programme first appeared in The New York Sun, which belongs to Canadian Conrad Black and which is seen to serve as a mouthpiece for the neocons (according to Jude Wanniski, a former associate editor of The Wall Street Journal).
Conrad is a long-time associate of Richard Perle, the most prominent neo-con in the Bush camp and a director of the Jerusalem Post, one of Black`s many media holdings, Wanniski points out.
Richard Holbrooke, the US ambassador to the United Nations under president Bill Clinton and an Annan backer, has said: "The danger now is that a group of people who want to destroy or paralyse the UN are beginning to pick up support from some of those whose goal is to reform it."
Annan, like his predecessors, is a bitter critic of Israel and that gives the neocons all the more reason to seek to get rid of him. He has repeatedly condemned Israel's brutal crackdown against the Palestinians and its blatant refusal to abide by UN resolutions and international laws.
In Baradei's case, the Egyptian who assumed the helm of the IAEA in 1997, is facing unofficial charges that he somehow helped Iran escape international punitive measures for developing a programme to make nuclear weapons. However, his real "crime" in the neocons' eyes is that he repeatedly reported the truth to the international community that IAEA inspections had failed to find any sign of Saddam developing nuclear weapons since the 1990s at a time when the Bush administration insisted that he had large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
It was reported on Sunday that the administration had secretly recorded Baradei's phone calls with Iranian diplomats and is scrutinising them in search of ammunition to oust him as IAEA director.
According to the Washington Post, which broke the story, "the efforts against Baradei demonstrate the lengths some within the administration are willing to go to replace a top international diplomat who questioned US intelligence on Iraq and is now taking a cautious approach on Iran."
Obviously, the US sees Baradei as an obstacle in the way of diplomatic as well as military action for "regime change" in Iran — a priority for Bush in his second term.
While the taped conservations have not produced "any evidence of nefarious conduct" by Baradei, "some within the administration believe they show Baradei lacks impartiality because he tried to help Iran navigate a diplomatic crisis over its nuclear programmes."
Baradei, 62, who used to teach international law at New York University before becoming IAEA chief, is known to be well-respected inside the UN. A majority of the members of the IAEA board is said to favour a third term for him beginning next summer.
Many analysts believe that Washington found it difficult to convince the required number of IAEA board members to vote against a third term for Baradei and therefore is seeking material to strengthen its argument that Baradei should be retired so that he no longer poses a hurdle in the way of American action against Iran in the name of Tehran's nuclear programme.
That the US is planning military action against Iran was made clear by another prominent neoconservative in the Bush administration.
Under-Secretary of Defence for Policy Douglas J. Feith, one of the most hawkish neocons who orchestrated the invasion and occupation of Iraq citing Saddam Hussein's non-existent weapons of mass destruction, shrouded the warning against Iran in diplomatic jargon.
In an interview with Israel's Jerusalem Post, Feith, who will stay on with Bush in the president's second term at the White House, says Washington hopes that Iran will follow Libya's lead in abandoning its nuclear programme, but nobody should rule out the possibility of military action against Teheran's nuclear sites if it does not.
According to Feith, the US is now concentrating on "a process to try to get the existing international legal mechanisms – the (Nuclear) Non-Proliferation Treaty (and) the International Atomic Energy Agency — to work, to bring the kind of pressure to bear on Iran that would induce the Iranians to follow the path that Libya took in deciding that they were actually better off in abandoning their WMD (weapons of mass destruction) programmes."
However, he added, "I don't think that anybody should be ruling in or ruling out anything while we are conducting diplomacy."
Feith is one of the most controversial members of the Bush administration and is a staunch supporter of Israel. He was co-author of a strategy document drafted for the then Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, advising him to "eliminate" the Saddam Hussein regime first if Israel were to gain domination of the Middle East region against Arab resistance.
Israel is campaigning for military action against Iran's nuclear facilities. However, military strategists say, it would take attacks on at least 300 different sites in Iran to destroy what the US claims as that country's nuclear weapons programme. Tehran denies it is working on developing nuclear weapons, and this position is largely endorsed by the IAEA.
Among those anxious to see Baradei go is Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control John R. Bolton, whose declarations on Iran have been contradicted by the IAEA chief.
According to Robert Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of state for non-proliferation, "however this effort (to remove Baradei) is justified by the administration, the assumption internationally will be that the United States was blackballing Baradei because of Iraq and Iran."
The US State Department has already started tapping potential candidates to succeed Baradei and these include, according to the Washington Post, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, two Japanese diplomats, two South Korean officials and a Brazilian disarmament expert.
However, Downer is in the shortlist of one, but he is reportedly unwilling to challenge Baradei. The deadline for submitting alternative candidates is Dec. 31.
It is clear that the neoconservatives have pulled out their knives now that Bush has been re-elected, and they are going after anyone and everyone of significance who stand in the way of their designs for American supremacy of the globe in a manner best suited to serve Israeli interests in the bargain,
IT IS retribution time for the Bush administration against those who pulled the rug from under the feet of its justification for the unprovoked invasion and occupation of Iraq and its plans for action against Iran. That is why people like UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who stood firm against granting UN legitimacy for the war and called it illegal, and Mohammed Al Baradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who certified Iraq did not have an ongoing programme of nuclear weapons, are finding themselves at the receiving end of allegations and targeted for efforts to remove them.
In Annan's case, the UN chief is facing allegations that his son, Kojo, received upto $150,000 from a Swiss company which had benefited Iraq's oil-for-food programme administered by the UN. Seen against the light of revelations that some senior UN officials had also gained from the same programme, which was allegedly misused by Saddam Hussein to divert funds to illegal beneficiaries, the pressure on Annan was immense. Add to that allegations over a sexual harassment case dismissed by Annan, and of exploitation by peacekeepers in the Congo.
For the moment, however, the Bush administration is holdings its horses against Annan after it found an overwhelming majority of world leaders, including American allies such as Tony Blair, rallying behind the UN chief and reaffirming confidence in him and his abilities to lead the world body.
It was a clear volte-face when US Ambassador to the UN John C Danforth said on Thursday that the Bush administration did not want Annan to leave the UN.
"Some have suggested to me that it appears what the US. wants to do is to force the resignation of the secretary general," Danforth said on Thursday. "It is important for us, the United States, to clarify our position. We are not suggesting or pushing for the resignation of the secretary general. We have worked well with him in the past. We anticipate working with him very well in the future for the time to come."
Danforth's comment had to been seen against President George Bush's reticence, only a week earlier, to support Annan. Bush had repeatedly declined to issue an unambiguous expression of support. Asked whether he believed Annan should resign, Bush said last week "there ought to be a full and fair and open accounting of the oil-for-food programme" so American taxpayers will "feel comfortable about supporting the United Nations."
Danforth had also defended Bush's stand by asserting that a public expression of confidence in Annan might prejudge investigations into alleged irregularities in Iraq's oil-for-food programme. However, he could not offer any explanation why only the US felt so while almost all other members of the UN expressed confidence in Annan. Those expressions came in the one week between Bush's public statement shying away from voicing confidence in Annan and Danforth's outright statement saying the US "anticipated working with him in the future for the time to come."
Obviously, the world majority's stand on Annan persuaded Washington to publicly freeze its drive to get rid of Annan.
Some suggest that the neocons are going after the UN through Annan, who has two more years of his second term to serve as UN chief.
Edward Luck, a Columbia University professor who specialises in the UN, said in recent comments carried by the Boston Globe:
"On a strategic level, much of the (Bush) administration rejects what the UN stands for. . . . The secretary general has been a Teflon secretary general and has had a relatively high and positive public profile as a vanguard of multilateralism, while looking for an alternative of American dominance. They haven't had a good way of going after him until now."
No doubt, the neoconservatives of Washington are behind the smear campaign against the UN chief for his firm stand against the war against Iraq. Indeed, Annan has given them additional reasons by calling the war illegal and then denouncing the recent American-led assault against Fallujah.
Annan's warning against the assault was strong. He said: "The threat or actual use of force not only risks deepening the sense of alienation of certain communities (in Iraq), but would also reinforce perceptions among the Iraqi population of a continued military occupation."
He also frustrated Washington by refusing to send more than two dozen electoral workers to help with elections in Iraq
The evidence of the neocon drive against Annan is there. The news that Anna's son received payments from the Swiss company that was a contractor in the oil-for-food programme first appeared in The New York Sun, which belongs to Canadian Conrad Black and which is seen to serve as a mouthpiece for the neocons (according to Jude Wanniski, a former associate editor of The Wall Street Journal).
Conrad is a long-time associate of Richard Perle, the most prominent neo-con in the Bush camp and a director of the Jerusalem Post, one of Black`s many media holdings, Wanniski points out.
Richard Holbrooke, the US ambassador to the United Nations under president Bill Clinton and an Annan backer, has said: "The danger now is that a group of people who want to destroy or paralyse the UN are beginning to pick up support from some of those whose goal is to reform it."
Annan, like his predecessors, is a bitter critic of Israel and that gives the neocons all the more reason to seek to get rid of him. He has repeatedly condemned Israel's brutal crackdown against the Palestinians and its blatant refusal to abide by UN resolutions and international laws.
In Baradei's case, the Egyptian who assumed the helm of the IAEA in 1997, is facing unofficial charges that he somehow helped Iran escape international punitive measures for developing a programme to make nuclear weapons. However, his real "crime" in the neocons' eyes is that he repeatedly reported the truth to the international community that IAEA inspections had failed to find any sign of Saddam developing nuclear weapons since the 1990s at a time when the Bush administration insisted that he had large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
It was reported on Sunday that the administration had secretly recorded Baradei's phone calls with Iranian diplomats and is scrutinising them in search of ammunition to oust him as IAEA director.
According to the Washington Post, which broke the story, "the efforts against Baradei demonstrate the lengths some within the administration are willing to go to replace a top international diplomat who questioned US intelligence on Iraq and is now taking a cautious approach on Iran."
Obviously, the US sees Baradei as an obstacle in the way of diplomatic as well as military action for "regime change" in Iran — a priority for Bush in his second term.
While the taped conservations have not produced "any evidence of nefarious conduct" by Baradei, "some within the administration believe they show Baradei lacks impartiality because he tried to help Iran navigate a diplomatic crisis over its nuclear programmes."
Baradei, 62, who used to teach international law at New York University before becoming IAEA chief, is known to be well-respected inside the UN. A majority of the members of the IAEA board is said to favour a third term for him beginning next summer.
Many analysts believe that Washington found it difficult to convince the required number of IAEA board members to vote against a third term for Baradei and therefore is seeking material to strengthen its argument that Baradei should be retired so that he no longer poses a hurdle in the way of American action against Iran in the name of Tehran's nuclear programme.
That the US is planning military action against Iran was made clear by another prominent neoconservative in the Bush administration.
Under-Secretary of Defence for Policy Douglas J. Feith, one of the most hawkish neocons who orchestrated the invasion and occupation of Iraq citing Saddam Hussein's non-existent weapons of mass destruction, shrouded the warning against Iran in diplomatic jargon.
In an interview with Israel's Jerusalem Post, Feith, who will stay on with Bush in the president's second term at the White House, says Washington hopes that Iran will follow Libya's lead in abandoning its nuclear programme, but nobody should rule out the possibility of military action against Teheran's nuclear sites if it does not.
According to Feith, the US is now concentrating on "a process to try to get the existing international legal mechanisms – the (Nuclear) Non-Proliferation Treaty (and) the International Atomic Energy Agency — to work, to bring the kind of pressure to bear on Iran that would induce the Iranians to follow the path that Libya took in deciding that they were actually better off in abandoning their WMD (weapons of mass destruction) programmes."
However, he added, "I don't think that anybody should be ruling in or ruling out anything while we are conducting diplomacy."
Feith is one of the most controversial members of the Bush administration and is a staunch supporter of Israel. He was co-author of a strategy document drafted for the then Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, advising him to "eliminate" the Saddam Hussein regime first if Israel were to gain domination of the Middle East region against Arab resistance.
Israel is campaigning for military action against Iran's nuclear facilities. However, military strategists say, it would take attacks on at least 300 different sites in Iran to destroy what the US claims as that country's nuclear weapons programme. Tehran denies it is working on developing nuclear weapons, and this position is largely endorsed by the IAEA.
Among those anxious to see Baradei go is Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control John R. Bolton, whose declarations on Iran have been contradicted by the IAEA chief.
According to Robert Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of state for non-proliferation, "however this effort (to remove Baradei) is justified by the administration, the assumption internationally will be that the United States was blackballing Baradei because of Iraq and Iran."
The US State Department has already started tapping potential candidates to succeed Baradei and these include, according to the Washington Post, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, two Japanese diplomats, two South Korean officials and a Brazilian disarmament expert.
However, Downer is in the shortlist of one, but he is reportedly unwilling to challenge Baradei. The deadline for submitting alternative candidates is Dec. 31.
It is clear that the neoconservatives have pulled out their knives now that Bush has been re-elected, and they are going after anyone and everyone of significance who stand in the way of their designs for American supremacy of the globe in a manner best suited to serve Israeli interests in the bargain,
Saturday, December 11, 2004
Iraq elections -- too many questions
December 11, 2004
Iraq elections: Too many questions, too few answers
pv vivekanand
There is an air of superficiality in the run-up to elections in Iraq which Washington and the interim government in Baghdad insist would be held as scheduled on Jan.30. Indeed, there is little doubt that the elections will be held, barring a sweeping last-minute surprise of whatever nature. That much is clear, since both the Bush administration and the interim government are in a bind. They could not delay the elections if only because that would alienate the country's Shiites who are expecting to gain power by virtue of their majority in the population and thus set right what they consider to be as injustice done to them throughout recent Iraq history. Furthermore, delaying elections beyond Jan.31 will be in violation of the UN Security Council resolution adopted early this year, paving the way for some form of recognition of the American role in Iraq.
Political groups representing the Sunnis, who constitute about 18 per cent of the country's population, had called for a deferment of the elections, but some of them have now announced they would take part in the polls. One thing is clear: The Sunnis do not stand any chance of returning to the privileged position they had enjoyed under the Saddam Hussein regime. They are desperately seeking some assurance that they would not be written off as a political force in post-Saddam Iraq. For some of them, disrupting the election is an option.
The northern Kurds were initially seen as enthusiastic about the polls before they would be electing representatives to their own autonomous government in the north where they eventually want to set up an independent Kurdistan. In loose terms, it would not be an exaggeration that the Kurds could not care less what is happening in the rest of the country as long as their interests are not challenged. That is what their bitter history of aspirations and broken promises has taught them.
However, the two major Kurdish parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, joined Adnan Pachachi, a former Sunni minister, who led a group of 17 political parties asking that the vote be delayed by six months because of the violence. Obviously, they are apprehensive that a Shiite victory in the elections under present conditions might impose constraints on their options.
Countering the call for postponement, a group of 42 mainly Shiite and Turkmen parties issued a statement declaring moves to delay the elections were illegal.
Election uncertainties
There are many uncertainties about the election that would see an assembly of 275 members chosen to write a permanent constitution for the country and lead the Iraqis to another election by the end of 2005 if the constitution is approved in a popular referendum.
These uncertainties include questions over how many of the country's 18 provinces will actually vote or where election is possible at all in view of the deteriorating security situation. The absence of any province in the process will immediately raise questions about the credibility and legitimacy of the elected assembly.
One of such provinces is Anbar, which includes Fallujah and Ramadi. where it is illogical to expect people to turn up for voting, given the devastation that they suffered in the recent American military assault aimed at "pacifying" the towns by purging "foreign militants." Mosul and Babil are seen as other "troublesome" provinces.
Writing in The Washington Post, columnist Charles Krauthammer insisted that it would be the Sunnis' loss if they did not vote.
