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Sunday
Jun272010

Obama's Broken Promise: Guantanamo Will Not Close (Savage)

The blessing of the news, in this article by Charlie Savage in The New York Times is far from surprising. EA argued as early as the first week of the Obama Administration that the President's declaration that he would close the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay would be challenged and undermined by his own officials. And, even without that subversion, the process was bound to be beset by legal and political complexities.

Still, to have this coldly set out --- it's not just that Guantanamo did not close by Obama's promised date of 31 January 2010; it will not close by 31 December or, indeed, in 2011 or 2012 --- is harsh confirmation. The bottom line, beyond the rationalisations, is that many people around the world have seen Guantanamo as a powerful symbol of the hypocrisy and danger of American power. Now they may see it as a symbol as a failure of Barack Obama to deliver on his promises to re-shape that power for co-operation rather than punishment.

Stymied by political opposition and focused on competing priorities, the Obama administration has sidelined efforts to close the Guantánamo prison, making it unlikely that President Obama will fulfill his promise to close it before his term ends in 2013.

When the White House acknowledged last year that it would miss Mr. Obama’s initial January 2010 deadline for shutting the prison, it also declared that the detainees would eventually be moved to one in Illinois. But impediments to that plan have mounted in Congress, and the administration is doing little to overcome them.

“There is a lot of inertia” against closing the prison, “and the administration is not putting a lot of energy behind their position that I can see,” said Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and supports the Illinois plan. He added that “the odds are that it will still be open” by the next presidential inauguration.

And Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who also supports shutting it, said the effort is “on life support and it’s unlikely to close any time soon.” He attributed the collapse to some fellow Republicans’ “demagoguery” and the administration’s poor planning and decision-making “paralysis.”

The White House insists it is still determined to shutter the prison. The administration argues that Guantánamo is a symbol in the Muslim world of past detainee abuses, citing military views that its continued operation helps terrorists.

“Our commanders have made clear that closing the detention facility at Guantánamo is a national security imperative, and the president remains committed to achieving that goal,” said a White House spokesman, Ben LaBolt.

Still, some senior officials say privately that the administration has done its part, including identifying the Illinois prison — an empty maximum-security center in Thomson, 150 miles west of Chicago — where the detainees could be held. They blame Congress for failing to execute that endgame.

“The president can’t just wave a magic wand to say that Gitmo will be closed,” said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal thinking on a sensitive issue.

The politics of closing the prison have clearly soured following the attempted bombings on a plane on Dec. 25 and in Times Square in May, as well as Republican criticism that imprisoning detainees in the United States would endanger Americans. When Mr. Obama took office a slight majority supported closing it. By a March 2010 poll, 60 percent wanted it to stay open.

One administration official argued that the White House was still trying. On May 26, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, James Jones, sent a letter to the House Appropriations Committee reiterating the case.

But Mr. Levin portrayed the administration as unwilling to make a serious effort to exert its influence, contrasting its muted response to legislative hurdles to closing Guantánamo with “very vocal” threats to veto financing for a fighter jet engine it opposes.

Read rest of article....
Sunday
Jun272010

Petraeus, Afghanistan, and the Lessons of Iraq (Cole)

The last 72 hours, following the resignation of General Stanley McChrystal as commander of US forces in Afghanistan, have been filled by the US media with the glorification of McChrystal's successor, General David Petraeus. The New York Times set down the truth:
General Petraeus, 57, brings an extraordinary set of skills to his new job: a Boy Scout’s charm, penetrating intelligence and a ferocious will to succeed. At ease with the press and the public, and an adept negotiator, General Petraeus will probably distinguish himself from his predecessor with the political skills that carried him through the most difficult months of the counteroffensive in Iraq known as the surge.

Juan Cole offers a different perspective on Petraeus and, more importantly, on Iraq and Afghanistan:

Afghanistan Analysis: McChrystal, Counter-Insurgency, and Blaming the Ambassador (Mull)


President Obama’s appointment of Gen. David Petraeus to succeed Gen. Stanley McChrystal as commander of US forces in Afghanistan signaled a continued commitment by the White House to a large-scale counter-insurgency campaign involving taking large swathes of territory, clearing it of insurgents, holding it in the medium term, and building up local government and social services.

It is frequently asserted that Gen. Petraeus “succeeded” in Iraq via a troop escalation or “surge” of 30,000 extra US troops that he dedicated to counter-insurgency purposes in al-Anbar and Baghdad Provinces.

