January 21, 2007
There goes Somalia again
THE attacks against the presidential residence in Mogadishu on Friday and against an Ethiopian military convoy on Saturday appear to signal the launch of a guerrilla war in Somalia along the lines of what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such incidents are likely to delay the departure of the Ethiopian forces from Somalia and that in turn would be an added incentive for guerrilla war to the Islamist forces who were dislodged from their strongholds in the recent Ethiopian offensive backed by the US.
An African Union (AU) force is being assembled to be deployed in Somalia and it is also likely to be targeted by the Islamist forces.
If we were go by the US argument that the Islamists are aligned with Al Qaeda, then it follows that they would engage in suicide bombings and ambushes that have come to be associated with the group in Iraq and Afghanistan.
There is no dearth of weapons available to the Islamists in order to wage an effective guerrilla war against the Ethiopian forces, government soliders and the African Union soldiers to be deployed in the Horn of African country.
Indeed, the Islamists appear to be trying to pre-empt the deployment of the African forces by staging attacks against the Ethiopian soldiers and landmarks of authority of the interim government in the country. A raging war of attrition in Somalia would stop the various African countries in their tracks from sending soldiers to keep peace there.
If anything, the Ethiopians are helping the Islamist goal of strengthening the insurgency.
From the accounts of Somali victims caught in Saturday's crossfire and eyewitnesses, the Ethiopian soldiers opened fire indiscriminately when they came under attack and killed four people and wounded several people.
As one of them recounted, "They shot at me and the others indiscriminately ... they shot everybody who was moving around."
If true, then such behaviour would only add to the intensity of the conflict. It is obvious in Iraq that many Iraqis who suffered heavily — most of them lost their entire families — from the highhanded behaviour of the US forces and allies have joined the ranks of insurgence simply for the sake of exacting revenge for their loss and agony. That is the very nature of civil conflicts as we have learnt from history.
The foreign forces present in Iraq are perfect targets for the larger groups of Iraqi Sunni insurgents and the much smaller groups of so-called international "jihadists" (a la Al Qaeda). The same is true for the Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants in Afghanistan. In both cases, it is impossible to see an end to the conflict except when dealt from within an internal framework. The story is going to be repeated in Somalia, and no one seems to have any answers to the big questions that need to be answered before the world could feel that things are turning around for the halpless people of Somalia who have been paying and are continuing to pay a heavy price for the tribe-based politics and tug-of-war that once characterised their country's conflict.
Of course it does not mean that there is no optimism for Somalia. A released on Friday by an African Union fact-finding mission says that the recent developments in Somalia "represent a unique and unprecedented opportunity to re-establish the structures of governance and further peace and reconciliation in Somalia."
UN envoy Francois Fall, who concluded after a lightning visit to Mogadishu on Thursday, says that that "this is the best opportunity for peace for 16 years in Somalia and we must not waste it."
Indeed, it is mostly up to the people of Somalia to realise that it is their future that they would be playing with if they continued on the path of aggressive designs against each other.
The Islamists could not be expected to come around to accepting it easily, and the responsibility rests with the government of President Abdullahi Yusuf, the tribal warlords and their followers to accept that the future of their country depends on their willingness to pursue reconciliation rather than settle scores. Parallel to that the international community should step in with generous aid — distributed under strict supervision and away from the corruption that was associated with past efforts in the country — to kindle a feeling among the people of Somalia that they stand to lose something if they continued on their violent ways. Without a concerted push backed by the world, Somalia would slip deeper into crises and become breeding-ground for militancy and extremism.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Friday, January 19, 2007
More to it than meets the eye
Jan.19, 2007
More to it than meets the eye
A revelation by an Israeli newspaper that Israelis and Syrians were engaged in secret negotiations but did not resume the talks after last year's Israeli assault on Lebanon could be interpreted in many ways. The Israeli and Syrian governments have denied the report, but it has been more or less confirmed that bilateral talks did take place with government approval but no senior official attended the meetings.
The revelation remind us of the secret negotiations that Israel launched with the Palestinians that led to the 1993 Oslo agreement they signed. The negotiations were held in Norway parallel to formal talks that were launched at an international conference in Madrid in 1991. The Oslo agreement signed in September 1993 was then seen as a major breakthrough since it led to mutual recognition by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). It set out a process that should have led to negotiations on a final peace agreement in five years had it not been for political upheavals in Israel and the assumption of power by hardliners who had opposed the Oslo deal in the first place.
The secret Syrina-Israeli meetings that were held in Europe from September 2004 to June 2006 are described as an academic exercise by the Israelis. However, no such talks could take place without Israeli government approval.
The confirmation that Israel and Syria held secret talks indicates that there is an Israeli willingness to reopen the Syria file. In recent years, the file was believed to be closed forever because it was deemed impossible for either side to make compromises over their demands. Syria wants the entire Golan Heights — which Israel seized in 1967 — returned to its sovereignty and is willing to recognise the state of Israel and normalise relations with it in exchange for the strategic heights, which overlooks Lake Tiberias in northern Israel.
It is possible that the disclosure of talks was aimed at "exposing" Syria — that Damascus had held secret talks with Israel while engaging in anti-Israeli rhetorics to placate the Palestinians and Hizbollah. However, it would not have the desired effect because it is widely accepted that Israel and the Arabs would have to make peace sooner or later and there should be nothing untoward in Damascus exploring possibilities of securing its demands in return for normalisation of ties with the Jewish state.
Israel should be interested in exploring possibilities of making peace with Syria, but the problem is that it wants to impose conditions and wants to put the cart before the horse.
It wants Syria to expel Palestinian groups based in Syrian territory and stop backing Lebanon's Hizbollah group. Damascus could not meet the Israeli demand because it sees its links with the Palestinian groups and Hizbollah as strategically important. Its implicit argument is that its relations with the Palestinian groups and Hizbollah would cease to be an issue when it makes peace with Israel.
While denying the Israeli report of secret talks, the official Syrian media — which relay leadership thinking — said Damascus said it did not want secret negotiations, and what it wanted was an Israeli pledge to return the Golan Heights. That is the crux of the matter.
Perhaps the times is opportune for a new push towards Israeli-Syrian peace because the geopolitics have changed since the last time they met.
Israel should have learnt that it has lost its deterrent capabilities when it failed to break Hizbollahs' resistance during last year's war.
There is no doubt that Syria holds the key to preventing another Israeli war on Lebanon, and this realisation should be the motivating factor for Israeli leaders to re-engage the Syrians in negotiations — in secret or in public as long as they have accepted the inevitability of having to return the Golan to Syria.
More to it than meets the eye
A revelation by an Israeli newspaper that Israelis and Syrians were engaged in secret negotiations but did not resume the talks after last year's Israeli assault on Lebanon could be interpreted in many ways. The Israeli and Syrian governments have denied the report, but it has been more or less confirmed that bilateral talks did take place with government approval but no senior official attended the meetings.
The revelation remind us of the secret negotiations that Israel launched with the Palestinians that led to the 1993 Oslo agreement they signed. The negotiations were held in Norway parallel to formal talks that were launched at an international conference in Madrid in 1991. The Oslo agreement signed in September 1993 was then seen as a major breakthrough since it led to mutual recognition by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). It set out a process that should have led to negotiations on a final peace agreement in five years had it not been for political upheavals in Israel and the assumption of power by hardliners who had opposed the Oslo deal in the first place.
The secret Syrina-Israeli meetings that were held in Europe from September 2004 to June 2006 are described as an academic exercise by the Israelis. However, no such talks could take place without Israeli government approval.
The confirmation that Israel and Syria held secret talks indicates that there is an Israeli willingness to reopen the Syria file. In recent years, the file was believed to be closed forever because it was deemed impossible for either side to make compromises over their demands. Syria wants the entire Golan Heights — which Israel seized in 1967 — returned to its sovereignty and is willing to recognise the state of Israel and normalise relations with it in exchange for the strategic heights, which overlooks Lake Tiberias in northern Israel.
It is possible that the disclosure of talks was aimed at "exposing" Syria — that Damascus had held secret talks with Israel while engaging in anti-Israeli rhetorics to placate the Palestinians and Hizbollah. However, it would not have the desired effect because it is widely accepted that Israel and the Arabs would have to make peace sooner or later and there should be nothing untoward in Damascus exploring possibilities of securing its demands in return for normalisation of ties with the Jewish state.
Israel should be interested in exploring possibilities of making peace with Syria, but the problem is that it wants to impose conditions and wants to put the cart before the horse.
It wants Syria to expel Palestinian groups based in Syrian territory and stop backing Lebanon's Hizbollah group. Damascus could not meet the Israeli demand because it sees its links with the Palestinian groups and Hizbollah as strategically important. Its implicit argument is that its relations with the Palestinian groups and Hizbollah would cease to be an issue when it makes peace with Israel.
While denying the Israeli report of secret talks, the official Syrian media — which relay leadership thinking — said Damascus said it did not want secret negotiations, and what it wanted was an Israeli pledge to return the Golan Heights. That is the crux of the matter.
Perhaps the times is opportune for a new push towards Israeli-Syrian peace because the geopolitics have changed since the last time they met.
Israel should have learnt that it has lost its deterrent capabilities when it failed to break Hizbollahs' resistance during last year's war.
There is no doubt that Syria holds the key to preventing another Israeli war on Lebanon, and this realisation should be the motivating factor for Israeli leaders to re-engage the Syrians in negotiations — in secret or in public as long as they have accepted the inevitability of having to return the Golan to Syria.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Side-stepping the imperatives
January 17, 2007
Side-stepping the imperatives
THE US is barking at the wrong tree in Afghanistan. Not that it should be surprising, given the example of Iraq. The mistake that Washington is making is that it is not ready to accept that the insurgents it faces in Afghanistan are very much sons of the Afghan soil and they are fighting on their own territory and are not sent there by a foreign force to challenge the sole superpower in the world.
The US military is also unwilling to recognise that Pakistan has an interest in Afghanistan's stability and it does make sense to accuse Pakistan of helping the insurgents by sheltering them on the border.
Islambad has a problem on its own in its hands posed by the unruly and unweildy tribes living in areas straddling the border with Afghanistan, but it has to devise its own methods and means to deal with them. External solutions would not work.
The US should not expect or pressure Pakistan to unleash summary military action to "clean up" the suspected areas. Such action would only add to the instability of the border area and deprive the government in Islamadad of whatever popularity in has in those areas.
Pakistan is trying to do what it could. It did so again on Tuesday when it bombed five suspected Al Qaeda hideouts near the border as US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was visiting Afghanistan for the first time after assuming office.
Gates's talks with Afghan leaders are unlikely to produce any dramatic breakthrough in the effort to eliminate the Taliban-led insurgency.
By treating the Taliban insurgents as alien to Afghanistan and not working towards bringing them into the political process through dialogue, the US is compounding its problems in the country, which it invaded in late 2001 to dislodge the hardline group from power after it refused to hand over Osaman Bin Laden.
More than five years later, the US and allied forces find themselves caught in a vicious guerrilla war with Taliban fighters who, everyone thought at one point, had become part of the history of a land that had always eluded foreign efforts to control it.
In the short term, the International Stabilisation Force in Afghanistan (IFSA) and the US military could score a few hits against the insurgents as it did last week when it claimed it killed some 130 of them in one of the largest winter battles in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
The Taliban rejected the claim, and the group's purported spokesman who issued the rejection was said to have been arrested after he crossed into the country from Pakistan on Tuesday.
Questioning the man could produce clues to the whereabouts of Bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar who are reportedly being sheltered somewhere along the porous Afghan-Pak border. Of course, securing a clue is something and actually capturing the fugitives is something else. Bin Laden and Mullah Omar have eluded capture for more than give years, and even US President George W Bush has suggested that it is no longer relevant whether they are captured.
That is of course an implicit and perhaps unwitting admission that the insurgency in Afghanistan — as the larger one in Iraq — has assumed an independent nature without having to wait for orders from a centralised leadership, which Al Qaeda never had in any event.
As such, it would apepar that the foreign forces would not be able to sustain the momentum against the Taliban, who enjoy support from the local residents. Such is the Afghan nature that there is always someone to replace a fallen fighter, and this means the ranks of insurgents will not remain vacant for long.
Most of these issues are peripheral to the key challenge the US and its allies face in deeply troubled Afghanistan — how to contain the insurgency and make the country governable. In order to arrive at that point, the US, the Afghan government and their supporters and allies have to turn attention to daily life issues of the people of Afghanistan parallel to engaging the Taliban in dialogue on an equal footing with all others. Not that the Taliban appear to be desparate or even anxious for dialogue. But keeping the Taliban at arms length would only turn the situation more vicious for the foreign soldiers and government forces in Afghanistan than it is today.
Side-stepping the imperatives
THE US is barking at the wrong tree in Afghanistan. Not that it should be surprising, given the example of Iraq. The mistake that Washington is making is that it is not ready to accept that the insurgents it faces in Afghanistan are very much sons of the Afghan soil and they are fighting on their own territory and are not sent there by a foreign force to challenge the sole superpower in the world.
The US military is also unwilling to recognise that Pakistan has an interest in Afghanistan's stability and it does make sense to accuse Pakistan of helping the insurgents by sheltering them on the border.
Islambad has a problem on its own in its hands posed by the unruly and unweildy tribes living in areas straddling the border with Afghanistan, but it has to devise its own methods and means to deal with them. External solutions would not work.
The US should not expect or pressure Pakistan to unleash summary military action to "clean up" the suspected areas. Such action would only add to the instability of the border area and deprive the government in Islamadad of whatever popularity in has in those areas.
Pakistan is trying to do what it could. It did so again on Tuesday when it bombed five suspected Al Qaeda hideouts near the border as US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was visiting Afghanistan for the first time after assuming office.
Gates's talks with Afghan leaders are unlikely to produce any dramatic breakthrough in the effort to eliminate the Taliban-led insurgency.
By treating the Taliban insurgents as alien to Afghanistan and not working towards bringing them into the political process through dialogue, the US is compounding its problems in the country, which it invaded in late 2001 to dislodge the hardline group from power after it refused to hand over Osaman Bin Laden.
More than five years later, the US and allied forces find themselves caught in a vicious guerrilla war with Taliban fighters who, everyone thought at one point, had become part of the history of a land that had always eluded foreign efforts to control it.
In the short term, the International Stabilisation Force in Afghanistan (IFSA) and the US military could score a few hits against the insurgents as it did last week when it claimed it killed some 130 of them in one of the largest winter battles in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
The Taliban rejected the claim, and the group's purported spokesman who issued the rejection was said to have been arrested after he crossed into the country from Pakistan on Tuesday.
Questioning the man could produce clues to the whereabouts of Bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar who are reportedly being sheltered somewhere along the porous Afghan-Pak border. Of course, securing a clue is something and actually capturing the fugitives is something else. Bin Laden and Mullah Omar have eluded capture for more than give years, and even US President George W Bush has suggested that it is no longer relevant whether they are captured.
That is of course an implicit and perhaps unwitting admission that the insurgency in Afghanistan — as the larger one in Iraq — has assumed an independent nature without having to wait for orders from a centralised leadership, which Al Qaeda never had in any event.
As such, it would apepar that the foreign forces would not be able to sustain the momentum against the Taliban, who enjoy support from the local residents. Such is the Afghan nature that there is always someone to replace a fallen fighter, and this means the ranks of insurgents will not remain vacant for long.
Most of these issues are peripheral to the key challenge the US and its allies face in deeply troubled Afghanistan — how to contain the insurgency and make the country governable. In order to arrive at that point, the US, the Afghan government and their supporters and allies have to turn attention to daily life issues of the people of Afghanistan parallel to engaging the Taliban in dialogue on an equal footing with all others. Not that the Taliban appear to be desparate or even anxious for dialogue. But keeping the Taliban at arms length would only turn the situation more vicious for the foreign soldiers and government forces in Afghanistan than it is today.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Region pays for US misadventures
Jan.16, 2007
Region pays for US misadventures
IT IS amusing yet disgusting to hear the Bush administration continuing to insist that critics of the administration's new strategy in Iraq and its refusal to quit the war-torn country are playing into the hands of Osama Bin Laden and global terrorism. It not only sounds like a cracked music record with a broken needle but also like a high-stinking stale dish served in a new plate.
Even the Americans know it. Here is a typical and telling commentary by McClatchy Newspapers: "President Bush and his aides, explaining their reasons for sending more American troops to Iraq, are offering an incomplete, oversimplified and possibly untrue version of events there that raises new questions about the accuracy of the administration's statements about Iraq."
In simpler words, the writer is accusing the Bush administration of lying to the American people and the international community at large.
The argument the Bush administration puts up is a blatant denial of the fact that it is the US military occupation of Iraq that is the root cause of the crisis that Washington is facing in the country. Iraq has become a breeding ground for militancy, with the US soldiers present there presenting a convenient target for the so-called "international jihadists," who, contrary to US arguments, represent less than 10 per cent of anti-US insurgents in the country. The others are Iraqis themselves whose agenda is Iraq-specific, and their number would only grow with every high-handed American military action in the country. They are fighting a guerrilla war against the foreign military occupiers of their country as much as whom them see as the local allies of the occupiers. Forgotten or sidestepped is the reality that they are also killing far more innocent Iraqis than American soldiers on a daily basis, and there could be no justification whatsover for it.
US Vice-President Dick Cheney, who played the leading role in the scenario that led to the invasion and occupation of Iraq and who is naturally the most ardent advocate of continued US military presence there, portrays the confrontation in Iraq as a conflict between the US and Osama Bin Laden.
"Bin Laden doesn't think he can beat us. He believes he can force us to quit," Cheney said on Sunday. "He believes after Lebanon and Somalia, the United States doesn't have the stomach for a long war and Iraq is the current central battlefield in that war, and it's essential we win there and we will win there," argued Cheney, who is described as the most influential and powerful vice-president in US history.
"They're convinced that the United States will, in fact, pack it in and go home if they just kill enough of us," he said.
True indeed. What Cheney left unsaid in so many words was that withdrawing from Iraq would deal a severe blow to the US image as the world's sole superpower and leave a major dent in Washington's self-declared determination to fight global terrorism.
Simultaneously, there is the multi-billion-dollar angle, which, many critics of the war argue, was and is one of the key administration considerations in Iraq.
Cheney is actually targeting members of Congress who are threatening to withhold funds for the war in Iraq. Denial of funds would not only deadlock the US role in Iraq but also deprive Bush-administration-linked American corporates of business worth of billions of dollars.
These corporates make thousands of dollars per American soldier per day in Iraq. They invoice the US government for unsupplied goods and unoffered services and inflate bills by hundreds of millions of dollars and get paid without questions being asked. They should be rubbing their knuckles in glee in the wake of Bush's announcement last week that he was sending 21,500 soldiers to join the 132,000 US troops already deployed in Iraq. They and their patrons in the administration would be deeply disappointed if they are denied the easy chance to make billions of dollars in American taxpayers' money.