"There has been much talk that if the Iraqi election is held and some Sunni Arab provinces (perhaps three of the 18) do not participate, the election will be illegitimate," he wrote. "Nonsense. The election should be held. It should be open to everyone. If Iraq's Sunni Arabs -- barely 20 per cent of the population -- decide that they cannot abide giving up their 80 years of minority rule, which ended with 30 years of Saddam Hussein's atrocious tyranny, then tough luck. They forfeit their chance to shape and to participate in the new Iraq. "
Then there are questions over "foreign meddling" in Iraqi affairs that, to a large extent, could determine the shape of the region. Regional leaders and analysts are raising the spectre of an Iranian-influenced outcome of the elections that would create new realities in the region.
If indeed Iran is "meddling" in Iraqi politics with a view to having its allies gain power in the elections, then there is little sense or logic in the argument that the Iranians are also helping "foreign militants" undermine security and maintain the country unstable for polls. But that logic is missing from the arguments of many.
Voting process
Iyad Allawi, the interim prime minister, acknowledges that the situation in "three or four" of the country's provinces is problematic for elections and he also suggests that the voting process could be spread over 15 to 20 days to ensure maximum participation.
"I think one could envisage elections spread over 15 days, 20 days, with polling on different dates for different provinces. ... That would allow for adequate security arrangements to be put in place," he said.
However, phased elections might not be an option because the voting process could not go beyond Jan.31. If Allawi's proposal was to be entertained, then it would mean starting voting by mid-January.
Obviously, staggering the election would allow the interim government to move security forces from one place to another.
Initial response from Electoral Commission chief Adel Hussein Al Hinadwi was negative, but on Wednesday he kept silent after interior ministry spokesman Sabah Kazem described the Allawi proposal as "an excellent idea, which we support one hundred per cent."
"This would permit holding the elections on another date in those places where it is not possible to organise them for the planned date. It would also facilitate the work of international observers and guarantee the participation in the election of all regions of Iraq," said Kazem.
Canada is helping the interim government prepare for the elections. It will host a Dec.19-20 international forum in Ottawa on Iraqi election preparation and observation methods.
Among those questioning the viability of elections was UN election adviser Lakhdar Ibrahimi who said elections could not take place in the present circumstances.
"Elections are no magic potion, but part of a political process," he said late last month. "They must be prepared well and take place at the right time to produce the good effects that you expect from them.'
Asked if elections under present conditions were possible, Ibrahimi said: 'If the circumstances stay as they are, I personally don't think so. It is a mess in Iraq."
Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked how elections could be held in a country under foreign military occupation. "Honestly speaking, I cannot imagine how it is possible to organise elections under the conditions of occupation by foreign forces," Putin said during a Kremlin meeting with Allawi.
"At the same time, I don't understand how you alone can remedy the situation in the country and prevent its disintegration," Putin told Allawi, adding: "I hope we will succeed in examining all these complex and contradictory issues."
Security situation
The number of American soldiers in Iraq is expected to go up by 10,000 to 140,000 by mid-January. They are supported by some 20,000 allied soldiers.
In principle, the interim government has some 83,000 policemen and guardsmen, but only 47,000 of them are said to have undergone basic police training in security-linked tasks and crowd control.
Intelligence assessments have shaken Washington's declarations that the situation in Iraq would improve with the January elections.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has warned that Iraq would descend even deeper into violent chaos unless the interim government asserts its authority and improve the economy. It is a tall order, given the spiralling violence and almost daily attacks on the country's oil lifeline.
Another intelligence estimate prepared for the White House four months ago predicted that Iraq's security situation could remain tenuous at best until the end of 2005. It also warned Iraq faced the risk of civil war.
President George W Bush has sought to portray the increasing violence ahead of the elections as an effort by militants to undermine the polls.
"As election day approaches, we can expect further violence from the terrorists," Bush said on Tuesday. "You see, the terrorists understand what is at stake. They know they have no future in a free Iraq, because free people will never choose their own enslavement. They know democracy will give Iraqis a stake in the future of their country."
However, that assertion was seen in the Middle East as skirting the real issue since the insurgency should be seen in the broader context of anti-American sentiments and not as strictly Iraq-specific since those mounting guerrilla attacks against the US-led coalition forces are not exclusively Iraqis either.
Commentators also say that many Iraqis want the elections postponed. Egypt's Al Akbar daily wrote: "While the military operations are escalating in Iraq, disputes over elections are mounting, too. Different sects of the Iraqi people want to postpone them because their results wouldn't express the true will of the Iraqis ... All Arab and Muslim peoples have got many concerns over Iraq's stability, which will never be resolved except through the US withdrawal from the war-torn country."
Raad Alkadiri wrote in Lebanon's Daily Star: "There is arguably a large plurality -- if not a majority -- of the Iraqi Arab electorate that remains secular and nationalist in political orientation and that opposes the sectarian and ethnic agendas of the large parties, but that has no effective public voice. Without political vehicles to represent the views of these Iraqis, there is a real danger that they will opt out of the election altogether ...
"This is a troubling scenario ... The greatest number of Iraqis need to be brought on board, even if this means delaying elections temporarily ... Otherwise, the elections will simply serve to heighten the sense of disenfranchisement that many Iraqis have felt since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, creating a dangerous thorn in the side of successive Iraqi administrations, whose legitimacy they will contest."
Neighbours' pressure
In the meantime, the US and the interim government in Iraq are stepping up pressure against Syria as well as Iran by accusing them of allowing the guerrilla war against the US-led coalition forces in Iraq to be directed from their territories.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that American military intelligence officials have concluded that the Iraqi insurgency is being directed to a greater degree than previously recognised from Syria.
The report does not say the Syrian government is directly involved in guiding the insurgency but Damascus is accused of hosting former Saddam Hussein loyalists who are channeling money and other support to those fighting the US-led coalition forces in Iraq.
"Based on information gathered during the recent fighting in Fallujah, Baghdad and elsewhere in the Sunni Triangle, the officials said that a handful of senior Iraqi Baathists operating in Syria are collecting money from private sources in Saudi Arabia and Europe and turning it over to the insurgency," said The Washington Post.
In Washington, Iraqi President Ghazi Al Yawar as well as King Abdullah of Jordan said after separate talks with Bush that external powers were meddling in Iraq.
Yawar said the guerrillas fighting in Iraq were getting help from Syria.
"There are people in Syria who are bad guys, who are fugitives of the law and who are Saddam remnants who are trying to bring the vicious dictatorship of Saddam back," Yawar said. "They are not minding their business or living a private life. They are . . . disturbing or undermining our political process."
King Abdullah said that the governments of both the United States and Iraq believe that "foreign fighters are coming across the Syrian border that have been trained in Syria."
A global positioning signal receiver was discovered in a bomb factory in the western part of Fallujah and this "contained waypoints originating in western Syria," said a US military statement last week.
In Baghdad, the interim deputy prime minister, Barham Saleh, said that he was losing patience with Iraq's neighbours. He did not name Syria, but noted that Iraqi police had arrested a Syrian driving a car bomb packed with artillery shells and other explosives. "There is evidence indicating that some groups in some neighbouring countries are playing a direct role in the killing of the Iraqi people and such a thing is not acceptable to us," Saleh said.
"We have reached a stage in which if we do not see a real response from those countries, then we are obliged to take a decisive stance."
American officials have repeatedly complained that Syria is not doing enough to check the cross-border flow of insurgents to Iraq. The US government has also demanded that Syria either hand over the Saddam loyalists responsible for the insurgency or expel them from Syrian territory.
"The Syrians appear to have done a little bit to stem extremist infiltration into Iraq at the border, but clearly have not helped with regards to Baathists infiltrating back and forth," said a senior US military officer in the region quoted by the Washington Post. "We still have serious challenges there, and Syria needs to be doing a lot more."
Charges denied
Syria has rejected the charges outright. . "There is a sinister campaign to create an atmosphere of hostility against Syria," said Syrian Ambassador to the US Imad Moustapha.
In separate interviews, both Yawar and King Abdullah also said Iran is trying to influence the Iraqi elections with a view to creating an Islamic government that would dramatically shift the geopolitical balance between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in the region.
Yawar charged that Iran is coaching candidates and political parties sympathetic to Tehran and pouring "huge amounts of money" into the campaign to produce a Shiite-dominated government in power in Baghdad.
According to King Abdullah, more than one million Iranians have crossed the border into Iraq since the Saddam regime was toppled and many of them would vote in the election -- with the encouragement of the Iranian government. "I'm sure there's a lot of people, a lot of Iranians in there that will be used as part of the polls to influence the outcome," he said.
He said Iranians are paying salaries and providing welfare to unemployed Iraqis to build pro-Iranian public sentiment
"It is in Iran's vested interest to have an Islamic republic of Iraq . . . and therefore the involvement you're getting by the Iranians is to achieve a government that is very pro-Iran," King Abdullah said.
He predicted that if an Iranian-influenced government assumes power in Baghdad, then a new "crescent" of dominant Shiite movements or governments will emerge, stretching from Iran into Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
"If Iraq goes Islamic republic, then, yes, we've opened ourselves to a whole set of new problems that will not be limited to the borders of Iraq. I'm looking at the glass half-full, and let's hope that's not the case. But strategic planners around the world have got to be aware that is a possibility," said the King.
He said Washington had communicated its concern to Iran through third parties and "there's going to be some sort of clash at one point or another."
"We hope it's just a clash of words and politics and not a clash of civilisations or peoples on the ground. We will know a bit better how it will play out after the election" in Iraq, he said.
Given that "regime change" in Iran is one of Bush's priorities in his second term, the outcome of the elections in Iraq is all the more important for Washington. But, as King Abdullah warned, the Bush administration might end up with a new Shiite-led axis running from the Gulf to the Mediterranean if Iranian-backed parties were to gain power in Iraq. That axis might indeed prove too formidable for the US to handle.
Iraq elections: Too many questions, too few answers
pv vivekanand
There is an air of superficiality in the run-up to elections in Iraq which Washington and the interim government in Baghdad insist would be held as scheduled on Jan.30. Indeed, there is little doubt that the elections will be held, barring a sweeping last-minute surprise of whatever nature. That much is clear, since both the Bush administration and the interim government are in a bind. They could not delay the elections if only because that would alienate the country's Shiites who are expecting to gain power by virtue of their majority in the population and thus set right what they consider to be as injustice done to them throughout recent Iraq history. Furthermore, delaying elections beyond Jan.31 will be in violation of the UN Security Council resolution adopted early this year, paving the way for some form of recognition of the American role in Iraq.
Political groups representing the Sunnis, who constitute about 18 per cent of the country's population, had called for a deferment of the elections, but some of them have now announced they would take part in the polls. One thing is clear: The Sunnis do not stand any chance of returning to the privileged position they had enjoyed under the Saddam Hussein regime. They are desperately seeking some assurance that they would not be written off as a political force in post-Saddam Iraq. For some of them, disrupting the election is an option.
The northern Kurds were initially seen as enthusiastic about the polls before they would be electing representatives to their own autonomous government in the north where they eventually want to set up an independent Kurdistan. In loose terms, it would not be an exaggeration that the Kurds could not care less what is happening in the rest of the country as long as their interests are not challenged. That is what their bitter history of aspirations and broken promises has taught them.
However, the two major Kurdish parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, joined Adnan Pachachi, a former Sunni minister, who led a group of 17 political parties asking that the vote be delayed by six months because of the violence. Obviously, they are apprehensive that a Shiite victory in the elections under present conditions might impose constraints on their options.
Countering the call for postponement, a group of 42 mainly Shiite and Turkmen parties issued a statement declaring moves to delay the elections were illegal.
Election uncertainties
There are many uncertainties about the election that would see an assembly of 275 members chosen to write a permanent constitution for the country and lead the Iraqis to another election by the end of 2005 if the constitution is approved in a popular referendum.
These uncertainties include questions over how many of the country's 18 provinces will actually vote or where election is possible at all in view of the deteriorating security situation. The absence of any province in the process will immediately raise questions about the credibility and legitimacy of the elected assembly.
One of such provinces is Anbar, which includes Fallujah and Ramadi. where it is illogical to expect people to turn up for voting, given the devastation that they suffered in the recent American military assault aimed at "pacifying" the towns by purging "foreign militants." Mosul and Babil are seen as other "troublesome" provinces.
Writing in The Washington Post, columnist Charles Krauthammer insisted that it would be the Sunnis' loss if they did not vote.
"There has been much talk that if the Iraqi election is held and some Sunni Arab provinces (perhaps three of the 18) do not participate, the election will be illegitimate," he wrote. "Nonsense. The election should be held. It should be open to everyone. If Iraq's Sunni Arabs -- barely 20 per cent of the population -- decide that they cannot abide giving up their 80 years of minority rule, which ended with 30 years of Saddam Hussein's atrocious tyranny, then tough luck. They forfeit their chance to shape and to participate in the new Iraq. "
Then there are questions over "foreign meddling" in Iraqi affairs that, to a large extent, could determine the shape of the region. Regional leaders and analysts are raising the spectre of an Iranian-influenced outcome of the elections that would create new realities in the region.
If indeed Iran is "meddling" in Iraqi politics with a view to having its allies gain power in the elections, then there is little sense or logic in the argument that the Iranians are also helping "foreign militants" undermine security and maintain the country unstable for polls. But that logic is missing from the arguments of many.
Voting process
Iyad Allawi, the interim prime minister, acknowledges that the situation in "three or four" of the country's provinces is problematic for elections and he also suggests that the voting process could be spread over 15 to 20 days to ensure maximum participation.
"I think one could envisage elections spread over 15 days, 20 days, with polling on different dates for different provinces. ... That would allow for adequate security arrangements to be put in place," he said.
However, phased elections might not be an option because the voting process could not go beyond Jan.31. If Allawi's proposal was to be entertained, then it would mean starting voting by mid-January.
Obviously, staggering the election would allow the interim government to move security forces from one place to another.
Initial response from Electoral Commission chief Adel Hussein Al Hinadwi was negative, but on Wednesday he kept silent after interior ministry spokesman Sabah Kazem described the Allawi proposal as "an excellent idea, which we support one hundred per cent."
"This would permit holding the elections on another date in those places where it is not possible to organise them for the planned date. It would also facilitate the work of international observers and guarantee the participation in the election of all regions of Iraq," said Kazem.
Canada is helping the interim government prepare for the elections. It will host a Dec.19-20 international forum in Ottawa on Iraqi election preparation and observation methods.
Among those questioning the viability of elections was UN election adviser Lakhdar Ibrahimi who said elections could not take place in the present circumstances.
"Elections are no magic potion, but part of a political process," he said late last month. "They must be prepared well and take place at the right time to produce the good effects that you expect from them.'
Asked if elections under present conditions were possible, Ibrahimi said: 'If the circumstances stay as they are, I personally don't think so. It is a mess in Iraq."
Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked how elections could be held in a country under foreign military occupation. "Honestly speaking, I cannot imagine how it is possible to organise elections under the conditions of occupation by foreign forces," Putin said during a Kremlin meeting with Allawi.
"At the same time, I don't understand how you alone can remedy the situation in the country and prevent its disintegration," Putin told Allawi, adding: "I hope we will succeed in examining all these complex and contradictory issues."
Security situation
The number of American soldiers in Iraq is expected to go up by 10,000 to 140,000 by mid-January. They are supported by some 20,000 allied soldiers.
In principle, the interim government has some 83,000 policemen and guardsmen, but only 47,000 of them are said to have undergone basic police training in security-linked tasks and crowd control.
Intelligence assessments have shaken Washington's declarations that the situation in Iraq would improve with the January elections.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has warned that Iraq would descend even deeper into violent chaos unless the interim government asserts its authority and improve the economy. It is a tall order, given the spiralling violence and almost daily attacks on the country's oil lifeline.
Another intelligence estimate prepared for the White House four months ago predicted that Iraq's security situation could remain tenuous at best until the end of 2005. It also warned Iraq faced the risk of civil war.
President George W Bush has sought to portray the increasing violence ahead of the elections as an effort by militants to undermine the polls.
"As election day approaches, we can expect further violence from the terrorists," Bush said on Tuesday. "You see, the terrorists understand what is at stake. They know they have no future in a free Iraq, because free people will never choose their own enslavement. They know democracy will give Iraqis a stake in the future of their country."