But it would be a huge mistake to see Iraq either as a success story or as stable. It is the scene of an ongoing civil war between Sunnis and Shiites that is killing roughly 300 civilians a month. It can’t form a government months after the March 7 elections, even though the outcomes are known, having a permanently hung parliament, wherein the four major parties find it difficult to agree on a prime minister. The political vacuum has proved an opening for Sunni Arab insurgents, who have mounted effective bombing campaigns and more recently are targeting the banks. And now the caretaker government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is being shaken by a wave of violent mass protests even in Shiite cities that voted for him, against his government’s failure to provide key services, especially electricity in the midst of a sweltering summer heat wave.

On [19 June], a big protest rally denouncing the lack of electricity turned violent, and police shot dead two protesters. In some parts of Iraq temperatures reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and few places have electricity more than 6 or 7 hours a day. The minister of electricity has been forced to resign. On Thursday, the headline in al-Zaman, the Times of Baghdad, read “Electricity Uprisings Break out in Hilla and Diyala under the Banner of Ousting al-Maliki.” If the caretaker government falls in the face of this popular pressure before parliament can agree on a new prime minister, there would be a dreadful security vacuum and a constitutional crisis.

Going back 3 1/2 years, Gen. Petraeus did what he could to end the Sunni-Shiite Civil War of 2006-2007, which helped produce the nearly 4 million Iraqi displaced (most of whom are still homeless) and likely killed tens of thousands. He put blast walls up to separate Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods; he put in checkpoints to keep out car and truck bombs; he made some markets pedestrian-only to stop them being blown up; he established Sunni Arab pro-American militias, the “Sons of Iraq,” to fight the fundamentalist vigilantes, both Sunni and Shiite; and he systematically tracked down and had killed the leadership of the insurgent cells.

I mean to take nothing away from the significant and important efforts of the US military in 2007 when I say that they did not all by themselves end the Sunni-Shiite civil war. [But]in some ways, they inadvertently hastened a Shiite victory. Gen. Casey had been convinced to begin his plan of disarming the Iraqis in Baghdad with the Sunni Arabs by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. The US military stuck to this bargain. But it turns out that if you disarmed the Sunni Arabs, then the Shiite militias came at night to chase them away. As I argued a couple of summers ago, working in part from the intrepid journalism of Karen DeYoung at the Washington Post, the main reason for decrease in the virulence of the Civil War (it is not over) was that the Shiites succeeded in ethnically cleansing the Sunnis from Baghdad. Based on US military and NGO statistics, on patterns of ambient light from West Baghdad visible by satellite, on the on-the-ground investigations of journalists like AP’s Hamza Hendawi, and on subsequent voting patterns, I don’t think Baghdad is now more than 10-15% Sunni, whereas it was probably about half and half Sunni and Shiite at the time of Bush’s invasion in 2003.

Obviously, when formerly mixed neighborhoods gradually no longer had Sunnis living in them, the ethnic violence declined (militant Shiites would have had to drive for an hour to find a Sunni to ethnically cleanse). My own field research among Iraqi refugees in Jordan in August of 2008 revealed to me the mechanisms by which the Sunnis were chased out. Many had been explicitly threatened by name, receiving death threats in their mail boxes. In addition, one fourth of Iraqi families who formally registered as refugees in Jordan had had a child kidnapped. Many had seen family members or close friends killed before their eyes. Some continued to receive threats in East Amman apartments, as the militias tracked them down to their new, squalid residences.

It was in part this Shiite wave of militia power and the usurping of Sunni property (most displaced families in Iraq have lost possession of their homes) that convinced many Sunni clans to go over to the Americans and to fight the Sunni fundamentalists in their midst, since it was the latter whose constant bombings and attacks on Shiite neighborhoods that had provoked the Civil War. Sunni Arabs in Iraq were initially absolutely convinced that they were a majority and that the Sunni Arab world would help them get back their country from the Americans, the Shiites and the Kurds. By early 2007 it had become clear that the Shiites were overwhelming them and that, indeed, their only plausible savior was the Americans, who might be persuaded to act as a moderating influence on the Shiites.

The Shiite victory in the Civil War was thus absolutely crucial as an Iraqi social-history background for what success Petraeus’s policies had.

No such major social-historical change has occurred in Afghanistan or is likely to. The Taliban and other insurgents primarily spring from the Pashtun ethnic group that predominates in the east and southwest of the country. Pashtuns probably make up about 42 percent of Afghanistan’s some 34 million people. Pashtun clans provided the top political leadership to Afghanistan from the 18th century, through the Durrani monarchy, and they look down on the northern Tajik and Hazarah ethnic groups (who speak dialects of Persian). Although probably only 20-30 percent of Afghan Pashtuns view the Taliban favorably, more may admire the Taliban as a group that stands up for Afghanistan’s independence from the Western nations now occupying it.

