Iran Eyewitness: An "Army of Strollers" and Allah-o-Akbar on 12 June (Tehran Bureau)

"A Contributor in Tehran" writes for Tehran Bureau:

"The most stable and democratic country in the world." Thus Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the man who last year was "reelected" (many say "selected") as president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, described his nation at a recent press conference in Istanbul. Ahmadinejad, of course, is hardly renowned for well-considered, precise, statesmanlike observations. In fact, he is notorious for quite the opposite: making off-the-cuff statements whose substance bears little relation to reality. Yet the depiction of Iran in such terms days before the 12 June anniversary of the vehemently disputed presidential election was an extraordinary distortion of the truth, even by Mr. Ahmadinejad's loose standards. The truth of his statement, needless to say, was tested on the anniversary.

As expected, "the most stable and democratic" government on earth failed miserably. It denied permission to the opposition to hold a simple peaceful rally in order to commemorate last year's election --- even though, according to the Iranian Constitution, such gatherings do not require government approval to begin with. For weeks, security and other officials had warned that the regime would not tolerate any protest rally on June 12. The Interior Ministry, raising some ludicrous technical excuses, refused the permit, as it had done similarly on numerous occasions in the past.



By contrast, government-sanctioned rallies and ceremonial events, such as the one that took place on 4 June  --- the 21st anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic -- enjoy the regime's full support and sponsorship. On that occasion, hundreds of thousands, many of them members of the Basij militia, were mobilized throughout the country to travel, at government expense, to Tehran to attend the commemoration and listen to the Friday Prayer sermon delivered by Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Khomeini's successor as Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic. This particular event was to be a showcase for the power and "popularity" of the regime in advance of 12 June. The initial plan was thus to assemble about two million people from throughout Iran for the event. By independent accounts, the regime fell far short of its goal.

Just a couple of days prior to the election anniversary, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, two of Ahmadinejad's rivals in last year's election and the de facto leaders of the Green Movement, the popular reform movement that emerged following the rigged vote, announced that because of their concern for people's safety they would cancel the rally they had planned. They asked their supporters to pursue their struggle for change through means less risky than participation in a public protest that the government was determined to violently suppress.

Given that most opposition political figures and activists have been imprisoned or rendered inactive over the past year, and that many political parties and civil society organizations have been banned, there are few avenues available to those opposing the regime to communicate with one another and organize en masse. The few Reformist newspapers face heavy censorship and are under constant threat of closure if they cross the government's ambiguous "red lines." Foreign news and analysis broadcasts, like the popular Persian services of the BBC and VOA, are routinely jammed -- especially when an important day, such as 12 June, approaches. The Internet is often strangled and access to most sites with uncensored information is systematically denied through a pervasive filtering system (though many have by now learned how to circumvent it). In short, the regime exerts its full power to deny people the means and even the hope of organizing peaceful protests, short of risking their livelihoods and their very lives.

Nonetheless, the message somehow spread that a silent protest would be held in Tehran from 4 to 8 p.m. on June 12, a Saturday. It was understood that Mousavi and Karroubi, as responsible leaders, could not ask their supporters to jeopardize their lives by attending a formally declared rally. Yet people concluded that they could make their presence felt and in the process expose the regime's true anti-democratic nature, its illegitimacy, and the extent of its fear by simply "strolling" peacefully and silently from Imam Hossein Square to Azadi (Freedom) Square. The route, around ten kilometers long, was chosen in part because along it lies Ferdowsi Square and Enghelab Square, where two major universities are located.

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Israel-Palestine: Plan to Raze 22 More Palestinian Houses in East Jerusalem

Israel's efense Minister Ehud Barak, reacting to the decision of the Jerusalem municipal planning committee to destroy 22 houses in the Arab neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem, has criticised, "The Jerusalem municipality and the planning committee have shown a lack of common sense and sense of timing – and not for the first time."

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4PcIbAYZ7M[/youtube]

Gaza Latest: Israel Warns Iranian & Lebanese Flotillas; UN Calls for Lifting of Blockade

For Jerusalem mayor Nir Barakt has said the razing of 22 Palestinian homes --- which the authority claims were built illegally and construction of a park would attract tourism, but local Palestinian residents claim that the purpose is to increase the hold of Jewish settlers over the neighbourhood. Haaretz claimed that an additional 66 homes built by Jewish residents, without the proper permits, would receive approval retroactively.