However, that assertion was seen in the Middle East as skirting the real issue since the insurgency should be seen in the broader context of anti-American sentiments and not as strictly Iraq-specific since those mounting guerrilla attacks against the US-led coalition forces are not exclusively Iraqis either.
Commentators also say that many Iraqis want the elections postponed. Egypt's Al Akbar daily wrote: "While the military operations are escalating in Iraq, disputes over elections are mounting, too. Different sects of the Iraqi people want to postpone them because their results wouldn't express the true will of the Iraqis ... All Arab and Muslim peoples have got many concerns over Iraq's stability, which will never be resolved except through the US withdrawal from the war-torn country."
Raad Alkadiri wrote in Lebanon's Daily Star: "There is arguably a large plurality -- if not a majority -- of the Iraqi Arab electorate that remains secular and nationalist in political orientation and that opposes the sectarian and ethnic agendas of the large parties, but that has no effective public voice. Without political vehicles to represent the views of these Iraqis, there is a real danger that they will opt out of the election altogether ...
"This is a troubling scenario ... The greatest number of Iraqis need to be brought on board, even if this means delaying elections temporarily ... Otherwise, the elections will simply serve to heighten the sense of disenfranchisement that many Iraqis have felt since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, creating a dangerous thorn in the side of successive Iraqi administrations, whose legitimacy they will contest."
Neighbours' pressure
In the meantime, the US and the interim government in Iraq are stepping up pressure against Syria as well as Iran by accusing them of allowing the guerrilla war against the US-led coalition forces in Iraq to be directed from their territories.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that American military intelligence officials have concluded that the Iraqi insurgency is being directed to a greater degree than previously recognised from Syria.
The report does not say the Syrian government is directly involved in guiding the insurgency but Damascus is accused of hosting former Saddam Hussein loyalists who are channeling money and other support to those fighting the US-led coalition forces in Iraq.
"Based on information gathered during the recent fighting in Fallujah, Baghdad and elsewhere in the Sunni Triangle, the officials said that a handful of senior Iraqi Baathists operating in Syria are collecting money from private sources in Saudi Arabia and Europe and turning it over to the insurgency," said The Washington Post.
In Washington, Iraqi President Ghazi Al Yawar as well as King Abdullah of Jordan said after separate talks with Bush that external powers were meddling in Iraq.
Yawar said the guerrillas fighting in Iraq were getting help from Syria.
"There are people in Syria who are bad guys, who are fugitives of the law and who are Saddam remnants who are trying to bring the vicious dictatorship of Saddam back," Yawar said. "They are not minding their business or living a private life. They are . . . disturbing or undermining our political process."
King Abdullah said that the governments of both the United States and Iraq believe that "foreign fighters are coming across the Syrian border that have been trained in Syria."
A global positioning signal receiver was discovered in a bomb factory in the western part of Fallujah and this "contained waypoints originating in western Syria," said a US military statement last week.
In Baghdad, the interim deputy prime minister, Barham Saleh, said that he was losing patience with Iraq's neighbours. He did not name Syria, but noted that Iraqi police had arrested a Syrian driving a car bomb packed with artillery shells and other explosives. "There is evidence indicating that some groups in some neighbouring countries are playing a direct role in the killing of the Iraqi people and such a thing is not acceptable to us," Saleh said.
"We have reached a stage in which if we do not see a real response from those countries, then we are obliged to take a decisive stance."
American officials have repeatedly complained that Syria is not doing enough to check the cross-border flow of insurgents to Iraq. The US government has also demanded that Syria either hand over the Saddam loyalists responsible for the insurgency or expel them from Syrian territory.
"The Syrians appear to have done a little bit to stem extremist infiltration into Iraq at the border, but clearly have not helped with regards to Baathists infiltrating back and forth," said a senior US military officer in the region quoted by the Washington Post. "We still have serious challenges there, and Syria needs to be doing a lot more."
Charges denied
Syria has rejected the charges outright. . "There is a sinister campaign to create an atmosphere of hostility against Syria," said Syrian Ambassador to the US Imad Moustapha.
In separate interviews, both Yawar and King Abdullah also said Iran is trying to influence the Iraqi elections with a view to creating an Islamic government that would dramatically shift the geopolitical balance between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in the region.
Yawar charged that Iran is coaching candidates and political parties sympathetic to Tehran and pouring "huge amounts of money" into the campaign to produce a Shiite-dominated government in power in Baghdad.
According to King Abdullah, more than one million Iranians have crossed the border into Iraq since the Saddam regime was toppled and many of them would vote in the election -- with the encouragement of the Iranian government. "I'm sure there's a lot of people, a lot of Iranians in there that will be used as part of the polls to influence the outcome," he said.
He said Iranians are paying salaries and providing welfare to unemployed Iraqis to build pro-Iranian public sentiment
"It is in Iran's vested interest to have an Islamic republic of Iraq . . . and therefore the involvement you're getting by the Iranians is to achieve a government that is very pro-Iran," King Abdullah said.
He predicted that if an Iranian-influenced government assumes power in Baghdad, then a new "crescent" of dominant Shiite movements or governments will emerge, stretching from Iran into Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
"If Iraq goes Islamic republic, then, yes, we've opened ourselves to a whole set of new problems that will not be limited to the borders of Iraq. I'm looking at the glass half-full, and let's hope that's not the case. But strategic planners around the world have got to be aware that is a possibility," said the King.
He said Washington had communicated its concern to Iran through third parties and "there's going to be some sort of clash at one point or another."
"We hope it's just a clash of words and politics and not a clash of civilisations or peoples on the ground. We will know a bit better how it will play out after the election" in Iraq, he said.
Given that "regime change" in Iran is one of Bush's priorities in his second term, the outcome of the elections in Iraq is all the more important for Washington. But, as King Abdullah warned, the Bush administration might end up with a new Shiite-led axis running from the Gulf to the Mediterranean if Iranian-backed parties were to gain power in Iraq. That axis might indeed prove too formidable for the US to handle.
Too few answers
December 11, 2004
Iraq elections: Too many questions, too few answers
pv vivekanand
There is an air of superficiality in the run-up to elections in Iraq which Washington and the interim government in Baghdad insist would be held as scheduled on Jan.30. Indeed, there is little doubt that the elections will be held, barring a sweeping last-minute surprise of whatever nature. That much is clear, since both the Bush administration and the interim government are in a bind. They could not delay the elections if only because that would alienate the country's Shiites who are expecting to gain power by virtue of their majority in the population and thus set right what they consider to be as injustice done to them throughout recent Iraq history. Furthermore, delaying elections beyond Jan.31 will be in violation of the UN Security Council resolution adopted early this year, paving the way for some form of recognition of the American role in Iraq.
Political groups representing the Sunnis, who constitute about 18 per cent of the country's population, had called for a deferment of the elections, but some of them have now announced they would take part in the polls. One thing is clear: The Sunnis do not stand any chance of returning to the privileged position they had enjoyed under the Saddam Hussein regime. They are desperately seeking some assurance that they would not be written off as a political force in post-Saddam Iraq. For some of them, disrupting the election is an option.
The northern Kurds were initially seen as enthusiastic about the polls before they would be electing representatives to their own autonomous government in the north where they eventually want to set up an independent Kurdistan. In loose terms, it would not be an exaggeration that the Kurds could not care less what is happening in the rest of the country as long as their interests are not challenged. That is what their bitter history of aspirations and broken promises has taught them.
However, the two major Kurdish parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, joined Adnan Pachachi, a former Sunni minister, who led a group of 17 political parties asking that the vote be delayed by six months because of the violence. Obviously, they are apprehensive that a Shiite victory in the elections under present conditions might impose constraints on their options.
Countering the call for postponement, a group of 42 mainly Shiite and Turkmen parties issued a statement declaring moves to delay the elections were illegal.
Election uncertainties
There are many uncertainties about the election that would see an assembly of 275 members chosen to write a permanent constitution for the country and lead the Iraqis to another election by the end of 2005 if the constitution is approved in a popular referendum.
These uncertainties include questions over how many of the country's 18 provinces will actually vote or where election is possible at all in view of the deteriorating security situation. The absence of any province in the process will immediately raise questions about the credibility and legitimacy of the elected assembly.
One of such provinces is Anbar, which includes Fallujah and Ramadi. where it is illogical to expect people to turn up for voting, given the devastation that they suffered in the recent American military assault aimed at "pacifying" the towns by purging "foreign militants." Mosul and Babil are seen as other "troublesome" provinces.
Writing in The Washington Post, columnist Charles Krauthammer insisted that it would be the Sunnis' loss if they did not vote.
"There has been much talk that if the Iraqi election is held and some Sunni Arab provinces (perhaps three of the 18) do not participate, the election will be illegitimate," he wrote. "Nonsense. The election should be held. It should be open to everyone. If Iraq's Sunni Arabs -- barely 20 per cent of the population -- decide that they cannot abide giving up their 80 years of minority rule, which ended with 30 years of Saddam Hussein's atrocious tyranny, then tough luck. They forfeit their chance to shape and to participate in the new Iraq. "
Then there are questions over "foreign meddling" in Iraqi affairs that, to a large extent, could determine the shape of the region. Regional leaders and analysts are raising the spectre of an Iranian-influenced outcome of the elections that would create new realities in the region.
If indeed Iran is "meddling" in Iraqi politics with a view to having its allies gain power in the elections, then there is little sense or logic in the argument that the Iranians are also helping "foreign militants" undermine security and maintain the country unstable for polls. But that logic is missing from the arguments of many.
Voting process
Iyad Allawi, the interim prime minister, acknowledges that the situation in "three or four" of the country's provinces is problematic for elections and he also suggests that the voting process could be spread over 15 to 20 days to ensure maximum participation.
"I think one could envisage elections spread over 15 days, 20 days, with polling on different dates for different provinces. ... That would allow for adequate security arrangements to be put in place," he said.
However, phased elections might not be an option because the voting process could not go beyond Jan.31. If Allawi's proposal was to be entertained, then it would mean starting voting by mid-January.
Obviously, staggering the election would allow the interim government to move security forces from one place to another.
Initial response from Electoral Commission chief Adel Hussein Al Hinadwi was negative, but on Wednesday he kept silent after interior ministry spokesman Sabah Kazem described the Allawi proposal as "an excellent idea, which we support one hundred per cent."
"This would permit holding the elections on another date in those places where it is not possible to organise them for the planned date. It would also facilitate the work of international observers and guarantee the participation in the election of all regions of Iraq," said Kazem.
Canada is helping the interim government prepare for the elections. It will host a Dec.19-20 international forum in Ottawa on Iraqi election preparation and observation methods.
Among those questioning the viability of elections was UN election adviser Lakhdar Ibrahimi who said elections could not take place in the present circumstances.
"Elections are no magic potion, but part of a political process," he said late last month. "They must be prepared well and take place at the right time to produce the good effects that you expect from them.'
Asked if elections under present conditions were possible, Ibrahimi said: 'If the circumstances stay as they are, I personally don't think so. It is a mess in Iraq."
Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked how elections could be held in a country under foreign military occupation. "Honestly speaking, I cannot imagine how it is possible to organise elections under the conditions of occupation by foreign forces," Putin said during a Kremlin meeting with Allawi.
"At the same time, I don't understand how you alone can remedy the situation in the country and prevent its disintegration," Putin told Allawi, adding: "I hope we will succeed in examining all these complex and contradictory issues."
Security situation
The number of American soldiers in Iraq is expected to go up by 10,000 to 140,000 by mid-January. They are supported by some 20,000 allied soldiers.
In principle, the interim government has some 83,000 policemen and guardsmen, but only 47,000 of them are said to have undergone basic police training in security-linked tasks and crowd control.
Intelligence assessments have shaken Washington's declarations that the situation in Iraq would improve with the January elections.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has warned that Iraq would descend even deeper into violent chaos unless the interim government asserts its authority and improve the economy. It is a tall order, given the spiralling violence and almost daily attacks on the country's oil lifeline.
Another intelligence estimate prepared for the White House four months ago predicted that Iraq's security situation could remain tenuous at best until the end of 2005. It also warned Iraq faced the risk of civil war.
President George W Bush has sought to portray the increasing violence ahead of the elections as an effort by militants to undermine the polls.
"As election day approaches, we can expect further violence from the terrorists," Bush said on Tuesday. "You see, the terrorists understand what is at stake. They know they have no future in a free Iraq, because free people will never choose their own enslavement. They know democracy will give Iraqis a stake in the future of their country."
However, that assertion was seen in the Middle East as skirting the real issue since the insurgency should be seen in the broader context of anti-American sentiments and not as strictly Iraq-specific since those mounting guerrilla attacks against the US-led coalition forces are not exclusively Iraqis either.
Commentators also say that many Iraqis want the elections postponed. Egypt's Al Akbar daily wrote: "While the military operations are escalating in Iraq, disputes over elections are mounting, too. Different sects of the Iraqi people want to postpone them because their results wouldn't express the true will of the Iraqis ... All Arab and Muslim peoples have got many concerns over Iraq's stability, which will never be resolved except through the US withdrawal from the war-torn country."
Raad Alkadiri wrote in Lebanon's Daily Star: "There is arguably a large plurality -- if not a majority -- of the Iraqi Arab electorate that remains secular and nationalist in political orientation and that opposes the sectarian and ethnic agendas of the large parties, but that has no effective public voice. Without political vehicles to represent the views of these Iraqis, there is a real danger that they will opt out of the election altogether ...
"This is a troubling scenario ... The greatest number of Iraqis need to be brought on board, even if this means delaying elections temporarily ... Otherwise, the elections will simply serve to heighten the sense of disenfranchisement that many Iraqis have felt since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, creating a dangerous thorn in the side of successive Iraqi administrations, whose legitimacy they will contest."
Neighbours' pressure
In the meantime, the US and the interim government in Iraq are stepping up pressure against Syria as well as Iran by accusing them of allowing the guerrilla war against the US-led coalition forces in Iraq to be directed from their territories.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that American military intelligence officials have concluded that the Iraqi insurgency is being directed to a greater degree than previously recognised from Syria.
The report does not say the Syrian government is directly involved in guiding the insurgency but Damascus is accused of hosting former Saddam Hussein loyalists who are channeling money and other support to those fighting the US-led coalition forces in Iraq.
"Based on information gathered during the recent fighting in Fallujah, Baghdad and elsewhere in the Sunni Triangle, the officials said that a handful of senior Iraqi Baathists operating in Syria are collecting money from private sources in Saudi Arabia and Europe and turning it over to the insurgency," said The Washington Post.
In Washington, Iraqi President Ghazi Al Yawar as well as King Abdullah of Jordan said after separate talks with Bush that external powers were meddling in Iraq.
Yawar said the guerrillas fighting in Iraq were getting help from Syria.
"There are people in Syria who are bad guys, who are fugitives of the law and who are Saddam remnants who are trying to bring the vicious dictatorship of Saddam back," Yawar said. "They are not minding their business or living a private life. They are . . . disturbing or undermining our political process."
King Abdullah said that the governments of both the United States and Iraq believe that "foreign fighters are coming across the Syrian border that have been trained in Syria."
A global positioning signal receiver was discovered in a bomb factory in the western part of Fallujah and this "contained waypoints originating in western Syria," said a US military statement last week.
In Baghdad, the interim deputy prime minister, Barham Saleh, said that he was losing patience with Iraq's neighbours. He did not name Syria, but noted that Iraqi police had arrested a Syrian driving a car bomb packed with artillery shells and other explosives. "There is evidence indicating that some groups in some neighbouring countries are playing a direct role in the killing of the Iraqi people and such a thing is not acceptable to us," Saleh said.
"We have reached a stage in which if we do not see a real response from those countries, then we are obliged to take a decisive stance."
American officials have repeatedly complained that Syria is not doing enough to check the cross-border flow of insurgents to Iraq. The US government has also demanded that Syria either hand over the Saddam loyalists responsible for the insurgency or expel them from Syrian territory.
