Israel-Palestine: The Dance Resumes as Abbas Calls Netanyahu

So the Palestinian Authority leader and former President of the West Bank, Mahmoud Abbas, has called the current Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu for a "friendly and warm" conversation. According to the Abbas and Netanyahu offices, the Israeli Prime Minister "intends to resume talks and co-operation to promote peace".

All very polite and very insubstantial, even on a slow news day, except for the timing. Tomorrow US envoy George Mitchell sets off for the Middle East, with Israel his first stop. And, as Enduring America noted earlier this week, there will be other discussions in the region such as a move toward Israel-Syria talks.

For all this to look good in public, and thus offer any private hope of advance, Netanyahu has to offer a welcome. He does not have to commit to a "two-state solution", but he does have to distance himself from outspoken Avigdor Lieberman, who has tried to pour cold water on the idea of any negotiations.

So this was a PR phone call, with follow-up press releases. That doesn't mean it is void of significance: those who are sceptical of Abbas, especially after his possible complicity in Israel's Gaza War, will accuse him of fitting in Netanyahu's pocket. Others in the Palestinian Authority, notably Saeb Erekat, will press the demand for recognition of two states.

Take your seats, folks. The dancing and diplomatic juggling --- I won't say "three-ring circus" --- is about to begin.

Shirvin Zeinalzadeh: The Possibilities of US-Iran Talks

On Friday, Scott Lucas wrote of "Iran's Pride" in the speech of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the country's nuclear program. No surprise to the trained eye here: rallying around the flag is of great importance to any Iranian politician involved in forthcoming elections, and vagueness of Ahmadinejad's announcement was designed to create a media circus around the incumbent President.

Beyond the electoral short-term, the Iranian nuclear program should be compared to a ’slow boat to self-independence’. It is a long and expensive journey, but it will get there in the end.

Yet, beyond that obvious statement, there is a key element forgotten by the international community and sceptics of the Iranian program, one to consider alongside the statement issued by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ‘It would benefit the Iranians, in our view, if they cooperated with the international community.' The view and constant rhetoric of the Iranian government is that Iran IS abiding by such rules, rules set by the Non-Proliferation Treaty to which Iran became a signatory in 1969.

The key with diplomacy at this level is communication. Iran and the US have failed to seize upon clear opportunities to talk face-to-face on this issue. After 30 years of mistrust since the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranians may ask why their scepticism of Washington should change. Each time Iran has tried to reconcile with the West, for example in negotiations with the European Union 3 of Britain, France, and Germany, the US that has undermined any progress, for example, rejecting the admission of Iran to the World Trade Organization.

Tables have now started to turn, however, with ‘corridor diplomacy’ taking place on issues concerning Iran's border states of Iraq and Afghanistan. The common ground for Tehran and Washington is that Iran can assist with the rebuilding of Iraq, bringing regional security, support the American eradication of the Taliban.

In time, diplomatic corridors become negotiating rooms where bilateral talks can begin. However, this requires time and patience. Instead of looking at this like a business negotiation, where no deal is considered a success until both parties have signed the dotted line, one should consider in diplomacy that the mere fact of US-Iran talks is a victory.

The truth about Iran's supposed pursuit of nuclear weapons is that if Tehran obtained and used them, it would be the end of the country. If it obtained the weapons and did not use them, it will open the door to either 1) a strike by other countries to cripple Iran's military capability or 2) a ‘horizontal proliferation’ in which all states in the region become nuclear powers, causing a very uncomfortable global security dilemma.

This summer should reveal these truths and the possibilities in US-Iran discussions. Change has occurred in the US with the Obama willingness to extend the hand of diplomacy; now the question is whether Iran will accept it. If President Ahmadinejad remains in office after the elections, that acceptance might not come, in which case the issue will be how long US patience will last. If Ahmadinejad fails, however, it will be a question of how much time it takes for the Iranians to start direct talks.

Obama v. The Military (Part 441): Odierno Launches an Offensive from Iraq

Related Post: UPDATED - General Odierno Backs Down?
Related Post: Video and Transcript - General Odierno on CNN’s State of the Union

Even as I was writing about the challenge of General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, to the Obama strategy on Afghanistan, another military commander was re-launching an offensive against the President.

General Raymond Odierno's battlefield is Iraq, where he supervises US troops. For months, he has been unhappy over the Obama plan to reduce American forces. So, only weeks after the compromise of a 19-month withdrawal was announced, Odierno has returned to the attack.

His initial campaign was in The Times of London, which gave him a couple of pages on Thursday. As we predicted, the recent "uptick in violence" in Iraq will be used by Odierno to resist the July deadline to take US troops out of Iraqi cities:

[The violence] is not going to be solved quickly and it’s about having constant security across Baghdad and you have to be that way a while longer....The agreement says that combat forces out of the cities by June 30 so all of our support forces will remain. But we will be prepared to assist them if they need it.