Barkat quickly reacted to the Defense Minister:

Instead of helping the municipality strengthen the city and confront the serious neglect inherited over many years in the eastern part of the city, the defense minister acts without checking the facts.

The new plan for Silwan allows for the addition of thousands of housing units for the Arab sector and the resolution of hundreds of construction violations. Barak should be one of the primary supporters of the plan.

"This is expressly the kind of step that we think undermines trust that is fundamental to making progress in the proximity talks," said State Department spokesman Phillip Crowley.

Afghanistan/McChrystal Analysis: Hyperventilating Over the Tip, Missing the (Petraeus) Iceberg

Little to report overnight in the saga of General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, and his interview --- replete with jibes and insults at the Obama Administration by McChrystal and his aides --- with Rolling Stone magazine.

NEW Afghanistan Revealed: US Hands Over Millions of $$$…To “Warlords” (DeYoung)
Afghanistan Special: McChrystal and the Trashing of the President (US Military v. Obama, Chapter 472)
Afghanistan Document: The McChrystal Profile (Hastings — Rolling Stone)

In advance of his meeting with McChrystal today, President Obama said, ""I think it's clear that the article in which he and his team appeared showed a poor - showed poor judgment. But I also want to make sure that I talk to him directly before I make any final decisions." Obama then re-stated his key talking point, beyond any Rolling Stone obstacle:

I want everybody to keep in mind what our central focus is - and that is success in making sure that al-Qaida and its affiliates cannot attack the United States and its allies. And we've got young men and women there who are making enormous sacrifices, families back home who are making enormous sacrifices,

And so whatever decision that I make with respect to Gen. McChrystal - or any other aspect of Afghan policy - is determined entirely on how I can make sure that we have a strategy that justifies the enormous courage and sacrifice that those men and women are making over there and that ultimately makes this country safer.

Obama's statement capped an extraordinary day for Washington watchers. From before dawn, when some media outlets posted soundbites from the Rolling Stone profile, to bedtime, all other news fell before the chatter about McChrystal. (The biggest winner from yesterday's furour? It could be British Petroleum, who suddenly found that they were not the lead story in the US.)

It was a classic frenzy in which token moves began banner headlines. McChrystal had called Administration officials to apologise. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said he was concerned. The editor of Rolling Stone and the author of the piece, Michael Hastings, became media superstars for a day. Joe Klein of Time, using the time-worn device of an "unnamed source", seized centre stage by saying he most definitely knew McChrystal would resign.

That in turn left us with the white noise of "Will he/won't he? Should he/shouldn't he?" Hours of airtime and pages of print could be filled by simply re-wording the regretful conclusion: he's not the military Messiah, he's just a naughty boy.

When "perspective" was sought, it often verged on the historically ridiculous. Some journalists sought an analogy with President Truman's recall of General Douglas MacArthur in 1951, which might have been appropriate if McChrystal had threatened World War III by bombing China, bringing US forces to the verge of defeat, and calling for use of nuclear weapons.

OK, so what's the big deal? The media gets its drama. The Obama Administration buys time with statements to figure out how it is going to finesse the treatment of McChrystal, since 1) his firing/resignation or 2) his retention will bring another news cycle of criticism. And, apart from one press aide to the General, no one pays an immediate price.

Well, to be blunt: the story is not McChrystal and his boys laughing at Vice President Biden, declaring that the President is a fumbling ingenue, or sneering at their supporters like "old man" John McCain. Perhaps the most wayward statement from an "analyst" was the lament, "You think he's being fired for a pattern....He's being fired for an ARTICLE."

Wrong. Shrewder observers, drowned out in yesterday's clamour, know that the sticks-and-stones behind McChrystal's name-calling is the ongoing military battle to maintain policy supremacy over the civilians from the State Department to the US Embassy in Afghanistan to President Obama.