"The Syrians appear to have done a little bit to stem extremist infiltration into Iraq at the border, but clearly have not helped with regards to Baathists infiltrating back and forth," said a senior US military officer in the region quoted by the Washington Post. "We still have serious challenges there, and Syria needs to be doing a lot more."
Charges denied
Syria has rejected the charges outright. . "There is a sinister campaign to create an atmosphere of hostility against Syria," said Syrian Ambassador to the US Imad Moustapha.
In separate interviews, both Yawar and King Abdullah also said Iran is trying to influence the Iraqi elections with a view to creating an Islamic government that would dramatically shift the geopolitical balance between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in the region.
Yawar charged that Iran is coaching candidates and political parties sympathetic to Tehran and pouring "huge amounts of money" into the campaign to produce a Shiite-dominated government in power in Baghdad.
According to King Abdullah, more than one million Iranians have crossed the border into Iraq since the Saddam regime was toppled and many of them would vote in the election -- with the encouragement of the Iranian government. "I'm sure there's a lot of people, a lot of Iranians in there that will be used as part of the polls to influence the outcome," he said.
He said Iranians are paying salaries and providing welfare to unemployed Iraqis to build pro-Iranian public sentiment
"It is in Iran's vested interest to have an Islamic republic of Iraq . . . and therefore the involvement you're getting by the Iranians is to achieve a government that is very pro-Iran," King Abdullah said.
He predicted that if an Iranian-influenced government assumes power in Baghdad, then a new "crescent" of dominant Shiite movements or governments will emerge, stretching from Iran into Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
"If Iraq goes Islamic republic, then, yes, we've opened ourselves to a whole set of new problems that will not be limited to the borders of Iraq. I'm looking at the glass half-full, and let's hope that's not the case. But strategic planners around the world have got to be aware that is a possibility," said the King.
He said Washington had communicated its concern to Iran through third parties and "there's going to be some sort of clash at one point or another."
"We hope it's just a clash of words and politics and not a clash of civilisations or peoples on the ground. We will know a bit better how it will play out after the election" in Iraq, he said.
Given that "regime change" in Iran is one of Bush's priorities in his second term, the outcome of the elections in Iraq is all the more important for Washington. But, as King Abdullah warned, the Bush administration might end up with a new Shiite-led axis running from the Gulf to the Mediterranean if Iranian-backed parties were to gain power in Iraq. That axis might indeed prove too formidable for the US to handle.
Iraq elections: Too many questions, too few answers
pv vivekanand
There is an air of superficiality in the run-up to elections in Iraq which Washington and the interim government in Baghdad insist would be held as scheduled on Jan.30. Indeed, there is little doubt that the elections will be held, barring a sweeping last-minute surprise of whatever nature. That much is clear, since both the Bush administration and the interim government are in a bind. They could not delay the elections if only because that would alienate the country's Shiites who are expecting to gain power by virtue of their majority in the population and thus set right what they consider to be as injustice done to them throughout recent Iraq history. Furthermore, delaying elections beyond Jan.31 will be in violation of the UN Security Council resolution adopted early this year, paving the way for some form of recognition of the American role in Iraq.
Political groups representing the Sunnis, who constitute about 18 per cent of the country's population, had called for a deferment of the elections, but some of them have now announced they would take part in the polls. One thing is clear: The Sunnis do not stand any chance of returning to the privileged position they had enjoyed under the Saddam Hussein regime. They are desperately seeking some assurance that they would not be written off as a political force in post-Saddam Iraq. For some of them, disrupting the election is an option.
The northern Kurds were initially seen as enthusiastic about the polls before they would be electing representatives to their own autonomous government in the north where they eventually want to set up an independent Kurdistan. In loose terms, it would not be an exaggeration that the Kurds could not care less what is happening in the rest of the country as long as their interests are not challenged. That is what their bitter history of aspirations and broken promises has taught them.
However, the two major Kurdish parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, joined Adnan Pachachi, a former Sunni minister, who led a group of 17 political parties asking that the vote be delayed by six months because of the violence. Obviously, they are apprehensive that a Shiite victory in the elections under present conditions might impose constraints on their options.
Countering the call for postponement, a group of 42 mainly Shiite and Turkmen parties issued a statement declaring moves to delay the elections were illegal.
Election uncertainties
There are many uncertainties about the election that would see an assembly of 275 members chosen to write a permanent constitution for the country and lead the Iraqis to another election by the end of 2005 if the constitution is approved in a popular referendum.
These uncertainties include questions over how many of the country's 18 provinces will actually vote or where election is possible at all in view of the deteriorating security situation. The absence of any province in the process will immediately raise questions about the credibility and legitimacy of the elected assembly.
One of such provinces is Anbar, which includes Fallujah and Ramadi. where it is illogical to expect people to turn up for voting, given the devastation that they suffered in the recent American military assault aimed at "pacifying" the towns by purging "foreign militants." Mosul and Babil are seen as other "troublesome" provinces.
Writing in The Washington Post, columnist Charles Krauthammer insisted that it would be the Sunnis' loss if they did not vote.
"There has been much talk that if the Iraqi election is held and some Sunni Arab provinces (perhaps three of the 18) do not participate, the election will be illegitimate," he wrote. "Nonsense. The election should be held. It should be open to everyone. If Iraq's Sunni Arabs -- barely 20 per cent of the population -- decide that they cannot abide giving up their 80 years of minority rule, which ended with 30 years of Saddam Hussein's atrocious tyranny, then tough luck. They forfeit their chance to shape and to participate in the new Iraq. "
Then there are questions over "foreign meddling" in Iraqi affairs that, to a large extent, could determine the shape of the region. Regional leaders and analysts are raising the spectre of an Iranian-influenced outcome of the elections that would create new realities in the region.
If indeed Iran is "meddling" in Iraqi politics with a view to having its allies gain power in the elections, then there is little sense or logic in the argument that the Iranians are also helping "foreign militants" undermine security and maintain the country unstable for polls. But that logic is missing from the arguments of many.
Voting process
Iyad Allawi, the interim prime minister, acknowledges that the situation in "three or four" of the country's provinces is problematic for elections and he also suggests that the voting process could be spread over 15 to 20 days to ensure maximum participation.
"I think one could envisage elections spread over 15 days, 20 days, with polling on different dates for different provinces. ... That would allow for adequate security arrangements to be put in place," he said.
However, phased elections might not be an option because the voting process could not go beyond Jan.31. If Allawi's proposal was to be entertained, then it would mean starting voting by mid-January.
Obviously, staggering the election would allow the interim government to move security forces from one place to another.
Initial response from Electoral Commission chief Adel Hussein Al Hinadwi was negative, but on Wednesday he kept silent after interior ministry spokesman Sabah Kazem described the Allawi proposal as "an excellent idea, which we support one hundred per cent."
"This would permit holding the elections on another date in those places where it is not possible to organise them for the planned date. It would also facilitate the work of international observers and guarantee the participation in the election of all regions of Iraq," said Kazem.
Canada is helping the interim government prepare for the elections. It will host a Dec.19-20 international forum in Ottawa on Iraqi election preparation and observation methods.
Among those questioning the viability of elections was UN election adviser Lakhdar Ibrahimi who said elections could not take place in the present circumstances.
"Elections are no magic potion, but part of a political process," he said late last month. "They must be prepared well and take place at the right time to produce the good effects that you expect from them.'
Asked if elections under present conditions were possible, Ibrahimi said: 'If the circumstances stay as they are, I personally don't think so. It is a mess in Iraq."
Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked how elections could be held in a country under foreign military occupation. "Honestly speaking, I cannot imagine how it is possible to organise elections under the conditions of occupation by foreign forces," Putin said during a Kremlin meeting with Allawi.
"At the same time, I don't understand how you alone can remedy the situation in the country and prevent its disintegration," Putin told Allawi, adding: "I hope we will succeed in examining all these complex and contradictory issues."
Security situation
The number of American soldiers in Iraq is expected to go up by 10,000 to 140,000 by mid-January. They are supported by some 20,000 allied soldiers.
In principle, the interim government has some 83,000 policemen and guardsmen, but only 47,000 of them are said to have undergone basic police training in security-linked tasks and crowd control.
Intelligence assessments have shaken Washington's declarations that the situation in Iraq would improve with the January elections.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has warned that Iraq would descend even deeper into violent chaos unless the interim government asserts its authority and improve the economy. It is a tall order, given the spiralling violence and almost daily attacks on the country's oil lifeline.
Another intelligence estimate prepared for the White House four months ago predicted that Iraq's security situation could remain tenuous at best until the end of 2005. It also warned Iraq faced the risk of civil war.
President George W Bush has sought to portray the increasing violence ahead of the elections as an effort by militants to undermine the polls.
"As election day approaches, we can expect further violence from the terrorists," Bush said on Tuesday. "You see, the terrorists understand what is at stake. They know they have no future in a free Iraq, because free people will never choose their own enslavement. They know democracy will give Iraqis a stake in the future of their country."
However, that assertion was seen in the Middle East as skirting the real issue since the insurgency should be seen in the broader context of anti-American sentiments and not as strictly Iraq-specific since those mounting guerrilla attacks against the US-led coalition forces are not exclusively Iraqis either.
Commentators also say that many Iraqis want the elections postponed. Egypt's Al Akbar daily wrote: "While the military operations are escalating in Iraq, disputes over elections are mounting, too. Different sects of the Iraqi people want to postpone them because their results wouldn't express the true will of the Iraqis ... All Arab and Muslim peoples have got many concerns over Iraq's stability, which will never be resolved except through the US withdrawal from the war-torn country."
Raad Alkadiri wrote in Lebanon's Daily Star: "There is arguably a large plurality -- if not a majority -- of the Iraqi Arab electorate that remains secular and nationalist in political orientation and that opposes the sectarian and ethnic agendas of the large parties, but that has no effective public voice. Without political vehicles to represent the views of these Iraqis, there is a real danger that they will opt out of the election altogether ...
"This is a troubling scenario ... The greatest number of Iraqis need to be brought on board, even if this means delaying elections temporarily ... Otherwise, the elections will simply serve to heighten the sense of disenfranchisement that many Iraqis have felt since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, creating a dangerous thorn in the side of successive Iraqi administrations, whose legitimacy they will contest."
Neighbours' pressure
In the meantime, the US and the interim government in Iraq are stepping up pressure against Syria as well as Iran by accusing them of allowing the guerrilla war against the US-led coalition forces in Iraq to be directed from their territories.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that American military intelligence officials have concluded that the Iraqi insurgency is being directed to a greater degree than previously recognised from Syria.
The report does not say the Syrian government is directly involved in guiding the insurgency but Damascus is accused of hosting former Saddam Hussein loyalists who are channeling money and other support to those fighting the US-led coalition forces in Iraq.
"Based on information gathered during the recent fighting in Fallujah, Baghdad and elsewhere in the Sunni Triangle, the officials said that a handful of senior Iraqi Baathists operating in Syria are collecting money from private sources in Saudi Arabia and Europe and turning it over to the insurgency," said The Washington Post.
In Washington, Iraqi President Ghazi Al Yawar as well as King Abdullah of Jordan said after separate talks with Bush that external powers were meddling in Iraq.
Yawar said the guerrillas fighting in Iraq were getting help from Syria.
"There are people in Syria who are bad guys, who are fugitives of the law and who are Saddam remnants who are trying to bring the vicious dictatorship of Saddam back," Yawar said. "They are not minding their business or living a private life. They are . . . disturbing or undermining our political process."
King Abdullah said that the governments of both the United States and Iraq believe that "foreign fighters are coming across the Syrian border that have been trained in Syria."
A global positioning signal receiver was discovered in a bomb factory in the western part of Fallujah and this "contained waypoints originating in western Syria," said a US military statement last week.
In Baghdad, the interim deputy prime minister, Barham Saleh, said that he was losing patience with Iraq's neighbours. He did not name Syria, but noted that Iraqi police had arrested a Syrian driving a car bomb packed with artillery shells and other explosives. "There is evidence indicating that some groups in some neighbouring countries are playing a direct role in the killing of the Iraqi people and such a thing is not acceptable to us," Saleh said.
"We have reached a stage in which if we do not see a real response from those countries, then we are obliged to take a decisive stance."
American officials have repeatedly complained that Syria is not doing enough to check the cross-border flow of insurgents to Iraq. The US government has also demanded that Syria either hand over the Saddam loyalists responsible for the insurgency or expel them from Syrian territory.
"The Syrians appear to have done a little bit to stem extremist infiltration into Iraq at the border, but clearly have not helped with regards to Baathists infiltrating back and forth," said a senior US military officer in the region quoted by the Washington Post. "We still have serious challenges there, and Syria needs to be doing a lot more."
Charges denied
Syria has rejected the charges outright. . "There is a sinister campaign to create an atmosphere of hostility against Syria," said Syrian Ambassador to the US Imad Moustapha.
In separate interviews, both Yawar and King Abdullah also said Iran is trying to influence the Iraqi elections with a view to creating an Islamic government that would dramatically shift the geopolitical balance between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in the region.
Yawar charged that Iran is coaching candidates and political parties sympathetic to Tehran and pouring "huge amounts of money" into the campaign to produce a Shiite-dominated government in power in Baghdad.
According to King Abdullah, more than one million Iranians have crossed the border into Iraq since the Saddam regime was toppled and many of them would vote in the election -- with the encouragement of the Iranian government. "I'm sure there's a lot of people, a lot of Iranians in there that will be used as part of the polls to influence the outcome," he said.
He said Iranians are paying salaries and providing welfare to unemployed Iraqis to build pro-Iranian public sentiment
"It is in Iran's vested interest to have an Islamic republic of Iraq . . . and therefore the involvement you're getting by the Iranians is to achieve a government that is very pro-Iran," King Abdullah said.
He predicted that if an Iranian-influenced government assumes power in Baghdad, then a new "crescent" of dominant Shiite movements or governments will emerge, stretching from Iran into Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
"If Iraq goes Islamic republic, then, yes, we've opened ourselves to a whole set of new problems that will not be limited to the borders of Iraq. I'm looking at the glass half-full, and let's hope that's not the case. But strategic planners around the world have got to be aware that is a possibility," said the King.
He said Washington had communicated its concern to Iran through third parties and "there's going to be some sort of clash at one point or another."
"We hope it's just a clash of words and politics and not a clash of civilisations or peoples on the ground. We will know a bit better how it will play out after the election" in Iraq, he said.
Given that "regime change" in Iran is one of Bush's priorities in his second term, the outcome of the elections in Iraq is all the more important for Washington. But, as King Abdullah warned, the Bush administration might end up with a new Shiite-led axis running from the Gulf to the Mediterranean if Iranian-backed parties were to gain power in Iraq. That axis might indeed prove too formidable for the US to handle.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Syria, Iran on spotlight
December 8 2004
PV Vivekanand
THE US and the US-backed interim government in Iraq are stepping up pressure against Syria as well as Iran by accusing them of allowing the guerrilla war against the US-led coalition forces in Iraq to be directed from their territories.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that American military intelligence officials have concluded that the Iraqi insurgency is being directed to a greater degree than previously recognised from Syria.
The report does not say the Syrian government is directly involved in guiding the insurgency but Damascus is accused of hosting former Saddam Hussein loyalists who are channeling money and other support to those fighting the US-led coalition forces in Iraq.
"Based on information gathered during the recent fighting in Fallujah, Baghdad and elsewhere in the Sunni Triangle, the officials said that a handful of senior Iraqi Baathists operating in Syria are collecting money from private sources in Saudi Arabia and Europe and turning it over to the insurgency," said the Washington Post.
In Washington, Iraqi President Ghazi Al Yawar as well as King Abdullah of Jordan said after separate talks with President George W Bush that external powers were meddling in Iraq.
Yawar said the guerrillas fighting in Iraq were getting help from Syria.