Indeed, it is the American system and money, and the people raising an uproar over being taken for a ride by the administration should be Americans themselves. But the issue ceases to be an all-American affair because the Gulf region and the wider Middle East have a key stake in it when the US ride is over an Arab country and Arab people and is leaving major waves in its wake that have serious regional implications.
Region pays for US misadventures
IT IS amusing yet disgusting to hear the Bush administration continuing to insist that critics of the administration's new strategy in Iraq and its refusal to quit the war-torn country are playing into the hands of Osama Bin Laden and global terrorism. It not only sounds like a cracked music record with a broken needle but also like a high-stinking stale dish served in a new plate.
Even the Americans know it. Here is a typical and telling commentary by McClatchy Newspapers: "President Bush and his aides, explaining their reasons for sending more American troops to Iraq, are offering an incomplete, oversimplified and possibly untrue version of events there that raises new questions about the accuracy of the administration's statements about Iraq."
In simpler words, the writer is accusing the Bush administration of lying to the American people and the international community at large.
The argument the Bush administration puts up is a blatant denial of the fact that it is the US military occupation of Iraq that is the root cause of the crisis that Washington is facing in the country. Iraq has become a breeding ground for militancy, with the US soldiers present there presenting a convenient target for the so-called "international jihadists," who, contrary to US arguments, represent less than 10 per cent of anti-US insurgents in the country. The others are Iraqis themselves whose agenda is Iraq-specific, and their number would only grow with every high-handed American military action in the country. They are fighting a guerrilla war against the foreign military occupiers of their country as much as whom them see as the local allies of the occupiers. Forgotten or sidestepped is the reality that they are also killing far more innocent Iraqis than American soldiers on a daily basis, and there could be no justification whatsover for it.
US Vice-President Dick Cheney, who played the leading role in the scenario that led to the invasion and occupation of Iraq and who is naturally the most ardent advocate of continued US military presence there, portrays the confrontation in Iraq as a conflict between the US and Osama Bin Laden.
"Bin Laden doesn't think he can beat us. He believes he can force us to quit," Cheney said on Sunday. "He believes after Lebanon and Somalia, the United States doesn't have the stomach for a long war and Iraq is the current central battlefield in that war, and it's essential we win there and we will win there," argued Cheney, who is described as the most influential and powerful vice-president in US history.
"They're convinced that the United States will, in fact, pack it in and go home if they just kill enough of us," he said.
True indeed. What Cheney left unsaid in so many words was that withdrawing from Iraq would deal a severe blow to the US image as the world's sole superpower and leave a major dent in Washington's self-declared determination to fight global terrorism.
Simultaneously, there is the multi-billion-dollar angle, which, many critics of the war argue, was and is one of the key administration considerations in Iraq.
Cheney is actually targeting members of Congress who are threatening to withhold funds for the war in Iraq. Denial of funds would not only deadlock the US role in Iraq but also deprive Bush-administration-linked American corporates of business worth of billions of dollars.
These corporates make thousands of dollars per American soldier per day in Iraq. They invoice the US government for unsupplied goods and unoffered services and inflate bills by hundreds of millions of dollars and get paid without questions being asked. They should be rubbing their knuckles in glee in the wake of Bush's announcement last week that he was sending 21,500 soldiers to join the 132,000 US troops already deployed in Iraq. They and their patrons in the administration would be deeply disappointed if they are denied the easy chance to make billions of dollars in American taxpayers' money.
Indeed, it is the American system and money, and the people raising an uproar over being taken for a ride by the administration should be Americans themselves. But the issue ceases to be an all-American affair because the Gulf region and the wider Middle East have a key stake in it when the US ride is over an Arab country and Arab people and is leaving major waves in its wake that have serious regional implications.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Logic, reason in short supply
January 1, 2007
Logic and reason in acute short supply
The 135,000-strong US force could not overpower the Sunni insurgents — whose community represents around 20 per cent of the 25-million population in Iraq. How could a 155,000 or 165,000-strong US force — including the proposed 20,000-30,000-strong addition — take on the heavily armed Shiite militiamen — whose community represents over 55 per cent of the Iraqi population?
These are simple numbers. The strength of the Sunni insurgents and anti-US Shiite militiaman need not necessarily be proportionate to their percentage of the Iraqi population. However, it is simple logic that a force which failed to subdue the minority Sunnis would not be able to successfully take on the majority Shiites plus of course the Sunnis with a 20 per cent increase in the numerical strength (unless the US force is permitted to use weapons of mass destruction to carry out indiscriminate massacres of tens of thousands of Iraqis and reduce the population of Iraq by a few millions).
US military commanders have opposed, many in private and some in public, the proposed "surge" in troops planned by President George W Bush, who is not only listening to them but is also punishing them, both directly and indirectly, for speaking out.
Bush's obvious determination to "stay the course" in Iraq defies all political and military odds.
It was the popular sentiment against the war in Iraq that led to Bush's Republican camp's defeat in November's mid-term elections. The Democrats have taken over the US Congress and are threatening to withhold funds for the war. The Iraqi Study Group has recommended that the US should withdraw from Iraq. Recent opinion polls show that just around 20 per cent of American believe that there is any sense in continuing the US military presence in Iraq. And the number of American soldiers dying in action in Iraq is climbing.
Even in his alliances with Shiites in Iraq, Bush is finding it extremely difficult to proceed as is evident in the failure of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki to check the ethnic cleansing campaign run largely by Shiite militiamen but also to a limited scale by Sunnis, or even to protect innocent civilians, both Shiites and Sunnis.
It is also clear that the Bush plan involves targeting the Shiite Mahdi Army of Moqtada Sadr for elimination, and that could trigger a series of events that would find the US military bogged down in a war of attrition from which there would be no easy escape.
Why should then Bush proceed with a plan that he should know is not going to make any real difference to the doomed military option in Iraq except increase the number of American (and Iraqi) casualties in the chaotic country?
Many Washington insiders, including named and unnamed White House aides and senior Pentagon officers, believe that Bush's decision to send 20,000-30,000 additional soldiers to Iraq is purely political with little regard to the reality on the ground in military terms. That would indicate that the president is willing to gamble with the lives of American troops and Iraqi civilians in order to serve whatever he thinks is his political priority. That priority seems to be his alliance with the neoconservative and pro-Israeli camp at the expense of his obligations to the American people and his responsibility as the chief executive officer and military commander of his country.
It has been reported that the neoconservative and pro-Israeli camp skillfully used the Bush administration's failure in Iraq (through hard-hitting neocon commentaries in the media among other means) in order to convince the president that the best way to fight the Iraq insurgency was an unprecedented aggressive counter-move supported by the buildup of troop levels. And we now see that Bush has embraced this proposal against the wise counsel of experience military officers.
General John Abizaid, who bowed out as head of the Central Command last week, could not have put it better when he told Republican Senator John McCain during a congressional hearing that it would not be wise to send more troops to Iraq.
Abizaid went on record telling McCain: "I met with every divisional commander, General (George) Casey, the core commander, General (Martin) Dempsey, we all talked together. And I said, in your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq? And they all said no."
No wonder Bush replaced Abizaid. The president does not want to hear anything opposed to his views. That is the biggest problem that the US faces today — a president who refuses to accept reality, logic and reason and who is taking his country on a path towards more catastrophes for his own people. But it also becomes the biggest problem not only for the people of Iraq but also the entire Middle East since they would all be caught in the direct and indirect fallout of the catastrophic course of the Bush administration's military misadventures.
Logic and reason in acute short supply
The 135,000-strong US force could not overpower the Sunni insurgents — whose community represents around 20 per cent of the 25-million population in Iraq. How could a 155,000 or 165,000-strong US force — including the proposed 20,000-30,000-strong addition — take on the heavily armed Shiite militiamen — whose community represents over 55 per cent of the Iraqi population?
These are simple numbers. The strength of the Sunni insurgents and anti-US Shiite militiaman need not necessarily be proportionate to their percentage of the Iraqi population. However, it is simple logic that a force which failed to subdue the minority Sunnis would not be able to successfully take on the majority Shiites plus of course the Sunnis with a 20 per cent increase in the numerical strength (unless the US force is permitted to use weapons of mass destruction to carry out indiscriminate massacres of tens of thousands of Iraqis and reduce the population of Iraq by a few millions).
US military commanders have opposed, many in private and some in public, the proposed "surge" in troops planned by President George W Bush, who is not only listening to them but is also punishing them, both directly and indirectly, for speaking out.
Bush's obvious determination to "stay the course" in Iraq defies all political and military odds.
It was the popular sentiment against the war in Iraq that led to Bush's Republican camp's defeat in November's mid-term elections. The Democrats have taken over the US Congress and are threatening to withhold funds for the war. The Iraqi Study Group has recommended that the US should withdraw from Iraq. Recent opinion polls show that just around 20 per cent of American believe that there is any sense in continuing the US military presence in Iraq. And the number of American soldiers dying in action in Iraq is climbing.
Even in his alliances with Shiites in Iraq, Bush is finding it extremely difficult to proceed as is evident in the failure of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki to check the ethnic cleansing campaign run largely by Shiite militiamen but also to a limited scale by Sunnis, or even to protect innocent civilians, both Shiites and Sunnis.
It is also clear that the Bush plan involves targeting the Shiite Mahdi Army of Moqtada Sadr for elimination, and that could trigger a series of events that would find the US military bogged down in a war of attrition from which there would be no easy escape.
Why should then Bush proceed with a plan that he should know is not going to make any real difference to the doomed military option in Iraq except increase the number of American (and Iraqi) casualties in the chaotic country?
Many Washington insiders, including named and unnamed White House aides and senior Pentagon officers, believe that Bush's decision to send 20,000-30,000 additional soldiers to Iraq is purely political with little regard to the reality on the ground in military terms. That would indicate that the president is willing to gamble with the lives of American troops and Iraqi civilians in order to serve whatever he thinks is his political priority. That priority seems to be his alliance with the neoconservative and pro-Israeli camp at the expense of his obligations to the American people and his responsibility as the chief executive officer and military commander of his country.
It has been reported that the neoconservative and pro-Israeli camp skillfully used the Bush administration's failure in Iraq (through hard-hitting neocon commentaries in the media among other means) in order to convince the president that the best way to fight the Iraq insurgency was an unprecedented aggressive counter-move supported by the buildup of troop levels. And we now see that Bush has embraced this proposal against the wise counsel of experience military officers.
General John Abizaid, who bowed out as head of the Central Command last week, could not have put it better when he told Republican Senator John McCain during a congressional hearing that it would not be wise to send more troops to Iraq.
Abizaid went on record telling McCain: "I met with every divisional commander, General (George) Casey, the core commander, General (Martin) Dempsey, we all talked together. And I said, in your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq? And they all said no."
No wonder Bush replaced Abizaid. The president does not want to hear anything opposed to his views. That is the biggest problem that the US faces today — a president who refuses to accept reality, logic and reason and who is taking his country on a path towards more catastrophes for his own people. But it also becomes the biggest problem not only for the people of Iraq but also the entire Middle East since they would all be caught in the direct and indirect fallout of the catastrophic course of the Bush administration's military misadventures.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Somalia - long road to recovery
January 2, 2007
Long road to recovery
SOMALIA has taken yet another topsy-turvy turn in its turbulent history in the last 16 years, with the interim government, supported by powerful Ethiopian military forces, having taken control of the capital Mogadishu and most other towns after trouncing the Union of Islamic Courts.
It is the first time that the UN-recognised interim government has been able to expand its control beyond the small town of Baidoa, thanks to the Ethiopian intervention on its behalf backed by the US and European countries.
Most the Islamist fighters, according to reports, have fled across the border to Kenya or are hiding in the border area. The Somali government has asked Kenya to seat off its border and prevent the Islamists from entering Kenyan territory.
US warships patrolling off the Somali coast are also offering logistic and military support to the interim government and keeping an eye out for Islamist leaders — including those whom Washington describes as Al Qaeda suspects — from fleeing the country by sea.
In Mogadishu, Interim Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi has offered an amnesty to remnants of the Islamist group if they surrender their weapons at specially set up collections points by Thursday.
Both Gedi and Ethiopian Prime Minister have said that the Ethiopian military presence in Somalia would be limited, but none of them gave any timeframe.
However, while the Ethiopian prime minister told his country's parliament that it would only be a matter of weeks before Ethiopian forces leave Somalia, Gedi suggested it could be a few months.
That uncertainty exposes the most vulnerable phase of efforts to restore law and order to Somalia for the first time since 1991 when Mohammed Siad Barre was ousted as president and warlords created their own fiefdoms across the country.
Indeed, a majority of the 10 million people of Somalia want peace and stability. Many of them welcomed the Union of Islamic Courts when its fighters chased out tribal warlords from their fiefdoms in Mogadishu and other major areas in the country in mid-2007 and promised to rebuild the country.
Somalis, who have suffered enough from the civil strife in the country coupled with natural calamities like drought and floods, were willing even to ignore that the Islamists went around enforcing tough rules based on a strict interpretation of Islamic laws in their areas they controlled.
However, the Islamists have been defeated now, with the interim government taking their place with Ethiopian support. However, the conflict seems to be far from being over.
The task of pacifying Somalia would not be easy, given that the Islamists have vowed to fight a guerrilla war — including suicide bombings and hit-and-run operations, that could deny the government the stability and security that it needs to offer the people. Further complicating the effort is the return of autocratic warlords who have never learnt to respect a central authority in the country and who used to "govern" their areas of influence the way they liked since the ouster of Siad Barre.
In Mogadishu itself, the order for residents to disarm themselves is aimed equally at Islamist fighters as well as followers of the warlords who reigned supreme in the capital and surrounding areas until they were driven out by the Islamists six months ago.
It is said that no Somali male is considered a man if he does not possess a gun. Being armed is an integral part of the Somali life if only for self-defence — in view of the on-again, off-again tribal warfare — as well as a symbol of manhood.
Today, Mogadishu is one of the most weapon-infested cities of the world, according to experts.
Giving up weapons would be unthinkable for many Somalis, whether Islamists or otherwise. As such, the government is likely to face a cool response to its offer of amnesty in return for weapons and would have to come up with a foolproof formula designed to convince the Somalis that the state is strong enough to offer them protection no matter what.
For the moment, many Somalis who are not aligned with any group seem to be sitting on the fence, watching closely whether the government victory over the Islamists is irreversible and how Gedi would cope with the potential threat of guerrilla war against the interim authority.
Seeking to exacerbate the crisis is Al Qaeda, which has called on all Muslims to join the Islamists to fight off Christian-dominated Ethiopia supported by Christian West in Somalia. That call might find resonance as long as the Ethiopian forces remain in Somalia. Therefore the first item on Gedi's agenda should be to have the Ethiopian military replaced by a neutral African force deployed in the country to assure the people of safety, security and stability. Parallel to that the UN should step up its relief operations and allow the Somalis to resume normal life after the suffering of many years. That would be the best first step Gedi could take in carrying out his mandate as interim prime minister tasked with leading the country on the long path towards recovery.
Long road to recovery
SOMALIA has taken yet another topsy-turvy turn in its turbulent history in the last 16 years, with the interim government, supported by powerful Ethiopian military forces, having taken control of the capital Mogadishu and most other towns after trouncing the Union of Islamic Courts.
It is the first time that the UN-recognised interim government has been able to expand its control beyond the small town of Baidoa, thanks to the Ethiopian intervention on its behalf backed by the US and European countries.
Most the Islamist fighters, according to reports, have fled across the border to Kenya or are hiding in the border area. The Somali government has asked Kenya to seat off its border and prevent the Islamists from entering Kenyan territory.
US warships patrolling off the Somali coast are also offering logistic and military support to the interim government and keeping an eye out for Islamist leaders — including those whom Washington describes as Al Qaeda suspects — from fleeing the country by sea.
In Mogadishu, Interim Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi has offered an amnesty to remnants of the Islamist group if they surrender their weapons at specially set up collections points by Thursday.
Both Gedi and Ethiopian Prime Minister have said that the Ethiopian military presence in Somalia would be limited, but none of them gave any timeframe.
However, while the Ethiopian prime minister told his country's parliament that it would only be a matter of weeks before Ethiopian forces leave Somalia, Gedi suggested it could be a few months.
That uncertainty exposes the most vulnerable phase of efforts to restore law and order to Somalia for the first time since 1991 when Mohammed Siad Barre was ousted as president and warlords created their own fiefdoms across the country.
Indeed, a majority of the 10 million people of Somalia want peace and stability. Many of them welcomed the Union of Islamic Courts when its fighters chased out tribal warlords from their fiefdoms in Mogadishu and other major areas in the country in mid-2007 and promised to rebuild the country.
Somalis, who have suffered enough from the civil strife in the country coupled with natural calamities like drought and floods, were willing even to ignore that the Islamists went around enforcing tough rules based on a strict interpretation of Islamic laws in their areas they controlled.
However, the Islamists have been defeated now, with the interim government taking their place with Ethiopian support. However, the conflict seems to be far from being over.
The task of pacifying Somalia would not be easy, given that the Islamists have vowed to fight a guerrilla war — including suicide bombings and hit-and-run operations, that could deny the government the stability and security that it needs to offer the people. Further complicating the effort is the return of autocratic warlords who have never learnt to respect a central authority in the country and who used to "govern" their areas of influence the way they liked since the ouster of Siad Barre.
In Mogadishu itself, the order for residents to disarm themselves is aimed equally at Islamist fighters as well as followers of the warlords who reigned supreme in the capital and surrounding areas until they were driven out by the Islamists six months ago.
It is said that no Somali male is considered a man if he does not possess a gun. Being armed is an integral part of the Somali life if only for self-defence — in view of the on-again, off-again tribal warfare — as well as a symbol of manhood.
Today, Mogadishu is one of the most weapon-infested cities of the world, according to experts.
Giving up weapons would be unthinkable for many Somalis, whether Islamists or otherwise. As such, the government is likely to face a cool response to its offer of amnesty in return for weapons and would have to come up with a foolproof formula designed to convince the Somalis that the state is strong enough to offer them protection no matter what.
For the moment, many Somalis who are not aligned with any group seem to be sitting on the fence, watching closely whether the government victory over the Islamists is irreversible and how Gedi would cope with the potential threat of guerrilla war against the interim authority.
Seeking to exacerbate the crisis is Al Qaeda, which has called on all Muslims to join the Islamists to fight off Christian-dominated Ethiopia supported by Christian West in Somalia. That call might find resonance as long as the Ethiopian forces remain in Somalia. Therefore the first item on Gedi's agenda should be to have the Ethiopian military replaced by a neutral African force deployed in the country to assure the people of safety, security and stability. Parallel to that the UN should step up its relief operations and allow the Somalis to resume normal life after the suffering of many years. That would be the best first step Gedi could take in carrying out his mandate as interim prime minister tasked with leading the country on the long path towards recovery.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Moral obligations vs political imperatives
December 17, 2006
Moral obligations vs political imperatives
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas's decision to call early presidential and parliamentary elections marks a serious turn in the battle between his Fatah group and the ruling Hamas movement.