The Pashtuns do not believe that they have been conquered by anyone, and the vast majority of them wants US and NATO troops out of their country. They would fall down laughing at the idea of being afraid of the Tajiks and Hazarahs. So they will not be as easy to turn as the terrified and traumatized Sunnis of Iraq were in 2007.

What governmental and military framework the government of Nuri al-Maliki has been able to provide depends deeply on Iraq’s human capital. It was an industrializing society with an educated work force, a majority urban sector, and a respectable literacy rate, and its army could be rebuilt in part because literate soldiers are easier to train (not to mention that a stock of experienced soldiers and officers familiar with conventional military tactics could be drawn on). Iraq is an oil state with an income of $60 billion a year from petroleum alone. Afghanistan’s entire nominal GDP is $12 bn. a year. Afghanistan is 28% literate and its army is 10% literate. It is largely rural, poorly educated, and decades of civil war have destroyed or chased abroad its small managerial classes. Afghanistan is far more dependent on kinship ties (clans and tribes) in politics than Iraq (only 1/3 of Iraqis in polling say that tribal identity is important to them). Clan politics is notoriously insular and difficult for foreigners to enter into.

Moreover, Gen. Petreaus’s policies in 2007 in Iraq had many drawbacks. As noted, starting with the disarming of one ethno-religious group, the Sunni Arabs, left them vulnerable to ethnic cleansing by the still-armed Shiite militias. The creation of 100,000 Sons of Iraq fighters among the Sunni Arabs was viewed as a security problem by the Shiite government of al-Maliki, which brought only 17,000 of them into the police or other security forces. Many of the others were gradually dropped from the payroll by the Iraqi government, and, deprived of support by the withdrawing American troops, began being targeted by vengeful fundamentalists as traitors. The blast walls erected around neighborhoods cut them off economically from the city and produced 80% unemployment within, and so that tactic was not sustainable. There were also joint Sunni-Shiite demonstrations against Gen. Petraeus on the grounds that he was imposing and artificial sectarian separation on Iraqis. (I know.) The heavy US dependence on Blackwater and other private security contractors went badly awry when they kept going cowboy and committed a massacre at Nissour Square in 2007. (The same firm, now renamed, is being brought into Afghanistan.)

Above all, Gen Petreaus was unable to attain in Iraq that pot of gold at the bottom of the counter-insurgency rainbow, increased government capacity and political reconciliation. Even his ultimate crackdown on the Mahdi Army and attempt to marginalize the Sadrists who follow Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr largely failed. The Sadrists did well in the March elections and may well end up being king-makers in the negotiations over a new prime minister and the speed of the American withdrawal. Nor has the Arab-Kurdish conflict been resolved (and that one is a tinderbox).

The Shiite prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, deeply dislikes the ex-Baathists (whom he sees as supported by neighboring Syria), and which he codes as predominantly Sunni Arabs. He has not reached out to them in any significant way, and some 80% of the Sunni Arabs are estimated to have voted for Maliki’s rival, Iyad Allawi (an ex-Baathist himself). Although the list they voted for, the Iraqiya, gained the largest single number of seats, it is not being recognized as the biggest bloc in parliament and will almost certainly not be allowed to form a government. Instead, the two big Shiite blocs made a post-election alliance and are insisting that they will form the government, and the courts have backed them.

The message to Sunnis? Even if you put down your arms and participate in the electoral process, you will likely be marginalized by the Shiite majority.

And now al-Maliki faces the Great Electricity Uprising of 2010. Iraq cannot be a model for victory in Afghanistan, and it isn’t even clear that there has been any meaningful ‘victory’ in Iraq. The best that could be said is that in summer of 2006, 2500 civilians were showing up dead every month, and now it is a tenth of that (still a lot).

The counter-insurgency push in the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan could go either way. It could tamp down the Taliban and other insurgents and produce a population grateful for increased security, even at the cost of increased foreign control. Or it could involve Fallujah-like leveling of towns and large numbers of killed and displaced clansmen, pushing Pashtuns now favorable to Karzai into insurgency. I would give the former a 10% chance of happening.
Sunday
Jun272010

Shanghai Power Politics: China Shuts Out Iran (Shan Shan)

Two weeks ago, the 10th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council summit, held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, approved the SCO Rules of Procedure and the regulation on procedure for future membership expansion.

Before the summit, Chinese diplomats ritually pointed out that approval of the admission regulations was the first step in forming the basis for a future expansion of SCO membership and would serve as a cornerstone of the organization's rules for external links.

Behind this formality, however, was a more significant story: for now, Iran will not allowed to  join the organisation.