"There are people in Syria who are bad guys, who are fugitives of the law and who are Saddam remnants who are trying to bring the vicious dictatorship of Saddam back," Yawar said. "They are not minding their business or living a private life. They are . . . disturbing or undermining our political process."
King Abdullah said that the governments of both the United States and Iraq believe that "foreign fighters are coming across the Syrian border that have been trained in Syria."
A a global positioning signal receiver was discovered in a bomb factory in the western part of Falluja and this "contained waypoints originating in western Syria," said a US military statement last week.
In Baghdad, the interim deputy prime minister, Barham Saleh said on Tuesday that he was losing patience with Iraq’s neighbours. He did not name Syria, but noted that Iraqi police had arrested a Syrian driving a car bomb packed with artillery shells and other explosives. “There is evidence indicating that some groups in some neighbouring countries are playing a direct role in the killing of the Iraqi people and such a thing is not acceptable to us,” Saleh said.
“We have reached a stage in which if we do not see a real response from those countries, then we are obliged to take a decisive stance.”
American officials have repeatedly complained that Syria is not doing enough to check the cross-border flow of insurgents to Iraq. The US government has also demanded that Syria either hand over the Saddam loyalists responsible for the insurgency or expel them from Syrian territory.
"The Syrians appear to have done a little bit to stem extremist infiltration into Iraq at the border, but clearly have not helped with regards to Baathists infiltrating back and forth," said a senior US military officer in the region quoted by the Washington Post. "We still have serious challenges there, and Syria needs to be doing a lot more."
Syria has rejected the charges outright. . "There is a sinister campaign to create an atmosphere of hostility against Syria," said Syrian Ambasador to the US Imad Moustapha.
In separate interviews, both Yawar and King Abdullah also said Iran is trying to influence the Iraqi elections with a view to creating an Islamic government that would dramatically shift the geopolitical balance between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in the region.
Yawar charged that Iran is coaching candidates and political parties sympathetic to Tehran and pouring "huge amounts of money" into the campaign to produce a Shiite-dominated government in power in Baghdad.
According to King Abdullah, more than one million Iranians have crossed the border into Iraq since the Saddam regime was toppled and many of them would to vote in the election -- with the encouragement of the Iranian government. "I'm sure there's a lot of people, a lot of Iranians in there that will be used as part of the polls to influence the outcome," he said.
He said Iranians are paying salaries and providing welfare to unemployed Iraqis to build pro-Iranian public sentiment
"It is in Iran's vested interest to have an Islamic republic of Iraq . . . and therefore the involvement you're getting by the Iranians is to achieve a government that is very pro-Iran," King Abdullah said.
He predicted that if an an Iranian-influenced government assumes power in Baghad, then a
new "crescent" of dominant Shiite movements or governments will emerge, stretching from Iran into Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
"If Iraq goes Islamic republic, then, yes, we've opened ourselves to a whole set of new problems that will not be limited to the borders of Iraq. I'm looking at the glass half-full, and let's hope that's not the case. But strategic planners around the world have got to be aware that is a possibility," said the King.
He said Washington had communicated its concern to Iran through third parties and "there's going to be some sort of clash at one point or another."
"We hope it's just a clash of words and politics and not a clash of civilisations or peoples on the ground. We will know a bit better how it will play out after the election" in Iraq, he said.
PV Vivekanand
THE US and the US-backed interim government in Iraq are stepping up pressure against Syria as well as Iran by accusing them of allowing the guerrilla war against the US-led coalition forces in Iraq to be directed from their territories.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that American military intelligence officials have concluded that the Iraqi insurgency is being directed to a greater degree than previously recognised from Syria.
The report does not say the Syrian government is directly involved in guiding the insurgency but Damascus is accused of hosting former Saddam Hussein loyalists who are channeling money and other support to those fighting the US-led coalition forces in Iraq.
"Based on information gathered during the recent fighting in Fallujah, Baghdad and elsewhere in the Sunni Triangle, the officials said that a handful of senior Iraqi Baathists operating in Syria are collecting money from private sources in Saudi Arabia and Europe and turning it over to the insurgency," said the Washington Post.
In Washington, Iraqi President Ghazi Al Yawar as well as King Abdullah of Jordan said after separate talks with President George W Bush that external powers were meddling in Iraq.
Yawar said the guerrillas fighting in Iraq were getting help from Syria.
"There are people in Syria who are bad guys, who are fugitives of the law and who are Saddam remnants who are trying to bring the vicious dictatorship of Saddam back," Yawar said. "They are not minding their business or living a private life. They are . . . disturbing or undermining our political process."
King Abdullah said that the governments of both the United States and Iraq believe that "foreign fighters are coming across the Syrian border that have been trained in Syria."
A a global positioning signal receiver was discovered in a bomb factory in the western part of Falluja and this "contained waypoints originating in western Syria," said a US military statement last week.
In Baghdad, the interim deputy prime minister, Barham Saleh said on Tuesday that he was losing patience with Iraq’s neighbours. He did not name Syria, but noted that Iraqi police had arrested a Syrian driving a car bomb packed with artillery shells and other explosives. “There is evidence indicating that some groups in some neighbouring countries are playing a direct role in the killing of the Iraqi people and such a thing is not acceptable to us,” Saleh said.
“We have reached a stage in which if we do not see a real response from those countries, then we are obliged to take a decisive stance.”
American officials have repeatedly complained that Syria is not doing enough to check the cross-border flow of insurgents to Iraq. The US government has also demanded that Syria either hand over the Saddam loyalists responsible for the insurgency or expel them from Syrian territory.
"The Syrians appear to have done a little bit to stem extremist infiltration into Iraq at the border, but clearly have not helped with regards to Baathists infiltrating back and forth," said a senior US military officer in the region quoted by the Washington Post. "We still have serious challenges there, and Syria needs to be doing a lot more."
Syria has rejected the charges outright. . "There is a sinister campaign to create an atmosphere of hostility against Syria," said Syrian Ambasador to the US Imad Moustapha.
In separate interviews, both Yawar and King Abdullah also said Iran is trying to influence the Iraqi elections with a view to creating an Islamic government that would dramatically shift the geopolitical balance between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in the region.
Yawar charged that Iran is coaching candidates and political parties sympathetic to Tehran and pouring "huge amounts of money" into the campaign to produce a Shiite-dominated government in power in Baghdad.
According to King Abdullah, more than one million Iranians have crossed the border into Iraq since the Saddam regime was toppled and many of them would to vote in the election -- with the encouragement of the Iranian government. "I'm sure there's a lot of people, a lot of Iranians in there that will be used as part of the polls to influence the outcome," he said.
He said Iranians are paying salaries and providing welfare to unemployed Iraqis to build pro-Iranian public sentiment
"It is in Iran's vested interest to have an Islamic republic of Iraq . . . and therefore the involvement you're getting by the Iranians is to achieve a government that is very pro-Iran," King Abdullah said.
He predicted that if an an Iranian-influenced government assumes power in Baghad, then a
new "crescent" of dominant Shiite movements or governments will emerge, stretching from Iran into Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
"If Iraq goes Islamic republic, then, yes, we've opened ourselves to a whole set of new problems that will not be limited to the borders of Iraq. I'm looking at the glass half-full, and let's hope that's not the case. But strategic planners around the world have got to be aware that is a possibility," said the King.
He said Washington had communicated its concern to Iran through third parties and "there's going to be some sort of clash at one point or another."
"We hope it's just a clash of words and politics and not a clash of civilisations or peoples on the ground. We will know a bit better how it will play out after the election" in Iraq, he said.
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Right diagnonis, wrong medicine
December 7 2004
Right diagnosis, wrong medicine
TWO reports published this week underlined the reality that the US is losing its self-proclaimed war against terror as a result of misguided policies and deep flaws in its approach to the Middle East and in the handling of the situation in Iraq.
The first was comments by Michael Scheuer, a former American intelligence agent who used to chase Osama Bin Laden and author of the book Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror. He argued that the US-led war against terrorism is failing because of Washington's policies in the Middle East and the American claims that more than two thirds of Al Qaeda's leadership are destroyed are hollow. If anything, he says, Al Qaeda has grown in concept to a global movement with far-reaching influence through the Internet.
The other was a "strategic communications" report, written by the Defence Science Board for US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The report says the war on terror and the invasion and occupation of Iraq have increased support for Al Qaeda, made ordinary Muslims hate the US and caused a global backlash against America because of the "self-serving hypocrisy" of the Bush administration over the Middle East.
We don't know whether Scheuer and the authors of the Defence Science Board collaborated with each other. Both have almost identical views and conclusions. But then, there need not be any collaboration to come up with the reality -- two and two always make four no matter who does the calculation.
Scheuer, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer who once led the hunt for Bin Laden, observes that Al Qaeda's domination of the Internet in the Muslim world was leading to the US losing its battle for the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide.
Scheuer, who wrote the book under the name "Anonymous" with CIA permission and quit the CIA because the agency would not allow him to give media interviews, was speaking to a group of journalists in Washington.
Lost chances
According to Scheuer, the US had at least eight chances to kill Bin Laden before Sept.11, 2001, but did not use the opportunity because of apathy or inaction by American decision-makers.
Today, Bin Laden's Al Qaeda enjoys wide support around the world, he says.
Asked whether the US-led war on terror could be won, he replied. "No. It can't be won. We're going to eventually lose it. And the problem for us is that we're going to lose it much more quickly if we don't start killing more of the enemy."
Among the points raised by Scheuer, Al Qaeda is winning the propaganda war, especially the Internet, with regular political, military and religious discourses and justification for many of its actions. The core of the movement was made up of true believers and it was controlling the debate in the Islamic world. It also had suspected success in infiltrating US military and security services, he said.
Another problem the US faces is the wide support that Bin Laden enjoys among the Muslims and Arabs that make it difficult for governments to take effective action against Bin Laden, he said.
The US-led war against and occupation of Iraq is unpopular in the Muslim world and is blocking American efforts to mobilise world opinion against Bin Laden without seeming to support US policies in the Middle East -- especially backing Israel -- the West's need for low oil prices, he said.
"Unless we change or at least consider changing our policies in the Middle East, the room for Bin Laden or Bin Ladenism to grow is virtually unlimited," Scheuer said.
Not against culture
He rejected Western claims that Bin Laden targeted the United States and Europe because he hated Western culture.
"They're attacking us because of our unqualified support for Israel. They're attacking us because we've helped cement on their heads tyrannies in the Arab world ... for the last 40 years," he said. "They're attacking us because we're in the Arabian Peninsula and it happens to be a holy place for them."
According to Scheuer, Al Qaeda served both as an organisation and as an umbrella for groups with similar ideals worldwide, adding Bin Laden's command and control goes very little beyond Al Qaeda itself.
"His goal is to more or less get everybody moving in the same direction -- moving them away from, kind of a away from, a more nationalist orientation ... and get the focused on the United States," he said. "And frankly he's been only 60 or 65 per cent successful in that."
Compare Scheuer's assertions with the findings of the Defence Science Report.
On "the war of ideas or the struggle for hearts and minds," the report says, "American efforts have not only failed, they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended."
"American direct intervention in the Muslim world has paradoxically elevated the stature of, and support for, radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single digits in some Arab societies," it says.
Rejected repeated assertions by American administration officials that those hostile to the US hate "American freedoms" the report affirms: "Muslims do not 'hate our freedoms', but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favour of Israel and against Palestinian rights...."
Muslims also resent the American alliances with unpopular regimes, says the report.
"Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy. Moreover, saying that 'freedom is the future of the Middle East' is seen as patronising ... in the eyes of Muslims, the American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. US actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim self-determination."
The most vital flaw of the American approach to Iraq was underlined by Patrick Cockburn, who, a correspondent for Britain's Independent newspaper, he has written regular reports from Iraq throughout the occupation.
In an interview carried on the website counterpunch.com, Cockburn puts his finger on the pulse when he states that the US has already lost the war to win the hearts and minds of the people of Iraq.
Rejecting the American theory that the US military needed to pacify the town of Fallujah in order to set the ground for elections in January, Cockburn says:
"This connection between the attack on Fallujah and the elections is one of the weirdest things I've heard. You go and smash up a city, you turn all of its population into refugees, you kill quite a number of them -- and somehow they're going to come out and vote? I think that was always kind of an absurdity."
"There should be no mystery about the nature of the resistance in Iraq. The situation is very simple, as it would be in most countries of the world -- when you have an occupation by a foreign power, you have resistance. And that's exactly what's happened in Iraq."
Widening support base
The Defence Science Board implicitly agrees with Scheuer that the way the Bush administration conducted foreign policy after the Sept.11 attacks benefited Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
"American actions have elevated the authority of the jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims." The result is that Al Qaeda has gone from being a marginal movement to having support across the entire Muslim world, says the report, again an affirmation of Scheur's finding.
"Muslims see Americans as strangely narcissistic," the report goes on, adding that to the Arab world the war is "no more than an extension of American domestic politics". The US has zero credibility among Muslims which means that "whatever Americans do and say only serves ... the enemy."
Another fundamental flaw in the American approach is that it has divided the Muslim world in perception to "bad Muslims" and "good Muslims."
"Americans are convinced that the US is a benevolent 'superpower' that elevates values emphasising freedom ... deep down we assume that everyone should naturally support our policies. Yet the world of Islam by overwhelming majorities at this time -- sees things differently. Muslims see American policies as inimical to their values, American rhetoric about freedom and democracy as hypocritical and American actions as deeply threatening."
However, the report also implicitly points out the infamous "neoconservatives" in the Bush administration do not realise that their direction is misguided.
It cites a report made in May by Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary and one of the most known neocons, in which he observes: "Our military expeditions to Afghanistan and Iraq are unlikely to be the last such excursion in the global war on terrorism."
Biased policy
Ironically, no where in the report is any suggestion that the administration should address the core problem -- its biased approach to the Middle East conflict and open-ended support for Israel.
Instead, it suggests that in order to correct the situation, the US must make "strategic communication." This should include the dissemination of propaganda and the running of military psychological operations. More importantly, it says, "presidential leadership" is needed in this "ideas war" and warns against "arrogance, opportunism and double standards."
"We face a war on terrorism," the report says, "intensified conflict with Islam, and insurgency in Iraq. Worldwide anger and discontent are directed at America's tarnished credibility and ways the US pursues its goals. There is a consensus that America's power to persuade is in a state of crisis."
The US administration is ignoring the fact that the "image problem" that the US is suffering is linked "to perceptions of the US as arrogant, hypocritical and self-indulgent" and calls for a huge boost in spending on propaganda efforts as war policies "will not succeed unless they are communicated to global domestic audiences in ways that are credible."
As "Al Qaeda constantly outflanks the US in the war of information," the US should adopt more sophisticated propaganda techniques, such as targeting secularists in the Muslim World -- including writers, artists and singers -- and getting US private sector media and marketing professionals involved in disseminating messages to Muslims with a pro-US "brand."
Well, both Scheuer and the Defence Science Board are accurate in their assessment of the situation, but wrong in their suggestions as to how to address it. As noted, Scheuer suggests "killing more of the enemy" while the Defence Science Board recommends a propaganda campaign.
Well, Scheuer as well as the Washington strategists who drew up the Defence Science Board report with fair accuracy have opted to turn away from the minefield of tackling the American bias in favour of Israel as the root of all problems that the administration faces. No killing of militants and/or "propaganda" will work to convince the world Muslims today that Washington has any good in mind for them unless it deals with a firm hand to put an end to Israel's intransigence and arrogance and its refusal to accept international legitimacy as the basis for a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, be it on the Palestinian, Syrian or Lebanese fronts. And that would only be a beginning of the treatment to address the American ailment.
Right diagnosis, wrong medicine
TWO reports published this week underlined the reality that the US is losing its self-proclaimed war against terror as a result of misguided policies and deep flaws in its approach to the Middle East and in the handling of the situation in Iraq.