Hamas has termed the call as a coup d'etat while Abbas has asserted his presidential authority to dismiss the government.
Obviously, Fatah feels confident of victory in snap elections held in the shadow of the suffering of the Palestinian people resulting from the international sanctions imposed on them after Hamas took office this year. By the same token, Hamas feels it is being deprived of its right to rule the Palestinian people who elected the group with a sweeping majority 11 months ago.
Abbas, in his capacity as president of his people, has the moral responsibility to correct course if it is in his power as and when he feels that his people are suffering. That was one of the key points he highlighted in his address to his people on Saturday.
"We are living through difficult and miserable times ... To break the vicious circle and prevent our lives from deteriorating further and our cause from eroding, I have decided to call early presidential and legislative elections," he said. "Basic law stipulates that the people are the source of power," he said.
In that sense, his move is very much democratic to leave it to the Palestinian people to decide whether they need a "change of regime" in order to address the plight under the choking economic blockade. By placing the presidency also in the race, Abbas also appeared to have signalled that he has no inclination to hang on to office. It is a different matter whether he feels confident of re-election — although he has said that he might not run for another term in office.
As Abbas explained in his speech, efforts for a "national unity" cabinet had failed and the way ahead was blocked by Hamas's refusal to accept the US/Europe-backed demands that it recognise Israel, renounce armed resistance and accept past agreements signed by the mainstream Palestinian leadership and the Jewish state.
Politics apart, the net impact of the deadlock is felt by the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and West Bank as Israel's hostages since 1967. Few have the means to sustain without regular income, and the main employer in the government, which is not in a position to pay their wages because of the economic blockade placed against it. Life for most has hit the bottom line, with many families edging towards starvation.
As such, Abbas's move could be taken as made in good faith and stemming from his sense of responsibility towards his people.
However, the threat is very much real is that Hamas, which has a wide support base among the Palestinian constituents, would not allow itself to be ousted from power. Its armed wing could pose a serious threat to the law and order situation in the Palestinian territories, and Abbas would be placed in an almost impossible situation, particularly if his Fatah fighters decide to take on the Hamas challenge. The result would indeed be more Palestinian blood shed by Palestinians, with the real perpetrator of injustice, watching and applauding from the sides.
Indeed, Hamas leaders also have a responsibility towards the people and, judging from the group's record, they are aware of their obligation to alleviate the suffering of their people. Again, the danger here is of Hamas leaders deciding that accepting the president's decision means nothing but succumbing to the months of US/Israeli-European pressure and means a victory for the forces arrayed against them.
The small opening ahead is Abbas's announcement that the door is open to forming a government of national unity with Hamas — a cabinet of technocrats — in the interim period. It is "the first priority," he said.
This offers an opportunity for Hamas to soften its insistence on some of the key ministerial positions and join hands with Abbas to form an interim government without having to "lose face." If that happens, then the moral ground would be shaky for those are arguing against assistance to the Palestinians even if it means starving them do death.
Under the circumstances, that could turn out to be the only way out of the Palestinian deadlock. We in the Arab World could only hope that good sense would prevail among all Palestinian groups and there would be an early end to the suffering of the people living under Israeli occupation.
Moral obligations vs political imperatives
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas's decision to call early presidential and parliamentary elections marks a serious turn in the battle between his Fatah group and the ruling Hamas movement.
Hamas has termed the call as a coup d'etat while Abbas has asserted his presidential authority to dismiss the government.
Obviously, Fatah feels confident of victory in snap elections held in the shadow of the suffering of the Palestinian people resulting from the international sanctions imposed on them after Hamas took office this year. By the same token, Hamas feels it is being deprived of its right to rule the Palestinian people who elected the group with a sweeping majority 11 months ago.
Abbas, in his capacity as president of his people, has the moral responsibility to correct course if it is in his power as and when he feels that his people are suffering. That was one of the key points he highlighted in his address to his people on Saturday.
"We are living through difficult and miserable times ... To break the vicious circle and prevent our lives from deteriorating further and our cause from eroding, I have decided to call early presidential and legislative elections," he said. "Basic law stipulates that the people are the source of power," he said.
In that sense, his move is very much democratic to leave it to the Palestinian people to decide whether they need a "change of regime" in order to address the plight under the choking economic blockade. By placing the presidency also in the race, Abbas also appeared to have signalled that he has no inclination to hang on to office. It is a different matter whether he feels confident of re-election — although he has said that he might not run for another term in office.
As Abbas explained in his speech, efforts for a "national unity" cabinet had failed and the way ahead was blocked by Hamas's refusal to accept the US/Europe-backed demands that it recognise Israel, renounce armed resistance and accept past agreements signed by the mainstream Palestinian leadership and the Jewish state.
Politics apart, the net impact of the deadlock is felt by the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and West Bank as Israel's hostages since 1967. Few have the means to sustain without regular income, and the main employer in the government, which is not in a position to pay their wages because of the economic blockade placed against it. Life for most has hit the bottom line, with many families edging towards starvation.
As such, Abbas's move could be taken as made in good faith and stemming from his sense of responsibility towards his people.
However, the threat is very much real is that Hamas, which has a wide support base among the Palestinian constituents, would not allow itself to be ousted from power. Its armed wing could pose a serious threat to the law and order situation in the Palestinian territories, and Abbas would be placed in an almost impossible situation, particularly if his Fatah fighters decide to take on the Hamas challenge. The result would indeed be more Palestinian blood shed by Palestinians, with the real perpetrator of injustice, watching and applauding from the sides.
Indeed, Hamas leaders also have a responsibility towards the people and, judging from the group's record, they are aware of their obligation to alleviate the suffering of their people. Again, the danger here is of Hamas leaders deciding that accepting the president's decision means nothing but succumbing to the months of US/Israeli-European pressure and means a victory for the forces arrayed against them.
The small opening ahead is Abbas's announcement that the door is open to forming a government of national unity with Hamas — a cabinet of technocrats — in the interim period. It is "the first priority," he said.
This offers an opportunity for Hamas to soften its insistence on some of the key ministerial positions and join hands with Abbas to form an interim government without having to "lose face." If that happens, then the moral ground would be shaky for those are arguing against assistance to the Palestinians even if it means starving them do death.
Under the circumstances, that could turn out to be the only way out of the Palestinian deadlock. We in the Arab World could only hope that good sense would prevail among all Palestinian groups and there would be an early end to the suffering of the people living under Israeli occupation.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Living upto claims so tall
Dec.12, 2006
Living upto claims so tall
THE confrontation between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil dissidents is worsening, with the international community seemingly unable to do anything to help contain the crisis and help the tens of thousands of displaced civilians.
The kidnapping on Tuesday of more than 20 teenage students, the bulk of them girls, adds to the agony and misery of civilians caught in the cross-fire. At least 20,000 civilians who have fled the conflict zone are now crammed into schools, temples and camps set up by the government. Those left behind are said to be used as human shields by the rebels.
The army is said to be planning a massive assault aimed at rooting out the fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam from the rebel-held territory in the country's volatile east, and the rebels have warned the military of pre-emptive strikes.
The government says its priority is to clear the area of LTTE fighters so that the displaced civilians could be returned to their homes. The rebel group sees the move as aimed at totally eliminating what they see as the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka.
Independent estimates show that at least 3,000 troops, civilians and rebel fighters have been killed so far this year in land battles, air strikes, ambushes and attacks; more than 65,000 people have been killed in the conflict since 1983. It is yet another saga of failure of diplomacy and mutual distrust with neither side willing to back down.
At certain point in the decades-old crisis pitting the Tamils who complain of discrimination by the majority Sinhalese, the rebels had appeared to be ready to accept autonomy in Tamil-majority areas of the island. However, negotiations towards that end failed because of politicking on both sides. Today, the Tamils have openly declared that they are pushing for an independent entity for themselves in the areas they dominate. The government has vowed to counter the campaign and there does not seem to be room for common ground and compromises.
What is resoundingly missing in the equation is any trace of trust and good faith between the two sides, and that is what stymied Norwegian mediators in the crisis. Neither the government nor the dissident group seems to accept the reality that there could be no victory through military means. The military cannot single out LTTE fighters and finish them off without inflicting massive casualties on the civilian population. The rebels should not be hoping that their insurgency would eventually force the government to allow sedition.
The only way out perhaps is for the United Nations to intervene in a very transparent manner and be a mediator with the determination to see the whole process through to the point that a settlement is found without the break-up of the country. What the Sri Lankan crisis needs today is an honest mediator with established credentials acceptable to both sides. It is not easy, given the not very successful record of the UN in intervening and bringing about compromises and solutions acceptable to the warring sides in a civil strife.
However, that should not dissuade the international community from mandating and empowering the UN to launch afresh efforts to end the crisis through an equitable settlement. In the latest flare-up, the UN has limited itself to calling for a suspension of hostilities in order to allow the civilians remaining in the conflict zone to leave.
It is imperative that regional powers like India and others take the initiative in order to start from scratch if need be an intense and determined effort to find a solution that would end the Sri Lankan crisis once and for all. They have the moral responsibility to check Sri Lanka from sliding into further chaos and bloodshed. They should involve the rest of the international community through the UN and commit diplomatic and material support for the world body to act decisively to solve the crisis. That is what people around the world expect them to do if they live up to their claims of being "regional powerhouses" and "emerging superpowers."
The price for failure to act now would be so catastrophic that history would not forgive not only those who are in a position to lead such an the initiative but also those who prevent it from taking off.
Living upto claims so tall
THE confrontation between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil dissidents is worsening, with the international community seemingly unable to do anything to help contain the crisis and help the tens of thousands of displaced civilians.
The kidnapping on Tuesday of more than 20 teenage students, the bulk of them girls, adds to the agony and misery of civilians caught in the cross-fire. At least 20,000 civilians who have fled the conflict zone are now crammed into schools, temples and camps set up by the government. Those left behind are said to be used as human shields by the rebels.
The army is said to be planning a massive assault aimed at rooting out the fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam from the rebel-held territory in the country's volatile east, and the rebels have warned the military of pre-emptive strikes.
The government says its priority is to clear the area of LTTE fighters so that the displaced civilians could be returned to their homes. The rebel group sees the move as aimed at totally eliminating what they see as the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka.
Independent estimates show that at least 3,000 troops, civilians and rebel fighters have been killed so far this year in land battles, air strikes, ambushes and attacks; more than 65,000 people have been killed in the conflict since 1983. It is yet another saga of failure of diplomacy and mutual distrust with neither side willing to back down.
At certain point in the decades-old crisis pitting the Tamils who complain of discrimination by the majority Sinhalese, the rebels had appeared to be ready to accept autonomy in Tamil-majority areas of the island. However, negotiations towards that end failed because of politicking on both sides. Today, the Tamils have openly declared that they are pushing for an independent entity for themselves in the areas they dominate. The government has vowed to counter the campaign and there does not seem to be room for common ground and compromises.
What is resoundingly missing in the equation is any trace of trust and good faith between the two sides, and that is what stymied Norwegian mediators in the crisis. Neither the government nor the dissident group seems to accept the reality that there could be no victory through military means. The military cannot single out LTTE fighters and finish them off without inflicting massive casualties on the civilian population. The rebels should not be hoping that their insurgency would eventually force the government to allow sedition.
The only way out perhaps is for the United Nations to intervene in a very transparent manner and be a mediator with the determination to see the whole process through to the point that a settlement is found without the break-up of the country. What the Sri Lankan crisis needs today is an honest mediator with established credentials acceptable to both sides. It is not easy, given the not very successful record of the UN in intervening and bringing about compromises and solutions acceptable to the warring sides in a civil strife.
However, that should not dissuade the international community from mandating and empowering the UN to launch afresh efforts to end the crisis through an equitable settlement. In the latest flare-up, the UN has limited itself to calling for a suspension of hostilities in order to allow the civilians remaining in the conflict zone to leave.
It is imperative that regional powers like India and others take the initiative in order to start from scratch if need be an intense and determined effort to find a solution that would end the Sri Lankan crisis once and for all. They have the moral responsibility to check Sri Lanka from sliding into further chaos and bloodshed. They should involve the rest of the international community through the UN and commit diplomatic and material support for the world body to act decisively to solve the crisis. That is what people around the world expect them to do if they live up to their claims of being "regional powerhouses" and "emerging superpowers."
The price for failure to act now would be so catastrophic that history would not forgive not only those who are in a position to lead such an the initiative but also those who prevent it from taking off.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Hitting the nail on the head
Hitting the nail
on the head
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's comment that the conflict in Iraq is worse than a civil war and the people of Iraq are worse now than during the Saddam Hussein regime was to be expected since it was and is the truth. The world had known it for some time — some had predicted even before the US invaded Iraq that it would be the case — and Annan was only acknowledging the reality on the ground. Indeed, it carries weight since it came from a person as eminent as the secretary general of the UN, although it is unlikely to change anything, given the US determination to stay the course in Iraq.
For the first time, Annan, with less than one month to go before he leaves office, also clearly stated that the US decision to go to war against Iraq without Security Council consent was in violation of the UN Charter.
Predictably, his observations that the people of Iraq were worse off now than the days under the reign of Saddam Hussein drew rejection from the Iraqi government, which said the Iraqis were subjected to summary killings and torture by the Saddam regime and there could be no comparison between those days and today.
Well, as Annan observed, "they had a dictator who was brutal but they had their streets, they could go out, their kids could go to school and come back home without a mother or father worrying, 'Am I going to see my child again?" And that is not to mention the interior ministry death squads roaming through central Iraq, storming homes and taking away people to be tortured and slaughtered.
Beyond that, Annan's expression of regret that he was unable to stop the war underlines the pressing need for sweeping changes in the UN system where the veto-yielding permanent members of the Security Council could determine the fate of people anywhere in the world and alter the course of world history.
Although Annan said he believed that the UN could have averted the war had it worked harder and gave more time to UN weapon inspectors, it was highly unlikely that he could have made any difference. Such is the very nature of the job of the UN chief, who is entrusted with the task of implementing the world bodys' decisions but does not have any real authority when it comes to political issues involving vested interests of big powers. That is the very weakness of the UN system and that is where there is a pressing need for reform in the world body, including expanding and revamping the powers and obligations of the Security Council in a manner that does not allow the world body to be used to serve the interests of the big powers.
As Annan affirmed, the rift created by the decision by the US and allies to go to war against Iraq despite objections raised by other members of the UN Security Council has not been bridged.
"I was also concerned that for the US and its coalition to go to war without the consent of the council in that particular region, which has always been extremely controversial, would be extremely difficult and very divisive and that it would take quite a long time to put the organisation back together, and of course it divided the world too," Annan said.
Indeed, the US circumvention of the UN while heading for war citing UN resolutions and reasons of "world security" created a bad precedent in international affairs. It also came at the expense of the moral authority of the UN, which supposedly has the world mandate to decide the best course of action in situations of international crises.
The world has been waiting for Annan to say it aloud and he has done so. And the question that Annan did not raise in so many words but was implicit in his comments was: What is the world going to do about addressing the unilateralism that is plaguing the UN?
on the head
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's comment that the conflict in Iraq is worse than a civil war and the people of Iraq are worse now than during the Saddam Hussein regime was to be expected since it was and is the truth. The world had known it for some time — some had predicted even before the US invaded Iraq that it would be the case — and Annan was only acknowledging the reality on the ground. Indeed, it carries weight since it came from a person as eminent as the secretary general of the UN, although it is unlikely to change anything, given the US determination to stay the course in Iraq.
For the first time, Annan, with less than one month to go before he leaves office, also clearly stated that the US decision to go to war against Iraq without Security Council consent was in violation of the UN Charter.
Predictably, his observations that the people of Iraq were worse off now than the days under the reign of Saddam Hussein drew rejection from the Iraqi government, which said the Iraqis were subjected to summary killings and torture by the Saddam regime and there could be no comparison between those days and today.
Well, as Annan observed, "they had a dictator who was brutal but they had their streets, they could go out, their kids could go to school and come back home without a mother or father worrying, 'Am I going to see my child again?" And that is not to mention the interior ministry death squads roaming through central Iraq, storming homes and taking away people to be tortured and slaughtered.
Beyond that, Annan's expression of regret that he was unable to stop the war underlines the pressing need for sweeping changes in the UN system where the veto-yielding permanent members of the Security Council could determine the fate of people anywhere in the world and alter the course of world history.
Although Annan said he believed that the UN could have averted the war had it worked harder and gave more time to UN weapon inspectors, it was highly unlikely that he could have made any difference. Such is the very nature of the job of the UN chief, who is entrusted with the task of implementing the world bodys' decisions but does not have any real authority when it comes to political issues involving vested interests of big powers. That is the very weakness of the UN system and that is where there is a pressing need for reform in the world body, including expanding and revamping the powers and obligations of the Security Council in a manner that does not allow the world body to be used to serve the interests of the big powers.
As Annan affirmed, the rift created by the decision by the US and allies to go to war against Iraq despite objections raised by other members of the UN Security Council has not been bridged.
"I was also concerned that for the US and its coalition to go to war without the consent of the council in that particular region, which has always been extremely controversial, would be extremely difficult and very divisive and that it would take quite a long time to put the organisation back together, and of course it divided the world too," Annan said.
Indeed, the US circumvention of the UN while heading for war citing UN resolutions and reasons of "world security" created a bad precedent in international affairs. It also came at the expense of the moral authority of the UN, which supposedly has the world mandate to decide the best course of action in situations of international crises.
The world has been waiting for Annan to say it aloud and he has done so. And the question that Annan did not raise in so many words but was implicit in his comments was: What is the world going to do about addressing the unilateralism that is plaguing the UN?
Neocons and the Iranian connection
Neocons and the Iranian connection
By PV Vivekanand
WHAT DOES the US — more precisely the Bush administration — want in Iraq? From a perspective based on conventional wisdom, the US should have had enough of Iraq to have decided to call it quits. But not so for the Bush administration, which is obviously determined not to heed expert calls for withdrawing from the country despite unquestionable signs that the US military is bogged down in a war that it cannot win; Washington is under bitter criticism for having invaded and occupied Iraq on false pretenses and justifications; and, if anything, the threat, perceived and otherwise, of terrorism against the US has only grown and will continue to grow as long as it maintains its occupation of Iraq.
US President George W Bush seems to be living in a world of delusion. He refuses to believe that the US has dug a hole for itself in Iraq and insists he could still "accomplish the job" there. The question then is: What is the US "job" in Iraq?