The ostensible reason was that the SCO's regulations proscribe that “any country under UN sanctions cannot be admitted”. At the time of the meeting, Iran was subject to a 4th round of restrictions; a few days after the meeting, the UN Security Council passed yet another resolution.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not attend the summit, although he visited the Shanghai Expo and took part in celebrations at the Iranian pavilion on June 11. The Chinese Foreign Ministry maintained that Ahmadinejad was only visiting the country to attend the Expo, but analysts said he “is here to seek more support from China to water down fresh sanctions”.

The rejection of Iran's membership is far from the entire story, of course. The relationship between China and Iran is still stable. "There is no reason to control or weaken the relationship (with China)”,  Ahmadinejad told a news conference after his visit to the Expo.
Moreover, this summit focused on economic cooperation and security issues in Central Asia, especially in Afghanistan, such as drug trafficking, terrorism ,and organized crime. Besides, the unrest in in Kyrgyzstan is another hot issue at this summit.

The fact remains, however, that Iran was kept at arm's distance. Zhang Xiao, deputy director-general of the Foreign Ministry's department of European and Central Asian affairs, indicated that the SCO is only considering the legal basis for expanding membership, indicating that there is a long way to go before formal accession will even be contemplated.

Furthermore, Beijing is more cautious than Russia, the other main power of the SCO. According to China Daily, Chinese President Hu Jintao told his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev that SCO cooperation and exchange with outside countries should be done in a proper and stable manner, and on the basis of improving the strength of the bloc. "Blind expansion will spoil it (SCO) with excessive enthusiasm".

Pang Zhongying, a senior expert on world politics at Renmin University of China, assessed, "For a regional bloc, it is definitely not the more the better. Now the European Union has 27 members, and we can see more complex problems. The same reason also resulted in a loose APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum). One of the approaches to ruin a bloc is encouraging it to admit more members."

Add the complicated situation in central Asia and the main concerns of the SCO, and it appears that Iran will be observing the group from outside for some time to come.
Saturday
Jun262010

The Latest from Iran (26 June): Absolute Security?

1745 GMT: More on the Khomeini Challenge. Earlier we noted growing concern within the Iranian establishment over the influence of "radicals" (1235 GMT).

Radio Zamaneh has more on that concern through the remarks of Seyed Hassan Khomeini, grandson of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, as he spoke to families of victims of a 1981 bombing.

Khomeini said “extremism” must be abandoned and “extremists” must be "churned away" from the Islamic Republic.

Noting the growing economic problems in Iran, which has "disheartened" its people, Khomeini said Iranians want their officials to get over “personal vendettas” and “childish grudges” and instead try to resolve the country’s problems.

NEW Iran Document & Analysis: US Gov’t Statement on Sanctions, Nukes, & Human Rights
NEW Iran: Summary of the New US Sanctions
NEW Iran Interview: Ahmad Batebi “The Green Movement and Mousavi”
The Real Race for Iran: Human Rights v. Tehran’s Defenders (Shahryar)
The Latest from Iran (25 June): The Important Issues


1640 GMT: Another Execution? Six weeks after five Iranians were hung, concerns have escalated over Zainab Jalalian and Hossein Khezri, who are reportedly at risk of imminent execution.

The death sentence for Jalalian, convicted of mohareb ("war against God") because of her membership in the separatist Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), was upheld and sent to the enforcement section today. Zainab's plea to say goodbye to her family was met with, "shut up" by the sentencing judge, and she was condemned to death by hanging. As Zainab was not permitted legal representation,

Amnesty International has issued an Urgent Action Alert for Zainab Jalalian and Hossein Khezri, who are believed to be at risk of imminent execution. We have assembled a sample letter you can send to Iranian authorities regarding these two cases.

1230 GMT: Taking on the "Radicals"? After a week of clear escalation in conflict --- not between the "Greens" and the regime but within the establshment --- the Iranian political scene is filled with warnings of "radical" behaviour threatening the Islamic Republic.

Khabar Online features an analysis declaring that conservatives and principlists "will pay for" the actions of the radicals. radicals' move, historical review pointing at this radical current since the IR establishment

Mohammad Reza Bahonar, the Vice Speaker of Parliament, http://www.aftabnews.ir/vdcjivevmuqeyhz.fsfu.html of the "threats of fundamentalism" while suggesting a faction of reformists may "reappear in a new form".

High-profile MP Ahmad Tavakoli has criticised attacks on political figures, saying that even those who have done wrong to the Iranian system should be treated with justice.

And Ayatollah Khomeini's grandson, Seyed Hassan Khomeini, has declared that people want radicals to be banned and asked Iranians to listen to the warningsor marja (senior clerics) about moral decline, poverty, and inflation.