Twice Obama tried to set limits on a military-first approach to defeating the Taliban/extremists/Al Qa'eda/insurgents in Afghanistan. The day he entered office, having declared that he would seek a resolution to a US intervention which seemed to be going nowhere, the military presented him with three options, all of which called for an increase in US forces. Obama tried to curb the rush to escalation but gave way in March 2009 with a "limited" increase of 30,000 troops and support units.

Then the President, through National Security Advisor Jim Jones (the "clown stuck in 1985", according to a McChrystal aide), tried to draw the line: ask for any more soldiers and I will stare you out with "WTF?"

The outcome? The commanders called Obama's bluff: they said the intervention would be lost without another escalation, and they got the President's acceptance in December.

There was one headline caveat, however: Obama indicated --- to what degree of firmness depends on who is interpreting --- that the US forces would come out by July 2011.

McChrystal does not like that deadline. Nor does his boss.

That boss --- the head of US Central Command, General David Petraeus  --- was the dog who did not bark yesterday. Less than a week after testifying to Congressmen, leaving the clear impression that US forces would have to remain beyond July next year, Petraeus issued no statement, saw no reporters, provided no leaks.

If there is an important media angle here, it is this difference between McChrystal and Petraeus: the latter is far too clever in the ways of Washington to let a Rolling Stone reporter tail after him, putting verbal indiscretions on the record.

It is that difference in tactics --- not tactics against the Taliban, but tactics in the talking shops of Washington --- that means McChrystal is the point man in this US campaign, and he is expendable. After all, he got his current position after another American commander, General David McKiernan, was thrown under the bus last year.

Petraeus is in a different position. Having risen through the command ranks in Iraq, seizing the glory because of the mythical "surge", he is now at the apex of field authority. Afghanistan is his to win or lose.

His to win or lose, beyond and possibly despite the President. For --- take a look through EA's archives --- the spinning from January 2009 against Obama's limits has come from Petraeus and his allies, either at distance from Central Asia or in the corridors of Washington.

When the tip of this "crisis" is gone, that iceberg will remain.

Gaza Latest: Israel Warns Iranian & Lebanese Flotillas; UN Calls for Lifting of Blockade

On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Cabinet decision to ease the land blockade, allowing more products into the Gaza Strip, would weaken Hamas's hand while forging a ecurity consensus against the "satellites" of Iran and Lebanon, Hamas and Hezbollah. He said:

This is the best decision for Israel because it pulls Hamas’s main propaganda claim out from under it, and allows us and our friends in the world to unite around our real security needs.

The ayatollahs’ regime in Iran stands behind the Iranian boats. Hezbullah stands behind the Lebanese flotilla, even though they are trying to hide it. One must understand that these are attempts by Iran and Hezbullah to break the naval and security blockade of Hamas – and that is why yesterday’s cabinet decision was so important.

Gaza Special: Meeting the “Terrorist” Ladies of Lebanon’s Mariam Flotilla (Narwani)

A day later, Iran's state television reported that the ship Infants of Gaza would sail Sunday for Gaza, carrying 1,100 tons of relief supplies and 10 pro-Palestinian activists. Egyptian transportation official Mohammad Abdelwahab said Cairo would not prevent the Iranian ship from passing through the Suez Canal.

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi responded with two important points. He said that Israel must not allow Gaza to become an Iranian port and added: "For those who are truly concerned about the [humanitarian] situation in Gaza and wants to bring medical supplies, they are welcome to dock in Ashdod. We will examine [the cargo] and let it in if needed."

Commenting on the Navy probe on the attack on the Freedom Flotilla, Ashkenazi said that "Following initial investigations, the fighters acted superbly under the circumstances."

In Lebanon,  the Naji al-Ali has received Lebanon's green light to depart for Cyprus. The second ship, Mariam, is still awaiting permission.

Noting Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak's  assertion on Monday that Lebanon would be responsible for any "violent and dangerous confrontation", Lebanese Foreign Minister Ali Asham responded on Tuesday that "Israel will be held fully responsible for any attack on Lebanon".

Barak also urged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to shelve plans for a UN-backed independent investigation. He said:

As long as new flotillas are in the preparation, it's probably better to leave it [a UN investigation] on the shelf for a certain time.

We are moving ahead with our independent investigation, which we believe is clearly independent, reliable, credible and should be allowed to work.