There could be many theories. Most prominent among them is:
The prime goal of the invasion of Iraq and ouster of the Saddam Hussein regime was to turn that country into a US colony in all but name where the US military could set up an advance base in the Gulf, with a puppet regime in place in Baghdad that would establish relations with Israel — and thus remove itself as an Arab military threat to the Jewish state — would grant US companies massive oil contracts and would allow itself to be used a springboard for action against other "rogue" countries such as Iran and Syria.
The US determination to invade Iraq was clear from the word go after the Sept.11, 2001 attacks. Bush and his strategists brushed aside all advice against invading Iraq, fabricated intelligence to justify the invasion and went ahead as if they owned the country and its people after invading it. Look at the way the US dismantled the Iraqi armed forces and the Baathist party, drew up a constitution for the country, named an interim regime of its choice, hunted down Saddam regime figures as if with a vengeance, orchestrated the trial of Saddam and others, organised elections and dictated terms to the parliament and government that were elected. This pattern of actions clearly shows that the Bush administration's agenda was to secure absolute control of a strategically located Middle Eastern Arab country with rich natural resources and then use it to serve American/Israel interests. Among the varying justifications for implementing the agenda were such lies as Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and alleged connections with the Sept.11 attacks. Then came the argument that Saddam was an autocratic and oppressive ruler and that the poor people of Iraq deserved a "regime change" towards democracy.
And now it is argued that if the US quits Iraq, it would mean leaving the country to "terrorists" to breed themselves and threaten the US.
What a preprosterous series of arguments and contentions!
Indeed, the Bush administration's "job" in Iraq has not been done, and it definitely looks like it would or could never be done.
The only part of the "job" that is done is the removal of Iraq as a potential military threat to Israel. However, the perceived threat potential is all the more growing, given the mounting Iranian influence in Iraq.
Iraq, with its overwhelming Arab and Muslim nature structure despite the spiralling ethnic conflict there, could never be turned into a US colony; a truly representative Iraqi government would not allow itself to be a US stooge or sign away the oil wealth of the country to foreign companies; and it would not permit Iraqi territory to be used as a springboard for action against neighbouring Iran or Syria or any other country in the region.
The US has spent nearly $340 billion for the war in Iraq. More than 2,800 of its soldiers have been killed and some 22,000 others have been wounded, most of them no longer in a position to return to service. The Bush administration is under heavy fire from the American public for having gone to war on false pretenses, and the anti-war camp is gathering steady strength. The war was one of the key reasons that Bush's Republican camp suffered a defeat in the recent congressional elections. And, the party might not stand a fighting chance against the Democrats in the 2007 presidential elections if it does not make amends now and satisfy the calls for an end to the US occupation of Iraq.
However, Washington is still clinging on and refusing even to set a date for eventual departure from Iraq.
Why?
The answer to that key question could possibly be found in the "Iranian connection."
The pro-Israeli neoconservatives who planned and orchestrated the war have realised that while they succeeded removing the Saddam regime which was a hurdle against Israel's expansionist and strategic designs involving mainly Syria, they also handed over Iraq in a platter to Iran. It is not inconceivable for them now to visualise Iranian missiles targeting Israel positioned on Iraq's borders if and when the US military leaves Iraq. Given the established range of missiles in Iran's possession, the perceived threat against Israel would become all the more real. Throw in Iran's controversial nuclear programme, and the question is clearly answered why the US refuses to quit Iraq.
Indeed, there is no indication at this point in time that the dominant Shiites of Iraq would or would not allow Iran to hold sway and use Iraqi territory to threaten Israel. At the same time, an induced course of events could lead to that situation and that is alarming the neoconservatives, who have belatedly realised that instead of removing a threat they would have created a bigger threat to Israel if they went along with a US departure from Iraq and thus leave the room for the Iranians to play at will.
That explains why the neocon camp is ridiculing calls on the Bush administration to leave Iraq. They have even rounded up on the expected recommendations by the Iraq Study Group to force the pace on troop withdrawals and negotiations with Iran and Syria.
The Iraqi Study Group, led by former secretary of state James Baker and former Democrat congressman Lee Hamilton, is expected to issue the recommendations this week.
The Weekly Standard, the neocon magazine, has already staked a position by deriding the Baker group’s work as “a fancy way of justifying surrender.”
Of course in the neocon jargon in this context, "surrender" means not only giving up on the "sacred and uncompromisable" goal of protecting Israel but actually allowing the setting of ground for a greater military threat against the Jewish state that was perceived to have been posed by the Saddam regime.
No doubt, one of the key items on the US agenda for this week's meeting between Bush and Abdul Aziz Al Hakim, the powerful head of the Iran-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, would be to explore a middle ground with pro-Iran Iraqi Shiites in order to avert the potential threat to Israel. Most definitely, Bush would want an explicit Hakim pledge that his group would not permit Iran to use Iraq to step up its threats against Israel.
In return, the US might even be ready to abandon all pretenses of fairness and justice for all the people of Iraq and throw in its lot with the Iraqi Shiites (It is a different question whether Hakim would be amenable to the expected US proposal, which could be couched in different terms but meaning all the same).
Whatever else is expected to be discussed at the Bush-Hakim meeting could even be described as peripheral when seen against the seriousness and commitment with which the neocons — who pull the main political strings in Washington — consider their mission not only to safeguard Israel but also to perpetuate the Jewish state's aggressive designs in the Middle East.
By PV Vivekanand
WHAT DOES the US — more precisely the Bush administration — want in Iraq? From a perspective based on conventional wisdom, the US should have had enough of Iraq to have decided to call it quits. But not so for the Bush administration, which is obviously determined not to heed expert calls for withdrawing from the country despite unquestionable signs that the US military is bogged down in a war that it cannot win; Washington is under bitter criticism for having invaded and occupied Iraq on false pretenses and justifications; and, if anything, the threat, perceived and otherwise, of terrorism against the US has only grown and will continue to grow as long as it maintains its occupation of Iraq.
US President George W Bush seems to be living in a world of delusion. He refuses to believe that the US has dug a hole for itself in Iraq and insists he could still "accomplish the job" there. The question then is: What is the US "job" in Iraq?
There could be many theories. Most prominent among them is:
The prime goal of the invasion of Iraq and ouster of the Saddam Hussein regime was to turn that country into a US colony in all but name where the US military could set up an advance base in the Gulf, with a puppet regime in place in Baghdad that would establish relations with Israel — and thus remove itself as an Arab military threat to the Jewish state — would grant US companies massive oil contracts and would allow itself to be used a springboard for action against other "rogue" countries such as Iran and Syria.
The US determination to invade Iraq was clear from the word go after the Sept.11, 2001 attacks. Bush and his strategists brushed aside all advice against invading Iraq, fabricated intelligence to justify the invasion and went ahead as if they owned the country and its people after invading it. Look at the way the US dismantled the Iraqi armed forces and the Baathist party, drew up a constitution for the country, named an interim regime of its choice, hunted down Saddam regime figures as if with a vengeance, orchestrated the trial of Saddam and others, organised elections and dictated terms to the parliament and government that were elected. This pattern of actions clearly shows that the Bush administration's agenda was to secure absolute control of a strategically located Middle Eastern Arab country with rich natural resources and then use it to serve American/Israel interests. Among the varying justifications for implementing the agenda were such lies as Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and alleged connections with the Sept.11 attacks. Then came the argument that Saddam was an autocratic and oppressive ruler and that the poor people of Iraq deserved a "regime change" towards democracy.
And now it is argued that if the US quits Iraq, it would mean leaving the country to "terrorists" to breed themselves and threaten the US.
What a preprosterous series of arguments and contentions!
Indeed, the Bush administration's "job" in Iraq has not been done, and it definitely looks like it would or could never be done.
The only part of the "job" that is done is the removal of Iraq as a potential military threat to Israel. However, the perceived threat potential is all the more growing, given the mounting Iranian influence in Iraq.
Iraq, with its overwhelming Arab and Muslim nature structure despite the spiralling ethnic conflict there, could never be turned into a US colony; a truly representative Iraqi government would not allow itself to be a US stooge or sign away the oil wealth of the country to foreign companies; and it would not permit Iraqi territory to be used as a springboard for action against neighbouring Iran or Syria or any other country in the region.
The US has spent nearly $340 billion for the war in Iraq. More than 2,800 of its soldiers have been killed and some 22,000 others have been wounded, most of them no longer in a position to return to service. The Bush administration is under heavy fire from the American public for having gone to war on false pretenses, and the anti-war camp is gathering steady strength. The war was one of the key reasons that Bush's Republican camp suffered a defeat in the recent congressional elections. And, the party might not stand a fighting chance against the Democrats in the 2007 presidential elections if it does not make amends now and satisfy the calls for an end to the US occupation of Iraq.
However, Washington is still clinging on and refusing even to set a date for eventual departure from Iraq.
Why?
The answer to that key question could possibly be found in the "Iranian connection."
The pro-Israeli neoconservatives who planned and orchestrated the war have realised that while they succeeded removing the Saddam regime which was a hurdle against Israel's expansionist and strategic designs involving mainly Syria, they also handed over Iraq in a platter to Iran. It is not inconceivable for them now to visualise Iranian missiles targeting Israel positioned on Iraq's borders if and when the US military leaves Iraq. Given the established range of missiles in Iran's possession, the perceived threat against Israel would become all the more real. Throw in Iran's controversial nuclear programme, and the question is clearly answered why the US refuses to quit Iraq.
Indeed, there is no indication at this point in time that the dominant Shiites of Iraq would or would not allow Iran to hold sway and use Iraqi territory to threaten Israel. At the same time, an induced course of events could lead to that situation and that is alarming the neoconservatives, who have belatedly realised that instead of removing a threat they would have created a bigger threat to Israel if they went along with a US departure from Iraq and thus leave the room for the Iranians to play at will.
That explains why the neocon camp is ridiculing calls on the Bush administration to leave Iraq. They have even rounded up on the expected recommendations by the Iraq Study Group to force the pace on troop withdrawals and negotiations with Iran and Syria.
The Iraqi Study Group, led by former secretary of state James Baker and former Democrat congressman Lee Hamilton, is expected to issue the recommendations this week.
The Weekly Standard, the neocon magazine, has already staked a position by deriding the Baker group’s work as “a fancy way of justifying surrender.”
Of course in the neocon jargon in this context, "surrender" means not only giving up on the "sacred and uncompromisable" goal of protecting Israel but actually allowing the setting of ground for a greater military threat against the Jewish state that was perceived to have been posed by the Saddam regime.
No doubt, one of the key items on the US agenda for this week's meeting between Bush and Abdul Aziz Al Hakim, the powerful head of the Iran-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, would be to explore a middle ground with pro-Iran Iraqi Shiites in order to avert the potential threat to Israel. Most definitely, Bush would want an explicit Hakim pledge that his group would not permit Iran to use Iraq to step up its threats against Israel.
In return, the US might even be ready to abandon all pretenses of fairness and justice for all the people of Iraq and throw in its lot with the Iraqi Shiites (It is a different question whether Hakim would be amenable to the expected US proposal, which could be couched in different terms but meaning all the same).
Whatever else is expected to be discussed at the Bush-Hakim meeting could even be described as peripheral when seen against the seriousness and commitment with which the neocons — who pull the main political strings in Washington — consider their mission not only to safeguard Israel but also to perpetuate the Jewish state's aggressive designs in the Middle East.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
High time to act in Somalia
Dec.3, 2006
High time to act in Somalia
ALTHOUGH not unexpected following the emergence of an Islamist force in Somalia seen unacceptable to its neighbours, the country is sliding towards all-out war on the domestic and external front.
When the Islamist force, "officially" known as the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC), emerged as a potentially dominant centralised group in Somalia this year and successfully ousted warlords from key areas, including the capital Mogadishu, hopes were raised that it would be able to provide some coherence to the strife-torn, lawless Horn of Africa country. Many experts on Somalia had predicted that the UN-supported interim government based in Baidoa would fall and make room for the Islamists, who were welcomed as heroes in most areas they took over.
Since then, however, many other elements have been injected into the scenario, with Ethiopia rallying behind the interim government with military support and the Islamists securing the backing from Ethiopia's rival Eritrea. And the Islamists have also imposed a strict version of Islamic regime in areas under control, raising concerns that they are becoming Africa's Taliban, much to Washington's consternation.
Peace negotiations held between the Islamists and the Baidoa government have not made much headway. If anything, the talks appeared to have inflamed the confrontation between the two sides, with little hopes of them working out a compromise.
The Islamists are now blamed for a suicide attack in Baidoa that killed at least 12 people on Thursday. The militia has denied it was behind the bomb explosions in a statement to a particular segment of the media, but it would seem that people affiliated with the group were behind the attacks since militia sources in Mogadishu seem to have had prior information of the attacks.
Suicide attacks are seen as a hallmark of groups like Al Qaeda, and the Baidoa explosions appear to support the US allegation that the Islamists are aligned with Osama Bin Laden's group and are sheltering Al Qaeda men suspected of attacks against American diplomatic missions in Africa. At the same time, it could not be ruled out that forces that seek to add to the chaos in Somalia were behind the Baidoa bombings.
Thursday's blasts have to be seen against a failed mid-September attempt to assassinate Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed in what was Somalia's first-ever suicide attack.
No matter who carried them out, the suicide blasts Ñ which targeted an Ethiopian military position ÊÑ raise the spectre of more Iraq-style attacks staged in Somalia as the Islamists seek to wrest power by ousting the interim government. The Islamists have declared a "holy war" against Ethiopia citing the Ethiopian military presence in Baidoa and some other parts of Somalia, and it was only expected that Addis Ababa would authorise action against any Islamist incursion from across the border.
The scenario today is ripe for all-out military action pitting Ethiopian forces against the Islamists, with various other regional and international players pulling the strings from behind the scenes. Even Israel has pitched in, alleging that Iran, using alleged links between Lebanon's Hizbollah and the Somali Islamists, is seeking to gain access to Somalia's (unproven) deposits of uranium to help its controversial nuclear activities.
At the UN Security Council, the US has proposed that a UN peace-keeping force of East Africans be sent to Somalia, a move predictably welcomed by the interim government and opposed by the Islamists.
The initiative is interpreted as a dangerous move by the influential Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group as well as European experts who have warned that it could backfire by undermining the government, strengthening the Islamists and leading to a wider, regional war.
"The draft resolution the US intends to present to the UN Security Council... could trigger all-out war in Somalia and destabilise the entire Horn of Africa region by escalating the proxy conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea to dangerous new levels," the International Crisis Group said last week.
The real danger today is that the Islamists might seek to expand their spheres of influence in the country in order to gain a strategic edge which could help them challenge any regional and international move in the country. And that would mean more bloodshed and suffering for the people of Somalia, a majority of whom want only stability and security for themselves rather than any political medicine.
The region and indeed the world at large have a moral responsibility to pre-empt the recurrence of the early 90s when hundreds of Somalis died every day either as a result of drought-induced starvation or armed conflicts between tribal warlords.
In the absence of firm action by the international community in Somalia by initiating a broad, transparent and result-oriented dialogue between the Islamists and the Baidoa government, the world would have another Iraq in its hands in terms of a humanitarian disaster.
High time to act in Somalia
ALTHOUGH not unexpected following the emergence of an Islamist force in Somalia seen unacceptable to its neighbours, the country is sliding towards all-out war on the domestic and external front.
When the Islamist force, "officially" known as the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC), emerged as a potentially dominant centralised group in Somalia this year and successfully ousted warlords from key areas, including the capital Mogadishu, hopes were raised that it would be able to provide some coherence to the strife-torn, lawless Horn of Africa country. Many experts on Somalia had predicted that the UN-supported interim government based in Baidoa would fall and make room for the Islamists, who were welcomed as heroes in most areas they took over.
Since then, however, many other elements have been injected into the scenario, with Ethiopia rallying behind the interim government with military support and the Islamists securing the backing from Ethiopia's rival Eritrea. And the Islamists have also imposed a strict version of Islamic regime in areas under control, raising concerns that they are becoming Africa's Taliban, much to Washington's consternation.
Peace negotiations held between the Islamists and the Baidoa government have not made much headway. If anything, the talks appeared to have inflamed the confrontation between the two sides, with little hopes of them working out a compromise.
The Islamists are now blamed for a suicide attack in Baidoa that killed at least 12 people on Thursday. The militia has denied it was behind the bomb explosions in a statement to a particular segment of the media, but it would seem that people affiliated with the group were behind the attacks since militia sources in Mogadishu seem to have had prior information of the attacks.
Suicide attacks are seen as a hallmark of groups like Al Qaeda, and the Baidoa explosions appear to support the US allegation that the Islamists are aligned with Osama Bin Laden's group and are sheltering Al Qaeda men suspected of attacks against American diplomatic missions in Africa. At the same time, it could not be ruled out that forces that seek to add to the chaos in Somalia were behind the Baidoa bombings.
Thursday's blasts have to be seen against a failed mid-September attempt to assassinate Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed in what was Somalia's first-ever suicide attack.
No matter who carried them out, the suicide blasts Ñ which targeted an Ethiopian military position ÊÑ raise the spectre of more Iraq-style attacks staged in Somalia as the Islamists seek to wrest power by ousting the interim government. The Islamists have declared a "holy war" against Ethiopia citing the Ethiopian military presence in Baidoa and some other parts of Somalia, and it was only expected that Addis Ababa would authorise action against any Islamist incursion from across the border.
The scenario today is ripe for all-out military action pitting Ethiopian forces against the Islamists, with various other regional and international players pulling the strings from behind the scenes. Even Israel has pitched in, alleging that Iran, using alleged links between Lebanon's Hizbollah and the Somali Islamists, is seeking to gain access to Somalia's (unproven) deposits of uranium to help its controversial nuclear activities.
At the UN Security Council, the US has proposed that a UN peace-keeping force of East Africans be sent to Somalia, a move predictably welcomed by the interim government and opposed by the Islamists.
The initiative is interpreted as a dangerous move by the influential Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group as well as European experts who have warned that it could backfire by undermining the government, strengthening the Islamists and leading to a wider, regional war.
"The draft resolution the US intends to present to the UN Security Council... could trigger all-out war in Somalia and destabilise the entire Horn of Africa region by escalating the proxy conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea to dangerous new levels," the International Crisis Group said last week.
The real danger today is that the Islamists might seek to expand their spheres of influence in the country in order to gain a strategic edge which could help them challenge any regional and international move in the country. And that would mean more bloodshed and suffering for the people of Somalia, a majority of whom want only stability and security for themselves rather than any political medicine.
The region and indeed the world at large have a moral responsibility to pre-empt the recurrence of the early 90s when hundreds of Somalis died every day either as a result of drought-induced starvation or armed conflicts between tribal warlords.