The first was comments by Michael Scheuer, a former American intelligence agent who used to chase Osama Bin Laden and author of the book Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror. He argued that the US-led war against terrorism is failing because of Washington's policies in the Middle East and the American claims that more than two thirds of Al Qaeda's leadership are destroyed are hollow. If anything, he says, Al Qaeda has grown in concept to a global movement with far-reaching influence through the Internet.
The other was a "strategic communications" report, written by the Defence Science Board for US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The report says the war on terror and the invasion and occupation of Iraq have increased support for Al Qaeda, made ordinary Muslims hate the US and caused a global backlash against America because of the "self-serving hypocrisy" of the Bush administration over the Middle East.
We don't know whether Scheuer and the authors of the Defence Science Board collaborated with each other. Both have almost identical views and conclusions. But then, there need not be any collaboration to come up with the reality -- two and two always make four no matter who does the calculation.
Scheuer, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer who once led the hunt for Bin Laden, observes that Al Qaeda's domination of the Internet in the Muslim world was leading to the US losing its battle for the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide.
Scheuer, who wrote the book under the name "Anonymous" with CIA permission and quit the CIA because the agency would not allow him to give media interviews, was speaking to a group of journalists in Washington.
Lost chances
According to Scheuer, the US had at least eight chances to kill Bin Laden before Sept.11, 2001, but did not use the opportunity because of apathy or inaction by American decision-makers.
Today, Bin Laden's Al Qaeda enjoys wide support around the world, he says.
Asked whether the US-led war on terror could be won, he replied. "No. It can't be won. We're going to eventually lose it. And the problem for us is that we're going to lose it much more quickly if we don't start killing more of the enemy."
Among the points raised by Scheuer, Al Qaeda is winning the propaganda war, especially the Internet, with regular political, military and religious discourses and justification for many of its actions. The core of the movement was made up of true believers and it was controlling the debate in the Islamic world. It also had suspected success in infiltrating US military and security services, he said.
Another problem the US faces is the wide support that Bin Laden enjoys among the Muslims and Arabs that make it difficult for governments to take effective action against Bin Laden, he said.
The US-led war against and occupation of Iraq is unpopular in the Muslim world and is blocking American efforts to mobilise world opinion against Bin Laden without seeming to support US policies in the Middle East -- especially backing Israel -- the West's need for low oil prices, he said.
"Unless we change or at least consider changing our policies in the Middle East, the room for Bin Laden or Bin Ladenism to grow is virtually unlimited," Scheuer said.
Not against culture
He rejected Western claims that Bin Laden targeted the United States and Europe because he hated Western culture.
"They're attacking us because of our unqualified support for Israel. They're attacking us because we've helped cement on their heads tyrannies in the Arab world ... for the last 40 years," he said. "They're attacking us because we're in the Arabian Peninsula and it happens to be a holy place for them."
According to Scheuer, Al Qaeda served both as an organisation and as an umbrella for groups with similar ideals worldwide, adding Bin Laden's command and control goes very little beyond Al Qaeda itself.
"His goal is to more or less get everybody moving in the same direction -- moving them away from, kind of a away from, a more nationalist orientation ... and get the focused on the United States," he said. "And frankly he's been only 60 or 65 per cent successful in that."
Compare Scheuer's assertions with the findings of the Defence Science Report.
On "the war of ideas or the struggle for hearts and minds," the report says, "American efforts have not only failed, they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended."
"American direct intervention in the Muslim world has paradoxically elevated the stature of, and support for, radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single digits in some Arab societies," it says.
Rejected repeated assertions by American administration officials that those hostile to the US hate "American freedoms" the report affirms: "Muslims do not 'hate our freedoms', but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favour of Israel and against Palestinian rights...."
Muslims also resent the American alliances with unpopular regimes, says the report.
"Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy. Moreover, saying that 'freedom is the future of the Middle East' is seen as patronising ... in the eyes of Muslims, the American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. US actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim self-determination."
The most vital flaw of the American approach to Iraq was underlined by Patrick Cockburn, who, a correspondent for Britain's Independent newspaper, he has written regular reports from Iraq throughout the occupation.
In an interview carried on the website counterpunch.com, Cockburn puts his finger on the pulse when he states that the US has already lost the war to win the hearts and minds of the people of Iraq.
Rejecting the American theory that the US military needed to pacify the town of Fallujah in order to set the ground for elections in January, Cockburn says:
"This connection between the attack on Fallujah and the elections is one of the weirdest things I've heard. You go and smash up a city, you turn all of its population into refugees, you kill quite a number of them -- and somehow they're going to come out and vote? I think that was always kind of an absurdity."
"There should be no mystery about the nature of the resistance in Iraq. The situation is very simple, as it would be in most countries of the world -- when you have an occupation by a foreign power, you have resistance. And that's exactly what's happened in Iraq."
Widening support base
The Defence Science Board implicitly agrees with Scheuer that the way the Bush administration conducted foreign policy after the Sept.11 attacks benefited Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
"American actions have elevated the authority of the jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims." The result is that Al Qaeda has gone from being a marginal movement to having support across the entire Muslim world, says the report, again an affirmation of Scheur's finding.
"Muslims see Americans as strangely narcissistic," the report goes on, adding that to the Arab world the war is "no more than an extension of American domestic politics". The US has zero credibility among Muslims which means that "whatever Americans do and say only serves ... the enemy."
Another fundamental flaw in the American approach is that it has divided the Muslim world in perception to "bad Muslims" and "good Muslims."
"Americans are convinced that the US is a benevolent 'superpower' that elevates values emphasising freedom ... deep down we assume that everyone should naturally support our policies. Yet the world of Islam by overwhelming majorities at this time -- sees things differently. Muslims see American policies as inimical to their values, American rhetoric about freedom and democracy as hypocritical and American actions as deeply threatening."
However, the report also implicitly points out the infamous "neoconservatives" in the Bush administration do not realise that their direction is misguided.
It cites a report made in May by Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary and one of the most known neocons, in which he observes: "Our military expeditions to Afghanistan and Iraq are unlikely to be the last such excursion in the global war on terrorism."
Biased policy
Ironically, no where in the report is any suggestion that the administration should address the core problem -- its biased approach to the Middle East conflict and open-ended support for Israel.
Instead, it suggests that in order to correct the situation, the US must make "strategic communication." This should include the dissemination of propaganda and the running of military psychological operations. More importantly, it says, "presidential leadership" is needed in this "ideas war" and warns against "arrogance, opportunism and double standards."
"We face a war on terrorism," the report says, "intensified conflict with Islam, and insurgency in Iraq. Worldwide anger and discontent are directed at America's tarnished credibility and ways the US pursues its goals. There is a consensus that America's power to persuade is in a state of crisis."
The US administration is ignoring the fact that the "image problem" that the US is suffering is linked "to perceptions of the US as arrogant, hypocritical and self-indulgent" and calls for a huge boost in spending on propaganda efforts as war policies "will not succeed unless they are communicated to global domestic audiences in ways that are credible."
As "Al Qaeda constantly outflanks the US in the war of information," the US should adopt more sophisticated propaganda techniques, such as targeting secularists in the Muslim World -- including writers, artists and singers -- and getting US private sector media and marketing professionals involved in disseminating messages to Muslims with a pro-US "brand."
Well, both Scheuer and the Defence Science Board are accurate in their assessment of the situation, but wrong in their suggestions as to how to address it. As noted, Scheuer suggests "killing more of the enemy" while the Defence Science Board recommends a propaganda campaign.
Well, Scheuer as well as the Washington strategists who drew up the Defence Science Board report with fair accuracy have opted to turn away from the minefield of tackling the American bias in favour of Israel as the root of all problems that the administration faces. No killing of militants and/or "propaganda" will work to convince the world Muslims today that Washington has any good in mind for them unless it deals with a firm hand to put an end to Israel's intransigence and arrogance and its refusal to accept international legitimacy as the basis for a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, be it on the Palestinian, Syrian or Lebanese fronts. And that would only be a beginning of the treatment to address the American ailment.
Monday, December 06, 2004
Alarm bells ringing for US
By PV Vivekanand
WHY doesn't the CIA's assessment and warning to the Bush administration that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and is not likely to rebound any time soon surprise us in this region? It is very simple: Commentators and analysts in the Middle East have known this for long and have been saying it at every given opportunity, but few in Washington seemed to care. Obviously, to admit that the US designs in Iraq have gone wrong wholesale and that Washington has a tiger by the tail in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq would not fit in with the schemes of the neoconservatives who orchestrated the invasion and occupation of that country in the first place.
As reported by the New York Times, the CIA warning is "unusually candid" and presented a bleak assessment on "matters of politics, economic and security." It did admit "important progress" in the political process and "credited Iraqis with being resilient."
Again, the reference to political process is indeed linked to the strides made by the US-backed interim government in the broader Arab context rather than within Iraq. And it is no revelation that Iraqis are resilient. After all, the people of Iraq have lived through the suffering of three wars since 1980 and their plight is all the more tough and difficult today than anytime in recent history. They endured the eight difficult years of war with Iran, followed by the Kuwait crisis and the consequent United Nations sanctions that had their economy in a stranglehold since 1990 until last year's US-led invasion that toppled the Saddam regime and installed the US military presence in the country.
Everyone — except those in Washington who do not want to accept it — know that the term "security" has become alien to the people of Iraq.
Reports from Iraq clearly indicate that no one is feeling safe anymore. Let us put together a summary of the reports in our own way:
Even if you have nothing to do with the either side, the US-led coalition force or the insurgents, you are exposed and vulnerable to threats that are very much real and could end up in you being dead.
In every neighbourhood, someone is watching you for signs where you belong, whether you are dealing with the coalition forces and the Iraqi National Guard or the insurgents. If you are siding with the coalition forces, then insurgents put a bomb in your car or your house. If you are seen having any links with the insurgents, then the US forces and the Iraqi national guards would come and pick you up, and lock you up to be subjected to torture to reveal what you might know about the guerrillas waging the war of resistance against the US forces and their allies.
People disappear overnight, and the families do not know who are responsible.
It is as if Saddam Hussein's regime is back where a midnight knock at your door means you are wanted. Your family would have no recourse to know what happened to you once Saddam's forces had taken you away.
It is the same that is happening these days in a much worse manner.
Threats and warnings are written on your house walls asking you to stay away from co-operating with the US forces. You better take the threat seriously or pay the price with your life. If you are a member of the Iraqi National Guards, you could be killed any time, even as you step out of your house to buy grocery. No wonder Iraqi guards mask their faces whenever they are on duty. They don't want to be identified and marked for death. Dozens of Iraqi policemen who had the misfortune of having being filmed at the scene of bombings and seen on television news were killed in less than 48 hours because they were identified by the insurgents.
Such is the level of intimidation and terror that prevails in Baghdad and other Iraqi towns and cities.
No one can protect you, least of all the US forces.
The innocent looking car parked on the kerb as you walk to buy bread could explode as you pass by; or a rocket could fall next to you and kill you instantly. Or your neighbour is an Iraqi guard whose house is attacked and you become part of the victims caught in the crossfire.
No one trusts anyone. All are suspects. Insurgents as well as informers for the US forces are among you and they could determine whether you live or not.
The threats are increasing now, with the January elections approaching. Graffiti is everywhere asking people to boycott the elections of face the wrath of "sons of Iraq" as insurgents call themselves.
Add to that the difficulties of daily life: Water and power supplies are erratic. Jobs are scarce, and those who are indeed employed have to be on constant alert against dangers lurking round the corner. Women are not safe beyond their walls.
We don't know whether CIA warning was explicit on these realities on the ground. According to the New York Times, it does warn that
security in the country is likely to deteriorate unless the Iraqi government makes significant progress in asserting its authority and building up the economy.
We wonder how the interim government would go about consolidating its authority when its security forces are deliberately targeted in the guerrilla war. As to building the economy, one needs to look closer at the systematic attacks that are carried out against the country's lifeline — the pipelines that pump oil to export terminals. Those behind the attacks mark time until each bombing before damages are repaired before striking again. Obviously, they are aware of the importance of the pipelines to any effort to rebuild the country's economy.
The CIA warning becomes all the more significant, given that it was issued after the US military claimed "victory" in overpowering the restive town of Fallujah and touted it as a landmark in efforts to pacify the country.
Obviously, that should also explain why American Ambassador to Iraq John D. Negroponte was said to have objected to the CIA's findings as too harsh. At the same time, the top American military commander in Iraq, General. George W. Casey, is said to have initially offered no objections.
The CIA warning is also said to fit in with a National Intelligence Estimate drawn up by in July and sent to the White House in August by American intelligence agencies which presented a "dark forecast for Iraq's future through the end of 2005."
That assessment outlined three possible developments, with "the best case" being "tenuous stability and the worst case included a chain of events leading to civil war," according to the New York Times.
President George W Bush, who had dismissed that assessment as nothing more than guesswork, should be taking the CIA warning more seriously — that is, indeed, if he has been given an accurate summary of what the intelligence agency had to say. Again, it is a point to be remembered here that those who control the flow of intelligence information to the president are not exactly known to convey bad news; they opt instead to doctor intelligence reports in a way that suits the neocon objective of pressing ahead with the belligerent policies of the administration regardless of American interests based on realities on the ground.
We don't know how detailed the CIA warning to the White House is. However, here are a few pointers — unsolicited, unwanted and undesirable as they might be to the US administration — to the realities in Iraq.
1. To a majority of the Iraqis, the American military presence is not welcome. They might have seen the Americans and allied forces as their liberators when the Saddam regime was toppled, but that euphoria did not last more than a few days.
2. Under the American-backed governance of their country today, Iraqis find themselves in worse shape than they were under the Saddam regime; they have erratic/expensive supplies of basic needs of life such as food, water and power; more than 40 per cent of the work force do not have jobs or the jobs they have are nowhere near their basic expectations; they have no security and live in perpetual fear for their life; many resent that American-backed Iraqis who lived in exile during the Saddam regime are now controlling them while those who suffered the atrocities of the toppled regime because of their political opposition have been shoved aside.
3. Many Iraqis believe that the invasion and occupation of their country was and is aimed at exploiting their country's natural resources, particularly that they know how the US administration of Iraq led by overseer Paul Bremer is said to have misused/diverted proceeds from the country's oil exports while funds allocated by the US Congress for reconstruction of Iraq were left unused because spending that money needed accurate accounting. The Iraqis have also seen how American giants like Halliburton and others are making billions in the name of rebuilding their country while they benefit little from the process.
4. The insurgency against the US-led coalition forces is as much as Iraq-specific it is retaliation for the injustices that American allies — most prominently Israel — have inflicted upon Muslims and Arabs. The brutality with which the US-led forces are handling the insurgency and the US military's shoot-first-ask-questions-later policy has made it impossible for the people of Iraq to accept that Washington means them any good. Tens of thousands of Iraqi families have been turned destitute as a result of American actions, and they would never be able to come to terms with the US role in their country. A classic example is the town of Fallujah, which was shattered beyond recognition in the recent American assault, with the bulk of the killed and wounded being civilians — mostly women and children — while the US military claims it as a victory against insurgents.
5. There might indeed be truth in the American assertion that the stepped-up violence and guerrilla attacks against the coalition forces and their allies aim at aborting elections scheduled for January. But the situation has to be seen in the broader context of the militants' quest to fight Americans anywhere and anytime.
6. The Sunnis of Iraq fear that the political changes in their country would be at their expense and they are determined to put up a stiff fight to make their point, with hopes that something might happen at some point sooner or later that would serve their interests. Surely, they have no idea what that "something" would be, and this makes it all the more dangerous for the US.
7. There are regional players who fear that it would be their turn for "regime change" after the US "pacifies" Iraq. As such, their vested interest is to ensure that the US is not given an opportunity to "contain" Iraq and turn its guns on others; and hence the cross-border flow of militants volunteering to fight the Americans.
No doubt, the American intelligence agencies are aware of the formidable challenge the Bush administration is facing in Iraq. Perhaps the "unusually candid" CIA warning is their way of telling the emperor he is indeed naked.
