Afghanistan Special: A Requiem for Wali Karzai and for Afghanistan

Photo: Associated PressYou are not supposed to be happy over a person’s death. But the business I am in does not allow for such conventional decencies, nor does the fact that I’m an Afghan.

I am not sure --- at least until the Arab revolutions of the last six months opened our eyes --- how many people knew of the monsters among us. One of these was Ahmad Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, shot to death this morning in Kandahar.

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EA on the Road: The International Summer School in Dublin

I will be joining the Clinton Institute of American Studies at University College Dublin for its International Summer School from Monday to Friday, working with students and colleagues on topics such as US foreign policy, international affairs, and "new media". There will be a special seminar, drawing from EA and our partner sites, on electronic journalism, combining academic expertise with day-to-day reporting and analysis.

The Iran and North Africa/Middle East LiveBlogs will be limited at times, As always, we thank readers for their support by bringing in news and ideas through their comments. (Remember, if you are not registered with Disqus, your comment may take some time to appear.)

US Politics Analysis: The Republicans' Damaging Myth of Lower Taxes = More Employment

Last week, President Obama finally showed some of the leadership over the issue that his critics have demanded. But his new engagement with the debt limit talks, and his desire for a long-term deal, have run headlong into the brick wall of the Republican insistence that spending cuts are the only acceptable means for cutting America's deficits. Even though virtually every moderate media observer is demanding some revenue increases as part of any meaningful deal and even though there is reason to doubt tax increases would be as harmful to the economy as conservatives maintain, Republicans seem prepared to hold this position to the point of breakdown.

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The Latest from Iran (12 July): Arresting the "Deviant Current"

1700 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Detained journalist Isa Saharkhiz has written to Ahmad Shaheed, the UN Human Rights Rapporteur on Iran, "What is happening now in the Islamic Republic prisons is a crime against humanity and has nothing less than Stalin’s inhumane treatment of prisoners in the forced labour camps of Siberia."

Referring to the death of two political prisoners, Hoda Saber and Mohsen Dokmehchi, Saharkhiz wrote, "They are deliberately trying to destroy us and have prepared a silent death for us because they fear our survival even behind bars."

Hoda Saber, a political activist and journalist died 10 days into his hunger strike, while Mohsen Dokmehchi, a businessman arrested in the post-election protests of 2009 and sentenced to 10 years in prison, died last March from pancreatic cancer.

Saharkhiz, arrested in July 2009 and sentenced to three years in prison for "insulting the Supreme Leader and the regime", urged Shaheed to act immediately to inform the public of the prisoners’ plight, stressing that any delay will only result in more deaths.

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Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Assad "Is Not Indispensable"

1526 GMT: Four American journalists in Egypt were arrested yesterday in Suez while filming anti-government protests. According to the report, they were arrested by civilians and then turned over to the military. Jason Mojica, a former Al Jazeera reporter, two of Mojica's crew, and Egyptian-American energy consultant Sherif Helwa were detained.

1518 GMT: As crowds grow near the cabinet building, Tahrir Square, Cairo, the Guardian's Jack Shenker assesses the reaction to the SCAF speech:

"That sort of language, coupled with the fact that companies in downtown Cairo appear to have sent their employees home early (we don't yet know if this was on official orders or not), has led some to believe that the state is preparing an attack on the ongoing Tahrir sit-in - many activists are using social media sites to call on Egyptians to come down and defend the square. But at this stage predictions of trouble are rumour and conjecture.

"Elsewhere shouting matches have broken out on live television between protest representatives and army officials; whatever happens over the next few hours, it's clear that there are two competing visions of Egypt's revolution being put forward, by the revolutionaries on the one hand and the armed forces on the other - both increasingly view the other as illegitimate, and neither are showing any sign of backing down."

1511 GMT: Meanwhile, the Revolution Youth Coalition has held its own press conference, calling for the resignation on Prime Minister Essam Sharaf. They have accused Sharaf of being counter-revolutionary, and have condemned today's statements by The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). According to Ahram News,

"The coalition listed four demands in its statement: a full delineation of the powers and prerogatives of the SCAF and those of the cabinet; administrative participation in the current transitional period; the adoption of economic policies favouring Egypt’s 40 million living under the poverty line; and a complete purging of remnants of the Mubarak regime from all state bodies."