In the absence of firm action by the international community in Somalia by initiating a broad, transparent and result-oriented dialogue between the Islamists and the Baidoa government, the world would have another Iraq in its hands in terms of a humanitarian disaster.
Non-starter with Iran and Syria
Oct.21, 2006
Non-starter without
broader framework
TO a large extent, it is true that the raging violence in Iraq could be contained if Iran and Syria were to join efforts to stabilise the country. In simple terms, Tehran and Damascus have links with influential figures in Iraq, both Shiites and Sunnis, and they could use this influence to help check the home-grown insurgency against the US military and its allies in Iraq.
As to the "international jihadist" segment of the guerrilla war in Iraq, the Iranians and Syrians could help prevent the infiltration of "volunteer fighters" across their borders into Iraq with the intention of joining the insurgency if only for the sake of fighting the US wherever possible.
Other avenues for "jihadists" to enter Iraq are the Jordanian, Saudi and Turkish borders. All three countries have imposed strict measures along their borders to check infiltrators. However, infiltrations do take place, as Saudi Arabia has implicitly admitted. Indications have emerged that Saudi militants do play a role in the insurgency in Iraq as part of a wider network involving Al Qaeda. So do Jordanian militants, mainly of Palestinian origin. Those trying to cross into Iraq from Turkey find the task difficult because of Ankara's own fight against its Kurdish dissidents who have found shelter in northern Iraq.
Former US secretary of state James Baker, working under a congressional mandate, is preparing a set of recommendations to the Bush administration. Among the recommendations is a call for Washington to initiate contacts with Iran and Syria in order to contain the crisis in Iraq. Without their involvement, the Baker report is said to implicitly affirm, there could not be an end to the problems the US faces in Iraq.
The broader view of the proposed role Iran and Syria could play in containing the Iraqi crisis is that there is little incentive for either of them to assume and perform that role.
As far as Iran is concerned, the US military should remain preoccupied with the internal crisis in Iraq so that Washington would not find it desirable to open a new front against the Iranians in the name of Tehran's nuclear programmes.
If it were to be asked to shift its stand, Iran would demand in return an assurance from the US that Washington has given up its goal of "regime change" in Terhan; so is the case with Syria.
Secondly, it is a non-starter if the US is seeking to isolate and deal with the Iraq crisis with no bearing on other lingering conflicts in the region — plus of course the raging dispute over Iran's nuclear intentions. The main features of the air among them are distrust and a total lack of good faith.
Indeed, Damascus has repeatedly affirmed that it is ready to help check the crisis in Iraq, but the US has been keeping Syria at arms length. Washington fears that allowing the Syrians to assume a political role in Iraq would lead to strengthening the Syrian influence among Iraqi groups at the expense of the US as well as the US-backed Iraqi opponents of Saddam Hussein who returned to the country after the ouster of the Saddam regime.
Ideally, Washington would want the Syrians to fortify their border with Iraq and launch a nationwide crackdown on Iraqis who have sought shelter in Syria and hand over to the US military anyone suspected of having the slightest link with any Iraqi dissident group. Damascus might consider the idea only if the US undertakes not to seek regime change in Syria and to help solve Syria's conflict with Israel on the basis of returning the Golan Heights in its entirety to Syrian sovereignty. That is definitely not acceptable to Israel and hence the deadlock on that front.
Similarly, from the US point of view, Iran playing a mediatory role in Iraq, would mean Tehran consolidating its alliance with Iraqi Shiites beyond those who are already avowed pro-Iranians in the south of the country.
No doubt, Iran does have an influential role in Iraq and is already playing that role in its own way, but it would not agree switch tracks at US terms except within a broader framework that addresses the whole gamut of issues of conflict between Tehran and Washington. Placing the root issues of dispute on the table is not acceptable to the US, and hence the whole idea of bringing Iran and Syria into the bid for pacifyng the Iraqis would not get anywhere as long as Washington wants to have the apple and eat it too.
Non-starter without
broader framework
TO a large extent, it is true that the raging violence in Iraq could be contained if Iran and Syria were to join efforts to stabilise the country. In simple terms, Tehran and Damascus have links with influential figures in Iraq, both Shiites and Sunnis, and they could use this influence to help check the home-grown insurgency against the US military and its allies in Iraq.
As to the "international jihadist" segment of the guerrilla war in Iraq, the Iranians and Syrians could help prevent the infiltration of "volunteer fighters" across their borders into Iraq with the intention of joining the insurgency if only for the sake of fighting the US wherever possible.
Other avenues for "jihadists" to enter Iraq are the Jordanian, Saudi and Turkish borders. All three countries have imposed strict measures along their borders to check infiltrators. However, infiltrations do take place, as Saudi Arabia has implicitly admitted. Indications have emerged that Saudi militants do play a role in the insurgency in Iraq as part of a wider network involving Al Qaeda. So do Jordanian militants, mainly of Palestinian origin. Those trying to cross into Iraq from Turkey find the task difficult because of Ankara's own fight against its Kurdish dissidents who have found shelter in northern Iraq.
Former US secretary of state James Baker, working under a congressional mandate, is preparing a set of recommendations to the Bush administration. Among the recommendations is a call for Washington to initiate contacts with Iran and Syria in order to contain the crisis in Iraq. Without their involvement, the Baker report is said to implicitly affirm, there could not be an end to the problems the US faces in Iraq.
The broader view of the proposed role Iran and Syria could play in containing the Iraqi crisis is that there is little incentive for either of them to assume and perform that role.
As far as Iran is concerned, the US military should remain preoccupied with the internal crisis in Iraq so that Washington would not find it desirable to open a new front against the Iranians in the name of Tehran's nuclear programmes.
If it were to be asked to shift its stand, Iran would demand in return an assurance from the US that Washington has given up its goal of "regime change" in Terhan; so is the case with Syria.
Secondly, it is a non-starter if the US is seeking to isolate and deal with the Iraq crisis with no bearing on other lingering conflicts in the region — plus of course the raging dispute over Iran's nuclear intentions. The main features of the air among them are distrust and a total lack of good faith.
Indeed, Damascus has repeatedly affirmed that it is ready to help check the crisis in Iraq, but the US has been keeping Syria at arms length. Washington fears that allowing the Syrians to assume a political role in Iraq would lead to strengthening the Syrian influence among Iraqi groups at the expense of the US as well as the US-backed Iraqi opponents of Saddam Hussein who returned to the country after the ouster of the Saddam regime.
Ideally, Washington would want the Syrians to fortify their border with Iraq and launch a nationwide crackdown on Iraqis who have sought shelter in Syria and hand over to the US military anyone suspected of having the slightest link with any Iraqi dissident group. Damascus might consider the idea only if the US undertakes not to seek regime change in Syria and to help solve Syria's conflict with Israel on the basis of returning the Golan Heights in its entirety to Syrian sovereignty. That is definitely not acceptable to Israel and hence the deadlock on that front.
Similarly, from the US point of view, Iran playing a mediatory role in Iraq, would mean Tehran consolidating its alliance with Iraqi Shiites beyond those who are already avowed pro-Iranians in the south of the country.
No doubt, Iran does have an influential role in Iraq and is already playing that role in its own way, but it would not agree switch tracks at US terms except within a broader framework that addresses the whole gamut of issues of conflict between Tehran and Washington. Placing the root issues of dispute on the table is not acceptable to the US, and hence the whole idea of bringing Iran and Syria into the bid for pacifyng the Iraqis would not get anywhere as long as Washington wants to have the apple and eat it too.
Silent brew in northern Iraq
Oct.20, 2006
pv vivekanand
ISRAEL and Turkey are locked in a behind-the-scene tug-of-war in northern Iraq where Kurds seeking to set up an independent state are locked in a bitter battle to drive out the Turkmen community. Also targeted for expulsion from "Kurdistan" are Arabs from other parts of Iraq who were trasnferred there during the Saddam Hussein regime in order to dilute the numerical strength of the Kurds.
Turkmen are Muslims of ethnic Turkish origin who have been living in northern Iraq since the 11th and 12th centuries. They live mainly around the oil-rich areas of Mosul and Kirkuk. Now they number around less than one million although they claim their strength is two million. Iraqi Shiites number around 15.7 million, or 60 per cent of the 26.1 million people of Iraq. Sunnis account for around 20 per cent.
Israel supports the Kurdish drive to separate themselves from Iraq so that the Jewish state could strike oil deals with the Kurds without referring to the central Baghdad government, which is dominated by Shiites and also Sunnis, both of whom are hostile to Israel.
The oil-rich city of Kirkuk is key to the Israeli plan, which involves laying a pipeline from Kirkuk's oilfields to the Israeli refinery located in Haifa on the Mediterranen through Jordan or Syria.
The Kurds, who number about 4.5 million represent 17 per cent of the Iraqi population, have already established a semi-independent (autonomous) state in Kurdistan, including the provinces of Dahouk, Erbil and Sulaimaniyeh.
Kirkuk, the most oil-rich area in Iraq, is in Tameem province, and the Kurds wants to include it in their autonomous territory where they want to set up an independent Kurdistan.
The Turkmen and Arabs, many of whom were resettled their in the 1970s and 1980s, say Kirkuk is an integral part of Iraq and it has to be placed directly under the central government. Turkish was almost the official language in Kirkuk until the early 1970s when it was banned and replaced by Arabic.
Currently the Kurds control the city’s municipal council and police.
The struggle between the Kurds on the one hand and the Turkmen, who are mainly Shiites, and Arabs, who are also mostly Shiites, on the other hand is behind the rising violence in Kirkuk, where a series of recent car bomb attacks which claimed scores of lives.
However, the Turkmen and Arabs have not been able to forge a strong alliance between themselves and present a strong force that could undermine Kurdish plans to annex the city.
Playing a secret role is Israel, whose secret operatives are said to be behind many of the bombings against Turkmen and Arabs in Kirkuk in order to support the Kurds. Israeli security forces are training Kurds and are also advising the Kurdish autonomous government in police and security affairs.
Turkey, which fears the creation of an indepedent Kurdistan because of its own 12-million strong people of Kurdish origin living across the border from Iraq, has warned Israel against its meddling in northern Iraq, but the Israelis are continuing their clandestine association with the Kurdish autonomous government.
The main goal of Israel is to secure its oil supply from Kirkuk. Before Israel was created in 1948 – when the entire area except Syria was under British control - there was an oil pipeline running from Kirkuk to Haifa running through Jordan and Palestine, but this was closed down by Iraq when Israel was created in Palestine and Haifa became part of Israel. Most of the pipeline has been dug out and sold as scrap since then.
Since the closure of the pipeline, Israel has been trying to reopen it, but its efforts were unsuccessful because of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Now that the US has invaded and ousted the Saddam regime and brought Iraq under its control, Israel has renewed the efforts and found the Kurds as its best partners because the Kurds do not share the Arab Muslim hostility towards Israel linked to the Jewish state's occupation of Palestinian and Arab territory.
Currently, Israel buys its oil needs from Russia at international prices and its costs an additonal 30 per cent for the oil to be shipped from Russian oil fields to Haifa. Therefore, it would be a straight 30 per cent saving for Israel if Kirkuk oil is pumped through a pipeline to Haifa.
As the struggle continues in Kurdistan, residents in Kirkuk say conditions in the city and nearby are than that in n Baghdad.
An "ethnic cleansing" is under way in the way, with Kurds forcing out non-Kurds from their areas and non-Kurds doing the same with Kurds.
There is no reliable statistics about the population in Kirkuk because the Saddam regime always manipulated population figures to suit is purposes. The Saddam regime had sought to change the demography of Kirkuk and other parts of northern Iraq by forcing Kurds and Turkmen out to be replaced by Arabs from southern Iraq.
Leaders of the the Iraqi-Turkish front, a Turkmen group, say tens of thousands their community were forced into destitution and now the front is struggling to have them back.
In the meantime, Turkey is seeking to pressure Israel into dropping its plans with the Kurds, but the Israelis are not listening to the Turks, and the US is impliciting backing Israel in this regard.
Effectively, big-time crisis is brewing in northern Iraq, and one could expect more bombings and attacks in Kirkuk in the days and weeks ahead as the struggle gets more intense.
pv vivekanand
ISRAEL and Turkey are locked in a behind-the-scene tug-of-war in northern Iraq where Kurds seeking to set up an independent state are locked in a bitter battle to drive out the Turkmen community. Also targeted for expulsion from "Kurdistan" are Arabs from other parts of Iraq who were trasnferred there during the Saddam Hussein regime in order to dilute the numerical strength of the Kurds.
Turkmen are Muslims of ethnic Turkish origin who have been living in northern Iraq since the 11th and 12th centuries. They live mainly around the oil-rich areas of Mosul and Kirkuk. Now they number around less than one million although they claim their strength is two million. Iraqi Shiites number around 15.7 million, or 60 per cent of the 26.1 million people of Iraq. Sunnis account for around 20 per cent.
Israel supports the Kurdish drive to separate themselves from Iraq so that the Jewish state could strike oil deals with the Kurds without referring to the central Baghdad government, which is dominated by Shiites and also Sunnis, both of whom are hostile to Israel.
The oil-rich city of Kirkuk is key to the Israeli plan, which involves laying a pipeline from Kirkuk's oilfields to the Israeli refinery located in Haifa on the Mediterranen through Jordan or Syria.
The Kurds, who number about 4.5 million represent 17 per cent of the Iraqi population, have already established a semi-independent (autonomous) state in Kurdistan, including the provinces of Dahouk, Erbil and Sulaimaniyeh.
Kirkuk, the most oil-rich area in Iraq, is in Tameem province, and the Kurds wants to include it in their autonomous territory where they want to set up an independent Kurdistan.
The Turkmen and Arabs, many of whom were resettled their in the 1970s and 1980s, say Kirkuk is an integral part of Iraq and it has to be placed directly under the central government. Turkish was almost the official language in Kirkuk until the early 1970s when it was banned and replaced by Arabic.
Currently the Kurds control the city’s municipal council and police.
The struggle between the Kurds on the one hand and the Turkmen, who are mainly Shiites, and Arabs, who are also mostly Shiites, on the other hand is behind the rising violence in Kirkuk, where a series of recent car bomb attacks which claimed scores of lives.
However, the Turkmen and Arabs have not been able to forge a strong alliance between themselves and present a strong force that could undermine Kurdish plans to annex the city.
Playing a secret role is Israel, whose secret operatives are said to be behind many of the bombings against Turkmen and Arabs in Kirkuk in order to support the Kurds. Israeli security forces are training Kurds and are also advising the Kurdish autonomous government in police and security affairs.
Turkey, which fears the creation of an indepedent Kurdistan because of its own 12-million strong people of Kurdish origin living across the border from Iraq, has warned Israel against its meddling in northern Iraq, but the Israelis are continuing their clandestine association with the Kurdish autonomous government.
The main goal of Israel is to secure its oil supply from Kirkuk. Before Israel was created in 1948 – when the entire area except Syria was under British control - there was an oil pipeline running from Kirkuk to Haifa running through Jordan and Palestine, but this was closed down by Iraq when Israel was created in Palestine and Haifa became part of Israel. Most of the pipeline has been dug out and sold as scrap since then.
Since the closure of the pipeline, Israel has been trying to reopen it, but its efforts were unsuccessful because of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Now that the US has invaded and ousted the Saddam regime and brought Iraq under its control, Israel has renewed the efforts and found the Kurds as its best partners because the Kurds do not share the Arab Muslim hostility towards Israel linked to the Jewish state's occupation of Palestinian and Arab territory.
Currently, Israel buys its oil needs from Russia at international prices and its costs an additonal 30 per cent for the oil to be shipped from Russian oil fields to Haifa. Therefore, it would be a straight 30 per cent saving for Israel if Kirkuk oil is pumped through a pipeline to Haifa.
As the struggle continues in Kurdistan, residents in Kirkuk say conditions in the city and nearby are than that in n Baghdad.
An "ethnic cleansing" is under way in the way, with Kurds forcing out non-Kurds from their areas and non-Kurds doing the same with Kurds.
There is no reliable statistics about the population in Kirkuk because the Saddam regime always manipulated population figures to suit is purposes. The Saddam regime had sought to change the demography of Kirkuk and other parts of northern Iraq by forcing Kurds and Turkmen out to be replaced by Arabs from southern Iraq.
Leaders of the the Iraqi-Turkish front, a Turkmen group, say tens of thousands their community were forced into destitution and now the front is struggling to have them back.
In the meantime, Turkey is seeking to pressure Israel into dropping its plans with the Kurds, but the Israelis are not listening to the Turks, and the US is impliciting backing Israel in this regard.
Effectively, big-time crisis is brewing in northern Iraq, and one could expect more bombings and attacks in Kirkuk in the days and weeks ahead as the struggle gets more intense.
Fresh crisis in Lebanon ?
Oct.19, 2006
Fresh crisis in the
making in Lebanon?
LITTLE signs are appearing that things might not go the way Israel wants with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). Israel had been seeking to use UNIFIL against Hizbollah by creating situations — through false-flag operations if necessary — leading to confrontation between the UN force and the Lebanese group. In turn, the crisis could be turned around, according to the Israeli plans, and lead to disarming Hizbollah sooner than later. Of course, there is no reason to believe it has given up the approach. Howver, fissures have started appearing in ideal scenario that suits Israel in its relations with the UN force.
For the first time since its first deployment in 1978, UNIFIL has warned that the force would open fire on Israeli warplanes violating Lebanese airspace. It is significant because of the restructured nature of the UN force and its Europe-led command. It was the commanders of the French contingent in UNIFIL who wave warned that if Israeli warplanes continue their overflights in Lebanon, they may have to open fire on them.
Predictably, Israel remains defiant. Defence Minister Amir Peretz told a Knesset panel that t despite the warnings, Israel would continue to patrol the skies of Lebanon. He claimed that Syria was transfering arms and ammunition to Lebanon, meaning that the embargo imposed by UN Resolution 1701 was not being completely enforced.
Responding specifically to the UNIFIL warning, Peretz said he was to inform the joint committee of representatives of UNIFIL, the Israeli military and the Lebanese army that unless the arms transfers are stopped, Israel will be forced to take "independent" action.
Indeed, that is Israeli arrogance at is peak. Warning and threatening the UN and various other international agencies and human rights groups is nothing strange when it comes to Israel, which believes it has a high moral ground over anyone else on Planet Earth and the world should always make room for Israeli wishes and commands.
European credibility and prestige are at stake as much as those of the UN. The UN force, which was expanded to 15,000 from 2,000 in line with Resolution 1701, is dominated by European countries and they should not allow themselves to be browbeaten by the Israelis.
The Israeli defiance against UNIFIL stems from the Jewish state's belief that no European country would dare or be ready to take hostile action against it. Even if someone did, then Israel knows how to manipulate its links with the US and make sure the culprit is taken to task for not respecting and defending Israeli interests.