WHY doesn't the CIA's assessment and warning to the Bush administration that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and is not likely to rebound any time soon surprise us in this region? It is very simple: Commentators and analysts in the Middle East have known this for long and have been saying it at every given opportunity, but few in Washington seemed to care. Obviously, to admit that the US designs in Iraq have gone wrong wholesale and that Washington has a tiger by the tail in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq would not fit in with the schemes of the neoconservatives who orchestrated the invasion and occupation of that country in the first place.
As reported by the New York Times, the CIA warning is "unusually candid" and presented a bleak assessment on "matters of politics, economic and security." It did admit "important progress" in the political process and "credited Iraqis with being resilient."
Again, the reference to political process is indeed linked to the strides made by the US-backed interim government in the broader Arab context rather than within Iraq. And it is no revelation that Iraqis are resilient. After all, the people of Iraq have lived through the suffering of three wars since 1980 and their plight is all the more tough and difficult today than anytime in recent history. They endured the eight difficult years of war with Iran, followed by the Kuwait crisis and the consequent United Nations sanctions that had their economy in a stranglehold since 1990 until last year's US-led invasion that toppled the Saddam regime and installed the US military presence in the country.
Everyone — except those in Washington who do not want to accept it — know that the term "security" has become alien to the people of Iraq.
Reports from Iraq clearly indicate that no one is feeling safe anymore. Let us put together a summary of the reports in our own way:
Even if you have nothing to do with the either side, the US-led coalition force or the insurgents, you are exposed and vulnerable to threats that are very much real and could end up in you being dead.
In every neighbourhood, someone is watching you for signs where you belong, whether you are dealing with the coalition forces and the Iraqi National Guard or the insurgents. If you are siding with the coalition forces, then insurgents put a bomb in your car or your house. If you are seen having any links with the insurgents, then the US forces and the Iraqi national guards would come and pick you up, and lock you up to be subjected to torture to reveal what you might know about the guerrillas waging the war of resistance against the US forces and their allies.
People disappear overnight, and the families do not know who are responsible.
It is as if Saddam Hussein's regime is back where a midnight knock at your door means you are wanted. Your family would have no recourse to know what happened to you once Saddam's forces had taken you away.
It is the same that is happening these days in a much worse manner.
Threats and warnings are written on your house walls asking you to stay away from co-operating with the US forces. You better take the threat seriously or pay the price with your life. If you are a member of the Iraqi National Guards, you could be killed any time, even as you step out of your house to buy grocery. No wonder Iraqi guards mask their faces whenever they are on duty. They don't want to be identified and marked for death. Dozens of Iraqi policemen who had the misfortune of having being filmed at the scene of bombings and seen on television news were killed in less than 48 hours because they were identified by the insurgents.
Such is the level of intimidation and terror that prevails in Baghdad and other Iraqi towns and cities.
No one can protect you, least of all the US forces.
The innocent looking car parked on the kerb as you walk to buy bread could explode as you pass by; or a rocket could fall next to you and kill you instantly. Or your neighbour is an Iraqi guard whose house is attacked and you become part of the victims caught in the crossfire.
No one trusts anyone. All are suspects. Insurgents as well as informers for the US forces are among you and they could determine whether you live or not.
The threats are increasing now, with the January elections approaching. Graffiti is everywhere asking people to boycott the elections of face the wrath of "sons of Iraq" as insurgents call themselves.
Add to that the difficulties of daily life: Water and power supplies are erratic. Jobs are scarce, and those who are indeed employed have to be on constant alert against dangers lurking round the corner. Women are not safe beyond their walls.
We don't know whether CIA warning was explicit on these realities on the ground. According to the New York Times, it does warn that
security in the country is likely to deteriorate unless the Iraqi government makes significant progress in asserting its authority and building up the economy.
We wonder how the interim government would go about consolidating its authority when its security forces are deliberately targeted in the guerrilla war. As to building the economy, one needs to look closer at the systematic attacks that are carried out against the country's lifeline — the pipelines that pump oil to export terminals. Those behind the attacks mark time until each bombing before damages are repaired before striking again. Obviously, they are aware of the importance of the pipelines to any effort to rebuild the country's economy.
The CIA warning becomes all the more significant, given that it was issued after the US military claimed "victory" in overpowering the restive town of Fallujah and touted it as a landmark in efforts to pacify the country.
Obviously, that should also explain why American Ambassador to Iraq John D. Negroponte was said to have objected to the CIA's findings as too harsh. At the same time, the top American military commander in Iraq, General. George W. Casey, is said to have initially offered no objections.
The CIA warning is also said to fit in with a National Intelligence Estimate drawn up by in July and sent to the White House in August by American intelligence agencies which presented a "dark forecast for Iraq's future through the end of 2005."
That assessment outlined three possible developments, with "the best case" being "tenuous stability and the worst case included a chain of events leading to civil war," according to the New York Times.
President George W Bush, who had dismissed that assessment as nothing more than guesswork, should be taking the CIA warning more seriously — that is, indeed, if he has been given an accurate summary of what the intelligence agency had to say. Again, it is a point to be remembered here that those who control the flow of intelligence information to the president are not exactly known to convey bad news; they opt instead to doctor intelligence reports in a way that suits the neocon objective of pressing ahead with the belligerent policies of the administration regardless of American interests based on realities on the ground.
We don't know how detailed the CIA warning to the White House is. However, here are a few pointers — unsolicited, unwanted and undesirable as they might be to the US administration — to the realities in Iraq.
1. To a majority of the Iraqis, the American military presence is not welcome. They might have seen the Americans and allied forces as their liberators when the Saddam regime was toppled, but that euphoria did not last more than a few days.
2. Under the American-backed governance of their country today, Iraqis find themselves in worse shape than they were under the Saddam regime; they have erratic/expensive supplies of basic needs of life such as food, water and power; more than 40 per cent of the work force do not have jobs or the jobs they have are nowhere near their basic expectations; they have no security and live in perpetual fear for their life; many resent that American-backed Iraqis who lived in exile during the Saddam regime are now controlling them while those who suffered the atrocities of the toppled regime because of their political opposition have been shoved aside.
3. Many Iraqis believe that the invasion and occupation of their country was and is aimed at exploiting their country's natural resources, particularly that they know how the US administration of Iraq led by overseer Paul Bremer is said to have misused/diverted proceeds from the country's oil exports while funds allocated by the US Congress for reconstruction of Iraq were left unused because spending that money needed accurate accounting. The Iraqis have also seen how American giants like Halliburton and others are making billions in the name of rebuilding their country while they benefit little from the process.
4. The insurgency against the US-led coalition forces is as much as Iraq-specific it is retaliation for the injustices that American allies — most prominently Israel — have inflicted upon Muslims and Arabs. The brutality with which the US-led forces are handling the insurgency and the US military's shoot-first-ask-questions-later policy has made it impossible for the people of Iraq to accept that Washington means them any good. Tens of thousands of Iraqi families have been turned destitute as a result of American actions, and they would never be able to come to terms with the US role in their country. A classic example is the town of Fallujah, which was shattered beyond recognition in the recent American assault, with the bulk of the killed and wounded being civilians — mostly women and children — while the US military claims it as a victory against insurgents.
5. There might indeed be truth in the American assertion that the stepped-up violence and guerrilla attacks against the coalition forces and their allies aim at aborting elections scheduled for January. But the situation has to be seen in the broader context of the militants' quest to fight Americans anywhere and anytime.
6. The Sunnis of Iraq fear that the political changes in their country would be at their expense and they are determined to put up a stiff fight to make their point, with hopes that something might happen at some point sooner or later that would serve their interests. Surely, they have no idea what that "something" would be, and this makes it all the more dangerous for the US.
7. There are regional players who fear that it would be their turn for "regime change" after the US "pacifies" Iraq. As such, their vested interest is to ensure that the US is not given an opportunity to "contain" Iraq and turn its guns on others; and hence the cross-border flow of militants volunteering to fight the Americans.
No doubt, the American intelligence agencies are aware of the formidable challenge the Bush administration is facing in Iraq. Perhaps the "unusually candid" CIA warning is their way of telling the emperor he is indeed naked.
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Palestine - window or pinhole?
Dec.1, 2004
Peace in Palestine: A window or a pinhole?
PV Vivekanand
THE death of Yasser Arafat last month is touted as having cleared the way for the resumption of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians as if Arafat was blocking the talks. Indeed, that is the picture Israel had been trying to portray, but the realities on the ground are different. The "opportunity" for peace, as defined by the US, Europe and others, could be dashed as quickly as it emerged if Israel is not ready to drop its arrogance and intransigence and does not do what it takes to consolidate it. But is there a genuine political will in Israel to do that?
IT was an almost a foregone conclusion that Mahmoud Abbas, who inherited the chairmanship of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) from Yasser Arafat, would also be elected Palestinian president in January elections until it was reported on Wednesday that Marwan Barghouti has registered himself as a candidate.
Abbas's chance would be seriously set back if Barghouti's name appears on the ballot paper. His wife filed the registration on his behalf.
Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison, had already acquired more than the 5,000 signatures necessary to put his name on the ballot.
Palestinian officials said last week that Barghouti, who enjoys immense popularity among young Palestinians, had decided to run. But he opted to drop his candidacy a day later after coming under pressure from Fatah officials worried about a split in their movement.
If Barghouti does indeed enter the fray, things would change dramatically and throw new elements to any assessment. For the moment, let us go with the assumption that Abbas is the front-runner in the elections.
However, the elections in themselves are not an end to anything. They will only signal the beginning of efforts to work out a negotiated settlement for the Palestinian problem.
That is where the biggest questions pose themselves.
Is there any good faith left on the Israeli side that would help the negotiations arrive at a just and fair solution?
Or will it be a one-sided negotiation where Israel and the US would be bent upon forcing down the Palestinian throat their version of peace that have little to do with the legitimate territorial and political rights of the Palestinian people?
Is it possible for Abbas to settle for less than what Arafat had held out throughout the years? Is that what Israel and the US describe as the "opening" for peace in Palestine now that Arafat has become part of history?
Is it possible for the European Union to make good its promise to ensure that fairness, justice and international legitimacy would be the guiding factors for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement?
Is the European Union ready to detach itself away from the US-imposed shackles and assume an influential political role in the peace process?
Why do Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, and George W Bush, the American president, see "new hope" to negotiate "peace" with the Palestinians?
The answer might perhaps lie in the role that Abbas played in working out a secret agreement involving compromises on final status issues, such as Jerusalem, refugees, settlements and the character of the proposed State of Palestine.
This agreement, which Abbas and the then Israeli justice minister, Yossi Beilin, drew up in October 1995, is seen as the basis for all consecutive proposals, including the American-mediated offer made to Arafat during the Camp David negotiations of 2000 and the subsequent "Geneva Initiative."
The agreement also offers a compromise to allow some 120 to 130 Jewish settlements to remain in the West Bank and an Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley.
Abbas was also seen as ready to compromise on the demand for Arab East Jerusalem and settle for the Abu Dis neighourhood on the outskirts of the Holy City.
Commentators also note that Abbas is a vehement opponent on armed resistance against the Israeli occupation - another "plus point" that makes him acceptable to Sharon and Bush.
He has indicated that he is ready to take action against the groups waging armed struggle. "Every nation has opposition groups, but there are also laws and institutions," he said. "I am committed to having one authority and only one army and political pluralism."
The rival groups might not see it that way.
Sharon has pledged to help ease the situation in the occupied territories to make it conducive for the elections, including allowing occupied Arab East Jerusalemites to vote. However, it is not clear yet whether he would allow polling centres in Arab East Jerusalem, which Israel considers as part of its "eternal and indivisible capital."
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath put his finger on the pulse when he said Israeli promises must be matched now by action on the ground.
Speaking at a meeting with the EU foreign affairs chief, Javier Solana, which was also attended by foreign ministers also drawn from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey as well as Israel, Shaath said the post-Arafat leadership faced "absolutely daunting but absolutely necessary" challenges.
"There is optimism all around regarding this new drive to get the peace process back on line," he said.
However, he affirmed, "time is short" if the Palestinians are to get the ingredients in place for a successful election.
"Really if Israel were to act in good faith, and I hope it will, Israel should immediately allow the reopening of the voter registration offices in (Arab East) Jerusalem," Shaath said.
Israel should also pullout of all towns occupied since the start of the current Palestinian Intifada in 2000, end "assassinations, violence (and) incursions" and lift "checkpoints and things that make life absolutely impossible if you are going to conduct an election."
The EU has promised all help for the Palestinian elections and thereafter for building a Palestinian people.
The task ahead was underlined by German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer when he said the Palestinian election represented a "new opportunity" for Middle East peace, but "whether it could be used is an open question.
Indeed, it is as if Sharon and Bush could not wait to have Abbas in the hot seat of Palestinian presidency and extract concession after concession from him.
At the same time, the danger remains very much in view that Sharon might decide Abbas, if the Palestinian leader refused to accept the Israeli version of a peace agreement, is demanding too much and denounce him as a negotiating partner as he did with Arafat.
It needs no visionary powers to foresee that any sign of Abbas relenting to pressure on the basis of American-Israeli interpretations of what he accepted in the 1995 agreement would lead to an upheaval among the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Abbas has made it clear that he will be basis himself on the Quartet-backed "road map" for peace that envisions the creation of an independent Palestinian state through internationally backed negotiations. It called for the establishment of an independent state next year, but has been stalled since it was signed in June 2003.
After his re-election US President George Bush spoke of pushing for a Palestinian state in the next four years.
However, Sharon has made his acceptance of the "road map" proposal conditional on its backers — the UN, the US, the European Union and Russia — accepting Israeli-proposed amendments to it. This would prove to be a major hurdle as and when negotiations get ahead.
The quartet has already met and discussed options.
“We are all encouraged. We reaffirmed our determination to work with the Palestinian leadership to support the election” for a successor to Arafat, UN chief Kofi Annan said after a meeting in Sharm Al Sheikh, Egypt, last week.
“We must give them all the necessary support. There is an opportunity to ... move ahead with the road map.”
US Secretary of State Colin Powell reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to the blue print as the only peace plan on the table.
“The road map now is... the single plan that is being used by both parties as well as the international community to achieve a two-state settlement,” he said.
Palestinian sources said they expected the Americans to guarantee an Israeli withdrawal from all the main West Bank towns during the election period.
Powell has reassured the Palestinian officials that the US did not consider the Israeli proposed withdrawal from Gaza as a replacement for the road map.
For the moment, Sharon has promised to co-ordinate the planned Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). If he lives up to the pledge, then it could strengthen Abbas's hand against the potential challenge posed by Islamist groups which want the Gaza Strip under their control.
On the other hand, Sharon has the luxury of simply withdrawing the military and Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and sit back and watch PNA forces and rivals vying for domination of the coastal strip.
Egypt has stepped into the equation by promising to deploy additional troops along its volatile border with Gaza to help ensure quiet after the pullout.
Such deployment requires in the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement signed in Camp David in 1978, which limits the Egyptian military presence in the area.
The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, which is vying for Palestinian hearts and minds in direct competition with the PLO, has announced it will boycott the elections.
A Hamas boycott could raise questions about the credibility and legitimacy of the elections. However, Hamas leader Ismail Hanieh made it clear the group would honor the outcome of the elections.
Hanieh said the group was not calling on the Palestinian people to boycott the election, but Hamas members will stay away from the polls.
Hamas has tens of thousands of supporters and is particularly strong in the Gaza Strip, but there is no accurate estimate of its actual members.
Hamas took the decision since the presidential election is not coupled with polls to the legislative assembly and municipal councils. Legislative elections could be held in May.
Hamas is expected to do well in the legislative and municipal elections whenever held.
Hamas stayed away from the first Palestinian general election in 1996 because it was a result of the Oslo agreements with Israel which the group rejects.
Earlier, Hamas politburo member Mohammed Ghazal had said the group might run in the presidential elections in January by nominating a candidate or supporting a certain runner if it serves best the interests of the Palestinian people.