Of course, the general has to maintain the Looking Glass View that, while violence is getting worse, the situation is getting better: "What is different now from 2004 is that we do have Iraqi security forces that people still have faith in, we do have a government in place that will come out and make comments."

What is most striking in Odierno's public-relations campaign is that his definition of the fight in Washington is much clearer than the fight in Iraq. He rattles off a check-list of challenges --- integrating the "Sons of Iraq", the Sunni militias that the US built up from 2007, into the Iraqi military; Arab-Kurd tensions; "Iranian influence"; Al Qa'eda; "a common vision by all political leaders for Iraq" --- without any apparent distinction between those issues or a strategy on how to approach them.

For all the puffery on how the Odierno of 2009 is different from the Odierno of 2003/4, who led his division in the breaking down of Iraqi doors and alienating of local sympathies, the general still holds up "Iraq" as this abstract political space in which bad guys lurk: "In a region such as the Middle East you are going to continue to have people who want to use violence, whether it be al-Qaeda, whether it be Iranian surrogates."

That, however, is an advantage if your primary concern is not Iraqi political stability but the defense of your military operations, which never really come to an end.

Odierno's next campaign appearance? Today on CNN's flagship political programme with John King.

Rabble-Rouser on Fire: Glenn Beck, Tom Paine, and Obama's Pearl Harbor/9-11 Fascism

All of us at Enduring America are currently captivated by the comedy-horror of Fox News's Glenn Beck as he calls for a revolution void of thought, sense, and sensibility. Last Wednesday, as "Barack Obama", he pretended to douse a Fox staffer in gasoline/petrol and set him on fire:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOBGgde6mFs[/youtube]

As appalling as that was, my colleagues think Beck exceeded himself in bat-shit craziness two days later in the video below.

Beck claimed to be the great-great-grandson of the American philosopher Tom Paine. "Tom" then magically appeared, not to recite his own words from Common Sense, but to mouth Beck's uncommon nonsense comparing Obama's economic programme to the evils of Pearl Harbor and 9/11:

Your complacency will only aid and abet our national suicide. Remember, they wouldn't dare bomb Pearl Harbor, but they did. They wouldn't dare drive two planes into the World Trade Center, but they did. They wouldn't dare pilot a plane through the most sophisticated air defenses in the world and crash into the Pentagon, but they did. They wouldn't dare pass the largest spending bill in history, in open defiance of the will of the people.

Are Americans Turning Socialist?

In a survey of 1000 American citizens by Rasmussen Reports last week, 53 percent of American adults expressed confidence in capitalism, 20 percent voted for socialism, and the rest remained unsure.

Breaking down the results offers more interesting findings. Firstly, there is a significant generational split in the polling, however. For those under 30, the results are almost even: 33 percent favour socialism vs. 37 percent for capitalism.  In contrast, amongst those over 40, the margin is 40 to 13 percent in favour of capitalism.

Those Americans who grew up during the Cold War are more likely to maintain the perception of the ‘victorious’ free-market system despite recession, while the younger generation, many of whom have suffered in the recent global financial crisis, is not as happy with the idea of the capitalist system.

Secondly, by a 5 to 1 margin, investors preferred capitalism; for non-investors, the preference was only 40 to 25 percent. This also tells us that although investors have been hit badly by the recent recession, it is still the maximization of profit as the main stimulus behind their way of thinking.

Thirdly, Republicans favor capitalism by an 11 to 1 margin, but 39 percent of Democrats prefer capitalism and 30 percent side with socialism. While it would be easy to read this as an ideological division between the two groups, the better explanation is that each party is taking a political position in the face of a deep economic crisis. Republicans will frame themselves through a concern with the survival of American values whereas many Democrats are searching for a consensus on how to deal with recession and restore prosperity.

And thus the immediate paradox of "socialism", not as an economic system but as a rhetorical weapon. In the near future, the word is  most likely to be used and manipulated --- rather than considered with any thought and depth --- by a Republican opposition party as ‘the attack on financial crisis’ inevitably will brings more State involvement with the "private" sector.

That same intervention, however, will bring together various approaches in the relatively broad-based Democratic Party. It is unlikely, of course, that "mainstream" Democratic leaders will use the word "socialism", even though some of those economic, financial, and social approaches will have to move away from a mythical "laissez faire" capitalism in which the State has no significant place.

Yet, even as this verbal shadow dance over "socialism" continues, could Americans begin to consider the idea of a socialist system seriously? It is striking that the latest Rasmussen results show a signficant shift from a poll in December in which 70 percent of respondents preferred capitalism and only 15 percent socialism. The extent to which the Obama Administration is perceived as ‘successful’ in halting the recession through a well-designed stimulus plan could re-shape beliefs.

Could American youth, two-thirds of whom do not embrace " capitalism", lead that change?