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi has qualified himself as a target of Israeli wrath by giving ahead the green signal for negotiations with the Lebanese government for a quick sale of an Aster 15 battery, the only Western surface-to-air missile with an active guidance system capable of last-minute corrections of targeting at the moment of interception. It is a a joint Franco-Italian product and therefore approval for the sale has come also from French President Jacques Chirac.
The Beirut government has said it is seeking anti-aircraft missiles as well as long-range anti-tank rockets to block Israeli warplanes from entering Lebanese prevent Israeli tanks again crossing the border.
Surely, Israel has mounted a campaign to pre-empt the sale. Its first argument is that Hizbollah would have access to Aster 15 through the Shiite soldiers in the Lebanese army and this could directly jeopardise Israel’s aerial surveillance of Hizballah and other "hostile movements" in Lebanon.
The only reason Israel has not made a big hue and cry over Lebanon's possible acquisition of Aster 5 and long-range anti-tank rockets is that it would add to the mounting criticism that the Israeli leadership find itself under for the fiasco the Jewish state faced in the July-August war against Hizbollah. That does not mean that behind-the-scene pressure is being to bear upon Prodi and other European leaders who are sympathetic to Lebanon's efforts to acquire a minium level of defence against external aggression.
In the meantime, the possibility remains high that Israel and its agents could create an event in south Lebanon that could lead to the UN force being pitted against Hizbollah. UNIFIL commanders would be better off anticipating a serious crisis of Israel's making in southern Lebanon.
Fresh crisis in the
making in Lebanon?
LITTLE signs are appearing that things might not go the way Israel wants with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). Israel had been seeking to use UNIFIL against Hizbollah by creating situations — through false-flag operations if necessary — leading to confrontation between the UN force and the Lebanese group. In turn, the crisis could be turned around, according to the Israeli plans, and lead to disarming Hizbollah sooner than later. Of course, there is no reason to believe it has given up the approach. Howver, fissures have started appearing in ideal scenario that suits Israel in its relations with the UN force.
For the first time since its first deployment in 1978, UNIFIL has warned that the force would open fire on Israeli warplanes violating Lebanese airspace. It is significant because of the restructured nature of the UN force and its Europe-led command. It was the commanders of the French contingent in UNIFIL who wave warned that if Israeli warplanes continue their overflights in Lebanon, they may have to open fire on them.
Predictably, Israel remains defiant. Defence Minister Amir Peretz told a Knesset panel that t despite the warnings, Israel would continue to patrol the skies of Lebanon. He claimed that Syria was transfering arms and ammunition to Lebanon, meaning that the embargo imposed by UN Resolution 1701 was not being completely enforced.
Responding specifically to the UNIFIL warning, Peretz said he was to inform the joint committee of representatives of UNIFIL, the Israeli military and the Lebanese army that unless the arms transfers are stopped, Israel will be forced to take "independent" action.
Indeed, that is Israeli arrogance at is peak. Warning and threatening the UN and various other international agencies and human rights groups is nothing strange when it comes to Israel, which believes it has a high moral ground over anyone else on Planet Earth and the world should always make room for Israeli wishes and commands.
European credibility and prestige are at stake as much as those of the UN. The UN force, which was expanded to 15,000 from 2,000 in line with Resolution 1701, is dominated by European countries and they should not allow themselves to be browbeaten by the Israelis.
The Israeli defiance against UNIFIL stems from the Jewish state's belief that no European country would dare or be ready to take hostile action against it. Even if someone did, then Israel knows how to manipulate its links with the US and make sure the culprit is taken to task for not respecting and defending Israeli interests.
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi has qualified himself as a target of Israeli wrath by giving ahead the green signal for negotiations with the Lebanese government for a quick sale of an Aster 15 battery, the only Western surface-to-air missile with an active guidance system capable of last-minute corrections of targeting at the moment of interception. It is a a joint Franco-Italian product and therefore approval for the sale has come also from French President Jacques Chirac.
The Beirut government has said it is seeking anti-aircraft missiles as well as long-range anti-tank rockets to block Israeli warplanes from entering Lebanese prevent Israeli tanks again crossing the border.
Surely, Israel has mounted a campaign to pre-empt the sale. Its first argument is that Hizbollah would have access to Aster 15 through the Shiite soldiers in the Lebanese army and this could directly jeopardise Israel’s aerial surveillance of Hizballah and other "hostile movements" in Lebanon.
The only reason Israel has not made a big hue and cry over Lebanon's possible acquisition of Aster 5 and long-range anti-tank rockets is that it would add to the mounting criticism that the Israeli leadership find itself under for the fiasco the Jewish state faced in the July-August war against Hizbollah. That does not mean that behind-the-scene pressure is being to bear upon Prodi and other European leaders who are sympathetic to Lebanon's efforts to acquire a minium level of defence against external aggression.
In the meantime, the possibility remains high that Israel and its agents could create an event in south Lebanon that could lead to the UN force being pitted against Hizbollah. UNIFIL commanders would be better off anticipating a serious crisis of Israel's making in southern Lebanon.
Risk of recklessness
Oct.18 2006
Risk of reckless
step as an escape
THE warning by the head of the international nuclear watchdog that
as many as 30 countries could eventually become nuclear weapon states has added a sense of urgency for efforts to deal with the North Korean crisis and Iran's atomic research.
According to IAEA chief Mohammed Al Baradei, the so-called "virtual new weapons states" could develop technology that is at the core of peaceful nuclear energy programmes but could quickly be switched to making weapons "in a very short time." Presumably, apart from Iran, these countries include Brazil, Australia, Argentina, South Africa,
Canada, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, Taiwan, Spain, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Lithuania. These countries have the means to produce weapons-grade uranium if they chose or could quickly build such technology. Some of them could use plutonium waste for weaponisation. However, none of them has suggested they want to use their nuclear technology to produce weapons.
The international community fears that North Korea's nuclear test last week and Iran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment could spark a new arms race in Asia and he Middle East. UN officials have mentioned Egypt, Bangladesh, Ghana, Indonesia, Namibia, Moldova, Nigeria, Poland, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam and Yemen as countries which could be grouped under this category.
On the Korean front, the crisis is only worsening, with reports confirming that the North Korean test on Oct.9 was indeed a nuclear explosion, and that US intelligence have picked up signs of activity that raises the possibility that the North Koreans might carry out a second test. This could prompt the US to reconsider its options but it would have to come up with additional and more effective measures to contain North Korea.
With China having joined the effort, North Korea could find itself totally isolated, and this raises the question how it would react to such pressure.
Pyongyang has warned that the UN sanctions imposed on after the first test it were were a declaration of war. In a toughly worded statement, it vowed not to succumb to pressure and to deal "deal merciless blows" against anyone who violates its sovereignty.
The key to the crisis is whether North Korea is bluffing when it says it has become a nuclear weapons state and implies that it would not hesitate to use atomic weapons to "defend" itself. Obviously, US intelligence has not been able to come up with a conclusive answer to the question, and hence the focus on the diplomatic front to enforce the sanctions against North Korea.
The world is watching closely how the US will move to curb North Korea's nuclear activities on the one hand and how Washington will confront Tehran, which insists that its nuclear programme is not weapon oriented.
In the immediate term, the IAEA's warning about the "virtual new weapons states" adds to the pressure on the US to act against North Korea and set a deterrent against countries which might be inclined to go for nuclear weapons.
The risk here is that the US, already reeling back from the series of foreign policy failures, might worsen the situation by reckless action as a way out of the crises, and this poses unpredictable consequences whether in Asia or in the Middle East.
Risk of reckless
step as an escape
THE warning by the head of the international nuclear watchdog that
as many as 30 countries could eventually become nuclear weapon states has added a sense of urgency for efforts to deal with the North Korean crisis and Iran's atomic research.
According to IAEA chief Mohammed Al Baradei, the so-called "virtual new weapons states" could develop technology that is at the core of peaceful nuclear energy programmes but could quickly be switched to making weapons "in a very short time." Presumably, apart from Iran, these countries include Brazil, Australia, Argentina, South Africa,
Canada, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, Taiwan, Spain, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Lithuania. These countries have the means to produce weapons-grade uranium if they chose or could quickly build such technology. Some of them could use plutonium waste for weaponisation. However, none of them has suggested they want to use their nuclear technology to produce weapons.
The international community fears that North Korea's nuclear test last week and Iran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment could spark a new arms race in Asia and he Middle East. UN officials have mentioned Egypt, Bangladesh, Ghana, Indonesia, Namibia, Moldova, Nigeria, Poland, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam and Yemen as countries which could be grouped under this category.
On the Korean front, the crisis is only worsening, with reports confirming that the North Korean test on Oct.9 was indeed a nuclear explosion, and that US intelligence have picked up signs of activity that raises the possibility that the North Koreans might carry out a second test. This could prompt the US to reconsider its options but it would have to come up with additional and more effective measures to contain North Korea.
With China having joined the effort, North Korea could find itself totally isolated, and this raises the question how it would react to such pressure.
Pyongyang has warned that the UN sanctions imposed on after the first test it were were a declaration of war. In a toughly worded statement, it vowed not to succumb to pressure and to deal "deal merciless blows" against anyone who violates its sovereignty.
The key to the crisis is whether North Korea is bluffing when it says it has become a nuclear weapons state and implies that it would not hesitate to use atomic weapons to "defend" itself. Obviously, US intelligence has not been able to come up with a conclusive answer to the question, and hence the focus on the diplomatic front to enforce the sanctions against North Korea.
The world is watching closely how the US will move to curb North Korea's nuclear activities on the one hand and how Washington will confront Tehran, which insists that its nuclear programme is not weapon oriented.
In the immediate term, the IAEA's warning about the "virtual new weapons states" adds to the pressure on the US to act against North Korea and set a deterrent against countries which might be inclined to go for nuclear weapons.
The risk here is that the US, already reeling back from the series of foreign policy failures, might worsen the situation by reckless action as a way out of the crises, and this poses unpredictable consequences whether in Asia or in the Middle East.
Why settle for an imitation?
Oct.16 2006
Why settle for duplicate?
AGAINST increasing talk about plans for a US-endorsed "coup" in Baghdad in order to replace Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki with a Saddam Hussein-style "strongman" to handle the worsening crisis in Iraq, US President George W Bush has reassured Maliki that he would not set a timetable for withdrawal of troops and would continue to support him. That assurance sound rather hollow when seen against the reality that the US could not count on Maliki to control the situation and Bush would have to consider various options in order to check the crisis from growing worse.
Suggestions are rife among experts in American strategies and policies that the Bush administration is looking for a "strongman" in Iraq who should be as ruthless as any other dictator to apply an "iron-fist" approach to put an end to the raging insurgency in the country.
It might not be difficult to find such a man. However, Washington should be finding it bitter to swallow the reality that it has no choice but to abandon its goal of bringing "democracy" to Iraq and return the country to square one — an autocracy similar to the Saddam Hussein regime. It also means calling off all talk about a "new Middle East," and admitting that the Bush administration's policies have failed wholesale and retail in Iraq.
Washington might not have a choice except to admit failure in Iraq, critics say, because the reality has dawned that the US military would never be able to claim victory against the insurgents. Not only that, it has also become clear that the US would only get deeper into the Iraqi imbroglio as every day passes by without effectively putting an end to the sectarian killings that average 100 a day.
The insurgency in Iraq is destined to get worse. A recent National Intelligence Estimate states: "The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause célèbre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world, and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement."
The catch is how to bring about a "transition" at the helm of power in Baghdad given that there are elected representatives of the people in power in Iraq who into being under the initiative of the very same US administration which is now said to be seeking a way to have an autocrat to take the reins.
Different Iraqi groups have tasted power for the first time in their existence and they would fight tooth and nail against any move to deprive them of their newfound authority and clout. First and foremost among those to resist the idea would be the Shiites, who, by virtue of their majority in the population, are today in charge of key affairs of the state.
That is where the rumours of an impending "coup" in Baghdad come into play. Critics accuse the Bush administration of spreading the rumours ahead of actually stage-managing a coup and imposing on the Iraqis a dictator more brutal and ruthless than Saddam Hussein himself.
That the talk about the purported plan is growing and spreading among American strategists, analysts, observers, military experts and media indicates that someone, somewhere in a position that matters should have considered it and discussed it.
The proposal, according to those who propogate it, involves replacing the current government of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki with a five-member panel includinge top Iraqi military officers and headed by an Iraqi who could be relied upon to reinstate a Saddam-style regime in all but name. The proposed five-man "ruling commission" will suspend parliament, declare martial law, and call back some officers of the old Iraqi army" and follow a "shoot-first" policy throughout the country.
Indeed, there are many if and buts that make the proposal preposterous and unconvincing. Perhaps it could even be a trial balloon being floated to test the waters and there might be no substance wahtsover to it.
At the same time, the general assumption is that the US is desparate to find a way out of the Iraq crisis and therefore it is ready consider any idea, however wild and impossible it might sound.
If indeed that is the level of bankruptcy of ideas prevalent in the corridors of power in Washington over how to deal with Iraq, then the total collapse and disintegration of Iraq as a state is not far into the future.
And, if indeed the US is inclined to restore a Saddam-style regime in Baghdad as a way out of the crisis, Washington does not have to look for an imitation — the original is very much available and that too in US custody awaiting his fate.
Why settle for duplicate?
AGAINST increasing talk about plans for a US-endorsed "coup" in Baghdad in order to replace Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki with a Saddam Hussein-style "strongman" to handle the worsening crisis in Iraq, US President George W Bush has reassured Maliki that he would not set a timetable for withdrawal of troops and would continue to support him. That assurance sound rather hollow when seen against the reality that the US could not count on Maliki to control the situation and Bush would have to consider various options in order to check the crisis from growing worse.
Suggestions are rife among experts in American strategies and policies that the Bush administration is looking for a "strongman" in Iraq who should be as ruthless as any other dictator to apply an "iron-fist" approach to put an end to the raging insurgency in the country.
It might not be difficult to find such a man. However, Washington should be finding it bitter to swallow the reality that it has no choice but to abandon its goal of bringing "democracy" to Iraq and return the country to square one — an autocracy similar to the Saddam Hussein regime. It also means calling off all talk about a "new Middle East," and admitting that the Bush administration's policies have failed wholesale and retail in Iraq.
Washington might not have a choice except to admit failure in Iraq, critics say, because the reality has dawned that the US military would never be able to claim victory against the insurgents. Not only that, it has also become clear that the US would only get deeper into the Iraqi imbroglio as every day passes by without effectively putting an end to the sectarian killings that average 100 a day.
The insurgency in Iraq is destined to get worse. A recent National Intelligence Estimate states: "The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause célèbre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world, and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement."
The catch is how to bring about a "transition" at the helm of power in Baghdad given that there are elected representatives of the people in power in Iraq who into being under the initiative of the very same US administration which is now said to be seeking a way to have an autocrat to take the reins.
Different Iraqi groups have tasted power for the first time in their existence and they would fight tooth and nail against any move to deprive them of their newfound authority and clout. First and foremost among those to resist the idea would be the Shiites, who, by virtue of their majority in the population, are today in charge of key affairs of the state.
That is where the rumours of an impending "coup" in Baghdad come into play. Critics accuse the Bush administration of spreading the rumours ahead of actually stage-managing a coup and imposing on the Iraqis a dictator more brutal and ruthless than Saddam Hussein himself.
That the talk about the purported plan is growing and spreading among American strategists, analysts, observers, military experts and media indicates that someone, somewhere in a position that matters should have considered it and discussed it.
The proposal, according to those who propogate it, involves replacing the current government of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki with a five-member panel includinge top Iraqi military officers and headed by an Iraqi who could be relied upon to reinstate a Saddam-style regime in all but name. The proposed five-man "ruling commission" will suspend parliament, declare martial law, and call back some officers of the old Iraqi army" and follow a "shoot-first" policy throughout the country.
Indeed, there are many if and buts that make the proposal preposterous and unconvincing. Perhaps it could even be a trial balloon being floated to test the waters and there might be no substance wahtsover to it.
At the same time, the general assumption is that the US is desparate to find a way out of the Iraq crisis and therefore it is ready consider any idea, however wild and impossible it might sound.
If indeed that is the level of bankruptcy of ideas prevalent in the corridors of power in Washington over how to deal with Iraq, then the total collapse and disintegration of Iraq as a state is not far into the future.
And, if indeed the US is inclined to restore a Saddam-style regime in Baghdad as a way out of the crisis, Washington does not have to look for an imitation — the original is very much available and that too in US custody awaiting his fate.
All bets are off in Korean crisis
All bets are off
Oct.14, 2006
WHY DO we get a feeling that the world powers led by the United States at the UN Security Council have their calculations wrong with their agreement on a draft resolution mandating wide-ranging sanctions against North Korea over its declared nuclear test? Not that North Korea has a great record of contributing positively to the international community, and Pyongyong has indeed openly declared that it has conducted a nuclear test and that it would not hesitate to engage in nuclear war if it is subjected to sanctions. Wouldn't it be ironic that the big powers went after North Korea in a frenzy only because Pyongyang claimed it has conducted a nuclear test and implicitly stated that it is capable of mounting nuclear warheads on missiles?
Doubts are being cast whether North Korea did indeed conduct a nuclear test. According to US intelligence, results from an initial air sampling after North Korea's announced nuclear test showed no evidence of radioactive particles that would be expected from a successful nuclear detonation.
At the same time, the results do not rule out that the North Korean blast was not a nuclear explosion. A final result would be available within days but the initial finding is considered conclusive, according to reports.
Chinese monitoring has also found no evidence of airborne radiation from North Korea's claimed nuclear test.
According to experts, the size of the blast — said to be less than one kilotonne, far smaller than the 12.5 kilotonne bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 — makes it theoretically possible for North Korea to have tested conventional explosives underground and put out a claim that it was a nuclear test.
The absence of any evidence of radiation from the claimed test is also a source of scepticism over the North Korean claim. And, many say that the test had failed in contrary to Pyongyang's claim that it was successful.
However, for all practical purposes, it does not really matter to the world powers whether North Korea did conduct a nuclear test or whether it was a success.
When President George W. Bush called for tough action in response to the North Korea claim from the United Nations and North Korea's neighbors, he made it clear he saw little distinction between an actual nuclear test by North Korea and its announcement of one.
"The United States is working to confirm North Korea's claim, but this claim itself constitutes a threat to international peace and stability," Bush said.
The US position and Friday's agreement on a draft resolution on the crisis triggered by Monday's claim issued by North Korea show that the course of events in the Korean peninsula is headed for confrontation. At this point in time, the world is unsure of the military capabilities of North Korea, but it is a safe assumption that Pyongyang could not only pose a serious military threat in the neighbourhood but also carry out the threat.