1220 GMT: Asking about Political Rights. Member of Parliament Kazem Delkhosh has raised a query: why do other parties need a permit for rallies when (Basij protesting in front of the Majlis gets receive meals, cookies, Sundis [juice drinks] and buses?

1215 GMT: All is Well (Nuclear Edition). The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, has emphasised that, despite recent conflicts and the UN sanctions resolution, Tehran will continue to work with monitors from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

1210 GMT: More "Absolute Security". Basij commander Mohammad Reza Naghdi has announced new commando deployments will soon take place.

1200 GMT: Video Turmoil. A couple of clips from this week apparently pointing to tensions in Iranian politics. The clash between prominent member of Parliament Ali Motahari and pro-Ahmadinejad legislators, culminating in Motahari's "shut up and sit down", has emerged.

Then there is this claimed video of a crowd in Rasht facing up to "morality police", breaking the back window of their vehicle. Persian2English asks further information, including the report, "A few minutes later, Special Guard forces entered the scene with batons and shot tear gas into the crowd."

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxoHdkLTzDo&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

1140 GMT: Critiquing Iran and the World. A group of Tehran University professors have issued a statement assessing Iran's foreign policy approach as an attempt to project power by creating divisions amongst others.

1130 GMT: We have posted two features out of Washington --- the sanctions provisions passed by the US Congress and soon to be signed by President Obama, and the statement by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton linking those sanctions to Iran's nuclear programme and human rights.

0650 GMT: All is Well (Gasoline Special). Iran's Deputy Oil Minister Ali-Reza Zeighami has declared that sanctions passed by the US Congress on Iran's energy sector will not put any pressure on the country: "Despite sanctions, Iran will be self-sufficient in gasoline production within two years and after that we can begin exporting gasoline."

Zeighami claimed that the completion of five projects at refineries will triple Iran's output.

0645 GMT: Culture Corner. It appears that Iran is not absolutely secure against the excesses of "Western" culture, however. Thomas Erdbrink, writing in The Washington Post, highlights the success of Rupert Murdoch's Farsi1 satellite television channel, with situation comedies and Latin American, Korean, and US soap operas dubbed into Persian.

We leave it to Iranian authorities to explain why --- unlike many other foreign channels which have been jammed --- Farsi1 has made it into Iranian homes.

0630 GMT: We emerge from the Iranian weekend with comments from human rights activist Ahmad Batebi on the dynamics of the Green Movement and the role of Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Meanwhile, Iran's authorities continue to talk up the notion of "absolute security". Iran's police chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, after his recent reflection on the post-election crisis (including admission of security mistakes and an implicit indication of electoral manipulation), is now giving assurances about the present.

Ahmadi-Moghaddam said Iran's aim is complete protection of borders by 2015, with more investment in the construction of roads and checkpoints. He also announced a plan to increase border patrol units with "state-of-the-art" equipment.
Saturday
Jun262010

Iran: Summary of the New US Sanctions

The US State Department has issued a summary noting that President Obama has "welcomed new penalties approved by the U.S. Congress" against Iran --- in other words, he will sign the bill into law --- and outlining the provisions:

• The legislation approved by Congress requires U.S. banks to prohibit or impose strict conditions on “correspondent” or payable through accounts of any foreign banks working with certain Iranian entities, especially Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iran Document & Analysis: US Gov’t Statement on Sanctions, Nukes, & Human Rights
The Latest from Iran (26 June): Absolute Security?


• Penalties would be imposed on U.S. banks if their foreign subsidiaries are doing business with the Revolutionary Guard Corps or any of its companies or affiliates.

• The legislation sanctions any company worldwide that exports gasoline or other refined petroleum products to Iran, or that provides Iran with goods or services that help it expand its own production of petroleum products. And any companies that finance, broker or underwrite the shipments, or deliver the gasoline or sell the production technology, also would be subject to U.S. sanctions.

• The legislation gives the president a number of choices of possible sanctions to impose that include restrictions on foreign exchange, banking transactions and property transactions.

• It also grants the president authority to waive sanctions on a company for 12 months on a case-by-case basis.

• The legislation also requires the president to compile a public list of individuals in Iran who are complicit in human rights violations — and would ban them from receiving U.S. visas and would freeze their financial assets held in U.S. banks.

• Any company that provides Iran with technology or equipment that would restrict free speech could not receive U.S. government contracts.

• Finally, the legislation imposes export controls to stop the illegal export of sensitive technology to Iran through other countries and would allow the president to impose severe export restrictions to countries that will not cooperate.
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