The crowds in Tahrir Square are still growing, according to multiple sources.

1502 GMT: In contrast to the earlier conciliatory comments made by SCAF, Maj. Gen. Mohsen el-Fangary has said in a televised message that the government will take “all necessary measures” to halt challenges to the authority and legitimacy of the government. Furthermore, though the SCAF spokesman pledged support to the revolution, he also warned that the military would stop “anyone who would disrupt public order and services.”

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Syria, Yemen (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Postures of "National Dialogue"

1155 GMT: Thanks to James Miller for stepping in for a bit.

A couple of quotes, from those opposition figures who did attend, to flesh out the sketch of Syria's "national dialogue" talks that we offered in our first entry (see 0310 GMT)....

Mohammad Habash, an independent MP, said, "The way out is by putting an end to the security stateand to work for a civil and democratic country where there is political pluralism and media freedom and to end the one-party rule. Confronting protests with bullets is not acceptable at all."

And dissident writer Tayyeb Tizini asserted, "The bullets are still being fired in Homs and Hama. I would have hoped that that would have stopped before the meeting. That's what's necessary."

1130 GMT: Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh has met with US envoy John Brennan in Saudi Arabia. Yemeni State Television has released this video, where Saleh can be seen with his hands still bandaged. According to the State Department, Brennan pushed Saleh to sign the GCC transition plan.

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Syria Snapshot: The Checkpoints of Defiance in Hama (The Economist)

Hama Anti-Regime Protest, 1 July 2011The city of Hama is both defiant and fearful. Boys with wooden sticks man makeshift checkpoints. Burned-out government cars, rubbish bins, gates, piles of bricks to street-lamps unscrewed at the base and carefully laid across the road have been used to create blockades to prevent the security forces from re-entering the city. Even satellite dishes, with the name of Al-Dounia, a pro-regime channel, scribbled over with Al-Jazeera, have been used. The streets are eerily quiet; shop shutters are locked and the roads are almost empty of cars. No sign of the Assad regime remains. Pictures of the president, Bashar Assad, have been torn down and a plinth where a statue of his father, Hafez, once towers stands empty. Outside the city, the government's forces wait.

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The Real Net Effect: An Interview with Sami Ben Gharbia about New Media, Tunisia, and the Arab Spring

During the revolution we noticed that there were limitations on the Facebook platform. We know Facebook, we know the tools –-- it’s not about the tools, it’s about the context in which the tools are being used, it’s about the strategy, implementation and approach to the using the tools.

That consciousness of the tools is really important in understanding the impact that the Internet had on the Tunisian revolution --- Facebook is a closed platform --- it has been used hugely by the Tunisian activists that were on the ground, take pictures and videos and posting that on Facebook. That was great.

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Yemen Snapshot: Two Brothers Fighting on Opposite Sides (Boone)

Opposition Tribesmen in Sanaa, YemenIn the eyes of Hashim, an antigovernment activist and writer fond of quoting Islamic philosophers, Yemen's peaceful struggle for democracy is divinely ordained.

But his brother, a member of Yemen's elite Republican Guard, sees it differently. Ghazi says Yemen's uprising is driven not by democratic aspirations but by bandits trying to incite chaos. "They have attacked power stations, cut off supply lines to major cities," he points out.

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The Latest from Iran (11 July): "Wasn't It You Who Raised Ahmadinejad to this Point?"

1150 GMT: Revolutionary Guards Do Politics. Ayatollah Alamolhoda, the Friday Prayer leader of Mashhad, tries to clarify the issue of whether the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps can intervene in political issues --- he explains that the late Ayatollah Khomeini never said the IRGC should not enter politics, only that they should not interfere in political parties and elections.

IRGC commander Hossein Hamedani offers another bit of logic to support the Revolutionary Guards' invovlement: all Iranian people are Basiji fighting for the country, the Revolutionary Guards are not separated from the Basij, thus the IRGC is a principlist movement beyond a narrow military role.

1040 GMT: Cartoon of the Day. Nikahang Kowsar depicts President Ahmadinejad's escape from interrogation by legislators, thanks to opposition from the Board of the Parliament and --- it is reported --- the Supreme Leader's office:

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