Whether true or fake, Pyongyang's nuclear claim is a clear indication that the Pyongyang regime had reached a point where it felt it stood to gain nothing from the stalled six-party negotiations and had to do something drastic to shake the status quo. But, if the nuclear claim proves to be a fake, then Pyongyang has bitten more than it could chew. However, if it is established as true, then all bets are off as to how the crisis would develop.
Oct.14, 2006
WHY DO we get a feeling that the world powers led by the United States at the UN Security Council have their calculations wrong with their agreement on a draft resolution mandating wide-ranging sanctions against North Korea over its declared nuclear test? Not that North Korea has a great record of contributing positively to the international community, and Pyongyong has indeed openly declared that it has conducted a nuclear test and that it would not hesitate to engage in nuclear war if it is subjected to sanctions. Wouldn't it be ironic that the big powers went after North Korea in a frenzy only because Pyongyang claimed it has conducted a nuclear test and implicitly stated that it is capable of mounting nuclear warheads on missiles?
Doubts are being cast whether North Korea did indeed conduct a nuclear test. According to US intelligence, results from an initial air sampling after North Korea's announced nuclear test showed no evidence of radioactive particles that would be expected from a successful nuclear detonation.
At the same time, the results do not rule out that the North Korean blast was not a nuclear explosion. A final result would be available within days but the initial finding is considered conclusive, according to reports.
Chinese monitoring has also found no evidence of airborne radiation from North Korea's claimed nuclear test.
According to experts, the size of the blast — said to be less than one kilotonne, far smaller than the 12.5 kilotonne bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 — makes it theoretically possible for North Korea to have tested conventional explosives underground and put out a claim that it was a nuclear test.
The absence of any evidence of radiation from the claimed test is also a source of scepticism over the North Korean claim. And, many say that the test had failed in contrary to Pyongyang's claim that it was successful.
However, for all practical purposes, it does not really matter to the world powers whether North Korea did conduct a nuclear test or whether it was a success.
When President George W. Bush called for tough action in response to the North Korea claim from the United Nations and North Korea's neighbors, he made it clear he saw little distinction between an actual nuclear test by North Korea and its announcement of one.
"The United States is working to confirm North Korea's claim, but this claim itself constitutes a threat to international peace and stability," Bush said.
The US position and Friday's agreement on a draft resolution on the crisis triggered by Monday's claim issued by North Korea show that the course of events in the Korean peninsula is headed for confrontation. At this point in time, the world is unsure of the military capabilities of North Korea, but it is a safe assumption that Pyongyang could not only pose a serious military threat in the neighbourhood but also carry out the threat.
Whether true or fake, Pyongyang's nuclear claim is a clear indication that the Pyongyang regime had reached a point where it felt it stood to gain nothing from the stalled six-party negotiations and had to do something drastic to shake the status quo. But, if the nuclear claim proves to be a fake, then Pyongyang has bitten more than it could chew. However, if it is established as true, then all bets are off as to how the crisis would develop.
Iran off the hook... for now
Oct.10, 2006
Iran off US hook for now,
but not the Israeli gunsight
by pv vivekanand
NORTH Korea's nuclear test has caught the US in a bind vis a-vis Iran. Washington has not ruled out military action against North Korea as a punitive measure for its defiance of international calls against going nuclear, but it is doubtful that the US would take that extreme step because of the ambiguity over whether the North Koreans do have nuclear weapons. If they do, then it is a certainty that they would use them against US allies in the neighbourhood if the US launches military action against them, and that in itself is its strongest deterrent.
With such constraints being imposed on its options, the Bush administration finds itself restrained from going ahead with plans to launch military action against Iran in the name of Tehran's refusal to suspend nuclear enrichment. The reason is simple: If the US insists on its hard line against any country outside the exclusive nuclear club that seeks to develop nuclear weapons, then the first candidate is North Korea since it has already conducted a test and has made no secret of its intention to acquire nuclear weapons. It is taken for granted that North Korea does have the ability to produce nuclear weapons and it might already have between four and 13 atomic weapons if some experts' assessments are correct. Others say North Korea is at least one year away from a nuclear bomb.
The "case" against North Korea is proved, and it is far stronger than the Iranian case because Pyongyang has opted out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) while Iran has retained its status a signatory to the NPT. The world knows that the case against Iran is based on assumptions. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not been able to come up with concrete charges against Iran.
Tehran has played its cards right, and it was an ace that it dealt on Monday by calling for a nuclear-weapons free world following the North Korean nuclear test.
Therefore, the US has to launch military action against North Korea — which is indeed a high-risk proposition to the US friends like Japan and South Korea — before it goes ahead with plans to eliminate or at least set back Iran's "suspicious" nuclear activities through military strikes.
Ironically, one way out of the deadlock is to establish that North Korea did not really conduct a nuclear test and has not reached a level in its nuclear programme to pose a genuine threat.
However, regional and international monitoring stations have affirmed that North Korea did conduct a nuclear test some 2,000 metres underground. As such, the US option of discrediting the North Korean claim has been set back.
South Korean monitors were first to report seismic activity in the area measuring 3.58 on the Richter scale, while the US Geological Survey recorded a 4.2-magnitude earthquake.
Russia has reported that the testing produced an explosion between five and 15 kilotons and that it was indeed nuclear in nature.
The angry Chinese reaction to the North Korean action is telling since Beijing is best placed to establish the authenticity of Pyongyang's claim.
These affirmations have not stopped US strategists trying an attempt by raising doubts whether the seismic event recorded in North Hamgyung province about 350 kilometres north-east of Pyongyang was indeed caused by a nuclear device.
If it is proved to be a dud, then it gets the US off the hook of having to act against North Korea before turning to Iran. Again, the US faces a firm Chinese stand against the military option.
In the meantime, Washington has to put up with humiliation that is emanating from bold North Korean statements and also faces pressure to end its painful crackdown on North Korean finances and finally agree to one-on-one negotiations, a demand that the US has consistently rejected if only because it would mean facing North Korean demands for a non-aggression pledge.
North Korea is cranking up the ratchet by suggesting that it only return to six-country talks to end its nuclear development if Washington made concessions.
"We are still willing to abandon nuclear programmes and return to six-party talks ... if the United States takes corresponding measures," a North Korean spokesman said on Tuesday.
However, the spokesman also talked tough. He said Pyongyang was prepared to put nuclear warheads on missiles and conduct additional nuclear tests "depending on how the situation develops."
Instead of making concessions, the US and Japan are pushing the UN Security Council to clamp harsh sanctions on North Korea. A US-drafted resolution calls for international inspections of North Korea’s incoming and outgoing cargoes, a freeze on transfers of materials and technology for military purposes and a ban on luxury goods. Japan wants a ban on North Korean ships and planes from all ports if they carried nuclear or ballistic missile-related materials. South Korea may also review its “sunshine policy” of engagement with the North.
Such a tough approach has Israel worried because it would only intensify the confrontation in Asia while the Israeli priority is Iran and wants the US to "take out" Iranian nuclear installations as prelude to possible wider action for "regime change" in Tehran to suit Israeli interests. Israeli experts have stepped into the fray by suggesting that it has not been confirmed that a nuclear test took place and that North Korea probably has enough fissile material to make six to eight nuclear bombs but lacks the technology to make one small enough to mount on a missile.
They assert that Tehran is using "the current climate of international passivity" to push ahead with its nuclear activities. They have accused China of supplying Iran with nuclear materials, and technology and advanced centrifuges, as well as technology for sophisticated weapons and missile systems.
The Israelis would rather have the US engage North Korea in dialogue than confronting it because confrontation means eventual US military action while the Iranian threat — as Israel perceives it — continues to grow.
Parallel to the thinking is the possibility of Israeli military action against Iran's nuclear facilities. In fact, the possibility has grown in the wake of the unfolding events in the Korean Peninsula.
A revealing Israeli report says: "There is still a short time left to take action before Israelis wake up one morning — as did North Koreans and Japanese on Monday, Oct. 9 — to find they ware living under a dark nuclear shadow; but, only for Israel a nuclear Iran will be less a shadow than a mortal threat to its very existence."
Does one have to read between the lines?
Iran off US hook for now,
but not the Israeli gunsight
by pv vivekanand
NORTH Korea's nuclear test has caught the US in a bind vis a-vis Iran. Washington has not ruled out military action against North Korea as a punitive measure for its defiance of international calls against going nuclear, but it is doubtful that the US would take that extreme step because of the ambiguity over whether the North Koreans do have nuclear weapons. If they do, then it is a certainty that they would use them against US allies in the neighbourhood if the US launches military action against them, and that in itself is its strongest deterrent.
With such constraints being imposed on its options, the Bush administration finds itself restrained from going ahead with plans to launch military action against Iran in the name of Tehran's refusal to suspend nuclear enrichment. The reason is simple: If the US insists on its hard line against any country outside the exclusive nuclear club that seeks to develop nuclear weapons, then the first candidate is North Korea since it has already conducted a test and has made no secret of its intention to acquire nuclear weapons. It is taken for granted that North Korea does have the ability to produce nuclear weapons and it might already have between four and 13 atomic weapons if some experts' assessments are correct. Others say North Korea is at least one year away from a nuclear bomb.
The "case" against North Korea is proved, and it is far stronger than the Iranian case because Pyongyang has opted out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) while Iran has retained its status a signatory to the NPT. The world knows that the case against Iran is based on assumptions. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not been able to come up with concrete charges against Iran.
Tehran has played its cards right, and it was an ace that it dealt on Monday by calling for a nuclear-weapons free world following the North Korean nuclear test.
Therefore, the US has to launch military action against North Korea — which is indeed a high-risk proposition to the US friends like Japan and South Korea — before it goes ahead with plans to eliminate or at least set back Iran's "suspicious" nuclear activities through military strikes.
Ironically, one way out of the deadlock is to establish that North Korea did not really conduct a nuclear test and has not reached a level in its nuclear programme to pose a genuine threat.
However, regional and international monitoring stations have affirmed that North Korea did conduct a nuclear test some 2,000 metres underground. As such, the US option of discrediting the North Korean claim has been set back.
South Korean monitors were first to report seismic activity in the area measuring 3.58 on the Richter scale, while the US Geological Survey recorded a 4.2-magnitude earthquake.
Russia has reported that the testing produced an explosion between five and 15 kilotons and that it was indeed nuclear in nature.
The angry Chinese reaction to the North Korean action is telling since Beijing is best placed to establish the authenticity of Pyongyang's claim.
These affirmations have not stopped US strategists trying an attempt by raising doubts whether the seismic event recorded in North Hamgyung province about 350 kilometres north-east of Pyongyang was indeed caused by a nuclear device.
If it is proved to be a dud, then it gets the US off the hook of having to act against North Korea before turning to Iran. Again, the US faces a firm Chinese stand against the military option.
In the meantime, Washington has to put up with humiliation that is emanating from bold North Korean statements and also faces pressure to end its painful crackdown on North Korean finances and finally agree to one-on-one negotiations, a demand that the US has consistently rejected if only because it would mean facing North Korean demands for a non-aggression pledge.
North Korea is cranking up the ratchet by suggesting that it only return to six-country talks to end its nuclear development if Washington made concessions.
"We are still willing to abandon nuclear programmes and return to six-party talks ... if the United States takes corresponding measures," a North Korean spokesman said on Tuesday.
However, the spokesman also talked tough. He said Pyongyang was prepared to put nuclear warheads on missiles and conduct additional nuclear tests "depending on how the situation develops."
Instead of making concessions, the US and Japan are pushing the UN Security Council to clamp harsh sanctions on North Korea. A US-drafted resolution calls for international inspections of North Korea’s incoming and outgoing cargoes, a freeze on transfers of materials and technology for military purposes and a ban on luxury goods. Japan wants a ban on North Korean ships and planes from all ports if they carried nuclear or ballistic missile-related materials. South Korea may also review its “sunshine policy” of engagement with the North.
Such a tough approach has Israel worried because it would only intensify the confrontation in Asia while the Israeli priority is Iran and wants the US to "take out" Iranian nuclear installations as prelude to possible wider action for "regime change" in Tehran to suit Israeli interests. Israeli experts have stepped into the fray by suggesting that it has not been confirmed that a nuclear test took place and that North Korea probably has enough fissile material to make six to eight nuclear bombs but lacks the technology to make one small enough to mount on a missile.
They assert that Tehran is using "the current climate of international passivity" to push ahead with its nuclear activities. They have accused China of supplying Iran with nuclear materials, and technology and advanced centrifuges, as well as technology for sophisticated weapons and missile systems.
The Israelis would rather have the US engage North Korea in dialogue than confronting it because confrontation means eventual US military action while the Iranian threat — as Israel perceives it — continues to grow.
Parallel to the thinking is the possibility of Israeli military action against Iran's nuclear facilities. In fact, the possibility has grown in the wake of the unfolding events in the Korean Peninsula.
A revealing Israeli report says: "There is still a short time left to take action before Israelis wake up one morning — as did North Koreans and Japanese on Monday, Oct. 9 — to find they ware living under a dark nuclear shadow; but, only for Israel a nuclear Iran will be less a shadow than a mortal threat to its very existence."
Does one have to read between the lines?
Engaging the Taliban
US folly in Afghanistan
Oct.9 2006
WHERE the road ends the Taliban control begins. That is perhaps the best way to summarise the situation in Afghanistan five years after US-led coalition forces invaded the country to topple the hardline regime in Kabul. Hopes of stability and security have not been realised in the country, which has a centuries-old record of being too tough for any foreign invader to control. In modern history, the British colonial power tried its hand and failed and then the mighty Soviet Union had to retreat after nearly a decade of military occupation of Afghanistan. Obvious, the US and its allies failed to learn from history.
The biggest mistake the US-led coalition made in Afghanistan was to take the Afghan people for granted and believe that they would be happy to find an end to the Taliban rule, which was based on hardline interpretations of Islamic teachings and practices. Indeed, a majority of Afghans suffered from abject poverty and could not care less who ruled them as long as their daily needs were met. However, they are also proud people and they preferred to have one from among them to rule them. As such, it would not be a very accurate assertion that the Afghan people wanted to get rid of the Taliban.
Assessing the Afghan minidset on the basis of the Western experience with the Afghan refugees living in Pakistan was yet another mistake. For those refugees, returning home was a dream in itself, and they should never have been taken as a barometer to chart the future course of the country.
The gravest of all mistakes was the shortcoming in ensuring that the Afghans felt that they stood to lose something if they themselves turned party to destabilising the post-war country. The international community did understand this reality, and hence the flood of pledges that were made for the country. However, it was a sad story when it came to actual delivery on the pledges.
Today, studies have found that less than 10 per cent of the Afghan population have access to electricity and less than 15 per cent access to potable water. Unemployment is high among the youth. It should not have been the case had the donors made good their pledges and also helped ensure that the funds were used for the right projects.
In simple terms, whatever money was available was too less to make a real difference to the daily life of the people of Afghanistan and for them to feel they have entered a new era.
Senior foreign military commanders who have seen the realities on the ground in the country have raised the same points. Now they add that the present strength of the coalition forces is insufficient to deal effectively with the Taliban, who are indeed regrouping and staging a comeback in the countryside with many young men from the frustrated rural population joining them.
The American declaration that democracy has progressed in Afghanistan is undermined by the fact that the government's control is limited to Kabul and even that is now challenged by the increasing number of insurgent attacks in the capital. The Taliban were even able mount an attack at the US embassy a few weeks ago.
What the US and its allies face in Afghanistan today is an array of problems which include the inability to form a police force, and uncontrollable forces owing loyalty to tribe-based warlords and others who could afford to pay them better than the Afghan army and mounting cases of violations of human rights.
The West now complains that there has been a significant growth of opium poppy production since the ouster of the Taliban.
It is not too late for salvaging the situation. The powers that control Afghanistan should stop in their tracks and consider including the Taliban in the political system. It might indeed be a bitter pill for the US and its allies to swallow, but there is no escape from the reality that the Taliban are as Afghan as any other. Opening dialogue with the Taliban could be the first step in redirecting the course of events in the country towards better shores. The task is not at all easy, but it is the only sure way for turning the situation in Afghanistan.
Oct.9 2006
WHERE the road ends the Taliban control begins. That is perhaps the best way to summarise the situation in Afghanistan five years after US-led coalition forces invaded the country to topple the hardline regime in Kabul. Hopes of stability and security have not been realised in the country, which has a centuries-old record of being too tough for any foreign invader to control. In modern history, the British colonial power tried its hand and failed and then the mighty Soviet Union had to retreat after nearly a decade of military occupation of Afghanistan. Obvious, the US and its allies failed to learn from history.
The biggest mistake the US-led coalition made in Afghanistan was to take the Afghan people for granted and believe that they would be happy to find an end to the Taliban rule, which was based on hardline interpretations of Islamic teachings and practices. Indeed, a majority of Afghans suffered from abject poverty and could not care less who ruled them as long as their daily needs were met. However, they are also proud people and they preferred to have one from among them to rule them. As such, it would not be a very accurate assertion that the Afghan people wanted to get rid of the Taliban.
Assessing the Afghan minidset on the basis of the Western experience with the Afghan refugees living in Pakistan was yet another mistake. For those refugees, returning home was a dream in itself, and they should never have been taken as a barometer to chart the future course of the country.
The gravest of all mistakes was the shortcoming in ensuring that the Afghans felt that they stood to lose something if they themselves turned party to destabilising the post-war country. The international community did understand this reality, and hence the flood of pledges that were made for the country. However, it was a sad story when it came to actual delivery on the pledges.
Today, studies have found that less than 10 per cent of the Afghan population have access to electricity and less than 15 per cent access to potable water. Unemployment is high among the youth. It should not have been the case had the donors made good their pledges and also helped ensure that the funds were used for the right projects.
In simple terms, whatever money was available was too less to make a real difference to the daily life of the people of Afghanistan and for them to feel they have entered a new era.
Senior foreign military commanders who have seen the realities on the ground in the country have raised the same points. Now they add that the present strength of the coalition forces is insufficient to deal effectively with the Taliban, who are indeed regrouping and staging a comeback in the countryside with many young men from the frustrated rural population joining them.
The American declaration that democracy has progressed in Afghanistan is undermined by the fact that the government's control is limited to Kabul and even that is now challenged by the increasing number of insurgent attacks in the capital. The Taliban were even able mount an attack at the US embassy a few weeks ago.
What the US and its allies face in Afghanistan today is an array of problems which include the inability to form a police force, and uncontrollable forces owing loyalty to tribe-based warlords and others who could afford to pay them better than the Afghan army and mounting cases of violations of human rights.
The West now complains that there has been a significant growth of opium poppy production since the ouster of the Taliban.
It is not too late for salvaging the situation. The powers that control Afghanistan should stop in their tracks and consider including the Taliban in the political system. It might indeed be a bitter pill for the US and its allies to swallow, but there is no escape from the reality that the Taliban are as Afghan as any other. Opening dialogue with the Taliban could be the first step in redirecting the course of events in the country towards better shores. The task is not at all easy, but it is the only sure way for turning the situation in Afghanistan.