“Everything is expected in politics. The movement would nominate a candidate to run for Palestinian National Authority’s president if it is in the public interest,” Ghazal said.
However, Ghazal reiterated Hamas’ position that called for holding presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections.
Fateh got a big boost in elections this week to the student council of the Al Najah University the West Bank.
The Hamas-led Islamic bloc lost significant ground from the 48 seats it had held since the last student election in 2001. It was also the first victory for Fateh since it lost a majority in a close race in 1995 when Hamas gained ground.
Al Najah is the West Bank's largest university and is often cited as a barometer of political sentiment among young Palestinians.
Indeed, the election could be seen as a sympathy vote: Arafat's death may have tipped the vote in favour of Fateh as a tribute to the man who for decades led the Palestinian struggle for statehood.
"Nobody expected this huge victory for Fateh, not even Fateh itself," political science professor Nayef Abu Khalaf said.
"We feel there are several factors. One is the death of Arafat, the emotional factor. Definitely it had an effect."
Negating all hopes expressed by the US, the West, Arabs, Palestinians and all others is an assumption by Israeli peace activist Uri Avneri, who argues that Sharon is only interested in reacting and adjusting himself to developments and has no intention of making peace based on Palestinian rights.
According to Avneri, Sharon's determined campaign to portray Arafat as the main obstacle to peace was aimed averting the need to engage the Palestinians in negotiations. Now that Arafat is gone, Sharon's bluff is called but it is only a matter of time before the Israeli prime minister would throw a spanner in the works for peace, says Avneri.
"Contrary to all Israeli predictions, the Palestinian transfer of power has taken place in an orderly manner, much as in any civilised country," writes Avneri. "Within two months, new elections are to take place.
"That puts Sharon on the spot. He cannot object to elections, since they are the apple of Bush’s eye. He must not raise the slightest suspicion that he is undermining them. Any complaint about the Israeli army hindering elections by incursions, roadblocks and 'targeted assassinations' may arouse the ire of the White House.
According to Avneri, "Sharon is hoping that the Palestinians will sabotage their elections themselves." However, so far the process has gone ahead well, and Bush, driven by his self-declared goal of "democracy" in the Middle East would support Abbas, thus undermining Sharon's plans, he says.
Therefore Sharon will put up a different face in public while he tries to undermine all chances of peace, according to Avneri.
"Sharon will do everything he can to destroy" Abbas, who is also known as Abu Mazen, before the American muster enough pressure on Israel to start negotiations.
"Let no one have any illusions: Sharon will use every means, overt and covert, in order to destroy any 'moderate' Palestinian leadership," Avneri writes. "His natural ally is Hamas, which opposes any negotiations with Israel. As of now, Abu Mazen is enemy number one."
As the powers that be play politics, the Palestinian people continue to suffer.
A World Bank report released in late November said the Palestinian economy remains stagnant and nearly half of all Palestinians live in poverty.
The report – Intifada, Closures and Palestinian Economic Crisis: An Assessment – noted that as many as 600,000 Palestinians cannot afford to meet their basic needs in food, clothing and shelter to survive, sets the unemployment rate in 2003 at 25 per cent and 37 among young people and the poverty rate at 47 per cent. It attributes the situation mainly to the Israeli-imposed closures in occupied territories.
“Closures are a key factor behind today’s economic crisis in the West Bank. They have fragmented Palestinian economic space, raised the cost of doing business and eliminated the predictability needed to conduct business.”
Add to that the Israeli policy of collective punishment.
The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem reports that in the past four years 628 housing units, home to 3,983 people, were demolished by the Israeli army ostensibly because of the actions of 333 Palestinians. Forty-seven per cent of the houses demolished were not home to anyone suspected of involvement in attacks on Israelis, and in less than three per cent of cases were occupants given prior notice.
The world could only hope that the "changed" situation would offer them the chance for liberation and life in dignity, but those who really pull the strings are the Israelis and the Americans, and then the Israelis again in that order.
Hopes are indeed high in the post-Arafat era, but they seem fragile when seen in the light of the political realities. The "window" of opportunity for peace could easily turn out to be a pinhole that could be sealed off anytime.
Peace in Palestine: A window or a pinhole?
PV Vivekanand
THE death of Yasser Arafat last month is touted as having cleared the way for the resumption of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians as if Arafat was blocking the talks. Indeed, that is the picture Israel had been trying to portray, but the realities on the ground are different. The "opportunity" for peace, as defined by the US, Europe and others, could be dashed as quickly as it emerged if Israel is not ready to drop its arrogance and intransigence and does not do what it takes to consolidate it. But is there a genuine political will in Israel to do that?
IT was an almost a foregone conclusion that Mahmoud Abbas, who inherited the chairmanship of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) from Yasser Arafat, would also be elected Palestinian president in January elections until it was reported on Wednesday that Marwan Barghouti has registered himself as a candidate.
Abbas's chance would be seriously set back if Barghouti's name appears on the ballot paper. His wife filed the registration on his behalf.
Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison, had already acquired more than the 5,000 signatures necessary to put his name on the ballot.
Palestinian officials said last week that Barghouti, who enjoys immense popularity among young Palestinians, had decided to run. But he opted to drop his candidacy a day later after coming under pressure from Fatah officials worried about a split in their movement.
If Barghouti does indeed enter the fray, things would change dramatically and throw new elements to any assessment. For the moment, let us go with the assumption that Abbas is the front-runner in the elections.
However, the elections in themselves are not an end to anything. They will only signal the beginning of efforts to work out a negotiated settlement for the Palestinian problem.
That is where the biggest questions pose themselves.
Is there any good faith left on the Israeli side that would help the negotiations arrive at a just and fair solution?
Or will it be a one-sided negotiation where Israel and the US would be bent upon forcing down the Palestinian throat their version of peace that have little to do with the legitimate territorial and political rights of the Palestinian people?
Is it possible for Abbas to settle for less than what Arafat had held out throughout the years? Is that what Israel and the US describe as the "opening" for peace in Palestine now that Arafat has become part of history?
Is it possible for the European Union to make good its promise to ensure that fairness, justice and international legitimacy would be the guiding factors for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement?
Is the European Union ready to detach itself away from the US-imposed shackles and assume an influential political role in the peace process?
Why do Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, and George W Bush, the American president, see "new hope" to negotiate "peace" with the Palestinians?
The answer might perhaps lie in the role that Abbas played in working out a secret agreement involving compromises on final status issues, such as Jerusalem, refugees, settlements and the character of the proposed State of Palestine.
This agreement, which Abbas and the then Israeli justice minister, Yossi Beilin, drew up in October 1995, is seen as the basis for all consecutive proposals, including the American-mediated offer made to Arafat during the Camp David negotiations of 2000 and the subsequent "Geneva Initiative."
The agreement also offers a compromise to allow some 120 to 130 Jewish settlements to remain in the West Bank and an Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley.
Abbas was also seen as ready to compromise on the demand for Arab East Jerusalem and settle for the Abu Dis neighourhood on the outskirts of the Holy City.
Commentators also note that Abbas is a vehement opponent on armed resistance against the Israeli occupation - another "plus point" that makes him acceptable to Sharon and Bush.
He has indicated that he is ready to take action against the groups waging armed struggle. "Every nation has opposition groups, but there are also laws and institutions," he said. "I am committed to having one authority and only one army and political pluralism."
The rival groups might not see it that way.
Sharon has pledged to help ease the situation in the occupied territories to make it conducive for the elections, including allowing occupied Arab East Jerusalemites to vote. However, it is not clear yet whether he would allow polling centres in Arab East Jerusalem, which Israel considers as part of its "eternal and indivisible capital."
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath put his finger on the pulse when he said Israeli promises must be matched now by action on the ground.
Speaking at a meeting with the EU foreign affairs chief, Javier Solana, which was also attended by foreign ministers also drawn from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey as well as Israel, Shaath said the post-Arafat leadership faced "absolutely daunting but absolutely necessary" challenges.
"There is optimism all around regarding this new drive to get the peace process back on line," he said.
However, he affirmed, "time is short" if the Palestinians are to get the ingredients in place for a successful election.
"Really if Israel were to act in good faith, and I hope it will, Israel should immediately allow the reopening of the voter registration offices in (Arab East) Jerusalem," Shaath said.
Israel should also pullout of all towns occupied since the start of the current Palestinian Intifada in 2000, end "assassinations, violence (and) incursions" and lift "checkpoints and things that make life absolutely impossible if you are going to conduct an election."
The EU has promised all help for the Palestinian elections and thereafter for building a Palestinian people.
The task ahead was underlined by German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer when he said the Palestinian election represented a "new opportunity" for Middle East peace, but "whether it could be used is an open question.
Indeed, it is as if Sharon and Bush could not wait to have Abbas in the hot seat of Palestinian presidency and extract concession after concession from him.
At the same time, the danger remains very much in view that Sharon might decide Abbas, if the Palestinian leader refused to accept the Israeli version of a peace agreement, is demanding too much and denounce him as a negotiating partner as he did with Arafat.
It needs no visionary powers to foresee that any sign of Abbas relenting to pressure on the basis of American-Israeli interpretations of what he accepted in the 1995 agreement would lead to an upheaval among the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Abbas has made it clear that he will be basis himself on the Quartet-backed "road map" for peace that envisions the creation of an independent Palestinian state through internationally backed negotiations. It called for the establishment of an independent state next year, but has been stalled since it was signed in June 2003.
After his re-election US President George Bush spoke of pushing for a Palestinian state in the next four years.
However, Sharon has made his acceptance of the "road map" proposal conditional on its backers — the UN, the US, the European Union and Russia — accepting Israeli-proposed amendments to it. This would prove to be a major hurdle as and when negotiations get ahead.
The quartet has already met and discussed options.
“We are all encouraged. We reaffirmed our determination to work with the Palestinian leadership to support the election” for a successor to Arafat, UN chief Kofi Annan said after a meeting in Sharm Al Sheikh, Egypt, last week.
“We must give them all the necessary support. There is an opportunity to ... move ahead with the road map.”
US Secretary of State Colin Powell reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to the blue print as the only peace plan on the table.
“The road map now is... the single plan that is being used by both parties as well as the international community to achieve a two-state settlement,” he said.
Palestinian sources said they expected the Americans to guarantee an Israeli withdrawal from all the main West Bank towns during the election period.
Powell has reassured the Palestinian officials that the US did not consider the Israeli proposed withdrawal from Gaza as a replacement for the road map.
For the moment, Sharon has promised to co-ordinate the planned Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). If he lives up to the pledge, then it could strengthen Abbas's hand against the potential challenge posed by Islamist groups which want the Gaza Strip under their control.
On the other hand, Sharon has the luxury of simply withdrawing the military and Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and sit back and watch PNA forces and rivals vying for domination of the coastal strip.
Egypt has stepped into the equation by promising to deploy additional troops along its volatile border with Gaza to help ensure quiet after the pullout.
Such deployment requires in the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement signed in Camp David in 1978, which limits the Egyptian military presence in the area.
The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, which is vying for Palestinian hearts and minds in direct competition with the PLO, has announced it will boycott the elections.
A Hamas boycott could raise questions about the credibility and legitimacy of the elections. However, Hamas leader Ismail Hanieh made it clear the group would honor the outcome of the elections.
Hanieh said the group was not calling on the Palestinian people to boycott the election, but Hamas members will stay away from the polls.
Hamas has tens of thousands of supporters and is particularly strong in the Gaza Strip, but there is no accurate estimate of its actual members.
Hamas took the decision since the presidential election is not coupled with polls to the legislative assembly and municipal councils. Legislative elections could be held in May.
Hamas is expected to do well in the legislative and municipal elections whenever held.
Hamas stayed away from the first Palestinian general election in 1996 because it was a result of the Oslo agreements with Israel which the group rejects.
Earlier, Hamas politburo member Mohammed Ghazal had said the group might run in the presidential elections in January by nominating a candidate or supporting a certain runner if it serves best the interests of the Palestinian people.
“Everything is expected in politics. The movement would nominate a candidate to run for Palestinian National Authority’s president if it is in the public interest,” Ghazal said.
However, Ghazal reiterated Hamas’ position that called for holding presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections.
Fateh got a big boost in elections this week to the student council of the Al Najah University the West Bank.
The Hamas-led Islamic bloc lost significant ground from the 48 seats it had held since the last student election in 2001. It was also the first victory for Fateh since it lost a majority in a close race in 1995 when Hamas gained ground.
Al Najah is the West Bank's largest university and is often cited as a barometer of political sentiment among young Palestinians.
Indeed, the election could be seen as a sympathy vote: Arafat's death may have tipped the vote in favour of Fateh as a tribute to the man who for decades led the Palestinian struggle for statehood.
"Nobody expected this huge victory for Fateh, not even Fateh itself," political science professor Nayef Abu Khalaf said.
"We feel there are several factors. One is the death of Arafat, the emotional factor. Definitely it had an effect."
Negating all hopes expressed by the US, the West, Arabs, Palestinians and all others is an assumption by Israeli peace activist Uri Avneri, who argues that Sharon is only interested in reacting and adjusting himself to developments and has no intention of making peace based on Palestinian rights.
According to Avneri, Sharon's determined campaign to portray Arafat as the main obstacle to peace was aimed averting the need to engage the Palestinians in negotiations. Now that Arafat is gone, Sharon's bluff is called but it is only a matter of time before the Israeli prime minister would throw a spanner in the works for peace, says Avneri.
"Contrary to all Israeli predictions, the Palestinian transfer of power has taken place in an orderly manner, much as in any civilised country," writes Avneri. "Within two months, new elections are to take place.
"That puts Sharon on the spot. He cannot object to elections, since they are the apple of Bush’s eye. He must not raise the slightest suspicion that he is undermining them. Any complaint about the Israeli army hindering elections by incursions, roadblocks and 'targeted assassinations' may arouse the ire of the White House.
According to Avneri, "Sharon is hoping that the Palestinians will sabotage their elections themselves." However, so far the process has gone ahead well, and Bush, driven by his self-declared goal of "democracy" in the Middle East would support Abbas, thus undermining Sharon's plans, he says.
Therefore Sharon will put up a different face in public while he tries to undermine all chances of peace, according to Avneri.
"Sharon will do everything he can to destroy" Abbas, who is also known as Abu Mazen, before the American muster enough pressure on Israel to start negotiations.
"Let no one have any illusions: Sharon will use every means, overt and covert, in order to destroy any 'moderate' Palestinian leadership," Avneri writes. "His natural ally is Hamas, which opposes any negotiations with Israel. As of now, Abu Mazen is enemy number one."
As the powers that be play politics, the Palestinian people continue to suffer.
A World Bank report released in late November said the Palestinian economy remains stagnant and nearly half of all Palestinians live in poverty.
The report – Intifada, Closures and Palestinian Economic Crisis: An Assessment – noted that as many as 600,000 Palestinians cannot afford to meet their basic needs in food, clothing and shelter to survive, sets the unemployment rate in 2003 at 25 per cent and 37 among young people and the poverty rate at 47 per cent. It attributes the situation mainly to the Israeli-imposed closures in occupied territories.
“Closures are a key factor behind today’s economic crisis in the West Bank. They have fragmented Palestinian economic space, raised the cost of doing business and eliminated the predictability needed to conduct business.”
Add to that the Israeli policy of collective punishment.
The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem reports that in the past four years 628 housing units, home to 3,983 people, were demolished by the Israeli army ostensibly because of the actions of 333 Palestinians. Forty-seven per cent of the houses demolished were not home to anyone suspected of involvement in attacks on Israelis, and in less than three per cent of cases were occupants given prior notice.
The world could only hope that the "changed" situation would offer them the chance for liberation and life in dignity, but those who really pull the strings are the Israelis and the Americans, and then the Israelis again in that order.
Hopes are indeed high in the post-Arafat era, but they seem fragile when seen in the light of the political realities. The "window" of opportunity for peace could easily turn out to be a pinhole that could be sealed off anytime.
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