As for the blockade, Christopher Gunness, spokesman of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, said to Reuters that only a complete lifting of restrictions will satisfy the agency:

The Israeli strategy is to make the international community talk about a bag of cement here, a project there. We need full unfettered access through all the crossings.

The list of restricted goods is a moving target. We are never told this is banned and that is banned. Israel's blockade became a blockade against the UN.

The Quartet (the United States, European Union, Russia and the United Nations) continued to emphasise not only the "remaining unsustainable situation" in Gaza but also Israel's "legitimate security concerns".

On Tuesday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry joined the international community with a released statement saying that Israel's decision to ease the blockade on Gaza a "positive" but "insufficient" step.

Afghanistan Revealed: US Hands Over Millions of $$$...To "Warlords" (DeYoung)

Want a break from the whipped-up drama over General Stanley McChrystal and his "mistake" of an interview? Possibly to read something more significant?

Karen DeYoung writes for The Washington Post:

The U.S. military is funding a massive protection racket in Afghanistan, indirectly paying tens of millions of dollars to warlords, corrupt public officials and the Taliban to ensure safe passage of its supply convoys throughout the country, according to congressional investigators.

The security arrangements, part of a $2.16 billion transport contract, violate laws on the use of private contractors, as well as Defense Department regulations, and "dramatically undermine" larger U.S. objectives of curtailing corruption and strengthening effective governance in Afghanistan, a report released late Monday said.

The report describes a Defense Department that is well aware that some of the money paid to contractors winds up in the hands of warlords and insurgents. Military logisticians on the ground are focused on getting supplies where they are needed and have "virtually no understanding of how security is actually provided" for the local truck convoys that transport more than 70 percent of all goods and materials used by U.S. troops. Alarms raised by prime trucking contractors were met by the military "with indifference and inaction," the report said.

"The findings of this report range from sobering to shocking," Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) wrote in an introduction to the 79-page report, titled "Warlord, Inc., Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan."

The report comes as the number of U.S. casualties is rising in the Afghan war, and public and congressional support is declining. The administration has been on the defensive in recent weeks, insisting that the slow progress of anti-Taliban offensives in Helmand province and the city of Kandahar does not mean that more time is needed to assess whether President Obama's strategy is working.

"I think it's much too early to draw a negative conclusion," said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. "I think there's more positive than negative. We're heading toward a year-end assessment, which will be a big one for us." The review was set when Obama announced in December that he would send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan and begin to withdraw them in July 2011.

Tierney is chairman of the national security subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, whose majority staff spent six months preparing the report. A proponent of a smaller U.S. military footprint in Afghanistan and targeted attacks on insurgents, Tierney said in an interview Monday that he hopes the report will help members of Congress "analyze whether they think this is the most effective way to go about dealing with terrorism. Or the most cost-effective way."

The report's conclusions will be introduced at a hearing Tuesday at which senior military and defense officials are scheduled to testify. The report says that all evidence and findings were made available to Republicans on the subcommittee. A spokesman for Rep. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), the ranking Republican, said the lawmaker will not comment until he has seen the entire report.

In testimony shortly after Obama's strategy announcement, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that "much of the corruption" in Afghanistan has been fueled by billions of dollars' worth of foreign money spent there, "and one of the major sources of funding for the Taliban is the protection money."

Military officials said that they have begun several corruption investigations in Afghanistan and that a task force has been named, headed by Navy Rear Adm. Kathleen Dussault, director of logistics and supply operations for the chief of naval operations and former head of the Baghdad-based joint contracting command for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith, communications chief for U.S. and NATO forces in Kabul, said that the entire Tierney report has not been examined but that Dussault will be "reviewing every aspect of our contracting process and recommending changes to avoid our contribution to what is arguably a major source of revenue that feeds the cycle of corruption."

The U.S. military imports virtually everything it uses in Afghanistan -- including food, water, fuel and ammunition -- by road through Pakistan or Central Asia to distribution hubs at Bagram air base north of Kabul and a similar base outside Kandahar. From there, containers are loaded onto trucks provided by Afghan contractors under the $2.16 billion Host Nation Trucking contract. Unlike in the Iraq war, the security and vast majority of the trucks are provided by Afghans, a difference that Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has praised as promoting local entrepreneurship.

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