Time to reflect — 50 years on
Oct.29, 2006
Time to reflect — 50 years on
In 1956, just eight years after Israel was created in Palestine, the Jewish state showed its aggressive regional teeth by joining the disastrous invasion of Egypt alongside Britain and France in what came to be known as the Suez crisis.
Within Israel the invasion is described as the "forgotten war" because of the fiasco that resulted from it in the short term. However, it was also a turning point for Israel to nurture its expansionist designs that started with the war of 1948 and led to the conflicts of 1967 and 1973 and the two aggressions that it waged against Lebanon in 1982 and 2006.
The world should have realised that Israel posed a serious theat to the stability and security of the region when it became party to the Anglo-French plot to retake control of the Suez Canal after then Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser privatised the strategic waterway linking the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.
It was Israel which led the action with an attack on Egypt, with Britain and France sending paratroopers in a deceptive move that was described as aimed at "separating the belligerents" but in practice to take control of the strategic canal.
Many reasons were forwarded as to why Israel took it upon itself to launch the plot, including that it wanted to stop incursions from the then Egyptian-controlled Gaza Strip, gain access for Israeli vessels to the Suez Canal, and an attempt to increase territory. Experts say the best among the reasons was that Israel had sensed Egypt's Nasser as a potential threat and saw the Anglo-French plot was ideal to get rid of him.
The grand design was foiled because the Soviet Union threatened to intervene with nuclear weapons, and the US refused to back the Anglo-French move, more because of Washington's rejection of France assuming a high-profile role in the region. The war lasted only 10 days. The invaders had to be withdrawn by the end of 1956 and it also marked the first time the United Nations assigned neutral forces wearing the UN uniform ato keep peace in the area.
It marked the beginning of the decline of the British and French influence in the Arab World and the strengthening of the US role in the region. However, the country that benefited most in the years that followed was Israel, which manoeuvred itself into a position where it got itself listed as the US's most favourite ally in the Middle East.
It played a strong card by presenting itself as a potential victim of Egypt-led Arab moves to "annihilate" it with support from the Soviet Union and the US immediately swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
Today, the US is the staunchest ally and protector of Israel and the hook that it swallowed 50 years ago remains strongly embedded so deep that extricating it could cause serious internal damages to the US itself. Or at least that the impression that Israel has managed to create.
On the anniversary of the Suez crisis, it could pay off well for the US to make an objective assessment of the events since then and realise that the loss of its credibility and decline of influence in the Middle East resulted from its alliance with Israel.
Washington might not actually believe that it has lost anything, but all anyone needs is to ask an average American today to realise that the great nation is on a fast downward slide in its relations with the Arab and Muslim worlds, thanks to Israel.
Time to reflect — 50 years on
In 1956, just eight years after Israel was created in Palestine, the Jewish state showed its aggressive regional teeth by joining the disastrous invasion of Egypt alongside Britain and France in what came to be known as the Suez crisis.
Within Israel the invasion is described as the "forgotten war" because of the fiasco that resulted from it in the short term. However, it was also a turning point for Israel to nurture its expansionist designs that started with the war of 1948 and led to the conflicts of 1967 and 1973 and the two aggressions that it waged against Lebanon in 1982 and 2006.
The world should have realised that Israel posed a serious theat to the stability and security of the region when it became party to the Anglo-French plot to retake control of the Suez Canal after then Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser privatised the strategic waterway linking the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.
It was Israel which led the action with an attack on Egypt, with Britain and France sending paratroopers in a deceptive move that was described as aimed at "separating the belligerents" but in practice to take control of the strategic canal.
Many reasons were forwarded as to why Israel took it upon itself to launch the plot, including that it wanted to stop incursions from the then Egyptian-controlled Gaza Strip, gain access for Israeli vessels to the Suez Canal, and an attempt to increase territory. Experts say the best among the reasons was that Israel had sensed Egypt's Nasser as a potential threat and saw the Anglo-French plot was ideal to get rid of him.
The grand design was foiled because the Soviet Union threatened to intervene with nuclear weapons, and the US refused to back the Anglo-French move, more because of Washington's rejection of France assuming a high-profile role in the region. The war lasted only 10 days. The invaders had to be withdrawn by the end of 1956 and it also marked the first time the United Nations assigned neutral forces wearing the UN uniform ato keep peace in the area.
It marked the beginning of the decline of the British and French influence in the Arab World and the strengthening of the US role in the region. However, the country that benefited most in the years that followed was Israel, which manoeuvred itself into a position where it got itself listed as the US's most favourite ally in the Middle East.
It played a strong card by presenting itself as a potential victim of Egypt-led Arab moves to "annihilate" it with support from the Soviet Union and the US immediately swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
Today, the US is the staunchest ally and protector of Israel and the hook that it swallowed 50 years ago remains strongly embedded so deep that extricating it could cause serious internal damages to the US itself. Or at least that the impression that Israel has managed to create.
On the anniversary of the Suez crisis, it could pay off well for the US to make an objective assessment of the events since then and realise that the loss of its credibility and decline of influence in the Middle East resulted from its alliance with Israel.
Washington might not actually believe that it has lost anything, but all anyone needs is to ask an average American today to realise that the great nation is on a fast downward slide in its relations with the Arab and Muslim worlds, thanks to Israel.
Pointing finger the othe way
Oct.26, 2006
Pointing finger the othe way
IN the hypothesis that the Bush administration were to ask the American people what course it should follow in the Korean nuclear crisis, a majority would affirm that they favour direct talks with Pyongyang without preconditions. This is what is indicated in an opinion poll conducted by the Programme on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA)/Knowledge Networks.
Washington has ruled out direct talks with North Korea mainly because such dialogue has to be based on an American undertaking not to seek "regime change" in Pyongyang and not to stage military action against the country. The deadlock in the dispute over Iran's nuclear activities also stems from a similar position adopted by the Bush administration.
The administration says it will only have dealings with North Korwea as part of six-nation negotiations meant to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear programmes. Those talks have been deadlocked for nearly a year.
It is highly unlikely that the administration would heed the message in the PIPA survey finding that its constituents favour a different approach. In any event, the US government could not be expected to implement major policy changes based on public opinion if such shifts do not fit in with its overall scheme of things. That might not be democracy in a broad interpretation of the term, but that is the way the political system works in the US.
Findings of opinion polls are often dismissed as not represenative of the public mood. Pollsters are often implicitly accused of selectivity in their target audiences with a view to arriving at and reporting predetermined outcomes. Surely, if the findings of the PIPA survey were to be put to the US government, then the stock answer would be that they are not accurate and do not reflect the real opinion of a majority of the American people.
However, the Bush administration might not be able to get away with the argument this time around because calls for direct talks with North Korea have come from the Republican camp itself, including leading senators such as Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Such an approach was also backed by the top Democrat in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joseph Biden, who said that the other four nations in the six-party negotiations — China, Russia, South Korea and Japan -- have privately urged the US to launch direct contacts with North Korea.
Lugar has affirmed that a Washington-Pyongyang dialogue is "inevitable if (the nuclear crisis) is to be resolved diplomatically."
One day, Lugar said, "there will be an American president talking to the 'Great Leader' (North Korea's Kim Jong-Il) and his people and saying, in essence, in terms they can understand, 'We are not going to overthrow you; we are not involved in regime change; you're going to stay'," Lugar said. Precisely that is what Washington wants to avoid, and it is highly unlikely that it would move away from this position in a hurry.
In any case, the Bush administration does not have a record of listening to public opinion. Had it listened, then the US military would not find itself embroiled in the Iraq crisis nor in the nuclear stand-off with Iran and North Korea.
More reflective of the American public mood seems to be the conclusion of the PIPA pollsters that a growing number of Americans feel the US places too much emphasis on military force and unilateral action. They want their elected representativbes in Congress to shift the emphasis of US foreign policy in favour of diplomacy, multilateral co-operation and homeland security.
Only nine per cent said the US should remain the sole superpower.
For a vast majority in the international community, it does not really matter whether the US remains the sole superpower as long as Washington, as a matter of principle and practice, stays away from using that status in order to impose its will on other countries. However, the US behaviour is quite contrary to that expectation, and this reality seems to have penetrated the American mindset at large.
The PIPA findings on American public mood over the Korean nuclear crisis could not be seen isolation. It has been established that the American people do not see eye-to-eye with their government on many major foreign policy issues including the Iraq crisis, the dispute with Iran and the overall Middle East conflict. The sad reality is that successive US administrations always choose to put up lame defences in fiery words and point the finger the other way. However, it might not be able to get away with this strategy for too long. The sooner turnaround would come the better for not only the American people but also the international community at large.
Pointing finger the othe way
IN the hypothesis that the Bush administration were to ask the American people what course it should follow in the Korean nuclear crisis, a majority would affirm that they favour direct talks with Pyongyang without preconditions. This is what is indicated in an opinion poll conducted by the Programme on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA)/Knowledge Networks.
Washington has ruled out direct talks with North Korea mainly because such dialogue has to be based on an American undertaking not to seek "regime change" in Pyongyang and not to stage military action against the country. The deadlock in the dispute over Iran's nuclear activities also stems from a similar position adopted by the Bush administration.
The administration says it will only have dealings with North Korwea as part of six-nation negotiations meant to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear programmes. Those talks have been deadlocked for nearly a year.
It is highly unlikely that the administration would heed the message in the PIPA survey finding that its constituents favour a different approach. In any event, the US government could not be expected to implement major policy changes based on public opinion if such shifts do not fit in with its overall scheme of things. That might not be democracy in a broad interpretation of the term, but that is the way the political system works in the US.
Findings of opinion polls are often dismissed as not represenative of the public mood. Pollsters are often implicitly accused of selectivity in their target audiences with a view to arriving at and reporting predetermined outcomes. Surely, if the findings of the PIPA survey were to be put to the US government, then the stock answer would be that they are not accurate and do not reflect the real opinion of a majority of the American people.
However, the Bush administration might not be able to get away with the argument this time around because calls for direct talks with North Korea have come from the Republican camp itself, including leading senators such as Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Such an approach was also backed by the top Democrat in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joseph Biden, who said that the other four nations in the six-party negotiations — China, Russia, South Korea and Japan -- have privately urged the US to launch direct contacts with North Korea.
Lugar has affirmed that a Washington-Pyongyang dialogue is "inevitable if (the nuclear crisis) is to be resolved diplomatically."
One day, Lugar said, "there will be an American president talking to the 'Great Leader' (North Korea's Kim Jong-Il) and his people and saying, in essence, in terms they can understand, 'We are not going to overthrow you; we are not involved in regime change; you're going to stay'," Lugar said. Precisely that is what Washington wants to avoid, and it is highly unlikely that it would move away from this position in a hurry.
In any case, the Bush administration does not have a record of listening to public opinion. Had it listened, then the US military would not find itself embroiled in the Iraq crisis nor in the nuclear stand-off with Iran and North Korea.
More reflective of the American public mood seems to be the conclusion of the PIPA pollsters that a growing number of Americans feel the US places too much emphasis on military force and unilateral action. They want their elected representativbes in Congress to shift the emphasis of US foreign policy in favour of diplomacy, multilateral co-operation and homeland security.
Only nine per cent said the US should remain the sole superpower.
For a vast majority in the international community, it does not really matter whether the US remains the sole superpower as long as Washington, as a matter of principle and practice, stays away from using that status in order to impose its will on other countries. However, the US behaviour is quite contrary to that expectation, and this reality seems to have penetrated the American mindset at large.
The PIPA findings on American public mood over the Korean nuclear crisis could not be seen isolation. It has been established that the American people do not see eye-to-eye with their government on many major foreign policy issues including the Iraq crisis, the dispute with Iran and the overall Middle East conflict. The sad reality is that successive US administrations always choose to put up lame defences in fiery words and point the finger the other way. However, it might not be able to get away with this strategy for too long. The sooner turnaround would come the better for not only the American people but also the international community at large.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Dangerous moves in Kurdistan
Sept.3, 2006
Dangeous moves in Kurdistan
THE MOVE by the Kurds of northern Iraq to replace the national flag with a Kurdish flag in their autonomous region is yet another move in the Kurdish campaign for independent statehood, which also implies the disintegration of the chaotic country along sectarian lines sooner or later.
In criticising Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani for the move, Sunni political leaders said only that it insulted Iraq.
However, it was implicit in Sunni Arab Member of Parliament Saleh Al Mutlaq's comment that the Kurdish move signalled more troubled times ahead.
"What will be taken by force today, will be returned by force another day," he said, without elaborating. "We can defend our dignity, our people and our land ... and no one should be under the illusion that he could take a tiny bit of somebody else's land."
Indeed, independence is everyone's right, and no one has the right to deny it. However, the dangers in a disintegration of Iraq are too grave for not only the country but also for the entire region.
It is unlikely that criticism or opposition would dissuade the Kurds from pursing their objective of setting up an independent Kurdistan in the three Kurdish-dominated provices of northern Iraq.
The Kurds did enjoy a fair extent of autonomous rule under the Saddam Hussein regime — indeed they were also subjected to brutal oppression and crackdown on and off whenever the regime felt they challenged Iraq's interests. They revolted and expanded their autonomous status immediately after the 1991 war over Kuwait, and the US protected them against Saddam's army. Since then, they operated their own system in three provinces of northern Iraq with US support. With the ouster of Saddam in 2003, the two main Kurdish groups — which used to fight each other but reconciled somewhat in the late 90s — settled their dispute and put up a joint front as another step towards statehood in the three provinces.
They have done their own "ethnic cleansing" act and, for all technical purposes, they have also secured what they see as the territory which would be the forerunner of Kurdistan. However, they are seeking absolute control of the oil-rich Kirkuk area. But they might not find it as easygoing as that as they move closer to their goal.
The US should be opposed to the idea if only because the Kurds seeking an independent state is bad news all around for Washington.
It would lead to a division of Iraq, with the Shiites of the south seeking their own autonomous entity (some of them have already moved along those lines) in the oil-rich southern areas but also control over central Iraq. How the Sunnis would react to such a move is only predictable.
In any event, a disintegration of Iraq would be the biggest humiliation that the US would suffer, given that it would prove that the world's sole superpower could not control and pacify the country and keep its people under check. Of course, there are other strategic and political imperatives at play for Washington in Iraq and they do not leave room for a divided Iraq, (unless of course there is a hidden agenda where Israel wants to deal with the Kurds on their own and source its energy and part of water from northern Iraq without having to worry out the Shiites and Sunnis of the country; all bets are off if that is the case indeed).
Turkey, which has a significant Kurdish content in its population, would fight tooth and nail the idea of Kurdish independence, which will also draw fire from Iran and Syria, both of whom have Kurdish minorities.
Kurdish leaders like Saddam successor Jalal Talabani and Barzani, the "president" of the Kurdish autonomus government, are maintaining that they would not seek to break away from Iraq and remain committed to Iraq's national unity and territorial integrity, but there is pressure from within their ranks for independent statehood.
Barzani's order to replace the Iraqi flag could be a balloon test for Iraq and wider Arab reaction. If the people of Iraq and all those Arabs and Muslim who want to preserve the country's identity and integrity are found wanting, then the danger of Iraq splitting would come much closer than the world expects it.
Dangeous moves in Kurdistan
THE MOVE by the Kurds of northern Iraq to replace the national flag with a Kurdish flag in their autonomous region is yet another move in the Kurdish campaign for independent statehood, which also implies the disintegration of the chaotic country along sectarian lines sooner or later.
In criticising Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani for the move, Sunni political leaders said only that it insulted Iraq.
However, it was implicit in Sunni Arab Member of Parliament Saleh Al Mutlaq's comment that the Kurdish move signalled more troubled times ahead.
"What will be taken by force today, will be returned by force another day," he said, without elaborating. "We can defend our dignity, our people and our land ... and no one should be under the illusion that he could take a tiny bit of somebody else's land."
Indeed, independence is everyone's right, and no one has the right to deny it. However, the dangers in a disintegration of Iraq are too grave for not only the country but also for the entire region.
It is unlikely that criticism or opposition would dissuade the Kurds from pursing their objective of setting up an independent Kurdistan in the three Kurdish-dominated provices of northern Iraq.
The Kurds did enjoy a fair extent of autonomous rule under the Saddam Hussein regime — indeed they were also subjected to brutal oppression and crackdown on and off whenever the regime felt they challenged Iraq's interests. They revolted and expanded their autonomous status immediately after the 1991 war over Kuwait, and the US protected them against Saddam's army. Since then, they operated their own system in three provinces of northern Iraq with US support. With the ouster of Saddam in 2003, the two main Kurdish groups — which used to fight each other but reconciled somewhat in the late 90s — settled their dispute and put up a joint front as another step towards statehood in the three provinces.
They have done their own "ethnic cleansing" act and, for all technical purposes, they have also secured what they see as the territory which would be the forerunner of Kurdistan. However, they are seeking absolute control of the oil-rich Kirkuk area. But they might not find it as easygoing as that as they move closer to their goal.
The US should be opposed to the idea if only because the Kurds seeking an independent state is bad news all around for Washington.
It would lead to a division of Iraq, with the Shiites of the south seeking their own autonomous entity (some of them have already moved along those lines) in the oil-rich southern areas but also control over central Iraq. How the Sunnis would react to such a move is only predictable.
In any event, a disintegration of Iraq would be the biggest humiliation that the US would suffer, given that it would prove that the world's sole superpower could not control and pacify the country and keep its people under check. Of course, there are other strategic and political imperatives at play for Washington in Iraq and they do not leave room for a divided Iraq, (unless of course there is a hidden agenda where Israel wants to deal with the Kurds on their own and source its energy and part of water from northern Iraq without having to worry out the Shiites and Sunnis of the country; all bets are off if that is the case indeed).
Turkey, which has a significant Kurdish content in its population, would fight tooth and nail the idea of Kurdish independence, which will also draw fire from Iran and Syria, both of whom have Kurdish minorities.
Kurdish leaders like Saddam successor Jalal Talabani and Barzani, the "president" of the Kurdish autonomus government, are maintaining that they would not seek to break away from Iraq and remain committed to Iraq's national unity and territorial integrity, but there is pressure from within their ranks for independent statehood.
Barzani's order to replace the Iraqi flag could be a balloon test for Iraq and wider Arab reaction. If the people of Iraq and all those Arabs and Muslim who want to preserve the country's identity and integrity are found wanting, then the danger of Iraq splitting would come much closer than the world expects it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
![Iraq counter](http://a href="http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html" img src="http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/images/iraqdeaths.gif" alt="Just Foreign Policy Iraqi Death Estimator" width="150" height="150" border="0" /a){kind=link}